English Conversation Course

Could you spot a liar? Even if the liar would be a child? It turns out that it ’ s harder than we though. And it also turns out that we should be happy when our children start to lie because that mean (in short) that our kid is growing and he ’ s getting smarter. If you want to test yourself and check if you can really tell if a kid is lying, check out Kang Lee ’ s lecture. Kang Lee is Developmental researcher which studied what happens to children when they lie. You can be shocked how hard it is to say if somebody is liar or not, even if the one who ’ s lying is a child. Questions: 1.  Did you manage to find out who ’ s lying? If yes, how? 2.  Do you think you are a good liar? 3.  What do you think of the morality of the lie? Are there situations where lie is better than the truth? Or maybe we should always tell the truth?

Have you ever heard of the most popular MMO-RPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game) in the world – World of Warcraft by Blizzard? If no, nothing happened. To understand what happened in that game at 13 th September of 2005 you don ’ t need to know about game anything. World of Warcraft Logo In World of Warcraft one way of enjoying the game is defeating "bosses". We ’ re gathering in group which contains at least five people and we ’ re fighting against bigger and stronger monsters - called bosses. Then, we ’ re collecting items which make us stronger and again fighting against even more dangerous things. The situation is called “ Corrupted Blood Incident ” and it happened at 13 th September of 2005 after adding to game new “ instance ” called Zul ’ Gurub in patch 1.4.0. One of the new bosses  – Hakkar, during the fight was able to cast a curse on us (the players) called “ Corrupted Blood ” . As a result, the players received constant damag...

Thanksgiving, an American holiday associated with turkey, and a pumpkin pie, is a holiday which memorizes an event from 1621 when Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians feasted together for three days to celebrate the autumn harvest. Proclaimed as a national holiday just over 200 years later by the President of USA Abraham Lincoln until this day is held each fourth Thursday of November. But did you know that not only US celebrates Thanksgiving Day? Here are some other countries that do: Germany (on first Sunday of October) Octoberfest celebration (Source) In Germany, the so-called Oktoberfest is held to celebrate the harvest. Celebrated both in cities and cottages is one of the best known German holidays. Nowadays it is associated with a beer festival. It is a great time to visit Germany and see traditional clothes and colorful festivities. Canada (second Monday of October) Canadian Thanksgiving Day has its origin from an English explorer Martin Fro...

Every single day brings us new obstacles to overcome on our long road to success. Each of those obstacles, like pebbles in a lake, add up to our past experiences until our goals are achieved. Whatever it is you're chasing after , i.e . a career, dreams or even the simplest task like next homework, we all encounter those obstacles, those pebbles on our roads we get sick off , stuck, distracted sometimes simply discouraged to push forward. Some of us are prepared for the difficulties to come, to give up on different aspects of our lives. The unprepared struggle to continue their paths. Whether you are the prepared or the unprepared one, we all have one thing in common: our motivation. We push forward because at the end of our road it’s what we strive for, the goal we choose for ourselves. Watch this video by Duncan „Thoorin” Shields discussing struggle for success , inspired by the War of Art by Steven Pressfield. Questions: How do you keep yourself motivated? ...

Maybe some of you know about Khan Academy - the non-profit education organisation that had delivered more than 1 billion lessons worldwide, and is used by 40 million students and 2 million teachers every month. The reason this company was created is simple: our educational system could be better than it is now. And that’s what this TED speech is about. What is your opinion about the education system in our schools and universities? Have you used this service before? As a bonus - a short video from Khan Academy: You can teach everything (YouTube)

The world is full of technologies that are not yet part of our daily experience. They will change our world as soon as we are ready for them. But those things are just ideas without the participation of brainy scientists and engineers. The brainiest of the brainy (in the field robotics) are of course Boston Dynamics. If we ever suffer the Rise of the Machines, it will be Boston Dynamics who provide an AI the ability to strangle us by own hands. In a more optimistic future, their robots will work in factories, load cargo ships, clean the streets, etc. This future may be closer than we think! Boston Dynamics began as a spin-off from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where they developed the first robots that ran and maneuvered like animals. The first robot that made them known in the robotics world was the BigDog : - with a mass of approximately 109kg, it can carry up to 150 kg loads. It’s maximum speed is about 10 km/h - quite a slow cyber dog, don’t you think? Then ...

As scary and unimaginably as it sounds, we are only a single tiny particle of the incredible universe. This rather bothersome fact is a result of slowly developed and improved self-awareness. It took us years of observation and studying where and who we are to come to this one statement – we are simply a miniature part of the gargantuan bowl of particles we call universe. Certainly, such information is confusing, upsetting and unbelievable. This absolutely normal reaction we feel yet proves our limitation even more, showing us that indeed the universe is far beyond our perception and acquaintance. Fortunately or not, here the complex issue of understanding our role in the universe does not stop. Apart from limited space we occupy in the galaxy, we are also in possession of only a short period of time to live. Remarkably short if compared to the age of the universe. There is no denying the fact a part of world population experience so called existential crisis. At the ...