English Conversation Course

Effects of Global Warming I think that everyone of us has heard about the phenomenon called ‘Global Warming’. I guess that some of us could also notice some weird weather behaviors or that it is not so stable nowadays as it used to be in the past. But have you ever wondered what the cause of such events is? Yes, it’s because of temperature growing all around the world that has more effects than we could imagine. Source: https://climate.nasa.gov/blog/2352/ But what is the cause of the Global Warming itself? It’s mainly human activity and industrial revolution that brought us there. Burning of fossil fuel and deforestation lead to higher emission of so called greenhouse gases that trap heat to the Earth’s atmosphere. These gases occur naturally and make our planet warm enough to sustain life, but larger amount of them make temperature grow. Source: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160210-the-tiny-changes-air-pollution-makes-inside-you So what are th...

Perfectionism I’ve recently read a biography of Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple and its long-time general director. One of his main characteristics was that he was a complete perfectionist. This was of course one of the reasons his products became very successful and iconic in IT industry. But some of his co-workers hated it, because sometimes it complicated the process of product development  and manufacturing and they thought he was just exaggerating. This made me think – whether perfectionism is good or bad? Should we always aim for perfection? Here is Jon Bowers talking about this problem. Questions: 1.       Do you agree with Jon? Is aiming for perfection the only way we should do everything? Does lower acceptance level could be dangerous? 2.       Are you perfectionist? Or you rather don’t bother and accept something when it’s ‘good enough’? 3.       Have you ever used any ...

There are certainly a few people who are not familiar with the fact that human population is ever-developing these days. Give it in scientific fields like medicine, engineering or even computer science.  Same goes to the increasing number of people existing now, which is a result of economic and environmental conditions we encounter at present times. Therefore, when we look at statistics of human population we can clearly see that now, in times of relative peace and prosperity, we have reached a number far higher than ever. Like said before, such an achievement would not be possible without the strong economics and natural resources. Undoubtedly a success one would say. Yet, some other ask ‘but how strong are these in fact?’. Thomas Cole "The Course of Empire: The Consummation of Empire" Paul Gilding, a writer and an expert in sustainability, gave a pretty core chilling ...

NLP (Natural Language Processing) One of the topics which have been a quite important subject of studies for quite a long time is computer’s capability of understanding us. In a way, it always did. So far, it was only a matter of using a predefined commands, interfaces or using programming languages to give precise instructions and get equally precise outcome as a result. This topic focuses on a more specific   interaction between humans and computers. Natural language processing is an area of computer science and AI dedicated to researching methods of enabling the machines to process natural language data (the languages that humans speak.) Questions: How often do you use solutions of NLP? Which ones? Can you imagine living without them? Do you consider this topic as an important area of computer science? Why / why not? Do you consider this technology (or at least some parts of it) mature? If not, how long will it take to develop it to be?

How to learn? The greatest gift of humanity is the ability to make mistakes and their greatest wisdom is learning from them. Have you ever considered failure not as misfortune but an opportunity for success? Diana Laufenberg highlights the significance of allowing kids to fail as part of the learning process. Have you met with a teacher like Diana Laufenberg during your learning process? What do you think about the theory of learning from mistakes? Do you have your own way to learn?

Hunger for libraries Literacy or lack thereof has been a topic of lively debate for a number of years. Some say that, given an access to a library, all people may start to broaden their horizons and become educated, but several reasons to the contrary are not too difficult to find. Are we doing enough to ensure wide study material for those who wish to learn? On the one hand, in most countries in Europe and many outside of it, people have a virtually unrestricted and unlimited access to the knowledge. However, in the age of technological development and an abundance of news online, few benefit from the libraries’ resources the way they would a couple of decades ago. Additionally, there are those who could not take advantage of the information gathered there either due to lack of basic research abilities or, what is even more worrying, an utter lack of interest in finding any new data. On the other hand, in the third world countries, access to information is almost absent, which in ...

Ways to make a conversation with anyone Confidence is a strong and impactful word nowadays. Having a real struggle with yourself is the most difficult thing for everybody. Are you confident enough to make a conversation with a stranger? Malavika Varadan, challenges this societal norm, by presenting 7 ways to make conversation with anyone. 1.  Are you a “confident enough” person? 2.  What do you think about introverts? 3.  Write down here at least 3 facts you like the most in her speech.