My history blog

http://carohistoryblogoxford.blogspot.com/

ciasto kokosowe

http://forum.styl.fm/ciasto-kokosowe-szukam-przepisu.t73626.htm

Led Zeppelin - 'Stairway to heaven'

Stairway to heaven is a song created by well known british band Led Zeppelin. It was first played on the radio in 1971. The song is considered one of the '500 greatest songs of all time' in the Rolling Stone magazine. Written and composed by Robert Plant and Jimmy Page it was one of the most popular song in the 70's.

This song generated a lot of interest because of unusual lyrics and sound. It is not trivial but metaphorical and hard to understand without much thought. 

At first Plant is singing about the vain woman that thinks everything can by bought with the help of money, even a place in heaven. Then the author tries to show us how wrong she is, that at the end of life everybody is equal. The world is much more complicated and in your life way you might encounter many difficulties but there isn't any golden mean. The song shows us the importance of choice, which  is always on our side. It explores people's loneliness and quest for truth. It also suggests to rely on ourselves, to be full of hope. We just have to understand our surroundings and live our lives.  

With a melodramatic tone and quirky lyrics the authors take us to the imaginary world and show hidden values. That's why this song is special and considered one of the best.

'Sabrina' - 1954

Sabrina, directed by Billy Wilder, is film which shows that sometimes our dreams might come true, even if we are "trying to reach the moon". 

Audrey Hepburn (Sabrina) is a young, bony, naughty daughter of a chauffeur. They both live and work for a very prosperous  and posh family that have a big property next to NYC. The girl that always keeps her head up in clouds is in love with one of the family's brothers, a true heartbreaker that had already been married three times. Unfortunately he doesn't even know about her existence so mired in desperation the girl tries to commit suicide. After a failed attempt her father decides to send her to Paris to cookery school which is supposed to keep her mind away from painful love.

Sabrina changes during her course and comes back to her father as a new, more stylish and elegant person. At first David, Sabrina's  'ex' love, doesn't really recognize her and is enchanted by her new look. He quickly becomes attracted to her and despite being engaged he decides to break off the engagement and start a new life with the girl. But an unfortunate accident makes him unable to keep her company or take her for dates. As a favor he asks his brother to take care of Sabrina, which eventually  has bad effects. Because despite getting rid of her second brother is actually falling in love with her. Question is which one will she choose?! 

This film is definitely for people that are keen on old black-white movies. Even if the main character's features are a bit annoying and start to appear as silly, the film is worthy of recommendation because it takes you to an old time and gives you an opportunity to have a moment to relax and sometimes even to make you smile. 

Xxx

http://kulinarnie.blogspot.com/search/label/Pierniki

http://kulinarnie.blogspot.com/search/label/Mazurki

Metalica - nothing else matters

Exhortations to save the earth

This was one of the best speeches that I've seen so far on TED. This woman puts lots of feeling into her talk and everything that she says is very real and recent. She considers the idea of today's life, in which human beings are creatures that are losing themselves and their senses, hiding behind new technology. Everything is changing, inevitably, but it need not be for the worse. People have stopped caring about surroundings, looking only at their own future. The speaker urges people to start to cooperate with each other. She believes that we were originally created to go through life not alone but with a companion because this is who we are. We are able to make great things but only with a second person. She is trying to show us our wrong paths and suggest that we should start to seek wisdom in elders because they are the last generation that are still acting rightly. 

We can mostly learn from this speech that we should find the golden mean between heart and head. We should rely more on our senses and try to trust people because we are made to exist together.

for whose who want to find out more:

http://blog.ted.com/2011/02/23/curating-humanitys-heritage-elizabeth-lindsey-on-ted-com/#comments

Homework - geography

Write definitions:
discharge
lag time
drainage basin
peak rainfall
peak discharge
 

The hydrological cycle

Keywords

Inputs

precipitation (opady) - water in any form that falls from the sky

Transfers

Surface runoff/overland flow (spływ powierzchniowy) - water is not absorbed by soil but flows on the surface

Throughfall - water falling through the leaves 
Stemflow - water flowing through the stems

Infiltration (przenikanie) - the movement of water into the soil

Throughflow - movement of water through the soil

Percolation - when water slowly leaches into the rock

Groundwater flow/base flow - the water that infiltrated flows through the rock

Storage

Surface storage - the water that is stored on the surface in a depression

Interception storage - when plants are storing water on their surface

Vegetation storage - water that is cumulated inside the plant. 

Soil storage - water kept by soil

Groundwater Storage - water stored in rocks  

Channel Storage - water stored in rivers 

Ocean - the biggest body of water, which is salty

Outputs

Evaporation (parowanie) - changing water into water vapor

Transpiration - evaporation of water from plants

Sublimation - water change from ice into gas

other important words:

capacity (zdolność) - amount of water that can move or be stored in a particular place 

permeable (przepuszczalność) - water can move through 

concrete - beton, cement

Eight global warning questions.

What is the definition of global warning?

Global warming is increase of average temperature in the world caused by an excessive amount of carbon dioxide that keeps reflecting rays in the atmosphere which makes the weather hotter. 

What do scientists believe are the effects of global warming?

Scientists believe that global warming will have many bad impacts on the environment. Basic changes that are going to happen will be big flooded areas caused by melting glaciers, such as in the Arctic regions. A lot of animals such as polar bears are going to suffer because of decreasing of the natural surface which used to be their home. Also people who live in the valleys or on the low-lying coast will have to resettle. 

In other parts of the world there is going to be problem with droughts. Hotter temperatures will cause drying of natural water containers and dying from thirst of people, animals and plants. 

Weather is also going to be more unpredictable and variable. A lot of natural disasters such as coastal flooding, hurricanes and twisters will occure.

Climatic zones are also going to change significantly with time.

What do scientists believe are the causes of global warming?
Causes of global warming are 'green-house' gazes such as CO2, CH2, NO2, SO2 mostly producted by factories and cars.

How could global warming affect more economically developed countries?

In MEDCs they have started to have lots of campaigns about rising temperatures affected by global warming and to counteract it. A lot of public transport were replaced by 'ecological' buses, trains, trams that are supposed to emit less carbon dioxide that is related to global changes. Governments are trying to show people how to live more ecologically by making TV campaigns included famous people etc.
Prices are going to rise and zone species are going to change.
Countries will also spend lts of money into defense from flooding instead of improving e.g industry or public health etc. 

How could global warming affect less economically developed countries?

LEDCs are less able to cope with changes. They will suffer more than MEDCs because of having less money to make any step towards this event. 

Poor countries that are mostly related with farming will also suffer a lot because of more costs of taking care of crops. They will also have less fertile land which will affect their lifestyle which is very difficult and will cause even more poverty.

Some people do not believe that global warning is happening. Wh do they think this?
Name some of the things individuals and organization can do to help prevent global warming.
is global warming only negative thing, or could it have some positive impacts.

Is Europe held together?

Angela Merkel, Germany's chancellor has the future of Europe in her hands. Unfortunately she seems to have no vision for the EU even if she holds the key to resolve the euro zone's sovereign-debt crisis. German voters don't wont to let weak counties as Greece, Ireland or Portugal to the euro zone that is forming the Eu's economics policies to be greatly enlarged. But steal Germany is playing a crucial role of keeping Europe together. Can Angela make it? Maybe it will start to split apart soon.

Pain for polish society...

Government reform seems to be a pain for polish society. The government makes decisions that are not acceptable for most people living in Poland. Prices are constantly rising. Taxes and new fees are making us poorer and poorer. What is left is the polish sense of humor about bad times and a perspective that there will be a better tomorrow. Prices of medicine are also rising which will hit mostly poor demographics such as the elder generation. This group also faces problems such as decreasing retirement pensions, higher prices of food and more problems with public hospitals and clinics. By now Poland is one of the countries with the worst healthcare and the most ill seniors in the European Union. There is no hope for an improvement soon. The government is making some aspects even worst. Does it not care about its reputation?

Are errors made by human genetically built into our kind?

I've seen one of the TED talks and I found it very interesting.

A woman was talking about the human as a creature that is naturally forced to make mistakes even though it is amazingly intelligent, the smartest of all animals. She and her student group performed tests on both capuchin monkeys and the studio audience because of the fact that we have common ancestors. They wanted to check if the origin of our errors is genetically built into our kind or if it's a result of complicated environment we've created. The results of the test were surprising. Both we and monkeys make the same mistake when trying to choose the better of two options. This shows that the origin is genetic and we, as members of the human species, have to deal with this disorder. On a positive note, despite many inabilities such as lack of wings or fins we are still clever enough to invent some appliances that can help us deal with this kind of thing. Luckily we learn from our mistakes.

link to the blog where you can find this speech:

http://efeconomics.blogspot.com/2011/03/ted-talks-homework-k.html

The Japan's fallout

Even if the tragedy happened in Japan it is having an effect on the world. The government estimates that they have lost about $100 billion which is relatively a lot but it is still hopefully not enough to wreck as rich country as Japan. Japan is being pushed into recession and because it is the third-biggest economy in the world there is no way that the impact will not be felt all over the world.

Some of the Asian countries are already having a problem with disruptions to electricity supply. Nuclear power, which gives one third of states' electricity, is still totally down. As soon as many Japan's neighbors were relying on this country there is going to be a big problem. Also after this disaster USA, Germany and China started to have second thoughts about building new reactors or extending plants. In these three countries there are debates about nuclear power because it is a very good but also risky way to produce  energy. They are hesitating about safety of these constructions.

After the Tsunami there was a lot of damage caused by fires, explosions even dangerous releases of radiation, which in worst scenario might have an impact on public health of Japan and countries nearby. 

So as we can see we can state that nuclear crises affect lots of countries.

Elasticity of demand

Demand (popyt) - the quantity of a product that consumers are able and willing to purchase at various prices over a period of time.

elasticity of demand - how demand for particular product can be affected by changes in price. Usually when prices go down demand increases and decreases when prices go up. This concerns things such as cars, appliances and other not so necessary products because we can easily substitute or cancel the purchase. 

E.g if we want to buy a car but the price of it has gone up significantly we can replace it by a car from other brand which has a similar standard but a lower price. 

When it is about necessities as food, medicines and basic clothes demand is inelastic because changes in price doesn't affect demand so much because no matter how much does food cost we will still buy it.

Coffee giant

World famous coffee house company Costa Coffee was established in UK 1971. Originally founders were Italian brother now it belongs to international company which has about 442 stores in 28 countries. 

Some economic basis about 'Costa':

First of all shops in which this coffee is sold always look very nice. Decor as big comfortable, stylish sofa and a lot of space, your own table big enough to e.g leave books attracts you to stay in. Of course nothing is free. They charge extra more-less 20p. for every cup of coffee/tea etc. and cake just because you can have a sit and drink/eat already prepared things in nice place. To attract you even more after buying anything there you can have access to the 'free' internet what mostly make you stay longer and very often spend more money. They advertise themselves 'free internet in every shop' but literally to have wi-fi you have to buy something which excludes word free. They also use on posters happy looking man who won competition for the best barista with persuade people to enter shop and try high quality coffee. This  is obviously good trick because most of the people working there have no deeper experience with making coffee so you can't even call them barista not to say a qualified one.

It's also worth to mention loyalty cards. They are one of the best marketing trick. People commonly choose places in which they have or they can have special member card. Even if it doesn't make big differences it subconsciously helps us to think that we are saving money. 

At the end there is also one very customer affecting thing. The Costa foundation which helps people in countries where coffee is growing. They gives money for education, improving places with clean water, sanitation and school meals. 

'The Costa Foundation was set up in 2006 to give something back to coffee growing communities.'

Isn't that good advertisement?

Creep - radiohead

Happiness

'Happiness does not just make you enjoy life more, it actually affects how successful you are in both your personal and professional life.'

Happiness makes people:

• more sociable
• altruistic
• improve ability of solving the conflicts 
• increase how much the like themselves and others 
• have succesful relationships 
• live longer 
• have better health 
• better type of live
• have even a bit higher IQ results 

Some true statements about happiness:

• 'When people can afford the necessities in life, an increase in income does not result in a significantly happier life.'
• '40 per cent of your happiness level is derived from day-to-day behavior, and the way in which you think about yourself and others'

to be continued

Tricky questions - continued

Why do people without a watch look at their wrist when you ask them what time it is?

This is reflex made by our subconscious. We are all used to have watches on our wrist. Even if not we are all taught by our culture, mostly gestures in cinema, to connect time with watch on our wrist.

Why do they use sterilized needles for death by lethal injections? 
I guess in case when person will survive such a injection not to contract some other disease due to unsterilized needle. I also think that only healthy person can be legally executed so it is kind of health and safety guidelines.

Why is a person who plays the piano called pianist, but a person who drives a race car not called racist?
I think that term racist, which means discrimination of people from other race, came first to the spoken language. It was common before invention of the car and car race. So because of the very bad meaning  people create another way to call person who drives race car.

If it's true that we are here to help others, hat are others doing here?
If we are helping someone, this person is supposed to help someone else. This should work as a circulation.

Shouldn't it be called a 'near hit' rather than a 'near miss'?

Tricky questions. 22

Why do fat chance and slim chance mean the same thing?

Slim chance is when there is a minimal chance of winning and achieving your goal. Fat chance is an irony.

If people evolved from apes, why are there still apes?

Evolution does not say that man evolved form ape. It does say that man and ape evolved from a common ancestor. So this question now doesn't have any sense.

Did Adam and Eve have navels (belly-button)? 

According to Christians they couldn't have belly-buttons because they were created by God not born by human. Naval is sign that you were once attached to your mother, that you spent nine months in her uterus. Adam were formed of 'dust form the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life', Eve from Adam's rib so there is no particular reason why should they have navels.

Why doesn't glue stick to the bottle? 

Glue doesn't stick inside the bottle because the chemicals within the glue is triggered by oxygen so when the glue bottle is opened it triggers the chemicals to make it sticky. That's why if a bottle if left out with no cap the glue becomes quite hard. 

What is a free gift? Aren't all gifts free?

If person give you a gift and doesn't want anything in return then it is free. But most of the gifts in shop are conditional. 'Buy one product and have a free gift'. Such a promotion are always related with the purchase of something over a certain value. Using 'free' in headlines makes people believe in saving money and they are more likely to buy products with such a promotion.

If the temperature is zero outside today and it's going to be twice as cold tomorrow how cold will it be?

It depends which scale do you use. 

I

f it is 0 now and twice as cold tomorrow, 0 x 2 = 0. it will be 0 degrees Celsius. But if you use Fahrenheit twice as cold as zero is equal to -31 degrees.

Lateral Thinking

1. The man in the elevator.
A man lives on the tenth floor of a building. Every day he takes the elevator to go down to the ground floor to go to work or to go shopping. When he returns he takes the elevator to the seventh floor and walks up the stairs to reach his apartment on the tenth floor. He hates walking so why does he do it?
Answer:
The man is a dwarf.

2. The man in the bar.
A man walks into a bar and ask the barman for a glass of water. The barman pulls out the gun and point it at the man. The man says 'thank you' and walks out.
Answer:
The man had hiccups. The barman recognized this from his speech and drew the gun in order to give him a shock. It worked and cured the hiccups - so the man no longer needed the water.

3. Death in a field.
A man is lying dead in a field. Next to him there is an unopened package. There is no other creature in the field. How did he die?
Answer:
The man had jumped from the plane but his parachute had failed to open. It is the unopened package.

4. Anthony and Cleopatra.
Anthony and Cleopatra are lying dead on the floor of  villa in Egypt. Nearby is a broken bowl. There is no mark on either bodies and thy were not poisoned. How did they die?
Answer:
Anthony and Cleopatra were goldfish whose bowl was knocked over by clumsy dog.

5. Trouble wit sons.
A woman had two sons who were born on the same hour of the same day of the same year. But they were not twins. Hw could this be so?
Answer:
They were two of the set of triplets or quadruplets.

6. Push that car. 
A man pushed his car. He stopped when he reached a hotel at which point he knew he was bankrupt. Why?
Answer:
He was playing Monopoly.

7. The blind beggar. 
A bling beggar had brother who died. What relation was the blind beggar to the brother who died if we know brother is not the answer.
Answer:
The blind beggar was the sister of her brother who died.

8. Friday.
A man rode into town on Friday. He stayed for three night and then left on Friday. How come?
Answer:
The man's horse was called Friday.

Lesson summary

What is an earthquake?
It's shaking of the ground caused by sudden movement of tectonic plates.

What causes earthquakes?
Quakes are mostly triggered by tectonic plates that slide past each other or collide against each other.

What effects do earthquakes have?
We can easily divided effects of earthquake into three aspects. Social, economic and environmental. First one includes amount of dead people, homelessness, loss of belongings, disease, crime, hunger, disruption in education. Economic effects contains things as lack of money in banks, disruptions in work, loss of workplaces, damage industry, rising taxes, maybe even recession. And environmental as radiation (long-term impact), collapsed buildings, pollution.

How do countries protect themselves from earthquakes?
Japan is country where earthquakes happens most commonly in the world. It's nothing unusual for people and government there so most of the buildings are specially constructed for such an events. They have very big foundations located on ground which are able to withstand quake up to 7 Richter degrees. Buildings are also much more flexible than anywhere else.

What is a tsunami?
Tsunami are large, powerful waves caused by sudden displacement of large quantities of water in the sea or ocean.

What causes tsunamis?
Common causes for the displacement of large quantities of water are: earth quakes, volcanic activity and landslides. 

What effects do tsunamis have?
These giant waves can travel for thousands of miles across the sea and still have enough energy and force to destroy buildings, trees, wildlife and people. When water is withdrawing takes everything with it which caused big loss of belongings. It has also big impact on plants because salt damage crops.

How do countries protect themselves from tsunamis?
Some countries have network of sensors to detect tsunamis and a communications infrastructure to issue timely alarms to permit evacuation of coastal areas.

Why do poor countries suffer more from tsunami?

Firstly poor countries are less prepared for such an events so damages are much bigger. Rich country (MEDC) usually have warning system which helps to rescue people from death and prepared them to protect valuable things. People from poor country are often badly educated and don't know how to protect themselves to survive. Secondly rich countries have more money for rebuilding and recovery. Economy prosper much better so rich country are less likely to have recession. LEDC need much more time to recover because of lack of money and bad economy.

Japanese economy

The impact of the earthquake in Japan on the Japanese economy.

• inflation - less supply, prices rise
• exchange rate - this falls which makes imports more expensive 
• government spending - rise, but were would the money come from
• confidence - would be low ex. overseas firms would not invest in the Japanese economy 
• unemployment - will rise because of the radiation. people will not even leave their houses. 

Economist are speculate that earthquake and tsunami has a big influence on Japanese economy and it's pushing the country into recession. So far hundreds of factories are being closed across the Japan and big companies as Toyota, Sony, Nestle, Nissan are having considerable pecuniary loss which greatly affects the economy. Most of them are also selling the dollars and other foreign currencies to prepare for cost of rebuilding domestic economy. 

About 2 million homes are without electricity and about 1,4 million do not have running water. Government estimate losses after disaster for more-less £62 billion. Bank of Japan tries to prevent too much rising of yen as well as it offers help to small banks to make sure they are not run out of the money because in case of such events people are likely to panic and take all savings out of accounts. 

Macroeconomics - repetition

The government has four macro-economics aims:

1. reduce unemployment 

• cut taxes
• create more schools and hospitals
• reduce the exchange rate 
• reduce prices 
• reduce import

1. encourage growth (GDP)
2. increase export and reduce import
3. reduce inflation

There are two main policies:

1. fiscal - using taxes and government expenditure (using taxes)
2. monetary - using interest rates (government spending)  

"The wild one"

'The wild one' with Marlon Brando - even nowadays some movie characters' styles are inspired by Johnny.

This movie tells the story about a young and wild group of motorcyclists without any inhibitions. It's based on the real story that took place on 4 of July 1947 in a small town called Hollister. The film was directed by László Benedek and first shown 30 of December 1953 in USA. The main character, which is played by Marlon Brando, makes the movie popular. Johnny's style became an icon for people and other film characters.

It starts with a scene where boisterous bikers, led by Johnny Strabler ( Marlon Brando ), invade the small town in California during the motor race. We can already see that they will cause lots of trouble. Lack of work makes this group of boys only drink beer and riot. After the second gang comes to the same place, the level of aggression of both teams rises very rapidly. They start using violence to compete with each other, which quickly begins to annoy the people living in town who respond with the same behavior.

One of the 'Black Rebels' steals the 2nd place trophy and gives it to Johnny, who when later asked, pretends that he won it. Even if this prize doesn't mean anything to him it makes people believe in his leadership. But Johnny still seems to be a bit lost, without any real aim in life. His character is very mysterious because he is trying not to show his true feelings. He doesn't enjoy answering questions but if he eventually does, it's always in a brief way. We find out a lot about him when he finally becomes interested in the police officer's daughter. At the end of the film there is a very important scene where he presents his trophy to this girl to thank her. This kind of behavior shows us change in Johnny, a slow personal opening. 

I really enjoyed this film. And I recommend it for those who are into old-school because it is not for everybody. I wasn't even surprised when I went to the auditorium to see this film and saw few people. Nowadays 'we' prefer more commercial films with good special effects and an easy plot. Nonetheless in my opinion 'The wild one' take us back in time to the  50's, compels us to think, and shows differences in today's world. It's worth spending an hour and a half watching this movie.