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Wednesday, October 30, 2013

the newsonomics of GAFA and the world of monetising your net info

                 mon·e·tize

  [mon-i-tahyz, muhn-] 
                  verb (used with object), mon·e·tized, mon·e·tiz·ing.

1.
to legalize as money.
2.
to coin into money: to monetize gold.
3.
to give the character of money to.



the newsonomics of GAFA’s dominating impacts on news companies — all news companies, whether print- or pixel-defined
they are clearly the most ascendant and are, in their categories, world-leading dominators. 
They compete fiercely with one another, but they also team up where it makes sense: Google recently agreed to pay Apple about $1 billion annually to become the default search service on its products, for instance.


Monday, October 28, 2013

contain nuts -narrative2

May contain nuts -narrative2

A few days later it was the nursery school sports day and we all gathered on Clapham Common. 
I think I’ll just put the harness on Alfie as well, just to be on the safe side,’ I said.
Yes, I think I better had as well then,’ said Ffion. ‘I wouldn’t want Gwilym to think I was the only mum who wasn’t there for him.’
‘Well, you can’t have some mothers allowed to run along behind and not others,’ said another, slipping off her shoes in anticipation of the race. Before long all the other mums were lined up behind their children, clutching their reins like a row of novelty jockeys from some Japanese extreme sports channel.
Um, ready, steady, go!’ said the bemused nursery teacher, but several mothers had already shoved their kids off on hearing ‘ready’.

‘Well done, Gwilym!’ said Ffion, who had been first to carry her suspended child way above the finishing line. 'You won, darling, you won!'
That's not fair,' said another mother. ‘Henry was winning! You carried Gwilym the last bit!’
Alexander normally goes everywhere in his buggy. I still say I should have been allowed to push him in his buggy.'

Why don’t we say they all won?’ chirped the Australian teacher hopefully, which was about the worst suggestion she could have possibly made. The mothers were united on this.

building vocabulary


Note how BUILDING Vocabulary  is used in the following sentences
Which are the ideas that "these words" conveys in these sentences?

Let's have a drink together to cement our partnership. When I tried to find out what had happened to my tax claim, I came up against a brick wall.

Ceiling can be used to suggest a limit to something:
They put a ceiling of twenty thousand pounds on the redundancy payments. 

There is glass ceiling for women, from rising to top positions at work.


Roof as metaphor: 
The roof fell in on my world on the day he died. 

The colloquial phrase go through the roof has two different meanings. 
   If prices go through the roof,.........   If a person goes through the roof, .......
which one is to lose one's temper?

Hit the roof, acts similarly:
The teacher will hit the roof when she sees the mess we've made of this work. 

Which are the ideas that "tower" conveys in these sentences?
Academics are often criticised for living in their ivory towers.
Our friends were a tower of strength when our house burnt down. 
Jack towers above all his classmates although he is actually one of the youngest pupils.


We further observe that a similar rationale holds for his observation of BUILDING metaphors in POLITICS: 
American presidential inaugural speeches, since BUILDING metaphors in this corpus are also used to establish a president’s credentials as someone likeable who shares the same hopes and dreams as the voter.

 A COUNTRY IS A BUILDING, 
THE FOUNDERS OF THE COUNTRY ARE ITS BUILDERS, and 

 For example, the different mappings for 
PROBLEM IS A BUILDING and 
LIFE IS A BUILDING

  masonry bridge building experts  
 master pieces: The monuments, 
 engineers or architects
 the technical criteria
 (calculations, structural analyses, etc.) 


unit 35 Buildings in metaphors
 glass ceiling
tower of strength

What would these words mean?
 Source Domain: BUILDING a country
BUILDING __________________country
a- BUILDER  ?
b- CORNERSTONES ?
c- LAYING A FOUNDATION ?


KEY
COUNTRY FOREBEARS HISTORY
CREATING A COUNTRY
THE PAST HISTORY/ACHIEVEMENT OF THE COUNTRY IS ITS CORNERSTONES

Source Domain: 
BUILDING a country

a- DAMAGE TO BUILDING 
b- DESTROYERS
c- REBUILDERS 

TASK. Make a paragraph using these 3 words and some others





KEY2:
COUNTRY TAKEOVER
ENEMY 
CITIZENS/POLITICIANS




Similar with JOURNEYmetaphors.
Source Domain:  JOURNEY
MOVER 
IMPEDIMENT
GOAL
FORWARD MOTION

Target Domain:  COUNTRY
 PROGRESS
COUNTRY DIFFICULTY
 PROSPECT
DEVELOPMENT




Tuesday, October 22, 2013

talent

There is a saying in Britain: "Talent will out". 
This means that 
those who are talented will eventually succeed - 
but is this true? 
talent

1

nnatural abilities or qualities

Synon.:
endowmentgiftnatural endowment
Types:
benthangknack
  to get the knack of it
a special way of doing something
flairgenius:  a natural talent
raw talent   powerfully impressive talent

natural ability:  ability that is inherited

na person who possesses unusual innate ability in some field or activity

Type of:
expert
a person with special knowledge or ability who performs skillfully

A self-taught dancer combining freestyle hip-hop with mime and contemporary dance, Kenichi Ebina incorporates visual illusion into his performances, making the impossible seem real. 
His agile, athletic and razor-sharp moves push the limits of human capability. Each of his performances is a mini-drama that draws from kinetic and thematic inspiration to tell a story that is laugh-out-loud funny.


Ebina is a dancer, choreographer, teacher and solo performer, working with collaborators or on his own as Ebina Performing Arts.
Since his first full-evening solo show in early 2008, he has performed for private audiences.
And yes, in September 2013, he won the eighth season of America's Got Talent.

Saturday, October 19, 2013

The great divide inequalites and 99 %

The great divide

UK income inequality is among the highest in the developed world and evidence shows that this is bad for almost everyone. 

Over the past 30 years, income inequality in the UK has grown at an alarming rate. 
This infographic shows the extent of this inequality, and how most people would be better off today if we lived in a more equal society.  Please use the options to the right to share this with others. 

The Equality Trust works to reduce income inequality in order to improve the quality of life in the UK.




Nothing new. In December 2011, it was written 

 how do different countries compare?

Inequality across the world is rising fast, says a new report out from the OECD which shows it getting worse.

Simon Garfield describes his favorite map of London. (from =50 to 01:24)



Simon Garfield explores the weird and wonderful world of cartography


Visual du Jour on inequalities at www.globalsociology.com
Class warfare Winners and Losers
This situation was accomplished through policy over decades, Structure / History / Power, people, never forget the SHiP!

Inequality Is a Choice  By JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ (NYTimes)


Of the advanced economies, America has some of the worst disparities in incomes and opportunities, with devastating macroeconomic consequences. The gross domestic product of the United States has more than quadrupled in the last 40 years and nearly doubled in the last 25, but as is now well known, the benefits have gone to the top — and increasingly to the very, very top.

  • Last year, the top 1 percent of Americans took home 22 percent of the nation’s income; 
  • the top 0.1 percent, 11 percent. 
  • Ninety-five percent of all income gains since 2009 have gone to the top 1 percent. 

Recently released census figures show that median income in America hasn’t budged in almost a quarter-century. The typical American man makes less than he did 45 years ago (after adjusting for inflation); men who graduated from high school but don’t have four-year college degrees make almost 40 percent less than they did four decades ago.
American inequality began its upswing 30 years ago, along with tax decreases for the rich and the easing of regulations on the financial sector. That’s no coincidence. It has worsened as we have under-invested in our infrastructure, education and health care systems, and social safety nets. Rising inequality reinforces itself by corroding our political system and our democratic governance.
And Europe seems all too eager to follow America’s bad example.

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Leaps of Faith: J. F. Kennedy jr's fall

Fatal Falls: J. F. KENNEDY JR.
All men can fly, but sadly, only in one direction.
John F. Kennedy Jr. crashed his plane into the sea near Martha’s Vineyard on July 16, 1999, killing himself and two passengers.
Since Leonardo, humans seem to possess an innate love of flying.

Read the text.  
Ponder on this story, discuss the errors, wrongdoings, mistakes or miscalculations that might have taken place in that particular date 7/16/99.


REPORT:
Condensed from the National Transportation and Safety Board Preliminary Report NYC99MA178.

On July 16, 1999, a Piper was destroyed during a collision with water near Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. The pilot and two passengers were fatally injured. Night visual conditions prevailed, and no flight plan had been filed for the personal flight.

A person using the pilot’s log-in code obtained aviation weather information from an Internet site three hours before the crash. The forecast called for winds at ten knots, visibility six miles, and clear sky. No AIRMETS or SIGMETS were issued for the route of flight, and all airports along the route reported visual meteorological conditions.
The pilot received his private pilot certificate in April 1998. He did not possess an instrument rating. Interviews and training records revealed that the pilot had accumulated about three hundred hours of total flight experience, not including recent experience gained in the accident airplane.


On July 20, 1999, the airplane was located in 116 feet of water. Preliminary examination of the wreckage revealed no evidence of in-flight structural failure or fire, nor of conditions that would have prevented either the engine or propeller from operating. Pilots who flew over Long Island Sound that evening were inter- viewed after the accident. They reported that the in-flight visibility over the water was significantly reduced.


USE some of these adjectives

    flighty /ĖˆflaÉŖtÉŖ/adj    frivolous and irresponsible; capricious; volatile
    good-for-nothingn  an irresponsible or worthless person
adj   irresponsible; worthlessmad /mƦd/adj    : a mad, senseless, foolish ideastupid /ĖˆstjuĖpÉŖd/adj  lacking in common sense, perception, or normal intelligence //  slow-witted

USE These 4 characters to discuss the issue. 




TREVORG
I investigated aviation accidents for the military, and this case hardly needs investigating. The answer is obvi ous. He flew right off the page that details “predictable ways for stupid pilots to die.” To commit such a grievous error in the face of such a mountain of information makes him a clear case of someones risking three lives to the outmost, and he lost.
 
SIDECAR
Those with flying experience know that the pilot is master of his own destiny. When he warms up his plane and taxis to the edge of the runway, the control tower gives him information including wind speed and direction. When it is clear for him to take off, the tower uses the fol- lowing words: “You are cleared to take off at your discretion.” The words at your discretion absolve the tower of responsibility for the pilot or aircraft. All contact with air control agencies is for information only. It’s up to you to act on this information responsibly.
 
A VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS
The evidence is against the defense of JFK Jr. “Pilots with years of experience have been known to crash on nights exactly like this one.” That is exactly why he should not have flown the aircraft.
CHARRELL6170After due consideration I have to state the following:
Here is a man who held his private pilot’s license for only fourteen months, and was not cleared for instrument flight. Nevertheless, he was flying at night in a high performance aircraft with which he was unfamiliar. He flew with no flight plan, not illegal but ill advised, under reduced-visibility conditions. 

          PRELIMINARY DISCUSSION
UK YANK
Let me put this in context for you nonpilots.
 It’s the night before your relative gets married and you need to get to the wedding. 
Your only vehicle is a blindingly fast Porsche 911 Turbo, 
an accident waiting to happen in the hands of a new driver such as yourself. 
You have no snow chains, a foot that’s not fully healed, and it’s getting dark. 
Your driving buddies tell you thick fog is expected, and enough snow to hide the road. 
They wouldn’t dream of going out on a night like this. 

What do you do?
  1.  Hire a qualified racing driver to drive your Porsche. 
  2.  Wait for morning and better driving conditions. 
  3.  Jump in the Porsche and hope for the best.
When you know the odds are against you, yet still risk your life, you’re not drinking from the fountain of wisdom—you’re just gargling.


sources  darwinawardsevolutioninaction. Chapter 5

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Learning vocabulary by Dr Browne


Learning vocabulary in a foreign language can at times seem an insurmountable task. Estimates differ as to the actual number of words in English, but a recent one suggested there are at least 600,000 word families.  Research shows that most native speakers make do with just 20 to 30,000 of these words, and life itself teaches us which words are important. However, for language learners with time constraints and possible work or study deadlines looming, learning even 20 to 30,000 is too much. It is therefore crucial for them to focus on the words that really matter. 

Researching language
 
Corpus research has been around for a few decades now, but one of the most innovative and influential corpora of recent years is the Cambridge English Corpus. Comprised of over 2 billion words of spoken and written American and British English, this corpus has been the driving force behind a lot of recent change in published materials for learning English. Sophisticated software allows researchers to delve deep into language, studying usage patterns, real grammar rules, differences between spoken and written English, and changes over time. If we add to this sub-corpora, such as business, engineering, and medicine, industry-specific features of language come to light. It is precisely this kind of research that tells us categorically (and quantitatively) which words are needed and in which contexts. Looking at the same issue from a different perspective, we can not only answer the question, “How many words do I need to know to understand 50 percent, 75 percent, 90 percent or 95 percent of a typical essay, report, lecture, or conversation?”,  we can even find out which words are needed and their rough order of importance.
 
What are the key words? 
Two commonly referenced word lists have helped shape our understanding of key vocabulary; Michael West’s General Service List (GSL), created in 1953 to specify the crucial 2,000 words needed to understand 90 to 95 percent of colloquial speech and 80 to 85 percent of common written texts; and Averil Coxhead’s Academic Word List (AWL), 570 words commonly appearing in academic texts that can be added to the GSL to give a better fit for learners going on to university study. Both technology and language never cease to evolve, and in 2013, Dr Charles Browne, Dr Brent Culligan, and Joe Phillips undertook the task to fully update these lists using a specially derived subset of the Cambridge English Corpus. The new lists can be downloaded from 
http://www.newgeneralservicelist.org and  http://www.newacademicwordlist.org (coming soon), thus making the precise list of the most important words needed to comprehend English available to everyone. 
How can these words be learnt? 
The final piece of the puzzle, then, is the process of learning the words. Cambridge University Press, together with English Central, bring to you a fully integrated app, web, and print course that has vocabulary building at its core. It features seamless transition from print to app to web on a learner management system that lets teachers follow the exact progress of each of their students in building their vocabulary (and, of course, lets students see their own improvement as well). 

Power of learning or TV comes to you: FILMON.COM

SELF-SUFFICIENCY
Watching English-medium television is an experience shared by
 the vast majority of learners (even Catalan ones). 
As the witty Oscar Wilde almost said: 
"Do not let your EOI school interfere with your English education"
self-suf·fi·cient (slfs-fshnt)
adj.
1. Able to provide for oneself without the help of others; independent.
2. Having undue confidence; smug.

If you some times felt something was lacking in your learning, answer honestly HOW MUCH of your contact with English was through the oral way. Perhaps an appalling 6% or less than the 3% !!!???
One of the most apparent failures is the feeling that 
"the real everyday language used in spoken interactions by natives is elusive and never taught in my classes."
When lost, fo to the sources, use the D-I-Y approach, ... filmOn. 
FilmOn is a simple, free way to get network TV delivered to your computer. Back in the day, you could only watch network TV with an antenna or a cable box. But now, consumers enjoy lots of options.
FilmOn users can now stream all-time favourite 
options (BBC One, ITV and Channel 4) for free on the
 site, along with around 200 other live channels. 

I would like to end this entry with another quote by the very Oscar Wilde, someone who distilled pearls of wisdom: 
“Education is an admirable thing. But it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”

ANNEX:
Mobile Devices: In 2010, FilmOn launched a streaming internet TV service for mobile devices. In 2012, FilmOn announced the launch of its Facebook app.
UK-live-TV Channels: BBC One, ITV; Channel 4, ...
























NEWS (23 channels):

Euronews, TV5 France, Russia today, CCTV China news, etc


CCTV News

CCTV NEWS is the English language news channel of China Central Television (CCTV), the nation's largest national broadcasting network. Its wide range of coverage includes newscasts, in-depth reports, and commentary programs, as well as a host of feature presentations. http://english.cntv.cn/20100426/104481.shtml





Wednesday, October 9, 2013

NO ALLUSIONS IN THE CLASSROOM

Writer of We're history
found at Kellye

TASK. Read and found some "mistakes" in the text.

A litel mistaek is never a greet misstak, wasn't it?

“NO ALLUSIONS IN THE CLASSROOM”

23 September 1985

Josh Billings, a 19th-century humorist, wrote that: it is better “not to know so much than to know so many things that ain’t so.  Recently, after 15 years of teaching in community colleges, I decided to take a sampling finding out what my students know that “ain’t so.”  I did this out of a growing awareness through which they don’t always understand what it is that I am saying.  I suspected from the very start that part of there falure to understand derived from the very fact that they did not catch my allusions.  An allusion to a writer a geographical locality or a historical episode inevitably produced telltale expressions of bewilderment.
Everywhere there’s a game played by students and teachers everywhere.  The game goes like this the teacher tries to find out what students don’t know so that he can correct these efficiencies; the students concerned with grades and slippery self-images tries to hide their ignorance in every way they can’t.  So it is that students seldom ask pertaining questions.  So it is that teachers assume that student’s possess basic knowlich which in fact, they don’t possess.

Last semester I broke the rules of this time-honored game when, I presented my English-composition students with an 86-question general knowledge” test on the first day of class.  There was 26 people in the class, they ranged in age from 18 all the way up to 54.  They had all completed at least one quarter of college-leveledwork.

Here are a sampling of what they knew that “just ain’t so”:
Charles Darwin invented gravitee.  Christ was born in the 16th cenchury.  J. Edgar Hoover was a 19th century president.  Neil Simon wrote “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”; “The Great Gatsby” was a book about a magician in the 1930s.  Franz Joseph Haydn has been a songwriter during the same decade.  Sid Caesar was a early Roman emperor.  Mark Twain inventeded the cotton gin, Heinrich Himmler invented the Heimlich manouver.  Benito Mussolini was a Russian leader of the 18th-century; Dwight D. Eisenhower come earlier, serving as a president during the 17th century.  William Faulkner was making his name as a 17th-century scientist.  All of these people must have appreshiated the work of Pablo Picasso, who painted masterpieces in the 12th century.

My students were equal creative in their understanding of geography.  They knew for instance that Managua is the capital of Vietnam, that Cape Town is in the United States and that Beirut is in Germany.  Bogota, of coarse, is in Borneo (unless it is in China).  Camp David is in Israel and Stratford-on-Avon , is in Grenada (or Gernada). Gdansk is in Ireland. Cologne is in the Virgin Islands. MazatlĆ n is in Switzerland.  Belfast was variously located in Egypt, Germany, Belgium, and Ittaly.  Leningrad was transport to Jamaica; Montreal to Spain.

And on it went. Most students answered incorrect way more then they answered correctly.  Several of them students, to which I am referring above, meticulously wrote I don’t know 86 times, or 80 times, or 62 times.
They did not like the test.  Although, I made it clear that the test would not be graded they did not like having their ignorance exposed.  One of them dismisses the test by saying, “Oh, I get it; it’s like Trivial Pursuit.”  Imagining a game of Trivial Pursuit among some of today’s college students is a frightening thought, such a game could last for years.
But the comment so bothered me.  What, in this time in our global history, is trivial?  And what is essential.  Perhaps it no longer matters very much if large numbers of people in the world’s oldest democratic republic knows little of their own history and even less about the planet they inhabit.

Although, I expect that it does matter.  I also suspect that, my students provide a fairly good cross section of the general population.  There is 1,274 two-year colleges in the United States that collectively enroll: nearly 5 million students.  I have taught at four of those colleges in two states and I doubt that my questionnaire would have produced different results; at any of them.  My colleagues, at universities, tell me that they would not be surprised if similar undergraduate answers.
My small sampling is further corrupted by recent polls which disclosed that a significant number of American adults have no idea whichever side the United States supported in Vietnam.  And that a majority of the general populace have no idea which side the United States is currently supporting in Nicaragua or El Salvador.

Less important, a local marketing survey asked a sampling of young computer whizzes to identify the character in “IBM’s” advertising campaign that is based on an allusion to Charlie Chaplin in “Modern Times.”  Few of them have heard of Charlie Chapin; fewer heard or knew about the movie classic.
As I wrote this, the radio is broadcasting the news about the Walker family.  Accused of spying, for the Soviets, the Walkers, according to a U.S. attorney, will be the Rosenbergs of the ’80s.  One of my students thought Ethel Rosenberg was a singer from from the 1930s.  The rest of them didn’t no.  Communication depends, to some extant, upon the ability to make (and catch) allusions, to share acommon unerstanding, and, a common heritage  Even, preliterate society’s can clame the shared assessment of their world.  As we enter the postindustrial “information processing” age, what sort of information will be processed.  And, as the educational establishment is driven “back to the basics:” isn’t it time we decided that, a common understanding of our history and our planet is most basic of all?

As a teacher I find myself in the ignorance-and-hope business.  Each year hopeful faces confront me, trying two conceal there ignorance.  They’re hopes rides on the dispelling of that ignorance.
Alll our hopes do.
We should begin servicing that hope more responsibly and dispelling that ignorant with a more systematic appraoch to imparting essential knowledge.

Socrates, the American Indian chieftain who, would have wanted it that way.