ESL -videos with subtitles

To speak the truth, extensive listening is far better than testing listening BUT listening and understanding is the best. As careless inkjet learners we need language information. Mind you, that is as good as it can get. 
For news with script click here
Those are the links we can click for our videos with subtitles:


Firstly,  TED talks. Here the interest must be content. Follow the talks you want to learn about. Choose the   SPEAKERS / THEMES you want to follow.
Features: 8000 talks with subtitles on screen and the bestest interactive script on the web (on the right side)


Secondly, Universalsubtitles, a project of Participatory Culture Foundation. 
A lovely opportunity to become a user of English in an open source project!!!!


Then, a couple of individual work on enjoyable video clips and sketches:
Mingo Mendez (Catalonia). LiveScripts - Guiones.  Life is the movie where we are the leading character while we write the script of the movie we would like to live or shoot.


and lst but not least,  Mikesy András (Hungary) a creative teacher from CentreEurope who presents the History of the English!!! (you can miss it)

1. The next big thing.... SixthSense coming soon



TWO. Click on title or on link to watch it there.
Hans Rosling's 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes - The Joy...
4 minute  22 languages,  where you can download or edit any subtitle available, Easy as ABC.
http://www.universalsubtitles.org/ca/videos/BxDoaAHJnwTI/



here the famous Steve Job's conference at Standford University -2005


3. Rowan Atkinson as Devil: Welcome to hell  (at LiveScripts -M Mendez)

    Hello. It's nice to see you all here.
Now, as the most perceptive of you probably realized by now, this is Hell and I'm the Devil.
  Good Evening!
But you can call me Toby if you like,
we try to keep things informal in here as well as infernal.
That's a little joke of mine; i tell it every time.
    Now you are all here for... Eternity, which I hardly need tell you it's a heck of a long time.
So you'll all get to know each other pretty well by the end.
But for now I'm gonna have to split you up into groups.
    Will you stop screaming? Thank you.  (see all the piece at the link above)

4. Snappy Hamlet monologue: (Blackadder - Comedy)
 (script below from 2:10 to 3:25)
All the piece transcript at Hamlet Sketch-small rewrite  

(2:10) Blackadder: Bill, Bill, Bill... Why do we have to fight? It's long, long, long. We could make it so snappy...
Shakespeare: "Snappy"?

B:   Yeah, you know: give it some pizzazz. How's it begin, that speech?

Sh: [sits] "To be."

B:  Come on, come on, Bill.

Sh: "To be a victim of all life's earthly woes, or not to be a coward and take Death by his proffered hand."

B:  There, now; I'm sure we can get that down!

Sh: No! Absolutely not! It's perfect.

B:  [preparing to write] How about "To be a victim, or not to be coward"?

Sh: [shrugs] It doesn't make sense, does it! To be a victim of what? to be coward about what?

B:  OK, OK. Take out `victim'; take out `coward'. Just start "To be, or not to be."

Sh: You can't say that! It's gibberish!

B: But it's short, William, it's short! Listen, it flows: "To be, or not to be; that is the question." D'de, d'de de de, d'de d'de de de! OK?

Sh: You're damn right it's the question -- they won't have any bloody idea what he's talking about! (3:25)

My blackberry is not working

Which of these elements can be related to a vegetable shop? Get surprised!

• run out of juice
• it  is frozen
• black spot
• to store (on the desktop)
• an application issue
• mess up Windows
• launch (a program)
• It might be worth waiting
• Let me put that date in my diary
• to be honest
• be on the small side
• to boot (a computer)
• bring out a product
• There is not a lot I can do about that
• to do a special offer on (a product)
• can't make head or tail of sth
• X-box

If you ticked less than 9... watch this funny video.

YouTube-videoclip

– I bought something from you last week, and I'm very disappointed.

– Oh yeah? What's the problem?

– I bought something from you last week, and I'm very disappointed.

– Oh yeah? What's the problem?

– Yeah, well, my blackberry is not working.

– What's the matter, it run out of juice?

– No, no, it's completely frozen!

– Oh, yeah, I can see that.

I tell you what: let's try it on orange.

– That's got a few black spots, you see...

– Oh, dear, yes. Sorry about that.

– Well, is there anything I can do to get my blackberry working?

– Well, could be an application issue.

Where'd you store that Blackberry?

– Well, it was on my desktop.

– Well, you could try using a mouse to drag the blackberry to the trash.

Then after you've done that, you might wanna launch the blackberry from the desktop.

– Well, I've already tried that a few times.

I mean, all it did was mess up windows.

– Well, it might be worth waiting a couple of weeks.

They've got the latest blackberries coming in then.

– Well, could you give me a date?

– Certainly.

– Let me put that date in my diary.

– Anything else I can help you with?

– Yes, yes. I've also got a problem, to be honest, with my apple.

– Oh, dear, oh, dear. That is an old apple, isn't it?

– Yeah. – When'd you buy that?

– Last week.

– Last week? They've brought out two new apples since then!

What's the problem with it?

– Well, I tried to put my dongle in it...

and it won't fit.

– Oh, yeah.

And how big's your dongle?

– Well, I don't know much about these things, but my wife's seen a few dongles in her time...

and she says a little bit on the small side.

– Well, I'm afraid there's not a lot I can do about that. Tell you what: let me try booting it.

Now it's crashed.

Anything else I can help you with?

– Well, funnily enough, yes.

My grandson's birthday's soon. – Oh, yeah.

– Now, he's already got an apple and a blackberry.

I mean, have you got anything else that he might just like?

– Well, we're doing a special offer on these.

I mean, I can't make head or tail of them, but the kids seem to like them.

– Oh yeah? – "Eggs box," £3.60.

can you believe your sixthsense? Watch out!

Motion Control SixthSense Technology: Why We’re Still Waiting

When Pranav Mistry of MIT’s Media Lab showcased to the world his groundbreaking SixthSense technology, everyone said this was going to be the next big thing. It was the 2009 Invention of the Year and the most exciting part about it, it was going to be open source. With the code available to a whole community of hackers, we would see all sorts of interesting uses for the technology in no time. Three years later, no code, and no talk of SixthSense hitting the market any time soon.

Like so many great inventions, turning an idea into reality, especially into a ubiquitous  reality, takes time and patience. Bringing the impressive fictional technology from Minority Report to our fingertips, Mistry found a way to bridge the gap between intangible digital information and the tangible world.

In case you’ve never heard of SixthSense, it essentially allows you to access information from the Internet and project that information on any surface, including your hand. It reads human gestures and turns any surface into an interactive screen. It senses objects around you, reads your hand gestures and immediately displays relevant information.

So let’s say you’re at the grocery store and want to find out more about a certain brand of cereal, SixthSense will display in real-time any additional information on the product you’re holding. Lost? Take a picture of your surroundings by forming a frame with your hands and locate yourself on Google Maps. Wondering what time it is? Draw a circle on your wrist and a holographic watch will appear with the precise time.

SixthSense turns the Internet into a sixth human sense.

Demo (2009): 

Watch TedIndia Talk (2009): 

The technology has progressed steadily since its inception. Evolving from an awkward helmet with a projector attached to it to a tiny depth-sensing camera, similar to the one used on Xbox’s Kinect, SixthSense has come a long way. But if you, like me, are squirming in the backseat asking “Are we there yet”, no… we still have a ways to go.

names, noms, .. a rose is a rose...

De nombres va la cosa. Algunos crearon escuela, que todo tuvo un comienzo... que desconocemos. Ignacio, Javier; Francisco; Pablo y Pedro; Abraham y Sara. San Francisco de Etxeberri (Casa Nueva) dio lugar a muchos Xavier en Catalunya;  Ignacio de Loyola fue hecho cristiano con el nombre de Eneko; San Francisco de Asís se bautizó como Giovanni, y recordamos que San Pablo era Saulo y San Pedro, Simón. Siglos y libros antes, en la Biblia se nos dice que Abram y Sarai estrenaron nombre como Abraham (Gen, 17:5) y Sarah (Gen 17:15). Así que canviar de nombre tiene una larga tradición.

From  Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, 1600:

      What's in a name? that which we call a rose
      By any other name would smell as sweet;
      

Hoy nos concentramos en nombres más excentricos a la sociedad del momento: Oscar Wilde evitó cuatro generaciones de Oscar en UK, y sus dos hijos respondían a los preciosos nombres de Cyril and Vyvyan, a gusto de papá. De mis favoritos, Rosalina Íntima y Milena Coloma.

No pasa día que algún padre no cometa la tropelía de inscribir a su hijo con lo primero que le pasa por la cabeza, y los resultados son un estropicio de por vida: 

Superman, Yesaidu (Yes I Do), Jeanclaudevandam David, Ivanistelroy, Usnavy, Pocahontas, Robocop e incluso un Guasintong, escrito a pelo.  Sobra decir que a esta moda infanticida han colaborado algunos mitos del Olimpo kitsch de la fama, como por ejemplo esos amantes de Nietzsche cuya vida es un homenaje al nihilismo: la pareja Beckham. Tienen cuatro hijos y sus nombres son un poema al buen gusto y a la sencillez, tal como es la madre: 

Brooklyn Joseph, Romeo James, Cruz David i Harper Seven. El Seven, por cierto, es el cuarto, escribia Pilar Rahola ayer a LaVanguardia.

To mention one recent case, Mariah Carey finally revelead their odd choice of names: Monroe and Moroccan Scott. Some names are just a little different. as Julia Parker explains here:

• John  Travolta has two beautiful children:  Ella Bleu and the boy is Jett (Travolta has a love for flying).
• Gwyneth Paltrow came under scrutiny for naming her first child Apple. 
• Julie Roberts gave birth to twins:  her daughter's name, Hazel, and Phinnaeus her son.
• Many people speculated what Madonna would name her first child. Lourdes Maria seems a fitting name for child who's mother's name is Madonna, but she often goes by Lola. Her son is named Rocco. 
• Actor Casey Affleck had a son named Indiana August (wonder what state and month their son was conceived in). 

If you think it is a new trend, think again as Sarah . 

Back in 1971, David Bowie decided to name their son Duncan Zowie Heywood Jones, known as Zowie Bowie. 

Cher named her children Chastity Sun and Elijah Blue.

The Phoenix family is well known for their unusual choice of baby names: Summer, River , Rain,   Liberty and Joaquin. Joaquin felt his name was so out of place with his siblings, he decided to change his name to Leaf. 

Some celebrity baby names make sense if you know the story behind them. 

• Stevie Wonder named his son Mandla Kadjaly Carl Stevland, however Mandla means "powerful" in Zulu and Kadjaly means "born from God" in Swahili.
•  Nicolas Cage just named his new baby boy Kal-el after one of his favorite comic book heroes. Kal-el is Superman's kryptonian name.

Money is part of the game: what money can buy

Money is time, time is money, the proverb goes. But ...
Most people don't spend much time wondering what money is, their major concern is how much they have, and how to get more. In economics (properly understood), the answer to the question - what is money? - consists of three words: Money is a "medium of exchange". That's all. Yet the conception of a "medium of exchange" ranks below only language (with its corollaries - speech and the written word) as the greatest intellectual discovery in history. Without language, the exchange of anything but the most rudimentary ideas is impossible. Without money, the production and exchange of anything is not difficult, or time consuming, or inefficient, it is IMPOSSIBLE!

Here we have three quotes on money:

A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart.
Jonathan Swift All I ask is the chance to prove that money can't make me happy.Spike Milligan A man has one hundred dollars and you leave him with two dollars, that's subtraction.
Mae West 

What Is Money?

Some of these news are fake, some true... But can you spot the forged ones? (key below)

NEWS1. “A Manhattan woman has sued a $19,000-a-year preschool her daughter attended, arguing that the program failed to adequately prepare her daughter for the test required to enter New York City’s hypercompetitive private school system.

The suit, filed by Nicole Imprescia on Friday in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, said the York Avenue Preschool had not fulfilled its stated commitment to prepare her 4-year-old daughter, Lucia, for the intelligence test known as the E.R.B. “The school proved to be not a school at all, but just one big playroom,” the suit claimed.  (to be read in the globalsociology blog.)

NEWS2. Should UK join the euro, if £1 ends up worth €1? 

As the pound meanders towards parity with the euro, should we abandon the good ship sterling? There’s been a renewed call for hooking up with our continental neighbours’ currency in recent months, and the issue has hit the headlines again after one oposition leader pointed out current financial policy was doing the pound no favours. 

It seems crazy to have a pop at a person who wants to be the next man in charge of the economy, because he pointed out what is glaringly obvious – the pound is a bit rubbish at the moment. In some ways this is good. It should help our businesses to export more, but for many it's something to be cheesed off about. 

POUND = quid

NEWS3.  The currency sign for the popular quid is £, which is usually written with a single cross-bar, as on sterling bank notes, though  a double cross-bar (₤) is also sometimes seen. The pound sign derives from Librae in Roman £sd units (librae, solidi, denarii) used for the three items. Finally the British currency system got decimal. Believe it or not 1965   The Board of Trade and the Confederation of British Industry declared their full support for metrication and decimalisation. The Metrication Board was set up in 1969 and currency decimalisation took place on Decimal Day, 15 February 1971. Norman Davies shows that opposition to metrication aroused passionate feelings in a number of


disparate quarters.  One group, BWMA, believed that compulsory metrication constituted an 


attack on British culture and a breach on civil rights. 


DOLLAR = buck

NEWS4. At the start of the year, one buck  would get you 1.17 Canadian dollars, which was a pleasant surprise to American tourists, including the man who exclaimed, "I had no idea those people up north had their own money."

Our more ecological money, the 100-euro note,  to illustrate our piece of news on the euro:

NEWS5. Fighting fire with fire: 

IT WAS the Great Fire of 1666 that prompted the establishment of London’s modern fire brigade, organised at first by private insurers, but later coming under public management. In Paris, on the initiative of Louis XV, the pompiers have been fighting fires since 1733. Few Europeans today could imagine a city without a public firefighting service, or a home without fire insurance. But when the architects of the single currency built the euro, they thought that sharing the risk of disaster might merely encourage recklessness and even arson. Better than this moral hazard was to make each country master of its own fate. Why should those living in brick houses save the feckless in their wooden huts? 

NEWS6. Canada Boldly Goes With New Five Dollar Coin  THE ROYAL CANADIAN MINT– Canada is ready to phase-in the country’s first five-dollar circulation coin. Gaining approval and royal ascent for the proclamation authorizing the issue and prescribing the composition, dimensions, and design of the new coin has been a long trek, but with Canada’s continuing mission to reduce the amount of paper money in circulation, a five-dollar coin was the next step. To coin a phrase, “It was only logical.”  

For some humour related issues :

Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

For the pronunciation of the euro (great diversity indeed, see wikipedia here)

Mind you, the bestest joke, the symbol of Dollar is ..... correct which spelling does not include any "S"!!!!! 

KEY: these news are fake, news 4 & 6.

some are true: news 1, 2, 3 & 5.

Aakash tablets at $35 in India

India has launched what it says is the world's cheapest touch-screen tablet computer, priced at just $35 (£23).  (as read in the BBC)

Also from Indian news   or peni.io

Costing a fraction of Apple's iPad, the subsidised Aakash is aimed at students. It supports web browsing and video conferencing, has a three-hour battery life and two USB ports, but questions remain over how it will perform. Officials hope the computer will give digital access to students in small towns and villages across India, which lags behind its rivals in connectivity.

At the launch in the Indian capital, Delhi, Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal handed out 500 Aakash (meaning sky) tablets to students who will test them. He said the government planned to buy 100,000 of the tablets. It hopes to distribute 10 million of the devices to students over the next few years.

"The rich have access to the digital world, the poor and ordinary have been excluded. Aakash will end that digital divide," Mr Sibal said.

The company says it will also offer a commercial version of the tablet, called UbiSlate. It is expected to hit the shelves later this year, retailing for about $60. The Aakash has been developed by UK-based company DataWind and Indian Institute of Technology (Rajasthan). It is due to be assembled in India, at DataWind's new production centre in the southern city of Hyderabad. "Our goal was to break the price barrier for computing and internet access," DataWind CEO Suneet Singh Tuli said. "We've created a product that will finally bring affordable computing and internet access to the masses."

Usability questions

Mr Sibal says the device will enhance learning in India. Experts say it does have the potential to make a huge difference to the country's education, particularly in rural areas where schools and students do not have access to libraries and up-to-date information.

Hoy como Ayer: Miguel Servet 25 septiembre hace 500 años

La sombra de Servet -Gregorio Moran,  excelso como casi siempre

SABATINAS INTEMPESTIVAS

En un país donde se celebran los aniversarios de batallas medievales difíciles de ubicar, de emperadores que pasaron por aquí, de reyes imaginados, de aristócratas dedicados a la caza mayor y a la pesca de género, de escritores mediocres, de descubrimientos imposibles, de santos de dudosa reputación, resulta que hay un hombre que constituye por sí solo la medida del intelectual más audaz y comprometido de su tiempo, y ocurre que ni se acuerdan de él. Como si no hubiera existido; ni siquiera una antigualla de la que hablaban, en voz baja, los maestros liberales antes de los tiempos del cólera.

Miguel Servet cumplió 500 años el jueves de la semana pasada, y todas las escuelas de España, sin excepción -públicas o concertadas-, deberían haber dedicado la jornada a explicarles a los chavales, si es que aún es posible, que hubo un hombre que resumió en su persona, con su vida y su atroz destino, lo que una sociedad llamaría un intelectual libre. Quizá el primero en nuestra malhadada historia.

El año pasado apareció en castellano el libro de Michel Winock El siglo de los intelectuales (Edhasa 55,75) (11,86 euros en francés con amazon.es) , .... . Leyéndolo uno se admira de muchas cosas, pero como español, de algo especialísimo para nosotros: la continuidad. ... hay un encabalgamiento de reflexiones, de preocupaciones, de vida cultural, que ni tuvimos ni soñamos. Nuestra historia intelectual, tanto o más que la política, no alcanza a ser espasmódica; es tartamuda, cuando no autista 

Miguel Servet fue un tipo que nació en 1511 en zona aragonesa bilingüe, (Miguel Serveto  Conesa Villanueva de Aragón -ahora de Sigena) que dominaba por tanto el castellano y el catalán, que se convirtió en expertísimo conocedor del griego y el hebreo, que hablaba francés, porque estudió allá, que manejaba el italiano porque había viajado a la cuna del mundo renacentista, y que escribía en latín, la lengua franca de la época. Le tocó vivir un momento intelectual caracterizado por los debates bíblicos, las traducciones y versiones de los antiguos....

Las disquisiciones de Miguel Servet sobre el asunto, miles de páginas publicadas en castellano por Ángel Alcalá, en Zaragoza, hoy me dejan frío. Lo que me fascina es el personaje. Su arrojo, su inteligencia, su cultura, su curiosidad científica -durante años se le atribuyó el descubrimiento de la circulación de la sangre, un hallazgo inconmensurable para su época-. Ejerció de médico durante años, huyendo de las ortodoxias católicas y protestantes, porque le tocó vivir los años borrascosos de la Reforma luterana y calvinista, y la Contrarreforma. Frente a un Erasmo, cauto, sabio, prudente hasta la cobardía, tacaño incluso para los gestos, calculador; si salvó la vida fue probablemente por su negativa a viajar a España. Le tenían preparada hasta la hoguera y había un fraile que estaba obsesionado con eso, el reverendo Zúñiga. Servet era lo contrario.

Servet representa un modelo de intelectual en tiempos imposibles, lo que le convierte en algo deslumbrante. Su rigor en el tratamiento de los textos, su valentía para defender sus pensamientos, su temeridad en la creencia de que la discusión entre personas inteligentes no tenía límites. Y los tenía, vaya si los tenía. Menéndez Pelayo, que es una referencia obligada aún hoy sobre lo heterodoxos españoles, lo cual dice mucho de nuestra miseria cultural, llega a llamarle “caballero andante de la Teología”, y en un arrebato emotivo le hace “hermano de Platón y de Hegel”, categoría que al tratarse de hombre tan reaccionario como Don Marcelino es más que un elogio, casi una canonización intelectual.   ...   relata en unos párrafos, memorables por su cinismo, que de haber venido a España probablemente hubiera librado la vida. Olvida, con premeditación y alevosía, que Miguel Servet  tendrá el terrible privilegio de ser quemado doblemente. En efigie, por los católicos de la francesa Vienne, y dos meses más tarde, en vivo y en directo, por los calvinistas suizos.

El calvario de Servet alcanza la categoría de la muerte de Cristo. Condenado inicuamente a la hoguera por Calvino y los suyos, será paseado por la ciudad de Ginebra, acusado de hereje, encadenado y puesto en una pira junto con sus libros. Cuando se enteró de que iba a ser quemado solicitó el hacha, la decapitación, pero aquellos cristianos no le ahorraron el sufrimiento. Pusieron leña verde, para que durara más la agonía. Aseguran que pasó de las dos horas. Atado a su cabeza colocaron su último libro, Restitución del cristianismo, para que ayudara a disolver su cerebro y su talento. De ese libro, del que había editado mil ejemplares, sólo sobrevivieron dos. Los demás fueron quemados por católicos y protestantes.

Pero lo que más conmueve, lo que proyecta la sombra de Servet hasta hoy mismo es que mientras recorría la ciudad de Ginebra, encadenado y destrozado, tras dos meses de cruel encarcelamiento, en un par de ocasiones se paró la comitiva para preguntarle si se retractaba. Un intelectual, en 1553, con 42 años recién cumplidos, en la flor de la vida intelectual y humana, respondió algo tan insólito como “no”. Y no es que perdiera las prebendas; perdía lo único que le quedaba, la vida. ¿Alguien duda de que hubiéramos debido dedicar las lecciones del pasado 25 de septiembre en escuelas, institutos y universidades, a un hombre que exento de todo fanatismo defendió el derecho a discrepar hace 500 años?
links: Michael Servetus Institute
completa página a Wikipedia:   Servetus.