Obesity around the world - part III

In this part I’ll present you different possibilities for active spending of your free time. I‘ll also tell you which my favorites are.

Probably most of you spend most of the day sitting in front of a computer, in classes or something like this. It’s normal for students.

So if you want to be fit and feel better you must start exercising/doing sport. It’s not as difficult or expensive as for example fast diet products. Your physical activity should be at least 2-3 times a week for about 30-45 min, but every day is the best. It depends on what you want to do. Now I’ll show you what you can do.



If you want to have a good condition or reduce your weight you can start from home exercises or, if there is good weather, you can do running, jogging or cycling. Some people say that a good idea is to do it before breakfast. Your workout should take at least 30 minutes if you want to lose weight. The tempo shouldn’t be too high and should be constant. Another popular thing you can do is Nordic walking. I’ve chosen running and I do it 2-3 times a week in the summer. The best thing is these activities are free :-).

http://www.trendz.pl/files/imagecache/wide2/files/gallery7810Jogging.jpg

Another interesting activity is swimming. It’s good for all muscles. It also helps you to reduce your weight. If you can’t swim you can do an aqua aerobic. I usually go to a swimming pool in autumn and winter about 2-3 times a week. It’s very relaxing. After swimming you can go to Jacuzzi and sauna. Swimming pool is not very expensive. It costs from about 10-18 zł for 1-2 hours if you are a student.

http://robertrosenthal.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/08/17/michael_phelps_swimming_bejing_2008.jpg

Next thing I do in winter is volleyball. I rent a school gym hall with my friends once a week for 1,5h. It’s great fun! Warm-up is quite intensive so it’s great to improve your condition. Costs are low because we are sharing them for 10-12 people. It’s about 20-30 zł per month. It could be any other game like: (indoor) soccer, basketball , handball, unihockey, etc.

http://polish-blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/volleyball1.jpg

At the end my favorite activity, which is the gym. I have gone to the gym 3-4 times a week for about 3 years. It’s great for men, but there are quite a lot women who go to the gym too. Women can also go to fitness trainings. In the gym you can work with all parts of your muscles. An interesting thing is that if you want to, for example, lose weight doing belly exercises, your result will be poor. You can’t reduce fat in one part of a body. I’ll said you should do an aerobic workout (such as jogging or cycling) and it will gives you a proper result. For me the gym is also a social place. I have a lot of friends there and I can talk with them during breaks between exercises. My gym costs about 130 zł / month for students. It’s the most expensive thing from this text but it’s a normal price.

http://www.gym411.com/images/fitness-top-1.jpg

If you already play any sport or do another activity – good for you. If not – you should start. You probably have a lot exercises (no time, no money, no place, etc.) but I’m sure you can find 30 min / 2-3 times a week. Money is not necessary and place is not a problem if you really look for it.

At the end some tips about diet and workouts from really “hardcore” body builder – Robert Burneika :-)



I hope you will change your lifestyle to healthy one after reading this presentation. It’s easy and obvious for most of you but it’s hard to start. If you change your habits it will become normal. I hope my advice was useful.

Questions:

1. 1. Do you play any sport or do any other activity? What is it?
2. 2. What kind of sport did you choose to pass your sport classes in school?
3. 3. Does anyone of your family or friends leads a healthy, active lifestyle? Is she/he satisfied?

Forex Part 3- How to start

Knowledge

Theoretically in order to start you just need a broker and trading platform but in fact most important thing is knowledge.

If you are interested in trading Forex is strongly advise you to read much more information before you start trading as otherwise there is no difference between trading Forex and going to casino.

Personally I’ve learned from this website: http://www.babypips.com/school/ and I can really recommend it because it helped me understand a lot.

There you can learn such things as technical indicators, support and resistance levels etc...

After you learn these things you should start working on your strategy, you can try to develop your own or learn some existing ones.

You can look on these forums for them :

Forex Factory
Forex Navigator (Polish)

Broker


Broker is a dealer through which you interact with market, there are two types of brokers: ECN and Market Makers but the first ones are only for people with deposits of $50000+.

You can find many brokers on the internet, but before you choose one you should compare them.

Characteristics of good broker:

-Low spreads
-No other fees
-Provides demo\practice account where you can play with virtual money.

You should also read opinions of other people on forums such as provided above to make sure that broker is reliable and does not use any dirty tricks.

Platform


There are two types of platforms (software for trading) – broker-dependent and broker independent.
Choice of platform usually depends on your broker, but some of them provide multiple platforms.

Personally I use MetaTrader 4 as it allows use of automated trading so I could use my programming skills to create automatic robots which would play using my strategy.

List of steps
-Learn the basics

-Sign up for some demo account so you can try things you learn in practice

-Develop a strategy

-Test it for at least a month (or maybe more depending how stable it is) on demo account

-Find a good broker

-Start trading real money, you should start from minimal ammounts and increase your deposit after some time if your strategy is working fine.

Summary
I hope my presentation gave you an entry point to the world of Forex and I’d be glad if you would learn further. But please be carefull, I don't want you to curse me for losing all your life savings on Forex :)

Here are some questions for you but if you have any questions regarding Forex please ask them.

Questions

1) Do you know any famous Forex trader?

2) What do you think about Forex robots?

3) Would you buy Forex robot if you were 100% certain that it works or maybe would you rather write your own?

4) Would you play against currency of your home country if it would be profitable?

5) If you had considerable income from Forex would you pay taxes in your home country (19% of all your income in Poland) or in some tax heaven where they are much lower (For example fixed ammount of about $100-$500 per year in State of Delaware) provided it's 100% legal?

Forex Part II – How does it work

In this part I’ll explain you how do you make trades on Forex and when profit comes from.

Don’t worry about calculations, in practice you don’t have to compute anything as computers do this for you.


Basics


Currency Pairs

When playing on Forex you trade on currency pairs, for example EUR\USD which at the moment is priced at 1.4283.

It means that one unit of base currency (Euro) is sold for 1.42833 units of quote currency (USD)

Orders


You can start two types of orders: Long order and Short order, Long means buying currency pair, Short means selling currency pair.

Please note you can sell currency pair even if you don’t have it, it means you can profit from both ups and downs so there is no such thing as crisis or depression on Forex, you can always make money :).

So if you predict that Euro will rise against Dollar you go long and if you think it will fall you go short.

Bid\Ask and spread

If you go to currency exchange you will notice that there are two prices for reach currency – buy and sell, difference between these two is spread – profit of the currency exchange.

Same thing is in Forex, but they are called Bid and Ask. You open long order on ask price and close on bid price, short order starts at bid price and close on ask price. Spread is difference between these two prices.

Pip

Pip is a smallest digit of currency pair, for example for EUR\USD its 4th place after zero. Profit or loss is usually presented in pips, for example if price will raise from 1.4283 to 1.4300 you will earn 17 pips.

Leverage



Size of your trade is multiplied by leverage which is different for every broker.
Some have 1:20 while others have 1:400. For example if you have 1:100 it means that you can make trades 100 times bigger than your deposit so with $100 you can make trade of $10000.

Simple Example

Let’s say you have $1000 at your disposal, predict that price of euro will go up and decide to profit on this.
From our broker we get following information: Leverage is 1:100 Bid price is 1.4267 and Ask Price is 1.4268.
We open buy order (go long) on Ask price so we buy (100* 1000) /1.4268 = 70086.91 euros.
Let’s assume we were right and euro rise by 100 pips to 1.4367/1.4368 and we decide to close this order.
It’s close on new Bid price which is 1.4367 so our 70086.91 euros is now worth about $100694.

We’ve just earned $694 dollars for one trade that’s about 70% profit for a single trade which could have been active only for few minutes...



On the other hand if we were unlucky it would be 70% loss for a single trade…

These high figures are result of the leverage and that's why some people consider Forex to be very risky.

If you have bad money management and lose some trades (which will happen sooner or later) you can reduce your deposit to zero in few hours.

Normally traders don’t use their entire deposits for single trades, instead use about 1%-3% per trade which is still very profitable and much safer.

Summary

I hope I’ve managed to explained basics of Forex in these two posts, in next one I’ll give you information how to start, where to look for information, strategies etc.

If you don’t understand something, have any questions related to Forex please write them in comments.

Obesity around the world -part II

In the first part of my presentation I tried to point out the problem of obesity around the world. Second part of my presentation focuses on the ways to prevent obesity, namely proper diet. However I do not want to give you any advice what diet you should use to get slimmer. I would like to talk about the so called “miraculous diets” that people use to lose weight in a very short time.

Have you ever dreamt of losing 10 kg in 2 weeks without much work?

Below you can find a commercial of one of the best known products that help you lose weight:

http://image.absoluteastronomy.com/images/encyclopediaimages/s/sl/slimfastlabel.jpg

Believe it or not but with slim fast diet you are supposed to eat 6 meals a day. 2 meals should be slim fast products and one snack. The rest of the meals should include one fourth protein, one fourth starch and half of vegetables.

Slim fast is only one of many diet programs used to help people lose weight. Apart from slim fast there are also many other easily accessible products that help you better burn calories and lose weight.



Do you know any of such products or miraculous diets? Have you ever used any of them?

Unfortunately, in today’s world TV has created an image of people that are forever young, beautiful and slim. In most cases this picture of celebrities being almost perfect is achieved with the help of photoshop. However, teenagers look at those distorted pictures and strive to be just like their idols.



This phenomenon might have very negative results leading to health problems with young people.

Please do not let anybody fool you, fast diets help only in the short run. There are many downsides of fast diets. The most common ones are as follows:

- You might lose weight quickly but when you stop taking care for yourself you gain weight even quicker
- Most of diets can lead to your starvation because you only eat shakes and a piece of fruit, many people claim that they are simply hungry while dieting. So if you think that you will be able to eat 6 meals and get slimmer you are wrong
- Most quick diets are expensive.
- Not everybody likes the taste of such diet – if you do not like the taste of it how can you continue eating something that you don’t like for a long time?
- Diets can also lead to many illnesses and in extreme cases cause anorexia or bulimia
- Products such as slim fast contain huge amounts of sugar that can cause diabetes when used for a long time

The best way to lead a healthy lifestyle is simply to take care of your body in a natural way. That means lots of exercising. In my next part of the presentation I will present some sport disciplines that can help you stay fit and healthy without using any of the “miraculous diets”

Questions:

1. Do you think that miraculous diets can help in losing weight?
2. Have you ever tried any miraculous diet? What was the result?
3. What other ways of losing weight do you know?
4. Do you think that using products such as slim fast is necessary when trying to lose weight?

Obesity around the world - part I

In the world full of temptations it is getting harder and harder to understand why we live and what we live for. Some people live for money, some people live for fame and some are made to eat.

Nowadays, more and more people take over healthy lifestyle as their way of life. There is no question that such a lifestyle should be admired. However this trend is only beginning to become more popular. There are still thousands, if not millions of people who are overweight. And this is the problem I would like to focus on today.
Do you think that people in Poland are obese?

If your answer to the above question is yes, please have a look at the video I have included below:



As you may already know, the highest number of obese people is found in the USA , Mexico and Australia. Over 74% of people living in the USA are overweight. In Australia there are over 67% of obese people. In Poland this number is not as dramatic as in other countries since it is “only” 19% of population that is overweight. However one has to admit that even in Poland the problem does exist.

Please refer to the diagram below for more information on the percentage of obese people around the world.

http://www.diabetesfamilies.com/sites/default/files/global_obesity_map.gif

It is also very important to realize what causes obesity. According to WHO definition obesity is the lack of balance between the number of calories consumed and burnt. Among most common reasons for obesity we can find: lack of movement, unhealthy diet, genetic factors. It is also important to realize that obesity is a disease and that it should be medically treated.

According to WHO – world health organization the number of obese people since 1980 has doubled so far. Even though there are more and more people who try to lead healthy lifestyle it does not affect other people who prefer to be overweight.

Not so long ago, Morgan Spurlock - a film director, made a movie called supersize me. The director decided that he will be eating at McDdonald’s every single day for 30 days. The results were extremely harmful for him. His doctor told him to stop this experiment due to health issues.

http://www.vismaya-maitreya.pl/uhuhuhuhuh.jpg

Below you can find shortened version of what was included in the movie supersize me:



For more information on the problem of obesity you can refer to WHO website.

Questions:

1. Is there any way people can fight obesity?

2. What do you think will happen in the future, is obesity going to disappear?

3. What healthy lifestyles method do you know?

4. Have you ever had any problems with your weight?

Microwaving. Everything.

So I accidentally found this channel on youtube. First I thought that some - not so bright – Americans pretending to be Arabs and microwave every thing they get in their hands. I also thought: wait till Bin Laden see this! They will suffer from making fun about the Arabs. But then, after couple of watched episodes I've got revelation - they are really Arabs. (:D) And yes, they really microwave everything. And now I don't think they are not so bright, they probably don't have any better idea (just like “Dancing Matt”) and they want to arise on the internet.

With all responsibility I can say that this material/channel is pure sh*t with some flashes of coolness.

Some of the videos are cool like microwaving a lighting bulb:

I love the effect. But I agree with one of the youtuber's comment:

“its as if you can see the microwaves at some points like 1.22

And yep, mercury vapours give drain bamage.. awsome vid tho!"
(I don't understand the first part but agree with the second).

Some (videos) are stupid (“and that's like my opinion, man”) – microwaving a 100 pack of cds:

When I saw it I thought to myself: much better effect you will get from microwaving one CD. Not that I tried to microwave CDs. I just watched clip of microwaving one cd 2 days ago. And that's how I found this guy(s). And I'm not alone with that opinion because one of the comments is:

“Just saying this dude but this video was kinda weak. Nothing special I'd rather watch one microwaved for the spark show rather then a bubble show. :/”

I think that this kind of activity on the internet is more ambitious than dancing in some exotic parts of the world and filming it (I again talking about “Dancing Matt”). And of course I didn't know that Arabs can laugh about themselves.

So if you you are bored, in TV/internet is nothing on – watch some things being treated with microwave!

Q: do you ever microwaved something other than food? :)

Forex Part I – What is this about

This semester I’d like to discuss topic in which I’m interested since some time – Forex
I’ll try to show you what it is and give some information how you can start trading.




What is Forex?
Forex (Foreign Exchange) is internatonal currency market, daily trading volume is about $4 Trillion, it’s around 53 times bigger than New York Stock Exchange and such huge volume provides almost unlimited liquidity.



It’s decentralized operates 24h/5days a week and profits can be dramatically increased thanks to leverage.

Why you should trade Forex?


• It’s open 24h a day, orders are usually executed instantly and you can open order and close it in the same second
• Thanks to huge liquidity it’s almost impossible to be stuck with position.
• Financial leverage means that even with $100 you can open orders for $50000 and take profit (or loss:)) from this $50000.
• There are almost no barriers of entry, most brokers have minimum deposit of 25$, some even don’t have such requirement
• You can practice on demo accounts
• Transaction costs are minimal because most brokers only take spread (I’ll explain this in next part).
• You can trade from everywhere, from Manhattan to Thailand as long as you have internet.
• It’s taxed under capital gains tax (e.g. “Podatek Belki” – 19% in Poland) instead of progressive personal income tax

Why you shouldn't?

• 95% of traders lose money due to lack of planning, strategy, discipline or bad money management
• You will never have 100% success rate, even best traders lose sometimes.
• It’s not for people on low income, you must be able afford to lose money you invest in Forex


I’ll summarize this in two points:
• It’s not get rich quick scheme
• It’s skill which takes time to learn.

Questions

1) Have you ever heard about Forex? If so did you ever played for practice or for real?
2) Do you think you can trade Forex?
3) If you were professional Forex trader would you play on events such as earthquake in Japan to make profit (It doesn’t hurt anyone but you make profit because market is moving in specified direction because of such events).

How much do you know your mind? - part II

I would like to show second part How much do you know your mind (I will remind you fist part is available at: http://pjwstk1ms.blogspot.com/2011/04/how-much-do-you-know-your-mind.html).

Today I would like to focus on nicer part -examples and facts. Please enjoy…

Here some examples of illusion. I can called them the most famous.

#1 Geometrical illusions:

The gray line is horizontal but appears to tilt counterclockwise in the upper image. In the lower image, the horizontal gray lines appear to tilt clockwise, counterclockwise, clockwise, counterclockwise from the top to the bottom, respectively. When the line is black, the illusions is called the Münsterberg illusion.

The parallel line appear to curve outward.

The horizontal lines appear to tilt to the right and the left alternately. This illusion is characterized by acute-angle expansion.

The square appears to be distorted in which the right side appears to be tapered.

Are these lines straight and parallel?

I know it’s hard to believe but all these lines are straight, and parallel to one another.

The reason that you see the lines as wavy it’s because of positioning this white and black squares within the larger one.

Look at the picture one more time. The tiny black squares are always positioned closest to the larger black squares. The tiny white squares lie closest to the large white squares.

This illusion is created by your brain in a similar manner to Richard Gregory’s café wall illusion.

You see the lines as wavy because of the clever positioning of the tiny black and white squares within the larger main squares.

Notice the tiny black squares are always positioned closest to the larger black squares. The tiny white squares lie closest to the large white squares.

Your eyes and brain detects and accentuates the small gap that lies between one of the tiny squares and the line dividing the main squares.

This has the effect of producing lots of wedges, which your brain puts together and concludes you are looking at non-parallel wavy lines.

#2

Lift your right foot a few inches from the floor and then begin to move it in a clockwise direction. While you’re doing this, use a finger your right index finger to draw a number 6 in the air. Your foot will turn in an anticlockwise direction and there’s nothing you can do about it!

The left side of your brain, which controls the right side of your body, is responsible for rhythm and timing. The left side of your brain cannot deal with operating two opposite movements at the same time and so it combines them into a single motion.

#3 Depth perception

Depth perception is the visual ability to perceive the world in three dimensions (3D). Looking at a sight that you have not seen before or entering into a 3d cinema with one eyes closed will alter the way your mind perceives things.

#4

Stare at the central point (plus sign) of the black and white picture for atleast 30 seconds and then look at a wall near you, you will see a bright spot, twinkle a few times, what do you see? or even who do you see?

#5

Stare at the eye of the red parrot while you slowly count to 20, then immediately look at one spot in the empty birdcage. The faint, ghostly image of a blue-green bird should appear in the cage. Try the same thing with the green cardinal, and a faint magenta bird should appear.

When an image is looked at for a length of time (usually around 30 seconds) and then replaced with a white field, one type pf an effect called an afterimage can be seen. The common explanation given for an afterimage is that the photoreceptors (rods and cones) in the eye become “fatigued”, and do not work as well as the those photoreceptors that were not affected (the “fatigue” is actually caused by the temporary bleaching of the light sensitive pigments contained within the photoreceptors) This results in the information that is provided by the photoreceptors not being in balance, causing the afterimages to appear. As the photoreceptors become less “fatigued”, which takes between ten and thirty seconds, the balance is recovered, resulting in the afterimage disappearing.

Now do another trick to confuse your photoreceptors.

This will temporarily blind you from one eye :-) but don’t be afraid it won't harm and only temporary. Go into a room, shut the door and turn out the lights so that the room is mostly dark. Wait until your eyes adapt to the darkness. You should be able to make out the basic shapes of the room from the tiny bit of light coming in from under the door. Next, close your right eye and cover it with your hand. Turn the light on, keeping your eye closed and covered. Leave the light on for about a minute or until your left eye has adapted to the light. Uncover your eye and look around the darkened room.
What do you see? What you might experience is an illusion discovered by researcher Uta Wolfe in which it seems that your left eye is closed, even though it is open.
The explaination to this is the visual cycle that takes time to be adapted, when it is not adapted as for the left eye, the eye will send wrong signals to the brain thus image would be darkened for the left eye until it adapts.

~~ Few years ago that guy become most famous magician ever. Using the imperfection of human brain as a part of the job? Not so bad, I think. ~~

Questions:

1) Do you know some other illusion? If yes, fell free to share...

Do you know Polish food? part III

http://www.rozrywka.stetinum.pl/pl/wiadomosci/kulinarny_szczecin_wiadomosci/regionalne_przysmaki_na_walach

According to a social research Omnimas, held by TNS OBOP, the Poles at the age of 15 and more, for the question ‘Which cuisine do they value the most? ” in most cases they answered Polish . Over 90% of them as favourite dishes have indicated the Polish traditional food. The next most frequently mentioned cuisines are Italian (about 27%) and Exotic (about 17%). Certainly we can regard ourselves as food patriots. Furthermore, the research has revealed also that even being abroad, we prefer to eat some dishes similar to Polish or prepare the meal individually. In Ireland and UK, the number of Polish shops and bakeries is growing.

Nevertheless our knowledge about tradition and customs is surprisingly poor. As a national meal we indicate bigos, żurek, pork chop, oscypek or marinated herring but regional food we rarely mention . And it's a pity because almost every year in external competitions our local food wins a lot of prizes. For this reason I would like to present some of the extraordinary regional food and encourage you to go in search of some new and unusual tastes of Poland.

Raków it is the only place in Poland where you can taste such a strange dish as dzionie. It is an old traditional paschal recipe sneaked by Polish housewives from Jews. It is a bowel stuffed by matzah (wheat cake) and a little bit of meat and bouillon. It looks like a sausage but it tastes definitely better. The recipe is a great and guarded secret.

Smolcorze is the next uncommon dish which has won a first award in Polish regional contest in 2005. Fresh mushrooms fried with homemade butter and aromatic herbs after the process of cooling becomes quite tough and looks like lard. It is a delicious additive to fresh and crunchy bread.

Potato donut is something which you can fall in love with. It has nothing in common with the taste of fat buds that we know very well. Filled with rose jam donut is a real tidbit during the Christmas and local festivities. Other traditional delicacies from the region of Kielce are crumbly cake called Sadloki that took its name from fat. It sounds a little bit fatty but in fact sadloki are not more caloric than donuts.

In Poland we have hundreds of unusual and surprising dishes. I started my culinary journey two years ago and I am still impressed by the Polish
cuisine.

I used informations from:
http://wiadomosci.mediarun.pl/artykul/badania-badania,kuchnia-polska-ulubiona-kuchnia- polakow,4849,2,1,1.html
http://www.money.pl/gospodarka/wiadomosci/artykul/ polacy;za;granica;wybieraja;swojskosc,81,0,215889.html
from a book "Przewodnik po produktach regionalnych Ziemi Daleszycko-Rakowskiej"
Photos of regional food: Jan Kuczyński


Do you know any unusual or even forgotten Polish dish?
Would you like to try some of the dishes that I’ve described?

Have you ever meet Matt?

I finally had.

Few years ago I sow first ‘stupid’ movie about dancing across the world guy.

Silly not a specially talented guy. Making movies about himself performing some pathetic moves and called it dancing.

In those days I said ‘hee?!’ and went further.

~~~

Few days ago I accidentally found his web page over the Internet… and I stack there for hours. The idea is simple but impressive – and I REALLY ENJOY that very much.

Programmer form USA was traveling abroad and decided to do something different. Most of tourists take photos of themselves with a postcards, souvenirs and monuments. He decided to dance. After the trip he putted his vacation movie on the Internet web page. After that his friends started to ask a question: hey… where the hell is Matt now?

That’s the story about the guy who started the business just traveling.

If you enjoy above you can easily find more information on his web page: WWW.WHERETHEHELLISMATT.COM

Should government legalize marijuana? Part III

Marijuana’s impact on health

When I started researching that topic I wasn’t really sure of what I would come across. My previous views were pretty much like others: people who smoke marijuana on a regular basis are mellow, slow in reaction etc.

That led me into conclusion that smoking pot leaves serious impact on ones brain as well as health in general.

Meanwhile, the researchers of marijuana and its effects on human brain claim that it is too hard to find out the real effects of marijuana with the help of the techniques we know. It is still unclear how chronic and constant usage of marijuana affects the brain and its functioning. It will take some time to develop certain techniques that could help us examine the effects of marijuana usage.

Below is very interesting video by legitimate professor stating that marijuana (some parts of it) are actually good for the brain.

Q. What is your opinion about that, after hearing the above would you agree that marijuana in small doses can be good for you, just like coffee?

What is marijuana addictive potential?

Estimates from research suggest that about 9 percent of users become addicted to marijuana. This number increases among those who start young (to about 17 percent) and among daily users (25-50 percent).

What are the long term effects of marijuana abuse?

Effects on respiratory system are about the same as smoking cigarettes. Chronic use of marijuana can reduce testosterone level in men. In woman overuse of marijuana can affect the menstrual cycle.

Also I would like to present a few statistics about marijuana cause of deaths as compared to other abusive substances.

Why does a natural plantation like Marijuana that is less harmful than tobacco has to be banned ?

Perhaps, instead of legalizing marijuana we should ban alcohol, cigarettes and other harmful

(and yet legal) substances? What is your opinion on that?