Some people like to buy new phones

Some people like to buy new phones, new desktop or other latest devices. To what extent do you agree or disagree? I firmly disagree of always buying the latest devices. It is irrational to buy a new phone every year when this new phone will have almost the same features as the phone released the year before. Not only it is the same phone, but the price is extremely expensive, and you are paying for that price because it is the latest phone of its generation. I am happy that innovation led us to the state of technology that we are experiencing today, but excess of everything is bad. The problem is companies that are trying to sell us these things are good at creating an environment that will want you to always buy their products. This phenomena is sometimes called the commodification of technology. These latest phones or devices are not really commodities, but companies spends a lot of money and effort to make them look like commodities, by repeatedly telling us to buy the products using advertisements. The thing with repetition is sometimes your brain will think an idea or a concept is true or valid when it keeps on seeing or hearing them every time, and that is a bad thing. Advertisements come in different forms. They are pervasive and ubiquitous, meaning they are part of our daily lives that sometimes we just unconsciously accept them. So I personally believe that this trend that we are talking about is a bad idea. Let us buy stuff if it fits our needs, not because of some social pressure or any other reasons.

Nowadays the increased amount of garbage (waste) is a real concern

Nowadays the increased amount of garbage (waste) is a real concern. Why is this happening? What can be done to resolve this? Production of goods and services will always come out with waste material. And the more we produce, the more waste we generate. The increase of population, and the increase of the people' purchasing power, and the development of society in general all contributed to the continuing build-up of global waste. And as long as we progress, the only realistic thing that we can do is to minimize waste, instead of removing them completely. I will categorize the resolutions into two. The first one is individual resolution, through reusing and recycling. Even when we are kids we are told to do these things, specially on plastics, simple because it does not degrade well. Recycling and reusing are good ideas but they can only help in a certain degree as a whole. It has little effect on waste management, but it is has more personal connections with people, which make it look like it has a lot of impact in mainstream media as well as in social media. The second one is thru laws of states to reduce waste. Concrete recent examples are laws to ban single use plastics and laws to reduce overall carbon footprint. This I think is more important because it will reduce waste in order of magnitude compared to individual resolution, but at the expense of small revenue loss of few companies and organizations. In conclusion, both solutions is important and should work together side by side to attain the goal of minimizing waste all over the world.

In the past museums store information about culture and history

In the past museums store information about culture and history. However, nowadays this information can be found through Internet. And, therefore, there is no need in museums. Do you agree or disagree? It is true that access to information about culture and history is easily accessible on the Internet, but seeing actual things in a museum has more impact on a person compared to just reading something online. Particularly if a person has a very high interest on the topic or a study, the person would prefer to go and look at the real things in person. You can also think of the idea of just listening to a song versus going to a concert to watch the actual band, or going to a store to shop apparels rather than to just buy the clothes online. And there are reasons why people still go to church instead of just watch mass in a podcast or in a video stream. There are reasons why tourists flock to tourist spots when they can just read about them online, same reason why people are longing to meet friends in real life rather than to just communicate in social media. I personally disagree when they say that there is no need for museums. People who go to museums will have more personal connections to the things they see, and that makes them more interested, which in turn will want them to study more about these things. Seeing actual things makes them contemplate or reflect. It makes them emotional, but focused. In fact, most people in general retain memories for a long time about things they see in museums. So I don't see museums going away soon, I believe they will be here for a very long time.

People are using a lot of online language translation apps

2019-09-01: Task 2 People are using a lot of online language translation apps. Are the advantages more than disadvantages of such services. I can say that the advantages are short term and the disadvantages is long term. It is very convenient to use a translation app to translate an unknown language to you to another language you know. For example, you travelled to China for vacation and went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. The challenge is they do not have any english menu. So you use a translation app by taking a picture of the menu and it automatically translates the words into english. You successfully ordered food without learning Chinese. In the future, people won't get interested or motivated to learn new languages as translating languages using applications becomes more and more convenient and ubiquitous. The primary idea why a new language is learned is to have efficient communication for trade. But even this fundamental reason can be offset by this new technology. The problem of this technology is there will be lesser incentive to learn a new language for the reason being to learn a new culture. The first thing to do if you want to learn the culture is to learn the language. If you are now familiar with the language, other things will be easily accessible. It will be hard to integrate with a culture if you do not know the language. These kinds of technology will help us do things easier and easier. In general that is the role of technology. But in the long term it will have negative effects on society as a whole.

Culture is turning similar around the world

2019-09-07: Task 2 Culture is turning similar around the world. What are the reasons? Is it a positive trend or a negative trend? In reality culture from developed countries is continuously distributed around the world. This phenomena is tied to globalization, where culture from a country is intentionally spread to other countries to sell products. Let me give an example. Japanese culture is very rich but the accessibility of the information in Japan is restricted. Their products are mostly created for local consumption. They really did not advertise much outside their country. But in South Korea, k-pop instantly became a hit specially in southeast asian countries because South Korea deliberately extended the targeted consumers outside the country. They made access of Korean TV series, movies, fashion, and products very easy, particularly online. They examine cultures of other countries, and studied what products will get accepted by a certain market. And starting with the advent of the internet, information goes out so fast. In the internet people around the world can easily see what other countries are doing, what is popular to them, what is not popular for them, what are the cultural similarity and differences, and so on. Generally I can say that it is a positive trend, but excess of anything is bad. It is good because integration of other culture means broader sense of how you see the world. But a culture crash, or culture that is slowly forgotten due to popular culture influenced by other countries, is unacceptable. You can gladly accept a culture, but make sure that you are still going to enrich and take care of your own.

Adults do less exercise nowadays

2019-09-07: Task 2 Adults do less exercise nowadays. Some think that people can be encouraged to live healthy through sporting events such as Olympics or World Cup. Others think that there are more better ways to encourage adults for exercise. Discuss both views and state your opinion. Olympics and World Cup are competitive sports, and a lot of people are not into competition thru physical activities. So I think these kinds of activities would not generally motivate people to do exercise. Exercise should be part of a person's lifestyle, and encouraging them to incorporate exercise in their daily activities is a better option. Exercise reduces stress and releases endorphins, making a person happier. Daily exercises can be very simple, as simple as stretching, walking, using the stairs, etc. Some will say that they are too busy in school or in work and they do not have time to do exercise. But you just need maybe to do exercise for at least 30 minutes a day. Once your body is used to these activities, it will become "normal" to you and you would want to add more challenge, because it is fun. Being active in life keeps you stay healthy, making you more productive in whatever you do. It also increases your energy, keeping your brain active which might help you to think more clearly and make right decisions. It helps not only you, but also affects people around you, specially your love ones who might rely on you economically. It is proven that a person doing daily exercise encourages friends and peers to also do exercise. I personally have experienced this, where I got hooked into running and swimming because of my peers. A person can get motivated to do exercise either either by competition or just by doing it for health reasons and for fun. I think the latter is applicable to most people and I encourage everyone to do daily exercises.

You want a book that you cannot find

2019-09-07: Task 1 You want a book that you cannot find. Later you found it and it is available in a bookstore in another city. Write a letter to the manager of bookstore. In your letter, you should: give details of book say why you need this book tell how you will pay for it. Dear Manager, I am searching for a book called Dune in bookstores near our vicinity but without any luck. It is a science fiction book written by Frank Herbert in 1965. I really need this book because it is required in one of our class at school. Fortunately I found out that there is an available copy of the book in your bookstore. The problem is your store is in a different city and it is not convenient for me to drive there to just to get the book. I would be so happy if you would consider sending me a copy thru mail. My address is 21 Hazel Park Terraces 02-06 Singapore 678946. I will pay thru bank transfer as soon as possible. Please send me your bank details. Thank you very much! Regards, Rafael