Improv Everywhere | We Cause Scenes

Improv Everywhere | We Cause Scenes:

An interesting aspect of American street theater!  Do you know their shopping mall sketch? It's one of my favorites...


"Improv Everywhere is a New York City-based prank collective that causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places. Created in August of 2001 by Charlie Todd, Improv Everywhere has executed over 100 missions involving tens of thousands of undercover agents."

How about contributing something to the blog! (And leaving a comment!)
see you later

james


'via Blog this'

Introduction to Public Speaking | Coursera

Below is a blurb for what seems like a really interesting course offered by Coursera, one of the MOOCs we talked about in our last class.
Who's interested?

Also:
Who hasn't sent your blurb???  Who hasn't done the surveymonkey feedback?
(Here's the link again to the surveymonkey:  http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VBH6Y5Y )
Three of you are MIA!)

have a good summer!
james
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Introduction to Public Speaking | Coursera:
A report from the National Association of Colleges and Employers shows that employers want job candidates with strong communication skills. Similarly, educational success also requires the ability to articulate your thoughts clearly. In this class, we will study the principles of public speaking; critically examine our own and others’ speeches through interactive practice.

Blurbs:

The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells

Plot: *Do not read if you don't want the book spoiled*
This is a short novel about a man who discovered how to become invisible and progressively becomes a criminal. Being invisible and unable to turn back into a visible human, he cannot actually survive in the open or fit into society and becomes a recluse. In the end, he plans on using his invisibility to instore a reign of terror as he calls it, but he is finally brought down by policemen.

My Opinion: 
I really enjoyed this novel, as I am keen on fantastic literature (not Fantasy). The language the author uses is quite ancient but it is interesting to see how they spoke English a century ago. There is a lot of vocabulary too. The story is really well constructed. It is a very gripping book if you are into this kind of literature and it is funny because Wells explains his theory for becoming invisible. With our optics and chemistry knowledge, I was amused to get to know the ideas they had at that time.

Doctor Jeckyll and Mister Hyde by R.L. Stevenson

Plot: Doctor Jeckyll is obsessed with his two personalities, he wants to become a being of pure good. He thus mixes a drug to separate his good side from his bad self. But as a result, when he takes it, he becomes a being of pure evil for a short period of time, stripped from all laws and rules of society. But he becomes addicted to this drug as it makes him feel free and he feels much better than when he is torn between his good and his bad self.

My Opinion:
The language used is a bit more modern than in the Invisible Man. I really loved the story for its suspense but also for its philosophical aspects and concepts. I highly recommend it, especially since some people tend to think Mister Hyde is the same as the Hulk. The real story is not well known and reading this novel is really worth your time.

Blurb : The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (2002)

The story…

The Lovely Bones is the story of a young teenager called Susie Salmon, with a typical American life : a warm and happy family life (parents,  sister and brother, grandma, etc.), good level at school, nice friends, and so on. 

The book starts with her murder by a man called Mr. Harvey : their weirdo neighbor who lives alone and gains his living by making and selling doll houses. From then on, Susie lives in her heaven with friends she finds over there and watches the world, mainly her own family and friends on Earth from above.

There is a series of events going on, starting by the rush of the parents to find their beloved daughter, not believing she was dead at first, and struggling to deny the proofs. Little by little, as time goes by, they are “forced” to accept the truth. At the same time, Susie’s dad who was particularly close to her, begins to expect Mr. Harvey and becomes almost convinced (after some short conversations with him) that he is Susie’s murderer. Her daughter Lindsey, Susie’s beloved sister, has got the same feeling and tries, one day, to spy on Harvey’s house when he’s away. But the killer returns before Lindsey can find anything more than the map of the underground den where Harvey had murdered Susie. Before the police can catch him, Harvey manages to leave the city. Later on, the police discover that Harvey has murdered a whole bunch of young girls after having harassed them just as he had done with Susie…

Time goes on:  Abigail, Susie’s mother cheats on her husband Jack, Lindsey marries Samuel, and has a daughter, and Harvey dies accidentally, falling off a snowy slope, while harassing a potential victim…

Susie finds the occasion once, to change bodies with Ruth, a weird girl of her school who had sensed Susie’s spirit pass by her the night of the murder. Changing bodies with Ruth, Susie can be with Ray (a boy who was in love with her at school) for a while, and then she turns back to her heaven.

What I thought about it

On the whole, the story is rather interesting and original. But the progression is sometimes a bit too slow, which makes some passages seem too long and even a bit boring.  

Another fact is that there is no particular literary style. The story is neither totally focused on Harvey being sued by the police, nor on Susie’s feelings towards her family and friends. It’s a little of all and nothing in particular. It’s not necessarily a negative point but I think it’s important to consider for those who might think that it’s a police novel, which is not the case at all.

In a  nutshell, I think that the best adjective to describe this novel would be “original”, not only the plot, but also the mixture of styles and feelings, and the presence of weird and unusual events (switching bodies, making contact with Earth via objects, etc.) But for those who are not fond of (science) fiction it might be a bit boring and too unrealistic sometimes.

Valeh

Susan McConnell (Stanford): The Importance of Giving a Good Talk with English Subtitles - YouTube

Susan McConnell (Stanford): The Importance of Giving a Good Talk with English Subtitles - YouTube:

Interesting tips about good presentations!

"From group meeting to lectures to job talks, scientists need to give clear, effective talks. McConnell presents a compelling list of reasons why you should take advantage of available resources to improve your oral presentation skills. To learn more about organizing an effective scientific talk and PowerPoint presentation, see McConnell's iBioSeminar: http://www.ibioseminars.org/lectures/..."

Aurore's minutes are on the shared google document as are the links to the videos we recorded last class. Have a look!

See you all on Thursday, in F703.

James
ps... Aurore 'll be a little late.

The Making of English, by Henry Bradley

Blurb: The Making of English, by Henry Bradley

This book, The Making of English, explains many changes the English language has undergone, from before the year 1,000 to nowadays. It deals with grammar, word-making, what English owes to foreign tongues and changes of meaning in the language.

For instance, an important part of the book aims at showing the link between Old English and German (generally) and thus, explains the origins of a lot of words in Modern English.

On the one hand, I’ve found the book very interesting, pointing out some subtle aspects of the English language and providing a historical overview. But on the other hand, this book has of course nothing to do with a novel. Some parts were much too detailed and a bit boring.

The author was eager to give many Old English words, which definitely look more like odd German than English. So, unless the reader wanted to learn Old English, he would skip a few paragraphs before getting a headache.

Newly Unemployed Woman Enjoys Equal Pay For First Time In Career

Newly Unemployed Woman Enjoys Equal Pay For First Time In Career:

"In a historic development for gender parity in the American workplace, recently laid-off consultant Paula Saunders, 32, is at last earning an income identical to that of her unemployed male counterparts."

Do you all know the Onion News Network...  It's very tongue in cheek... Have a look! They do a spoof of the CNN too!

see you all tomorrow!  Bravo to our actresses in Fiddler!

james

Epic Meals

They have been doing this show for quite a while now, and a lot of people watch it. They basically just cook up gigantic meals with lots of grease and calories and crack a few jokes while showing us the cooking process. Do you think it's scandalous that they waste food and actually pretty much play with food and some people enjoy watching this while in some regions of the world people starve to death? Do you think this is morally acceptable? Do you think this should be banned?
I think they can do whatever they want and I find their videos quite entertaining, as far as their attitude about it is pretty sarcastic and they don't really take it too seriously.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TtFugIqMrs

TED Talk by BLACK

Half of it is talk, the other half is a performance. I think that everyone should take some time to think about what they do for fun, what their passions are. Not centers of interest, but real passions. What have you done to realize your dreams? Have you had the courage to dedicate yourself to your passion, or did you follow our society's preconceived roads? In a world where everything is vowed to efficiency and speed, "personal" fun, as in playing the Yoyo for hours by yourself, is being discriminated.
I think this video is very profound and utterly denounces capitalism.
http://www.ted.com/talks/black_my_journey_to_yo_yo_mastery.html

- TEDxParisUniversités 2013 ! -

- TEDxParisUniversités 2013 ! -

the afternoon of June 8th... in French!

Perhaps you'd like to discover a Paris TEDx!

james

An Interactive Map of Regional American Accents, With Audio

An Interactive Map of Regional American Accents, With Audio: updated on April 17, 2003

back to America :-)  . Here's a map of American accents  with lots of authentic recordings.

See you on Friday!
James

Phil Waknell: Secrets of a great Wiki Talk - WikiStage ESCP Europe Paris - YouTube

Phil Waknell: Secrets of a great Wiki Talk - WikiStage ESCP Europe Paris - YouTube: Phil Waknell: Secrets of a great Wiki Talk -


Phil Waknell: Secrets of a great Wiki Talk - WikiStage ESCP Europe Paris - YouTube: Phil Waknell: Secrets of a great Wiki Talk -

Some of you will be doing your oral presentations for the class soon.... you might enjoy this talk.... let me know if you see anyone you know in the audience.

Leave a comment please...
see you soon
james

TED Talks

After  having watched the favorite TED Talks of Valeh and Nicolas, which I found really interesting and impressive, I randomly looked at some talks on the website. However, I was willing to see other TED Talks that people found awesome and so I moved to Bill Gates' 13 favorite TED Talks.
The first one, made by Hans Rosling, really changed my mind about chart studies (like we had to do in Geography courses in High School). This man did a great job with charts and animations, I highly recommend this video :
http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html

I like this one too, dealing with history, and complexity (2nd law of thermodynamics)
http://www.ted.com/talks/david_christian_big_history.html

Damien

TED Talk - Hack a banana, make a keyboard!

This is my favorite TED Talk out of 5 I watched yesterday. Jay Silver explains here how to hack a banana in order to make a keyboard... Well in fact it's a bit more than that !

At the begining of the video, I simply thought that this guy was a wacko... But since the title interested me, I decided to continue watching it. And it was totally worth it ! This guy is in fact a real genius and so creative ! One should watch this video from the begining to the end because it's amazingly awesome !

Nicolas

British Accent vs American Accent Funny.flv on Veehd

British Accent vs American Accent Funny.flv

Since our guest who is doing next week's class is British I'd like you to all adjust your pronunciation so as to make Clive feel at home...  This li-(tt)-le guide will help you.  Please leave a comment to say what you think!

Remember.... homework... before the end of the year...
1) book blurbs --  coming???  (two or three paragraphs and a section with nice expressions... either explained in English or used in a little text or story).
2) feedback on the CCC project on survey monkey (Valeh... you shouldn't have to retype everything again... just use the same IP and add your name! if it doesn't work contact me... maybe I can add your name as admin.)
3) post at least one Ted talk to the blog with a paragraph about why you chose it... (Which ones of the 1500 tedtalks online are really good??  What is your favorite!)

I invited the four of you that weren't yet "contributors" to the blog. You should be able to accept the invite. (If there's a problem any of the others can invite you again since everyone is an admin.)

The agenda for our last 4 classes....
1) Clive's class....  "Welcome to Britain"
2) After Clive's class next week, we'll have a class where (finally) Ali gets to speak and where Charles is preparing a blind test for us...
3) Then the following class Gilles and Damien will give their talk and also Valeh and Agathe will get to organize an activity for us.
4) Then in our last class...  Felix and Nicolas and ???? will get to organize an activity for the group and I can give you my grammar test!

any other suggestions or suggestions?  (comments and posts on the blog now go to the whole group..)  (don't be a lurker... do it!)

have a nice long weekend
james

TED talks

This afternoon we talked a bit about TED talks and watched 2 of them. I had never watched any of them completely before, but just some parts of some of them which weren’t that interesting! But the 2 we watched this afternoon were, I think, really cool (above all this one : http://www.ted.com/talks/matt_cutts_try_something_new_for_30_days.html :) !! And I decided to take a photo every day, like the speaker said he had done, for a month!)

Tonight, I watched 4 other ones :

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/fr/candy_chang_before_i_die_i_want_to.html (Inspiring, it’s about a woman who decided to transform the wall of an unused place to a sort of huge black board on which passengers could write on with a chalk what they would like to do before they die. During the talk, she reads out some of the answers and there are some funny ones, as well as more “serious” ones that make you think a little bit... I found it quite interesting the idea of “preparing yourself for your death” as she explains at the end of the talk...)

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/fr/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are.html (Inspiring. This one was quite long, but the subject was rather interesting so I watched it till the end. On the whole it’s about how your body postures can influence the way other people consider you but also (and this I had less thought about before) yourself : studies have shown that there are considerable impacts on your performance or on the amount of some hormones in your body, when you have or not some physical postures...)

http://www.ted.com/talks/ron_gutman_the_hidden_power_of_smiling.html (Inspiring as well (I like this category most actually ;) !) As the title says, it’s about why and how much smiling can help you improve your self-confidence, likeability, performance, social relations, and stuff like that. It’s not very long and the speaker smiles during the whole talk, which is in fact rather pleasant :) ..!)

http://www.ted.com/talks/rives_tells_a_story_of_mixed_emoticons.html (Funny, it’s vert short and consists mostly in presenting some emoticons, the well knowns such as :) and :( but also a whole lot others I personnally didn’t know at all and that I found funny (I’m fond of them actually ;) …) like Q<= for a girl (it’s in the same direction as the sad face and smiling faces...)

I actually liked the 4 of them! Though I’d say that the most interesting which sometimes do really influence you and make you reflect, are the “Inspiring”-tagged ones...

Valeh

Google Paris Tech Talk - Fast Public Transportation Routing on Google Maps – Google

Google Paris Tech Talk - Fast Public Transportation Routing on Google Maps – Google

techtalk at the Paris Google office  on April 24th at 6pm...

for the geeks among us....
have you every watched a google techtalk?  there are many online.

see you soon... (well at the end of the week)  (in F900)

james

World Premiere of Wiki Stage on March 30 at ESCP

Join us for the World Premiere of Wiki Stage on March 30



http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=IL34is1yKWs#!

this is a TEDx-like event...  here in Paris on March 30th, organized by students at ESCP.
 I think it'll be worthwhile. I'm hoping to go!
hope to see you there.
james

Pascal Baudry - Français et Américains - L'autre rive

Pascal Baudry - Français et Américains - L'autre rive


This is the Smithies homework for this week: le mercredi 13 mars

Devoirs pour aujourd’hui:   

¨ Lire Pascal Baudry Français, Américains sur www.pbaudry.com et aussi disponible

sur Moodle. L’explicite, p. 38-43 + L’implicite, p. 43-45

 Lire les Bandes dessinées de Baudry sur Moodle/Lecture

Pascal Baudry's books are available for free to download on his site and you can even read them in English! "The other shore".

Have you heard about explicit and implicit cultures (high context and low context) before? Have a look at the passages the Smithies have to read.

See you on Friday!

james


PS:  
Their course syllabus is on the moodle for you to download and read.
How many of you can come at 3 pm on Friday?  (some of the Smithies will have to leave at around 4:20).
For our last three webcam meetings we're "re-shuffling" the webcam groups.... i.e.  our groups will stay the same but the Smithies will change groups (except for Nicolas and Skandar's group which requested to not change).
Put something on the forums.... (in French and English)

See the 5 Finalists For Doritos' Crowdsourced Super Bowl Ads

See the 5 Finalists For Doritos' Crowdsourced Super Bowl Ads

Have a look at how effective crowdsourcing can be!

Which one would you vote for???
see you soon

james

Man Has Alarming Level Of Pride In Institution That Left Him $50,000 In Debt, Inadequately Prepared For Job Market | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

Man Has Alarming Level Of Pride In Institution That Left Him $50,000 In Debt, Inadequately Prepared For Job Market | The Onion - America's Finest News Source


ONN  -- Onion News Network.... Have you seen some of their reports before?  What do you think? Is the U of Miami a typical American university?
see you later....   your bios? google+ ?
james

Google David Beckham Hangout - YouTube

Google David Beckham Hangout - YouTube:


This is a Google+  Hangout with David Beckham.... he's not a Smithie but you get a good idea of why hangouts can be more fun than Skype!

see you on Friday

james

a snafu...sorry... Our class is Friday... not Thursday.

Dear students,

I'm sorry but my last post was a mistake!

I'm teaching a class for the third year HEC-Telecom option "MNT" Management and New Technologies"  and the message below was intended for them!

Thank you Damien for pointing out the error!

We'll have a guest via "Skype" on Friday.... Harriet Rochefort.  Tomorrow I'll put some photocopies of another chapter of her book "French Toast" in your mailboxes.

See you on Friday and sorry for the SNAFU!

james

ps: Post your biographies so we can see if there are problems with the accents....  We might have to use dreamweaver or another Webpage editor to get the accents right.

------------------------

"Class tomorrow and a guest on Thursday at 2pm... David Bizer !

Hello all and Happy New Year!

Classes this week...

Both groups will be together this Thursday at 2pm since we're having a guest come... David Bizer !

Tomorrow in Group 1 Thibault will have the floor for part of the class but we'll have to postpone Yuyu and Thomas's talks that were planned for Thursday because we'll be having a guest!

Both groups will be together on Thursday at the same time (2pm to 4pm)  to discuss social media and recruiting with David Bizer.  He's  presently TalentGeek at Hackfwd, but was previously one of the lead Google recruiters for 8 years, etc. etc....  (He was the first Google recruiter in Europe and hired the first 300 European Googlers!)

See you tomorrow.  Group 1 at 2pm,  Group 2 at 4 pm.

here's a blurb about David from the HackFwd site....

PS.... your welcome to invite some of the other MNT students to come as a guest too on Thursday.


HackFwd // People
David Bizer
David is a pioneer in global internet recruiting with a unique bi-continental background discovering talent from Silicon Valley to the technology hubs of Europe. Over the past 15 years, David has recruited and led recruitment efforts resulting in the hiring of more than 4000 top-caliber candidates across more than 25 countries.

Class tomorrow and a guest on Thursday at 2pm... David Bizer !

SORRY THIS IS A SNAFU... It was meant for my Thursday groups.


Hello all and Happy New Year!

Classes this week...

Both groups will be together this Thursday at 2pm since we're having a guest come... David Bizer !

Tomorrow in Group 1 Thibault will have the floor for part of the class but we'll have to postpone Yuyu and Thomas's talks that were planned for Thursday because we'll be having a guest!

Both groups will be together on Thursday at the same time (2pm to 4pm)  to discuss social media and recruiting with David Bizer.  He's  presently TalentGeek at Hackfwd, but was previously one of the lead Google recruiters for 8 years, etc. etc....  (He was the first Google recruiter in Europe and hired the first 300 European Googlers!)

See you tomorrow.  Group 1 at 2pm,  Group 2 at 4 pm.

here's a blurb about David from the HackFwd site....

PS.... your welcome to invite some of the other MNT students to come as a guest too on Thursday.


HackFwd // People
David Bizer
David is a pioneer in global internet recruiting with a unique bi-continental background discovering talent from Silicon Valley to the technology hubs of Europe. Over the past 15 years, David has recruited and led recruitment efforts resulting in the hiring of more than 4000 top-caliber candidates across more than 25 countries.

Presentation on Friday 4th

Hi everyone,
here's my Prezi on "American Cinema" (you must be on the blog to see it,in the e-mails you see nothing ;) ):

Have a nice day.
Valeh

Zipcar: Two Moms, a Business Idea and $68 in the Bank | Entrepreneur.com

Zipcar: Two Moms, a Business Idea and $68 in the Bank | Entrepreneur.com


Happy New Year! I hope you've had a great vacation...

I thought you might enjoy this article about the story of Zipcar... They're apparently on the verge of being bought by Avis!

See you tomorrow...  we'll finish the chapters from French Toast since we'll probably have a chance the following week to talk with the author.

james

PS:
Good news:  you can begin uploading your picture presents and bios to the moodle....  you have your logins for the moodle and passwords  (moodle.smith.edu)  but remember:

1) your username for the upload pages is simply enstone or ensttwo or enstthree etc... based on alphabetical order..

 Valeh || Agathe || Damien || Skander || Mohamed || Nicolas || Charles || Gilles || Felix 

(So -- Valeh is enstone, Agathe is ensttwo, Damien is enstthree etc.....)

2) all the files you upload always have the same names: image1.jpg for the pictures, text1.htm or text1.html  for the texts
        -- the text files don't really have to be formated as html files but they can be,
        -- the picture files shouldn't be too big.... 700 pixels in one direction is already pretty big, resolution should be 72 dpi and not more... (who in the class can help people with this?)
        -- If you want to have two pictures you have to combine them using photoshop or the gimp to be one picture

see you all tomorrow....