English stuff, Kiwi stuff, Colombian stuff, lot´s of stuff
Tuesday, December 27, 2022
Wednesday, December 7, 2022
Saturday, November 26, 2022
Daily bread 11/26/2022
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2/2 On 1st Dec, the are hosting a gift of an event - the un...
2/2 On 1st Dec, the @CUPBookshop are hosting a gift of an event - the unique opportunity to hear the amazing @thornburyscott & Penny Ur share their insights & wisdom. #ELT #teacherdevelopment #CHLTPocketBooks #ELTwisdom https://t.co/rTk14dgvkq
Thursday, November 17, 2022
Wednesday, November 16, 2022
Daily bread 11/16/2022
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New Carnival Cruise Ship to Sail from New York, Replaces Magic
- “Carnival Fun Italian Style,”
- Carnival Magic
- her maiden transatlantic voyage
- the 2018-built Vista-class cruise ship Carnival Venezia
- a larger, newer ship that sails year-round
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Thursday, November 10, 2022
Daily bread 11/10/2022
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205 Philosophical Questions for you to ponder
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- What does it mean to live a good life?
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- Why do we dream?
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- Does a person’s name influence the person they become?
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- What is the best way for a person to attain happiness?
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- What actions in your life will have the longest reaching consequences? How long will those effects be felt?
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- How long will you be remembered after you die?
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- Will religion ever become obsolete?
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- Is suffering a necessary part of the human condition? What would people who never suffered be like?
- Does hardship make a person stronger? If so, under what conditions and at what point is it too much hardship? If not, what makes a person stronger?
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- What do you attribute the biggest successes in your life to? How about your largest failures?
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- Would you want to know you are going to die before hand or die suddenly without warning?
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- Is intelligence or wisdom more useful?
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- What do you contribute back to society?
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- Is it more important to help yourself, help your family, help your society, or help the world?
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- What life-altering things should every human ideally get to experience at least once in their lives?
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- What activities cause you to feel like you are living life to the fullest?
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- What would you genetically change about humans to make them a better species?
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- How important is play in living a healthy and fulfilling life?
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- What is the biggest waste of human potential?
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- Is a life that focuses on avoiding pain and seeking out pleasure a good and worthwhile life? Why or why not?
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- Does jealously have value in driving humans to improve themselves or is it a purely negative emotion?
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Tuesday, October 25, 2022
Daily bread 10/25/2022
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Stockholm Thinks It Can Have an Electric Bikeshare Program So Cheap It’s Practically Free
- swamped by
- littered sidewalks and streets
- succumbing to
- the trappings of
- lying around
- is quite tired of
- ridiculously, ludicrously, almost impossibly cheap
- stumbled on
- costs a measly 157 Krona
- It is several orders of magnitude cheaper
- with global implications for
- proliferation of
- not even including the
- is the same elsewhere
- to foot the bill
- On the one hand,
- On the other hand,
- bending over backwards
- more lucrative for
- geofenced zones
- there is some wiggle room
- swallow a lot more bikes
- swapping out batteries
- they hope are behind them
- struggled with vandalism
- harvested for parts
- the market is saturated
- raise the price of
- a well-run transportation system
- to have an impact
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Monday, October 24, 2022
Daily bread 10/24/2022
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To meet your goals, forget willpower and fill your toolbox | Psyche Ideas
- To meet your goals, forget willpower and fill your toolbox
- decide what you want to do
- what is personally important to you, and what you can do about it
- writing down or communicating the goal to others
- break it down into smaller pieces. Make those smaller goals specific, measurable and manageable
- if your goal is personally meaningful, its pursuit will feel easier
- reduce the strong desires
- by setting up your surroundings so that temptations are, well, less tempting
- making them unavailable
- or less accessible
- replace negative behaviours with positive ones
- linked to specific situations
- Try setting up cues or reminders that will make it easier to remember and/or complete the behaviour
- link a new behaviour to habits you already have
- remind yourself of the reason why you are doing the behaviour
- have set a goal that is personally meaningful
- bundle the new desired behaviour with something rewarding
- Research also shows that using more strategies at once is more effective
- variability (using different strategies in different situations) and flexibility (shifting strategies as needed) are particularly effective when it comes to self-control
- building a toolbox of strategies that have worked for you in the past, and recalling these strategies, can help with self-control
- to make positive changes in your life, do set yourself goals regularly
- you don’t have to wait until the next new year
- having all these tips and tricks is better than trying to rely on willpower alone
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Friday, October 21, 2022
Daily bread 10/21/2022
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AI is changing scientists’ understanding of language learning | Ars Technica
- Linguistic experience—not grammar—is key to becoming a competent language user.
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Wednesday, October 19, 2022
Daily bread 10/19/2022
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What is employee monitoring? - Definition from WhatIs.com
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Employee monitoring is the use of various methods of workplace surveillance to gather information about the activities and locations of staff members.
- A workplace research study from International Data Corp (IDC) reported that 30-40 percent of employee Internet access time was not work-related.
- 60 percent of all online purchases are made during work hours.
- Monitoring methods include keystroke logging, wiretapping, GPS tracking and Internet monitoring, which includes surveillance of employees' web surfing, email, instant messaging and interaction on social networking sites.
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Thursday, September 22, 2022
Wednesday, September 14, 2022
Tuesday, September 13, 2022
Daily bread 09/13/2022
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Sweden election: Result could take days as vote too close to call - BBC News
- vote too close to call
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US Open: Carlos Alcaraz beats Casper Ruud in New York to win first major - BBC Sport
- the 19-year-old has "all the ingredients to make a great salad".
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Saturday, September 10, 2022
Daily bread 09/10/2022
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The dangers of being over-confident - BBC Future
- an over-inflated belief in
- they could beat the bear
- the levels of over-confidence were striking
- a one-in-five-chance of
- rating their chances at 30%.
- an astounding number of
- the video was shot from
- being talked through the landing by
- much lower odds
- an exaggerated sense of our abilities
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Tuesday, August 30, 2022
Daily bread 08/30/2022
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Business Collocations - Page 2 of 5 - Business English Resources
- apply pressure
- break into a market
- chair a meeting
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Saturday, August 27, 2022
Daily bread 08/27/2022
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Can Robots Have Team Spirit? They Can Now - TechHQ
- multiple robots (or drones) conducting collaborative actions
- when those lines of communication are down, or unavailable,
- becomes clunky
- tight-margin, high-productivity business sectors
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Friday, August 26, 2022
Daily bread 08/26/2022
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Why we shouldn’t push a positive mindset on those in poverty | Psyche Ideas
- How do you improve your life?
- Believing in your power, staying focused on future goals, being proactive, and leveraging social relationships are four outlooks that can help, many of us suspect, in overcoming life’s obstacles.
- Yet such efforts have been largely unsuccessful at reducing poverty and unemployment, and have been derided both by the people they were designed to help and by those advocating on their behalf.
- in the 1950s and ’60s, it was argued that people caught in intergenerational poverty traps were morally deficient: they did not want to work hard to advance in society and would rather depend on the state for financial support
- In subsequent decades, efforts to encourage people to create a better life for themselves were focused on education and financial literacy
- More recently, research has focused on the psychological costs of poverty itself: thinking daily about financial worries eats up cognitive ‘bandwidth’, leaving little mental space for someone to figure out how to advance their long-term goals
- Despite decades of explanations and interventions, these efforts have fallen short in one important way: what I call the assumption of free-floating mindsets.
- It runs like this: everyone has the power to decide how to perceive and respond to the unavoidable constraints and challenges they face.
- believing in one’s own power reflects what researchers call an internal ‘locus of control’; sticking to long-term plans engages ‘self-regulation’; being positively proactive in moving toward one’s goals is called ‘approach orientation’; and leveraging relationships involves the development of ‘general social trust’ and ‘agreeableness’.
- There’s one problem: mindsets are not free-floating
- Instead, they are embedded in life conditions that have material, social and ideological dimensions, and this is just as true for those of us living in poverty as it is for the rest of us living in financial comfort.
- what appears to be a free-floating mindset is actually the product of societal forces working in subtle ways
- how does a person with a set of fundamental needs navigate an environment filled with threats, opportunities and constraints?
- For those who are poor or living on a very low income, one of the most salient aspects of one’s environment is scarcity
- resources can also be unstable over time: income one week is not predictive of earnings the following week
- Imagine for a moment what scarcity and instability might feel like
- You are constantly uncertain whether you will earn enough money (will your employer give you the hours you need this week?), while trying to avoid unexpected financial demands (will your child need a new school uniform, or will your car need repairs?). If you’re unable to pay rent, your family loses their home.
- Those assigned to be poor reported a lower sense of power, and outlooks assumed to be the product of a freely chosen mindset (self-efficacy and locus of control) were diminished by the mere momentary lived experience of trying to meet one’s needs when one does not have enough.
- It is a rational recalibration of a person’s sense of what their behaviour can actually achieve in response to ecological cues implying that there are bigger forces at play.
- A person’s locus of control can be seen as a barometer of their life conditions
- Think of the decision to stop smoking as an example. If your job exposes you to health risks (perhaps from shift work or toxins), or your attempts to find a new job yield little reward despite huge effort, or you start to notice that most people in your neighbourhood experience ill health as they age and die relatively young, why would you focus on giving up cigarettes?
- The potential future payoff from stopping smoking is simply not as great as the relief it gives from the chronic stress of your everyday life.
- To make it easier for people to adopt a mindset that unlocks flourishing, we should first ensure that their needs are met in a stable way, so they experience real control over their life circumstances and have a future that is worth investing in.
- Living on a low income often means living in a low-income neighbourhood in which your family is just one of many dealing with financial struggles.
- there are limits to what friends and family can do if they themselves are struggling to put food on the table
- can lead neighbours to feel they are competing for the resources needed to make ends meet.
- being poor in a rich country means that every encounter with those living in financial comfort, and every point of interaction with the welfare system, makes you even more conscious of your low socioeconomic standing
- Simply having a positive attitude won’t get you far when you combine the stress of scarcity and instability with the isolation of feeling that you and your community have been left behind by the rest of society
- A person in this situation is not mindlessly pessimistic and blind to opportunities to fulfil their aspirations; they’re regulating emotions and conserving their energies so that they don’t face continual disappointment or overlook very real threats.
- ‘We don’t plan long term because if we do we’ll just get our hearts broken. It’s best not to hope. You just take what you can get as you spot it.’
- The emerging picture is one of material adversity triggering social adversity, such that it is only wise to behave, and teach your children to behave, in ways that prevent you or them being exploited by a hostile world.
- the four components of a mindset that are claimed to enable flourishing – locus of control, self-regulation, approach orientation, and being trusting and agreeable – are not only less common in low-income contexts, they fit poorly to such contexts.
- Financial and social precarity keep a person solidly focused on dealing with threats of the here and now, such that ‘keeping an open mind’ and ‘thinking big’ become dangerous abstractions.
- Realising one’s personal freedom, adopting a positive outlook, focusing on achieving personal goals and using relationships to help you along the way are four components of a mindset
- Among those of middle or high socioeconomic status, we find this way of thinking predicts perfectionism, narcissism, Machiavellianism, stress, anxiety, and political disengagement.
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Tuesday, August 23, 2022
Monday, August 22, 2022
Daily bread 08/22/2022
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Quiet quitting is a trend taking over TikTok and possibly your workplace : NPR
- a misnomer
- Spending more time with
- the latest workplace trend
- carving out time to
- to go 'above and beyond,'
- it has been deemed
- hustle culture and burnout
- with newfound leverage
- a less rigid line
- to align more closely with
- the hang-ups about
- has afforded her the flexibility
- has gained traction
- to experience burnout
- an overwhelming trend of
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Friday, August 12, 2022
Tuesday, August 9, 2022
Monday, August 8, 2022
Thursday, August 4, 2022
Daily bread 08/04/2022
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IELTS Academic Reading description Paper format: Three reading passages with a variety of questions using a number of task types. Timing: 60 minutes - In Task 1, test takers are asked to describe some visual information (graph/table/chart/diagram) in their own words. They need to write 150 words in about 20 minutes. In Task 2, they respond to a point of view or argument or problem. They need to write 250 words in about 40 minutes.
- The recordings are heard only once.
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Test takers write their answers on the question paper as they listen and at the end of the test are given 10 minutes to transfer their answers to an answer sheet. Care should be taken when writing answers on the answer sheet as poor spelling and grammar are penalised. -
Fluency and coherence
This refers to the ability to talk with normal levels of continuity, rate and effort and to link ideas and language together to form coherent, connected speech. The key indicators of fluency are speech rate and speech continuity. The key indicators of coherence are logical sequencing of sentences, clear marking of stages in a discussion, narration or argument, and the use of cohesive devices (e.g. connectors, pronouns and conjunctions) within and between sentences.Lexical resource
This criterion refers to the range of vocabulary used and the precision with which meanings and attitudes can be expressed. The key indicators are the variety of words used, the adequacy and appropriacy of the words used and the ability to circumlocute (get round a vocabulary gap by using other words) with or without noticeable hesitation.Grammatical range and accuracy
This refers to the range and the accurate and appropriate use of the test takers' grammatical resource. The key indicators of grammatical range are the length and complexity of the spoken sentences, the appropriate use of subordinate clauses, and the range of sentence structures, especially to move elements around for information focus. The key indicators of grammatical accuracy are the number of grammatical errors in a given amount of speech and the communicative effect of error.Pronunciation
This criterion refers to the ability to produce comprehensible speech to fulfil the Speaking test requirements. The key indicators will be the amount of strain caused to the listener, the amount of the speech which is unintelligible and the noticeability of L1 influence. -
- Task achievement
- Coherence and cohesion
- Lexical resource
- Grammatical range and accuracy.
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Wednesday, August 3, 2022
Tuesday, July 26, 2022
Daily bread 07/26/2022
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The daunting challenges of Colombia's new defense minister
- daunting challenges
- ambitious agenda
- be in charge of
- amid a major crisis
- far-reaching reforms
- This purge
- to root out corruption
- the dismantling of
- the now-defunct guerrilla group
- in Colombia’s countryside
- have been at war
- will pose a major challenge for
- facilitating peace talks
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Sunday, July 17, 2022
Daily bread 07/17/2022
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Why ‘pruning’ friends has been so common during the pandemic | Coronavirus | The Guardian
- pruning
- has been cropping up
- we’ve unwittingly – or in some cases very deliberately – socially distanced ourselves
- the silver lining is
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Saturday, July 16, 2022
Daily bread 07/16/2022
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7 Reasons to Learn a Foreign Language - Foundation for Economic Education
- Smarter
- Academic Achievement
- Professional and Career Advantages
- Access to Education and Information
- Social and Global Skills
- Life Is More Interesting
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Tuesday, July 5, 2022
Monday, July 4, 2022
Thursday, June 9, 2022
Daily bread 06/09/2022
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- “Strategic foresight”
- scenario planning
- institutionalization of imagination
- — INVITE THE RIGHT PEOPLE TO PARTICIPATE:
- the power to perceive, the power to think and the power to act.
- — IDENTIFY ASSUMPTIONS, DRIVERS AND UNCERTAINTIES:
- — IMAGINE PLAUSIBLE, BUT DRAMATICALLY DIFFERENT, FUTURES:
- — INHABIT THOSE FUTURES:
- — ISOLATE STRATEGIES THAT WILL BE USEFUL ACROSS MULTIPLE POSSIBLE FUTURES:
- — IMPLEMENT THOSE STRATEGIES:
- — INGRAIN THE PROCESS:
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Wednesday, June 8, 2022
Daily bread 06/08/2022
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Appendix G – Countries with compulsory voting – Parliament of Australia
- Argentina
- Bolivia
- Brazil
- Chile
- Ecuador
- Paraguay
- Peru
- Uruguay
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Thursday, June 2, 2022
Tuesday, May 31, 2022
Daily bread 05/31/2022
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Charles and Ray Eames: The couple who shaped the way we live - BBC Culture
- looks at how the pair worked together
- merely one facet of their work
- their groundbreaking work
- a new material called plywood
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My Employee Insists On Leaving At 5 On the Dot ... But Is Behind On Work | Inc.com
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My Employee Insists On Leaving At 5 On the Dot ... But Is Behind On Work
... and other tricky workplace dilemmas.
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1. My employee insists at leaving at 5 on the dot every day -- and is missing deadlines
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2. My whole team brings their spouses on business trips
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3. Running into a candidate we rejected
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Monday, May 30, 2022
Daily bread 05/30/2022
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The joys and excitement of driving around Sicily and Sardinia | Stuff.co.nz
- a story of the trials and tribulations
- to squeeze through
- pedestrians don’t realise how vulnerable they are
- a few near-misses
- learn a few tips
- Deep pockets are needed
- a beach umbrella and lounger
- cobbled streets
- all sorts of
- a roundabout
- u-turns
- are delightful places to
- marvellous scenery
- Road surfaces varied from excellent to atrocious
- islands are very rugged
- Sicily boasts many tunnels
- hairpin bends
- places to pull over
- a rubbish dump
- I fully endorse
- A piece of advice
- incredibly narrow streets
- a thick skin
- bags of cash
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Thursday, May 26, 2022
Daily bread 05/26/2022
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Luis Diaz: How Liverpool's Colombian star made himself a fixture in the starting XI - BBC Sport
- balancing the FA Cup trophy lid on his head
- making the switch from
- could hardly have dreamt of
- fits like a glove
- as if he had grown up alongside them
- Liverpool's prolific front three
- what has stood out
- Liverpool fans have fallen in love with Diaz
- netted against Villarreal
- don't expect miracles
- Long may it continue
- enjoying life in Merseyside off the pitch
- he was already "maturing" as a person
- despite not being there long.
- a star-studded squad
- very quickly cemented his position as
- I managed to pick up and learn a lot
- I'm delighted to have settled in the way that I have.
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Saturday, May 7, 2022
Daily bread 05/07/2022
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Decision Intelligence will change how you think about AI - TechHQ
- Decision Intelligence will change how you think about AI
- The vast majority of
- upheavals
- on the rise
- very uncertain future.
- is more critical than ever before.
- based on
- the nature of
- characterized by
- in ever-increasing quantities.
- having a wealth of information at hand
- no longer provides sufficient insight
- a backdrop of extreme volatility
- are struggling to
- start with an end goal in mind
- business-focused approach
- Decision Intelligence is the application of AI to the commercial decision-making process
- spend years working on
- is epitomized by
- made in real-time
- data-savvy operators
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FILBo is back! Here’s what FILBo 2022 has in store for visitors
- Korea is this year’s guest country
- K-pop
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Wednesday, April 27, 2022
Tuesday, April 26, 2022
Daily bread 04/26/2022
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Formula 1: Max Verstappen wins Emilia Romagna Grand Prix amid Ferrari disaster - NZ Herald
- disastrous
- well and truly in the championship hunt
- rock solid in second place
- Charles Leclerc flew off the track
- he misjudged a tricky chicane
- The slip-up
- to spin out
- Sainz was fuming
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Wednesday, April 6, 2022
Daily bread 04/06/2022
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The surprising benefits of consuming media in language learning – Intercambio Idiomas Online
- Practice makes perfect
- It is easier said than done
- it is just a question of
- It goes without saying that
- we are just a click away from
- In today’s globalized society
- from the comfort of our own home
- With the abundance of media available
- immerse ourselves in another culture
- any spare bit of time we can find
- our tool kit
- to have access to
- is often taken advantage of
- but let’s be honest
- express ourselves as well as the majority
- gives us something to talk about
- looking for every possible opportunity to
- due to lack of opportunities
- The best way of approaching
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Friday, March 11, 2022
Daily bread 03/11/2022
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Leadership Interview Questions
- How do you monitor the performance of the people that you have to lead?
- delegate responsibilities efficiently?
- describe your leadership style?
- What values are most important to you as a leader?
- to collaborate with others and accept new ideas?
- Who is your favorite leader? Why?
- How do you respond to criticism?
- How do you measure your own performance at work?
- What strengths would you bring to this particular job?
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Friday, February 18, 2022
Daily bread 02/18/2022
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'Lying flat': Why some Chinese are putting work second - BBC News
- to get rid of
- be an upgrade on
- a highly-paid job
- "mindless" computer games
- develop a social circle
- adopted city
- life as he knew it
- came to an abrupt stop
- it struck him
- his firm started laying off staff
- He finally snapped
- he had an epiphany
- a nearby bar
- scaled back their commitment to work
- to ditch his job
- It remains to be seen
- a possible full-blown retraction
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Friday, January 14, 2022
Daily bread 01/14/2022
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- Bitcoin, Ether,
Dogecoin , Litecoin and Monero - a coin is a digital asset which is ‘native’ to its blockchain
- Tokens are used with decentralised applications (DApps) and usually built on top of an existing blockchain
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Tuesday, January 11, 2022
Daily bread 01/11/2022
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" "
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- New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income (Fair Residency) Amendment Act 2021
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Since reaching the age of 50 years, A must have been both resident and present in any 1 or more of New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Niue, and Tokelau for a period or periods totalling not less than 5 years.
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Monday, January 10, 2022
Daily bread 01/10/2022
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Scotland could soon pardon thousands of women executed for witchcraft centuries ago | Euronews
- put on trial
- a members' bill
- to seek a pardon for
- strengthens gendered stereotypes
- righting this wrong
- make a real impact
- patriarchal attitudes
- the resonance between
- make an effort
- were acquitted of
- accused of
-