Join the ranks of bright travelers and load up your smart phone with these must-have travel apps.
Sky Scanner
Stop wasting precious time clicking through website after website for airfare deals. Searching over 1,000 airlines and travel agents, Sky Scanner locates the cheapest dates to fly as well as the most affordable destinations. Got your heart set on some place special? Just enter your destination, dates, and the number of travelers and the app does all the heavy lifting for you.
Easy Travel
Just enter your city, or postal code into the search window, and Easy Travel will display the cheapest gas being served up near you. Whether you're driving in Canada, or the United States, Easy Travel is by your side helping you save money.
Bother Free
Don't be lost in translation. Here's an app that will serve as your travel translator, translating over 60 languages for your communication pleasure. It's easy! Just select the language you want to learn, speak or type a phrase into your phone, and the app will deliver a translation that you can read and hear.
World Atlas
You can have the whole world in your hands! National Geographic's beautiful award-winning World Atlas app is a must-have for armchair travelers and globetrotters alike. Spin, expand, and zoom the 3D globe to access detailed maps, tools to measure distances and need-to-know facts such as current weather, demographics and currency.
I was driving down the road the other day, listening to sweet music coming out of my car radio. My heart felt peaceful, my mind was clear, and my soul was full of love. Even with all its problems: life seemed good. Then the music stopped and the news came on. There was talk of another famous millionaire in drug rehab (康复) after an incident with the police. There was news on the murder of a poor man whose life was supposed to be changed after winning the lottery. There was even a discussion on how much greed and excess (放肆) had damaged our world.
Every story seemed to point once again to the old saying that money can't buy happiness. Hearing them made me think of a movie I saw many years ago on Mother Teresa's home for the dying in India. What struck me most when I watched it wasn't the unbearable poverty there. It wasn't the sickness and suffering that the people there were going through. It was rather the peaceful smiles of love, kindness, and happiness that they shared with the Sisters and with each other. These people had nothing. Many were struggling at the end of death. Yet, they knew the simple truth that so many of us here are still learning: Joy is Free.
We can have joy and spread joy every day of our life here. Don't love or admire dollar signs and think that money will bring you happiness then. Joy can't be purchased. It can't be owned. It can only be chosen and then given freely to others. In the eyes of eternity (永恒), money is only worthless paper. The only thing that matters is the love within you and the love that you give to the world. Make that your legacy (遗产) and your life will forever be rich in joy.
Have you ever run into a careless cell phone user on the street? Perhaps they were busy talking, texting or checking updates on WeChat without looking at what was going on around them. As the number of this new "species" of human has kept rising, they have been given a new name — phubbers (低头族).
Recently, a cartoon created by students from China Central Academy of Fine Arts put this group of people under the spotlight. In the short film, phubbers with various social identities(身份) bury themselves in their phones. A doctor plays with his cell phone while letting his patient die, a pretty woman takes selfie in front of a car accident site, and a father loses his child without knowing about it while using his mobile phone. A chain of similar events eventually leads to the destruction of the world.
Although the ending sounds overstated, the damage phubbing can bring is real.
Your health is the first to bear the effect and result of it. "Constantly bending your head to check your cell phone could damage your neck," Guangming Daily quoted doctors as saying. "the neck is like a rope that breaks after long-term stretching." Also, staring at cell phones for long periods of time will damage your eyesight gradually, according to the report.
But that's not all. Being a phubber could also damage your social skills and drive you away from your friends and family. At reunions with family or friends, many people tend to stick to their cell phones while others are chatting happily with each other and this creates a strange atmosphere, Qilu Evening News reported.
It can also cost you your life. There have been lots of reports on phubbers who fell to their death, suffered accidents, and were robbed of their cell phones in broad daylight.
Google's new camera, called Clips, is a small, smart device. It comes with a case that has a clip (夹子), but it's not designed to be worn on your clothing. Most interestingly, it uses artificial intelligence to take photography out of your hands so it can capture moments on its own.
This roughly 2-inch by 2-inch camera, with a three-hour battery life and Gorilla Glass for toughness, is intended for candid moments, like when a child does something cute that may happen too quickly for you to pull out your smartphone.
Onboard the Clips device, it uses machine learning algorithms (计算程序) to help capture scenes. Those algorithms include face recognition. "Once it learns that there's a face you see frequently, it'll try to get nice photos of those faces," said Juston Payne, the device's product manager. And they also want it to recognize facial expressions, which involved "training it to know what happiness looks like". The Google team also trained it to recognize what not to shoot—like when a child's hand is over the lens, or if it is tossed in a dark purse.
The only way to see the images is by connecting the camera with your phone, as it has no screen for viewing or editing.
Were people concerned it could seem strange? Yes, Payne admitted. But they said they addressed that by making it obvious what it is. A green light on the front signals that it is on. Besides, unlike a camera meant to monitor your home, it is not connected to the Internet.
"This product is only possible because of the way that silicon has advanced" Payne said, noting that it was only in the past year or so that they could squeeze the technology down into a device this size. Going forward, we're likely to get more assistance from the artificial intelligence packed into our apps and gadgets.
How to test best
It's back to school, which means it's back to tests. Which might also mean it's back to being majorly stressed out.Here are some simple ways to prepare thoroughly for tests.
Schedule study time.
Trying to do all studying the night before a test makes it impossible to master all the material.Instead, prepare for a test by scheduling study time each day for several days before.
Use your time wisely.
Also, make sure you have all the supplies you need to study so you don't lose focus.
While studying, be sure to make regular short breaks. Get a snack, take a bathroom break or play a quick computer game when it feels as if your brain is about to explode.
Studying with a parent or friends can help you understand the material better and to learn from one another. Have every person or pair take a part of the material, and come up with questions to quiz the group.
Keep the group small. Have everyone take turns as the group leader, who will assign the material, and make sure that conversation stays on what is being studied.
Don't forget last-minute prep.
Have your sharpened pencils and other things in your bag ready the night before the test. It's important to get a good night's sleep and then eating a healthy breakfast the next morning.
Also, studying all the way up until test time can only create more anxiety. Stop studying an hour beforehand.
A. Form a study group.
B. Stay cool before the test.
C. It doesn't have to be this way.
D. This will help you store important information.
E. This way, both your mind and body are fully prepared.
F. Before studying, clear your desk so you can concentrate.
G. It will also make you tired and stressed on the day of the test.
Another person's enthusiasm was what set me moving toward the success I have achieved. That person was my stepmother.
I was nine years old when she entered our home in rural Virginia. My father1me to her with these words: "I would like you to meet the fellow who is2for being the worst boy in this county and will probably start throwing rocks at you no3 than tomorrow morning."
My stepmother walked over to me, 4my head slightly upward, and looked me right in the eye. Then she looked at my father and replied," You are5This is not the worst boy at all, 6the smartest one who hasn't yet found an outlet(释放的途径) for his enthusiasm."
That statement began a(n)7between us. No one had ever called me smart. My family and neighbors had built me up in my8as a bad boy. My stepmother changed all that.
She changed many things. She9my father to go to a dental school, from which he graduated with honors. She moved our family into the county seat, where my father's career could be more10and my brother and I could be better11.
When I turned fourteen, she bought me a secondhand12and told me that she believed that I could become a writer. I knew her enthusiasm, I13 it, and I saw how it had already improved our lives. I accepted her14 and began to write for local newspapers. I was doing the same kind of15that great day I went to interview Andrew Camegie and received the task which became my life's work later. I wasn't the16beneficiary(受益者). My father became the17 man in town. My brother and stepbrothers became a physician, a dentist, a lawyer, and a college president.
What power18has! When that power is released to support the certainty of one's purpose and is19 strengthened by faith, it becomes an irresistible(不可抗拒的) force which poverty and temporary defeat can never20.
You can communicate that power to anyone who needs it. This is probably the greatest work you can do with your enthusiasm.
China's Chang'e 5 mission (successful) delivered samples of moon rocks and dust to Earth on December 17, 2020. It marks first time in 44 years that moon rocks have been brought back to our planet.
The sample capsule landed in Inner Mongolia a little after 2:00 a.m. Thursday local time. The drop-off was the ending of a 23-day mission that began on November 23, China sent up Chang'e 5 from a site on Hainan Island. The mission's goal was (collect) at least four pounds of material and bring it back to Earth.
The material collected by Chang'e 5 was from a site in the northwest region of the moon's near side. This area was formed more recently, and the rocks here (think) to be only about 1.2 billion years old now. That means scientists (study) the material could learn more about the (evolve) of the moon.
Although Chang'e 5 was a short mission, it was one of (complex) projects undertaken by the Chinese space program so far. The country is far from done with the moon—Chang'e 6, (it) second lunar sample return, is ready to launch in 2023 or 2024.
增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号( )，并在其下面写出该加的词。
删除：把多余的词用斜线(\)划掉。
修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意：1．每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；
2．只允许修改10处，多者（从第11处起）不计分。
My father took me out camping for the first time when I was seven. He wanted teach me about animals, insects and trees. My uncles all come along with bows and arrows for hunting.
One evening at sunset, we sat by the fire, having our barbecue. Just then a bird was flying over us. My uncles immediate jumped up and shot their arrows on the bird. Neither of the arrows hit the target. Suddenly the arrows was flying down at us from the sky — they were looked like rain! We ran to escape but fortunately no one was injured.
That day I didn't learn many about animals, insects or trees, but I learnt a impressive lesson about gravity!
