In Venice, it is not uncommon to see tourists carry suitcases through waist-high water, or sit at tables in Piazza San Marco their swimsuits. Pictures of Venice in the most dramatic flooding are really alarming.
We are used to thinking of Venice as a city in danger, a glorious relic of human creativity that is about to sink any day suddenly the end looks (close). However, as climate change makes extreme weather more frequent, Venice looks less like a victim of the sea and more like an old survivor can teach the rest of the world now to live with wafer.
People barely notice smartly the art treasures of Venice are kept on the upper floors of palaces and museums, even on a dry summer day. It is also needless to worry about all the art in churches no other city has such a sharp awareness of protecting itself from water.
In their art, the people of Venice are as happy on water as on land. Vittore Carpaccio's painting Hunting on the Lagoon shows young Venetians standing easily balanced in low-sided boats (shoot) arrows at water birds. In a Gentile Bellini's painting, priests swim in the canal searching for a lost relic. Titian portrays ashot woman (bathe) in open water in his painting. Hunting and fishing, swimming and showing. Venetians always know how to enjoy water.
The palaces (build) in Venice are also good examples of the prevention of flood. has its living spaces on upper floors, often with a courtyard on the ground floor that (drain) water instantly.
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A. removable B. functional C. restrictions D. alter E. break F. reportedly G. overload H. channel I. access J. prioritize K. handling |
The Trunkster, a bag with built-in smart features might just challenge the standard roller bag. The main security feature: It's zipperless. A sliding roll top-door design allows for easy by the owner, but reduces the risk of theft or accidental opening during baggage . If airport security has to search the bag, there a TSA-approved combination lock. Need to juice up your phone? A battery can charge portable devices through a USB connection. Perhaps the coolest part - especially if your holiday shopping habits put you at a risk of going beyond baggage weight — is a built-in digital scale. Want to know how much stuff you're pulling? Lift the bag and the display on the handle shows weight in pounds or kilograms.
Trunkster co-founder Jesse Potash said he and his co-founder, based in New York, created the luggage in 2014, after finding nothing they believed could accessibility. They wanted to "completely " the classic case -- with zippers -- for "the modern, minimalist(极简的)traveler," Potash says. He adds that they didn't want to the user with "as many features as possible" because that would not be required.
One more feature you can add on? Tracking. Airlines are doing a better job these days of not losing bags. But for those who want to track their cases there are stand-alone gadgets(精巧的装置) like the Trakdot or Pocket-Finder Luggage Tracker. For an extra $40, you can add a subscription-free, removable GPS to the Trunkster.
But smarting up a object comes with a problem. "When you have this much technology in a suitcase ... there are more things to change,' says George Hobica, a world traveler. Besides, the Trunkster is all black, and we all know that finding a black-colored bag in a sea of suitcases is like searching for a blade of grass on a football field. Attention, luggage manufacturers looking to the typical pattern: Go bolder with unusual colors and designs.
Companies like Arjuna are beginning to take action to deal with pay inequality, but it doesn't tell the full story of women's experience.
Microsoft's chief executive, Satya Nadella, earned bad fame for his 1 that women should not bother to ask for raises 2 , he suggested in October 2014, they should have faith that the system will reward them appropriately. Stopping from asking for a raise, he added, is actually good.
When his remarks were greeted with anger, Nadella back-pedalled (出尔反尔) at the speed of light. Less than a year later, Microsoft was 3 by a former employee, Katie Moussouris, now chief policy officer at Hacker One, claiming gender prejudice.
Moussouris 4 that she was only one of a number of women at Microsoft who 5 less that their male colleagues. Moussouris also mentioned that can received preferential treatment in 6 and systematically received more favorable job reviews.
There is no way to know whether Moussouris's claims are 7 , because Microsoft does not disclose any data about the 8to which men and women are paid differently for doing similar jobs. That may soon change, if Arjuna Capital succeeds in placing a(n) 9 before Microsoft's shareholders and convincing enough of them to vote in favor of it, thus requiring the company to 10 disclose that information for the first time and helping women make up their minds to require the 11 of the gender pay inequality.
Arjuna, the activist arm of Baldwin Brothers, an investment advisory firm, is 12 top technology firms, in search of precisely this information. Shareholders of eBays, Expedia,
Facebook and Google will vote on proposals that would 13 the creation of reports detailing the percentage of pay 14 between male and female employees, spelling out both firms' policies, in an attempt to address how the companies would set about closing or 15 that gap, and specific targets.
As the MOOC craze continues to explode, anyone interested in taking an online course faces a tricky question: Which course to take? Here are five aspects that you should consider before you start.
1)What is your learning style?
Many MOOCs are video-based. Other courses use presentation formats. Some also require participation in group work. If you want to stay motivated during your course, think about how you enjoy learning.
Are you a visual learner, preferring to use images to understand a topic? If so, a video-based course will work well for you. If you are a verbal learner who gains new information by speaking and writing, try a text-based course with lots of note-taking. Social learners, meanwhile, will thrive in forum discussions and project-based assessment.
2)Are you ready to become a full-time student?
Be realistic about the time that you can commit to your online studies. Participating in an online course can take as much time and commitment as a class-based program. Check the course requirements and make a plan around your current schedule.
3) Does the course really meet your needs?
Whether you are interested in a professional qualification or want to take a personal development course like yoga, there is a MOOC for you. It's easy to get caught up in the excitement of taking lots of free courses in everything that you ever wanted to learn. Before you start a course, think about the end goal. Is the course aimed at beginners or advanced learners? Why do you need this qualification?
4) Do you need a support group?
Some people learn best from seeing how others approach the problem. If you are such as learner, you will need to supplement your online lessons with an in-person support group.
5) What kind of certification will you get?
Take time to find out what kind of certification is available upon completion of the course, and how you can prove your learning to others - for example, certificates, transcripts or digital badges.
I once had my Chinese MBA students brainstorming on "two-hour business plans." I separated them into six groups and gave them an example: a restaurant chain. The more original their ideas, the better, I said. Finally, five of the six groups presented plans for restaurant chains. The sixth proposed a catering service. Though I admitted the time limit had been difficult, I expressed my disappointment.
My students were middle managers, financial analysts and financiers from state-owned enterprises and global companies. They were without talent or opinions, but they had been shaped by an educational system that rarely stressed or rewarded critical thinking or inventiveness. The scene I just described came in different forms during my two years teaching at the school. Papers were often copied from the Web and the Harvard Business Review. Case study debates were written up and just memorized. Students frequently said that copying is a superior business strategy, better than inventing and creating.
In China, every product you can imagine has been made and sold. But so few well-developed marketing and management minds have been raised that it will be a long time before most people in the world can name a Chinese brand.
With this problem in mind, partnerships with institutions like Yale and MIT have been established. And then there's the "thousand talent scheme." this new government program is intended to improve technological modernization by attracting top foreign-trained scientists to the mainland with big money. But there are worries about China's research environment. It's hardly known for producing independent thinking and openness, and even big salary offers may not be attractive enough to overcome this.
At last, for China, becoming a major world creator is not just about setting up partnership with top western universities. Nor is it about gathering a group of well-educated people and telling them to think creatively. It's about establishing a rich learning environment for young minds. It's not that simple.
Sunny countries are often poor. A shame, then, that solar power is still quite expensive. Eight19, a British company by Cambridge University, has, however, invented a novel way to get round this. In return for a deposit of around￡10 it is supplying poor Kenyan families with a solar cell able to generate 2.5 watts of electricity, a battery that can deliver a three amp (安培) current to store this electricity, and a lamp whose bulb is a lightemitting diode (二极管). The firm thinks that this system, once the battery is fully charged, is enough to light two small rooms and to power a mobilephone charger for seven hours. Then, next day, it can be put outside and charged back up again.
The trick is that, to be able to use the electricity, the system's keeper must buy a scratch card — for as little as a dollar — on which is printed a reference number. The keeper sends this reference, plus the serial number of the household solar unit, by SMS to Eight19. The company's server will respond automatically with an access code to the unit.
Users may consider that they are paying an hourly rate for their electricity. In fact, they are paying off the cost of the unit. After buying around￡80 worth of scratch cards — which Eight19 expects would take the average family around 18 months — the user will own it. He will then have the option of continuing to use it for nothing, or of trading it in for a bigger one, perhaps driven by a 10watt solar cell.
In that case, he would go then through the same process again, paying off the additional cost of the upgraded kit at a slightly higher rate. Users would therefore increase their electricity supply steadily and affordably.
According to Eight19's figures, this looks like a good deal for customers. The firm believes the average energystarved Kenyan spends around￡10 a month on oil — enough to fuel a couple of smoky lamps — plus￡2 on charging his mobile phone in the marketplace. Regular users of one of Eight19's basic solar units will spend around half that, before owning it completely. Meanwhile, as the cost of solar technology falls, it should get even cheaper.
The factors that cause youth unemployment often differ among regions and labor systems. In much of Western Europe overemphasized labor protection makes it more difficult for youths to land good jobs. Since firing full-time workers is so complicated and expensive, employers are unwilling to take on new staff, while people who are already employed, mainly older workers, often keep their jobs for life. In developing countries with high birthrates and very young populations, like the Philippines, growth isn't strong enough to absorb the wave of youngsters entering the workforce each year. Young people entering the workforce are often the most vulnerable in economic downturns - new employees are often the first to get sacked(被解雇) , while college graduates find few employers willing to hire.
In Spain, Italy and Japan, for instance, companies looking to gain flexibility in regulated labor markets often offer new, young staffers only short-term contracts. These contracts, which sometimes last for only a few days, usually come with low salaries and few benefits. Since such staff is temporary, employers have little intention to invest in training.
Facing such obstacles, young people everywhere are finding that traditional route to success -education - isn't paying off as much as in the past. They will often be offered low-skilled jobs from waiters to supermarket clerks. A March report from the UK's Office for National Statistics showed that the share of recent college graduates in Britain working in lower-skilled jobs rose to nearly 36% in 2011 from less then 27% a decade earlier. Typical is Cairo's Ahmed Said. He graduated from college with a business degree, and after performing the obligatory year of military service, he applied for jobs in accounting and data entry. But Said, 24, had no luck, and today he works as a waiter at a cafe near Tahrir Square. "This was my last choice" he says, "and this is the job that I get."
A. Young graduates often find themselves competing with more-experienced workers.
B. More and more college graduates are forced to take jobs below their skill level.
C. They started applying for any positions they could find in other countries.
D. In some parts of the world, such jobs are all that is available to college graduates.
E. Yet youth unemployment also has common roots throughout the world.
F. Those young workers who do find employment are often trapped in awful contracts.
高三毕业后的这个暑假，你打算好好利用，却又不知道该做些什么，你的朋友李华给了你一些建议：学习一门实用的技术，如开车去一个向往已久的地方来一场毕业旅行；去贫困山区希望小学做志愿者；找一份暑期兼职。请你写一封信给她，告诉她你的想法。你的文章必须包括：
1）你的最终选择；
2）你的理由。
