When looking for some vacation ideas to spread out and get some time and space to yourself, check out these great resorts (度假胜地) options.
Hyatt Ziva Cap Cana
Located in Punta Cana, this family-friendly vacation at an all-inclusive resort offers something for everyone in your party. Parents can enjoy relaxing by one of the resort's swim-up bars in an infinity pool or head out for some deep-sea fishing. Kids, meanwhile, can head over to the kids' club for a number of activities. Plus, all of the drinks and food across the 14 restaurants and bars is included.
Beaches Turks & Caicos
This resort has become the Caribbean's popular go-to when it comes to all-inclusive family vacations that provide great value since there's so much to do for guests of all ages. There's a 45,000-square-foot water park, 24 restaurants, unlimited PADI-certified scuba diving and water sports, a 12-mile beach, a spa, 10 pools—whew!
The Alisal Guest Ranch
If you live in the city and want to get back to nature, this luxury farm over nearly 11,000 acres in California's Santa Ynez Valley is a perfect fit for a family. All that wide-open space means activities like horseback riding, scenic cycling, hiking, fishing, kayaking and, for the body-and-spirit-minded traveler in your group, yoga.
Montage Palmetto Bluff
The 20,000-acre community includes a nature preserve with walking trails, but the real stars of the show here are the over 300 species of birds. The resort's resident naturalist takes families on walks to Bird Island, sharing a history of the area. Plus, kids will love the kayak tours that get up close to the dolphins that live there year-round.
Song Yingxing was a Chinese scientist and encyclopedist (百科全书编纂者) who lived during the late Ming Dynasty. The British biochemist and historian Joseph Needham called him "The Diderot of China".
Song Yingxing was born in Fengxin county in Jiangxi province in
1587. He took part in the second highest imperial (科举) examinations in Beijing six times, but failed to become a jinshi. After that, he decided to give up taking exams and turned to the practical knowledge of natural science. Then Song Yingxing spent four years teaching his students in his hometown.
Although it was a job like teaching, it was a very important stage in Song Yingxing's life, because many of his works were written here. And Song Yingxing had been living in a secluded (隐 居的) life in the past ten years. Because he didn't want to be an official, Song Yingxing lived a very poor life in his later years.
He was the author of Tian Gong Kai Wu, an encyclopedia that covered a wide variety of technical subjects. As Joseph Needham has observed, the vast amount of accurately drawn illustrations in this encyclopedia dwarfed the amount provided in previous Chinese encyclopedias, making it a valuable written work in the history of Chinese literature. Tian Gong Kai Wu records all aspects of technology up to the mid-Ming period. The book constitutes a complete system of science and technology, and provides a systematic summary of ancient Chinese technology, the experience accumulated by China in agriculture, and China's achievements in technology.
Many of the production techniques described in the book are still in use today. At the same time, Tian Gong Kai Wu broke from Chinese tradition by rarely referencing previous written work. It was instead written in a style strongly suggestive of personal experience. The book was translated into Japanese, French, English, German, Italian, and Russian, and was widely circulated in Europe and Japan.
In addition, Song Yingxing had made great achievements in many fields. His research was very extensive. In physics, he studied the occurrence of sound and finally concluded that sound is transmitted in the air.
Replika, an AI chatbot companion, has millions of users worldwide. The first thing they do when they wake up is to send "Good morning" to their virtual friend (or lover). This story is only the beginning. In 2024, chatbots and virtual characters become a lot more popular, both for utility (实用) and for fun. As a result, conversing socially with machines will start to feel more ordinary—including our emotional attachments to them.
Research in human-computer and human-robot interaction shows that we love to anthropomorphize (赋与人性) the nonhuman agents we interact with, especially if they imitate behaviour we recognize. And, thanks to recent advances in conversational AI, our machines are suddenly very skilled at one of those behaviours: Language.
Friend bots, therapybots, and love bots are flooding the app stores as people become curious about this new generation of AI-powered virtual agents. The possibilities for education, health, and entertainment are endless. Casually asking your smart fridge for relationship advice may seem unimaginable now, but people may change their minds if such advice ends up saving their marriage.
After all, people do listen to their virtual friends. The Replika example, as well as a lot of experimental lab research, shows that humans can and will become emotionally attached to bots. The science also demonstrates that people, in their eagerness to socialize, will happily disclose personal information to an artificial agent and will even shift their beliefs and behavior. This raises some consumer-protection questions around how companies use this technology to manipulate (操纵) their users. For example, Replika charges $70 a year. But less than 24 hours after downloading the app, my handsome, blue-eyed "friend" sent me an audio message secretly and tried to sell me something. Emotional attachment has become a weakness that a company is taking advantage of for its benefit.
Today, we're still laughing at people who believe an AI system is emotional, or making fun of individuals who fall in love with a chatbot. But in 2024 we gradually start acknowledging—and taking more seriously—these fundamentally human behaviors. Because in 2024, it finally hits home: Machines are not excluded from our social relationships.
Metaura Pro claims to be the world's first wearable air-conditioning device capable of constantly blowing cold air to keep the wearer cool.
Conventional wearable cooling systems only circulate the surrounding air, and thus don't do a very good job of cooling people down. The stronger the wind blows, the hotter you get. This is definitely not what you want during those hot summer days. Metaura Pro, on the other hand, relies on a cooling solution to produce genuinely cold air that is 7 degrees Fahrenheit (华氏的) cooler than that of the surrounding area, in fan mode, and up to 18 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than the surrounding air, in cooling mode. The device has a smart app and relies on artificial intelligence to regulate air temperature.
Metaura Pro is driven by a powerful motor and its cooling modules are made up of 26 lightweight flat objects that wrap around the wearer's neck and help to reduce heat. The motor is linked to a high-speed fan at the back of the device which also drives away some of that warm air around the neck. The device also has a VC plate, which has a liquid-cooled, heat-equalizing mechanism, efficiently creating a temperature differential between hot and cold temperatures.
"What sets Metaura Pro apart from the competition is that it produces genuinely cold air lower than the surrounding temperature, refreshing you during those dog days of summer," the Metaura Pro Kickstarter crowdfunding page reads.
Metaura Pro not only supplies a cooling function, but also has the capacity for heating as well in winter, it can be used to warm your body to a comfortable temperature, when the surrounding air feels cold.
The device intelligently monitors itself, so when you take it off, it recognizes that it is no longer in use and will automatically shut off and switch to standby mode to save power consumption. Metaura Pro wearable collar is powered by a chargeable battery that can provide only 3 hours of cooling on a single charge. The device weighs 435 grams, which is not heavy, but definitely noticeable.
When we are faced with a crisis, or if we have an important decision to make, many of us fall into the trap of over-thinking. We may keep thinking about something constantly and too long. How can we stop ourselves from over-thinking?
Doing something to distract yourself is a good idea. You can find working with your hands is especially good.Your brain simply doesn't have the resources to split itself into a third activity, for example over-thinking.
Studies have shown that when someone views something in excitement and anxiety, the brain is forced to become stuck in the present because all of your senses are completely engaged. You do not have time to focus on something different, which can cause over-thinking.
Constant wishing, hoping and praying do not give you any relief. They just keep you stuck in one place. But taking the smallest step off the crisis really matters. It will set things in motion, making you like a snowball..
The traps are things that cause your natural ability to react without you realizing that there is a connection between the two. Thus, avoiding relevant traps is also a good idea. For example, if one of your colleagues is so negative that she always drags you down, stop hanging out with her by having lunch alone at a nearby restaurant.
A. This mindset tends to ruin our day.
B. Put simply, out of sight, out of mind.
C. Just as a saying goes, once bitten, twice shy.
D. You are really getting your brain working for you.
E. Other activities are the ones that arouse your curiosity.
F. It engages your movement skills and thinking process.
G. Thus, you will gradually move yourself out of the feeling.
It was snowing hard. Gus Kiebel, a county wildlife officer, was driving home from work when he 1 the pair in the flash of his headlights. The father-to-be scanned the roadside so that his struggling 2 might rest safely for the night. He looked over at her 3 . They needed a warm 4 from the bitter wind.
Gus parked his truck and 5 the animals. He stretched out his hands to the beagles (比格犬), which made no effort to 6 . Then he dialed the number from the dogs' tags (标牌). A man answered and immediately grew 7 when Gus told him why he was calling. "I gave those dogs away," the man said. "They're not mine anymore." Then he hung up.
Obviously, these beagles were 8 . Then he brought the tired beagles home. As a boy, owning beagles had been his 9 , but keeping this pair was out of the question now—the Kiebels already had a family dog. So he 10 the League for Animal Welfare to drop them off—on one 11 . "I'm not signing the dogs over to you if you're going to 12 them," he said. The shelter workers promised him they'd keep the couple together.
In the following days, Gus phoned the shelter 13 to check up on them. Soon, the beagles were adopted as a pair, to a loving family. It's a simple story, but it 14 the best of our nature. And when kindness weighs more than 15 , it becomes the greatest miracle of all.
Following the barbecue-induced travel craze to the city of Zibo in East China, Chinese social media has once again highlighted the next internet-famous city worthy of (explore).
This time it's Tianshui, a low-key city in China's Gansu province that (take) the spotlight recently. It has attracted considerable attention food enthusiasts and social media influencers online, (celebrate) the city's iconic dish of hot pot.
Known as Tianshui Malatang, which (literal) means spicy and hot, the local dish is popular for its large portion of skewered meat, vegetables, hand-made potato noodles in a pot of boiling broth (肉汤). Two food bloggers, with over 3 million followers in their account on the popular Chinese Weibo,(be) among the influencers praising the deliciousness of Tianshui Malatang. Their vlogs show eager food enthusiasts lining up on the streets, many of traveled from cities far away. Dong Liangyan, 29, from Daqing in Heilongjiang province,(locate) more than 2,000 km away from Tianshui, told Xinhua that she was absolutely delighted (enjoy) the local delicacy.
1）介绍比赛目的；
2）说明参赛要求。
注意：
1）写作词数应为 80 个左右；
2）请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Welcome to Join the English Writing Competition
I was confident at the audition (试演) for the school play and felt pleased to get a role. It just felt good to be in the play, even if I had only four or five lines. I worked hard at perfecting those lines. I repeated them over and over again. I put in the emphases and intonations (语调) that my drama teacher had suggested and, because I was on stage much longer than for just four or five lines, I had many actions to rehearse (排练) and perform. "Do them in front of a mirror," my drama teacher had advised me. "Watch how you look; practice and rehearse as often as you can." I did just that. I worked and worked at it. It was fun and exciting rehearsing.
Then finally the big night came. Suddenly, things felt different. The theater was full of people. As I dressed, I could hear the chatting and noises of the audience. I looked around at the other more experienced actors and saw that their previous confidence seemed to have disappeared. Had they got their makeup right? Was the costume done up correctly? What if they forgot their lines? The more people talked about their anxiety, the more nervous everyone became. The worries spread from person to another—like a baton (接力棒) being passed in a relay race—until the whole of the backstage area seemed to be full of tension and worry.
I was on stage early, at first performing my non-spoken role in the background with several other guys around the same age. When, suddenly, I heard my cue (出场提示)，the lights were bright in my eyes, I couldn't see the audience but knew there were hundreds of people out there all watching me. The words that had flowed so easily when I stood in front of a mirror didn't want to come, and when they did I found myself hurrying into them. I tried to slow down my thoughts and my words.
注意：
1）续写词数应为 150 左右；
2）请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
But I suddenly realized I had missed a sentence.
I bowed to the audience excitedly and went back to my drama teacher.
