A Midsummer Night's Dream may be one of Shakespeare's most performed play—but its latest version from the Royal Shakespeare Company will be unlike any seen before. Titled Dream,the 50-minute online production combines live performance with motion-capture (动作捕捉) technology,3 D graphics,and interactive gaming techniques that let audiences remotely guide the leading character Puck through a virtual forest.
As live theater put some seriously high-tech fairy (小精灵) factors into practice,Dream promises to bring the rarest version of the play to our screens. In 2016,the theater's production of The Tempest used live motion-capture technology to create a 3 D digital image that was projected above the stage. The difference this time is that everything in the play—the performers and their surroundings—will be shown virtually.
Seven actors will perform in a specially-built studio in Portsmouth,southern England,wearing motion-capture suits. They will be surrounded by a 360-degree camera set,made up of 47 cameras with every movement almost immediately presented digitally,which is presented to viewers online. With its much-reduced characters,Dream is not a complete production of A Midsummer Night's Dream;rather,it is a story inspired by it,focusing on Puck and the fairies.
Up to 2,000 audience members for each performance can become part of the show and will be invited to guide Puck through the forest. Onscreen,the chosen audience will appear as a cloud of tiny fireflies (萤火虫). By using their mouse or finger on the screen of a smart device,they will be able to move their firefly across the screen,and Puck will be at their beck and call to go through the virtual space. For viewers watching at home,the virtual fairies moving through a digital forest will look more like a video game than the average Royal Shakespeare Company show. But the performances are delivered live and in real time. Every night's performance will be unique.
"Without the fireflies—the audiences—Puck wouldn't be going anywhere," said E. M. Williams who plays the role. "The audiences are very much the fuel and the energy of the show. "
It had always been assumed that the rarity of lightning in ocean storms was due to cleaner air over the vast seas,but keen observations have shown that even highly polluted air is associated with reduced lightning at sea when sea spray aerosols(气溶胶) are abundant. In their paper published in the journal Nature Communications,an international team of researchers describes their multi-year study of atmospheric conditions over the oceans bordering Africa and what it showed about salt in sea spray aerosols and its impact on lightning.
The researchers obtained atmospheric data on Africa and the oceans around it for the period 2013 to 2017. The data included numbers of lightning flashes,rainfall,temperatures and cloud representations. They looked for differences in atmospheric conditions in storms that occurred over land versus those that occurred over the sea and found one main difference:the amount of salt in the air.
Lightning is produced when upwardly moving air in clouds forms ice crystals(冰晶)—aerosol particles then begin to bump into one another,creating an electrical charge. Lightning happens when the electrical field in one part of the cloud becomes positively charged ( usually at the top of the cloud) and another negatively charged (usually at the bottom of the cloud). And clouds form,of course,when vapor evaporates(蒸发) from the surface of the Earth and the water drops bond with aerosols.
The researchers found that things are slightly different over the ocean. When water evaporates from the sea,it bears a load of salt. When the salt water bonds with aerosols to form water droplets,they tend to be bigger and heavier than those that form over land due to the salt—and that results in more of the water in the clouds falling as rain before it can rise up and form ice crystals. The result is far fewer lightning discharges.
The researchers suggest their findings could be useful in improving the accuracy of both climate models and meteorological reports. It could also possibly lead some to attempt to seed storm clouds with salt to reduce their severity.
Around seven out of every ten Americans who work in offices do their work in an open environment,defined as at desks without meaningful partitions (隔板),according to an International Facility Management Association survey. That is,if they even have a desk——workers may be assigned only a few feet of a communal(共用的) table. The open-plan office space trend,popularized by creative agencies and technology start-ups,went mainstream because of the belief that open-space environments support innovation. More nearness between employees,the thinking went,would create more interaction and teamwork,promote social interaction and urge productivity.
But in fact,purely open-plan offices have been shown to have the opposite effects,creating so much distraction(分心) that employees stayed away from each other. A study funded by Harvard Business Sehaol,the results of which were published last year,tracked what happened when a British company moved its employees from traditional office space,with offices with walls,to an open office. Face-to-face interaction became less——employees spent 72 percent less time interacting with their colleagues. Instead of talking more with each other,the employees put on headphones and began communicating by text and email. As digital communication channels surged , productivity declined.
Neuroscience also holds some clues as to why the tight quarters in communal work spaces——where workers are only given about half the space they were given a decade ago——are so hard to work in. "The human voice sets off the most powerful emotional response in our auditory(听觉的)experience. Voice above 55 decibels(分贝)—— roughly the sound of a loud phone call——causes measurable stress," according to a Wall Street Journal article, "The Neuroscience-Optimized Office". "Even more troublesome are overheard 'halfversations',in which the listener only knows about one side of a dialogue;our brains automatically imagine the other," wrote authors John Medina and Ryan Mullenix.
But the solution,say experts including Newport,isn't to go back to putting everyone into offices with walls.
Do you know the websites that let you name a star after your beloved one,your kid or your dog for a small fee?Yeah,those are all fake— you could pay me to "name" a star for ﹩50,and I'll take your money and show the name online. I'll even send you a fancy certificate!It seems that you've named a star,but it just doesn't count.
Actually,the only organization that owns official naming rights is the International Astronomical Union,or the IAU. It was founded in 1919 and based in Paris,France. It is where astronomers and other professionals have reached the agreements and is the official record-keeping body for all discoveries in space.
Recently they do open up an opportunity for the public to name a dozen of planets outside the solar system. These planets will be among the first to be studied with the James Webb Space Telescope. However,they currently only have boring and complicated documents that were used to find them. That's why the IAU is looking for something more interesting.
But before you start naming the planets,you should know the rules. First,nothing is rude or annoying. Second,the name should be less than 16 characters long and pronounceable in at least one language with no commercial or business names and nothing is named after a living individual or a pet.
The competition,named "Stars Worlds",is open next Thursday,January 20th. It's the third such contest the IAU has held,and the purpose is to get the public more interested in science as well as the organization. The competition also helps to break centuries of European dominance when it comes to naming things in the night sky. So people around the world can share the joy of discovery and make their mark in history.
While there are numerous tools to help you determine your strengths,try starting with these questions. Be as honest,clear,and objective as possible.
What are your top three qualities or strengths? . To make it easy,send an email to 20 of your closest friends and family members. Tell them you need their help in identifying your three top qualities or strengths. You'll quickly start receiving responses. Start a list from the answers you receive. . Take the three most common answers and use them as your guide.
What do you do every day? Most people tend to spend time on the things they like to do rather than the things they don't like. . If you find yourself easily making time to read to your kids but avoid making dinner,this behavior could be telling you something. People move toward things they're naturally good at doing.
?What people think you do and what they say about you are two different things. For example,they may think you're cleaning all day long but still think you're a terrible housekeeper. So you need to question people about it and tell them it's okay to tell the truth because this is about your personal development.
What is one mistake you keep repeating? Albert Einstein is known to have described insanity (精神错乱) as doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results. Are you caught in the insanity trap? For me,it was making bread. For years I tried to get my dough (面团) to rise into a nice cottony loaf. . I had advice from friends,watched videos online and tried different recipes all to no avail. I've accepted that I can't make bread and it's okay.
A. Every time I created a hard rock B. The first step is to ask for advice C. What do you like to talk about D. What do other people say about you E. You'll find a lot of qualities are repeated F. The truth is we don't have to be good at everything G. It's often the struggle between the two that causes problems,not the activities |
It's never easy being the new kid in school,especially when you look a little bit different from everyone else. Aside from the usual1 about not knowing anyone at Henderson High School in Tennessee,15-year-old Sergio Peralt a 2 that people would laugh at him for his 3 . Sergio's right hand didn't form fully at birth. "In the first days of school,I honestly felt like 4 my hand in my sleeve (袖子)," Sergio admitted. "Like nobody would ever find out. "
It turns out that his fellow students were a lot more 5 than he assumed. In fact,when the school's engineering teacher 6 Sergio's hand,he suggested the students in his class should 7 him. The school is equipped with online modeling software and a 3 D printer,so the teacher suggested a real-life 8 that would benefit both the students and Sergio. Several engineering students 9 began working on a prosthesis(假肢) for their new classmate.
"'We could build your prosthetic hand,' they 10 me and I never expected it," said Sergio. Students worked with Sergio to get the prosthesis right,and when it was finished,it 11 all expectations. Sergio was now able to 12 a baseball using his right hand for the first time in his entire life. Beyond the practicality of having a 13 prosthesis,Sergio felt something even more powerful:He fit in.14 being teased for his disability,he was celebrated and assisted. "They changed my life," said the 15 teen.
Two graduates,from Central China Normal University in Wuhan,Hubei Province,using the names Wanwan and Chaochao, ( upload) a 17-minute video online late last year about their lives over the past five years.
In the video,Wanwan, has taken up a dozen jobs since graduating five years ago,said she now only has 5,000 yuan. Her roommate Chaochao got a master's degree in script writing (编剧) from Communication University of China. But consequence of a tough job market,she had great difficulty ( obtain) a job in the film industry. Last year,she started to learn painting but she said she had to work part-time as a cleaner at a hotpot restaurant to support ( she).
"When you can accept your failure,you will feel that it is not that bad. When working at the hotpot restaurant,my biggest (comfortable) is that I won't starve to death no matter what is next," Chaochao said. "There are many roads in our lives,and no matter which direction you go,you will (eventual) find your own road. "
The video was one of the trending videos of last year,gaining more than 5. 44 million views and more than 26,000 comments since it ( release),with many netizens sharing their own failures in the comments section.
Netizens said they were warmed by their courage to share failures with the public,strong determination ( achieve) their goals,optimism in the face of hardships spirit of never giving up.
The Meredith family lived in a small community. As the economy was in decline, some people in the town had lost their jobs. Many of their families were struggling to make ends meet. People were trying to help each other meet the challenges.
Mrs. Meredith was a most kind and thoughtful woman. She spent a great deal of time visiting the poor. She knew they had problems, and they needed all kinds of help. When she had time, she would bring food and medicine to them.
One morning she told her children about a family she had visited the day before. There was a man sick in bed, his wife, who took care of him and could not go out to work, and their little boy. The little boy—his name was Bernard—had interested her very much.
"I wish you could see him," she said to her own children, John, Harry, and Clara. "He is such a help to his mother. He wants very much to earn some money, but I don't see what he can do. "
After their mother left the room, the children sat thinking about Bernard. "I wish we could help him to earn money," said Clara. "His family is suffering so much. "
"So do I," said Harry. "We really should do something to assist them. "
For some moments, John said nothing, but, suddenly, he sprang to his feet and cried, "I have a great idea! I have a solution that we can all help accomplish (完成). "
The other children also jumped up all attention. When John had an idea, it was sure to be a good one. "I'll tell you what we can do," said John. "You know that big box of corn Uncle John sent us? Well, we can make popcorn (爆米花), and put it into paper bags, and Bernard can take it around to the houses and sell it. "
注意:(1)续写词数应为150左右;(2)续写部分分为两段,每段的开头语已为你写好。
Paragraph 1:
When Mrs. Meredith heard of John's idea, she thought it was a good one, too.
Paragraph 2:
With everything ready, Bernard started out on his new business.