That morning, I got on the train as always. I was a publishing director and was looking forward to embracing a new day of work, as usual. I would always turn to the crossword, but that day it didn't make sense. I'd been doing it for 30-old years, but trying to read this one was like walking through syrup(糖浆): 1 slow and hard. I thought I must be tired.
I said to my assistant. The 2 colleague contacted my wife, Beth, and she drove me straight to hospital. There, confirmation came that I'd had a stroke (中风) in the part of my brain that 3 with communication. I was now in a condition that means it's difficult or 4 to acquire and produce language. It was the only time I cried.
I was back at home a week later, and my goal was to get better and return to work in a couple of months. The way to 5 my language ability was rough. I'd look at simple pictures and try to describe them as my mind 6 round and round in the darkness, looking for words.
As the months passed, it became self-evident that I wasn't going to be able to go back to my old job. For 25 years, I had 7 myself as a publisher. I was used to a busy day of meetings. I didn't feel ready to say goodbye to my old self. There were times when I felt incredibly 8 . In the darkest months, I devoted myself to 9 . I couldn't manage novels or newspapers, 10 I tried reading poetry, and found the shorter lines less overwhelming. My speech came back, and I learned how to read again, though much more slowly. I also learned the 11 to keep up. I allowed myself to12 , and started to enjoy it.
13 , I get rid of my old skin. I grieved the past, its passing and its absence, and started to come to terms with it. Now, 10 years later, I look after my grandson a day a week, and my relationship with my family is deeper than ever. If you'd asked me 15 years ago to 14 the importance of the things in my life I might have said work, but now I'm no longer a high-achieving publisher or someone who reads 10 books a week. I'm a 15 man, and if I read 10 books a year, that's pretty good.
Russ Miller,36, from Ohio, was first diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis(类风湿性关节炎) when he was just 26, making it progressively difficult for him to do everyday tasks.
"My hands are deformed(畸形的). I can't bend them like others. Recently my thumb has stopped working," said Miller in a letter to a company. "I can no longer use normal computer keyboards and it's hard for me to even hold a pen anymore."
Russ' condition resulted in him living on the streets in Florid for 4 years, but in 2018, he started trying to turn his life around. "I was trying to get help and get myself out of my situation. I had a phone, but I struggled to type on keyboards. So I started looking for alternative smartphone keyboards that might enable me to type again. I found the keyboard app Typewise by accident."
Russ thinks that Typewise smartphone keyboard enables him to get his life back by allowing him to communicate with people, and therefore get help, get an apartment and even get a job. "I am able to communicate a lot better than talking, because my voice is kind of monotone(单调的) so people don't understand me very well. And because I was able to start typing on my phone again, I was able to use social media to reach out to an organisation that helps people with disabilities." It's the hexagonal (六边形的) layout of the keyboard that Russ finds a whole lot easier. "I can move my fingers around and not mess up as often."
"Now I have a part-time job where I take care of dogs and cats on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I can't work full time, because of my physical issues but at least I have something to do and something to look forward to." Russ said.
The company making the smartphone app had been unaware that their unique keyboard design could help people with disabilities until they got Russ' letter.
China's Colorful"Dead Sea"
Xiechi Lake(解池), also known as Yuncheng Salt Lake in China's Shanxi province, has become popular on Instagram and other social media websites in recent years because of eye-popping aerial photographs of its colorful surface.
Now, China wants to convert that online popularity into real-life tourism. The first step is to advertise it to Chinese domestic travelers.
Recent tourism campaigns on Chinese social media sites including Weibo and WeChat refer to Xiechi as"China' s Dead Sea" and promote both its beauty and its healing properties(特性).
"It's the Chinese version of Israel's Dead Sea. Floating here is an unforgettable experience, and one you can't find anywhere else," reads a tourism ad. One honor stands out as a sign of the lake' s endorsement(公开支持) at the highest levels: Xiechi Lake was featured in a 2019 Chinese TV special celebrating the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.
How was this wondrous lake formed? You might ask. There are three kinds of salt lakes in the world: carbonate(碳酸盐), chloride(氯化物) and sulfate(硫酸盐). The Dead Sea and the Great Salt Lake in Utah are both chloride lakes. Yuncheng, however, falls into the last group.
"If the sulfate in your water is greater than the calcium (钙), all the calcium is used up, which leaves you with an excess of sulfate, and then you have a sulfate lake," explains Bernie Owen, a geography professor at Hong Kong Baptist University.
Xiechi is also a"closed basin" lake. It doesn't flow out to a river or ocean, which explains why its salt content is able to stay so high.
But what about those gorgeous colors that have made the lake so popular with photographers? They have to do with the species of animals and plants living in the water.
"If you' ve got brine shrimp(卤虫) in the water, you tend to get red colors," says Owen. "There's a microscopic animal called a rotifer(轮虫), and that will give a purple color.[You also] tend to get purples with green algae(绿藻类). And then greens or oranges[occur] in very saline(咸的) lakes."
Besides the scenery, the mud bath is a big draw. According to a statement from the Yuncheng city government, the black mud in the lake has restorative properties-just like Dead Sea mud.
There's some good news for wannabe travelers who hope to visit Xiechi Lake— it isn't yet as popular or crowded as other tourist spots in China.
① Its eye-pop ping colorful surfaces.
② The mysterious story behind its formation.
③ The black mud in the lake that is advertised as having healing powers.
④ The fact that it was featured in a TV special that celebrated the founding of the PRC.
The concept of dynamic pricing is simple— and easy for businesses to implement. Whether it's a Friday-evening fight, a hotel during the holidays, or a taxi ride in a storm, we have all been burned by higher-than-normal prices due to excess demand. Raising costs when businesses are busiest is the norm(常态) across the travel industry. Perhaps the most well-known example of this is within ride-share companies, which have used surge pricing(峰时定价) for years to charge riders when demand for cars increases rapidly compared to the number of drivers available.
Outside travel, online stores are increasingly using this dynamic pricing, too, says Vomberg. "On Amazon.com alone, millions of price changes occur within a day, corresponding to (对应于) a price change of about every ten minutes for each product." While consumers might not always pick up on these little changes in price, Vomberg says time-based dynamic pricing will likely become a competitive standard at least in online markets. "AI-enabled tools can suggest the best prices via machine learning algorithms(算法). They can also track and learn competitor and customer responses to price changes," he says.
Now, surge pricing is happening in stores including bars and supermarkets as well. "Physical businesses are adopting electronic shelf labels that enable real time price adjustment depending on the time of day, stock levels and whether items are approaching their sell-by date," says Sarwar Khawaja, chairman of the Oxford Education Group. He says this technology is likely to cause prices in bars that use these signs to increase during the rushes of dinner, weekends or holidays, or for supermarkets to adjust prices throughout the day or week, depending on the number of shoppers.
The current economic climate is also driving the need for these pricing technologies. While creating competitive prices is always key to healthy profit margins(利润率), Khawaia says dynamic pricing enables businesses to optimize (使优化) their pricing depending on the financial situations of their customer base. "Businesses can offer discounts during downturns while increasing prices in better off areas," he says.
The changes, however, may not sit well with consumers. "Dynamic and surge pricing will likely expand to more industries and more companies in the long term, but just because a product may be popular does not mean that customers are willing to turn a blind eye to being charged more," says Khawaja. He adds surge pricing can cause customers to lose faith in a company if they believe they are being overcharged. "Perhaps dynamic pricing of a drink in your favourite pub might be a step too far for loyal customers."
In modern cities, it is now time as much as space that separates urban functions, as people's lives are lived not only to different timetables, but also at wildly different rates. The mass timetable of the industrial city, with 9-5 offices hours and silent Sundays, has gone. In its place is flexible-time, part-time working, Sunday shopping and the 24-hour city.
European cities are responding to these changes perhaps faster than British cities. In at least half a dozen cities in Italy, for example, you will find the Uffici Tempil— the Offices of Time. What they do is try to reorganise time more flexibly in the city, in order to meet new needs. This is particularly relevant for Italian women, an increasing number of whom have to balance two timetables: work and home. Usually located in the Mayor's office, the Uffici Tempil bring together transport providers, shop-owners, employers, trade unions, the police and other services to see how their efforts might be better harmonised(使…和谐). The main aim in all this is to increase efficiency and productivity of the city. This can mean delaying the starting times in schools, offices and factories to avoid rush hours, or having shops opening later in the day but closing later too. One further benefit is that there can be more police about in the evening, patrolling(巡逻) the streets when people most need them.
In a number of German cities, people have been debating whether the timetable of the future city should be 6x6 or 4x9 — working hours, that is. Apparently male workers favour a four-day week, while women workers, on the other hand, favour six shorter working days. This would give employees more time in the afternoon to be with children or to get the shopping.
The need for public services to adapt to (适应) our changing lifestyles has been quite difficult for some of the staff involved. After all who likes working evenings or Sundays?
Nevertheless, many city centres are now open for shopping seven days a week, and a number of them now promote themselves as‘24-hour cities', where those with money can drink, eat, dance and even shop the whole night.
Time is flexible, but buildings aren't. The mismatch between the structure of the city and its uses, over time, is a serious architectural and planning problem. Adaptability has become the key skill. We are slowly abandoning the terms of dormitory suburbs and industrial districts, in favour of mixed-use areas, out-of-town retailing (零售) and working from home. There is no doubt that planning theory is being challenged by the changing nature of time in the modern.
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ChatGPT is now commonly used in different fields. Recently, however, many users have noticed that ChatGPT makes silly mistakes, result from the following flaws: ChatGPT only predicts the next thing it could say without any causal model of how the world(actual) works. It has complicated syntax (计算) with no semantic(语义的) connection with reality, making it incapable of explaining why things happen. Unlike responsible human communicators, ChatGPT has no accuracy( 准 确 性 ) goals and can easily(trick) into producing vast amounts of misinformation.
ChatGPT is also lacking in ethical principles ( 道 德 原 则 ) about telling the (true), avoiding harm to people, and treating people equally. ChatGPT does not disclose (透露) its sources. (evaluate) information requires examining the reliability and motives of its sources, but ChatGPT only gives statements. Shockingly, it sometimes makes up references.
ChatGPT and other large language models are useful tools with many applications, but (they) problems provide valuable insights into the limits of current AI. Intelligence requires explanation based on causal understanding of the world and not just prediction. Human intelligence is not just predictive processing because it is also better pattern recognition, explanation, evaluation, selective memory, and communication. ChatGPT has the potential (increase) the amount of real information available to people, but it is also a powerful tool for generating and circulating(传播) misinformation. Intelligent communication depends on values and ethical principles about accuracy benefiting people rather than harming them.
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