With Seasonal Affective Disorder firmly behind them, some designers went full-out for carnival atmosphere. Chanel adorned fabrics with magical stars, while YSL added a touch of sparkle to their jackets, skirts, bold necklaces, and brooches. Ann Demeulemeester and Jean Paul Gaultier got all creative by drawing lines on their garments; Givenchy and Monique Lhuillier added smiles to polka dots; meanwhile, Gucci, Dries Van Noten, Stella McCartney and Balenciaga revealed their obsession with flowers. Have fun with this brighter, bolder style, but don’t go overboard unless you want to look like a clown. The more timid among us can celebrate the new season with loud, sparkly accessories over a more muted overall look.
In complete contrast to last year, the sleek silhouette is gone. Flared skirts or wide-legged pants should be embraced in a big way, as seen at 6267, A.F. Vandevorst and Nicole Miller. Pair more voluminous skirts and pants with a fluid jacket or tucked-in top to create an altogether more feminine and sophisticated style. This look, with its higher waistline, draws inspiration from the ‘30s and ‘40s. Jazz up the ensemble with a belt, and work your womanly silhouette.
All runway shows this season made much of the narrow belt, worn high on the waist. Seen everywhere from 3.1 Phillip Lim, Proenza Schouler, to Max Azria – and in all styles from plain or ornamental, lacquered leather to metallic hardware attachments – belts are big news. Wear them looped around your waist or twisted into a knot, although short-waisted women should steer clear.
If the belt’s not for you, you can still get your accessories fix with this season’s “It” bag. This year, it’s all about how you carry it, and fashionistas are heading for the clutch. Size is not restricted to the traditional clutch purse, as maxi-clutches are ever so avant-garde, not to mention practical for day-to-day use. We recommend opting for a leather clutch, for added practicality and durability. For a night out, switch to a glam, glittering evening purse.
Last, but by no means least, shoes are also going to be statement pieces in their own right in 2008. Miu Miu showcased extravagant shoes with exquisite gold handles on the heels, while Marc Jacobs presented his outrageous pumps with their own unique heels. Eye-catching and extravagant, they don’t look practical, or comfortable in the slightest. But then again, ladies, when has that ever stopped us?
Songkran is a Sanskrit word in Thai form which means the entry of the sun into any sign of the Zodiac. But the Songkran in this particular instance is when the sun enters the sign of Aries or the Ram. Its full name is Maha Songkran or Major Songkran to distinguish it from the other ones. But the people call it simply the Songkran for it is the only one they know and in which they take interest. It is their traditional New Year when they can enjoy their holidays to the full with no economic hindrance. Songkran is a fixable feast on the solar calender. It begins on the 13th April and ends on the 15th April, but occasionally in certain years on the 16th April. The Songkran is in fact the celebration of the vernal equinox similar to those of the Indian Holi Festival, the Chinese Ching Ming, and the Christian Festival of Easter. The beginning of spring when the sun crosses the equator is now on the 21st of March which is due to the precession of the equinox. The Songkran Festival is in a certain sense like April Fool’s Day, when the maids of the village play pranks on any gallant who happens to pass by their way. He will be caught and bound by the united strength of the maids and they will daub him with blacking.
Maybe nothing tastes as delicious and refreshing(凉爽的) as a cold, juicy, round watermelon on a hot summer day. No wonder this healthy fruit has been enjoyed by man for thousands of years. But how about trying square watermelons instead of round ones? Sounds fascinating, doesn’t it?
Recently, farmers in the southern Japanese town of Zentsuji have discovered a technique to grow their watermelons in a square shape.
The reason why they’re doing this in Japan is that there is not enough space in refrigerators. They are trying to make watermelons “refrigerator-friendly”.
A round watermelon can take up a lot of room in a refrigerator, and the usually round fruit often sits awkwardly(笨拙地) on refrigerator shelves. Smart Japanese farmers have forced their watermelons to grow into a square shape by putting the watermelon into square, glass cases while the fruit is still growing on the vine(藤).
But these square watermelons come with a high price. Regular watermelons in Japan cost from $15 to $25 each, while each square watermelon costs 10,000 yen, the equivalent of about $82.
Being quite expensive, these watermelons would certainly not be consumed by the general public. Maybe consumers will give them as gifts!
But it is also said that there does appear to be a growing U.S. market for watermelons that are more refrigerator-friendly. The industry is seeking for opinions from consumers who do mind size.
Unfortunately, Babbage never assembled his computer, and it was not until the 1900s, wit the invention of electric tube, that components for a viable electronic computer became available.An electron tube is a device that can block, amplify, or act as an on/off switch for an electric current. During the 1920s and 1930s, scientists investigated how to link these devices in arrays that would accept electric signals representing numbers, processor the signals according to programme, and output the results. Whereas electron-tube computers were huge,and
programming them involved changing their circuity by plugging and unplugging cables.
Aside from their large size, computers based on electron tubes had other drawbacks. The heating filaments in the tubes made the computer hot, and the filament would often”blow”, But in 1947, the development of transistors by scientists at Bell Telephone Liboratories transformed the computer landscape. These tiny components were made from crystal semiconductors such as germanium and silicon, and could do everything an eletron tube could do, but were smaller and
more reliable. Cheaper, more compact computers were soon in production, although some still occupied a whole room.
Along with the developments in hardware, there were changes in software. Originally, all instructions for computers were written in binary cod (“machine code”). In 1951, a programmer named Grace Hopper proposed “reusable software”, code that could be assembled according to instruction written in a “higher-level language” (something more closely resembling English).
Hopper further proposed the concept of a complier-a program that would translate instructions written in a high-level language into machine code. FORTRAN, the first fully-fledged language, and its compiler were introduced in 1956. During this period, the punched cards and tape used to input data into computers were gradually replaced by magnetic tape and disks.
Integrated Circuits
In 1959, engineers at Texas Instruments showed that it was possible to incorporate many transistors, connected by metal tracks, onto one piece of silicon. This innovation became know as an integrated circuit, or “silicon chip”, and the trend ever since is summarized in “Moore’s Law”: the number of transitors that can be put on a chip doubles every 12 to 18 months, Gorden Moore, who formulated this law in 1965, later cofounded the chip manufacturer Intel.
Intergrated circuits soon led to the development of yet smaller, cheaper computers, called minicompuers. Although still too expensive for most individuals to afford, these were relatively simple to operate. Other innovations of the 1960s were keyborads for inputting data into computers and monitors for displaying this data and the results of calculations before they were printed out. In 1971, the floppy disk was introduced for data storage.
Microprocessors and Microcomputers
Although integrated circuits made computers smaller, the processing units still consisted of a number of circuits on separate chips. In 1971, an engineer working for Intel realized that a set of circuit commissioned for an electric calculator could all be put onto one chip and that the resulting device could be used as a general purpose “computer on a chip”. The result was the Intel 4004-the world’s first microprocessor. Physically, it consisted of a silicon chip in a protective ceramic capsule, with a set of metal pins sticking out that connected it to other components in whatever device it controlled. It contained 2,300 transistors, executed 60,000 operations per second, and could be used for any device-including computers and robots-that required a “brain” for accepting input and following a program of instructions to produce an output. Within five years, many very powerful imcrocomputer, or personal computer(PC)-an affordable machine for the masses. The first PCs, in kit form, appeared in the mid-1970s, and by the mid-1980s machines such as the Apple Macintosh and those based on a PC first brought out by IBM in 1981 were popular throughout the world. The success of these machines led to an explosion of software, in particular a range of spredsheet, word-processing, graphic, educational, and games programs. Since the 1980s, a number of strong-intertwined themes have driven the computer revolution forward, including a continuing increase in the processing power and decrease in the size and cost of PCs; a switch of emphasis from isolated to linked machines, as evidenced by the growth of local area network and the Internet; and the spread of computer applications into virtually every aspect of home and business life.
The Monarch–the King or Queen–is head of State in Britain. After a General Election,the Queen invites the leader of the winning party to form a government. She must sign all Acts of Parliament before they become law. Every year she begins the parliamentary year with the Queen’s Speech,which is written for her by the Prime Minister. She informs the two Houses of Parliament about her future activities and the government’s intentions for the year.
She always reads her speech in the House of Lords,because no monarch is allowed to enter the Commons. In the seventeenth century,when parliament was trying to take away from some of the monarch’s power,King Charles I tried to control the House of Commons by having some members of parliament arrested. This led to the Civil War, and Charles was beheaded in 1649. No monarch has been into the House of Commons since.
She knew she had great artistry in her. So during those six months she wrote and drew feverishly. All of her poetry, except one piece, was published in magazines. All of her art, except one piece, was shown and sold at some of the leading galleries.
At the end of six months, she had the operation. The night before the operation, she decided to literally give herself away. In case of he death, she wrote a “will”, in which she donated all of her body parts to those who needed them more than she would.
Unfortunately, Linda’s operation was fatal. Subsequently, her eyes went to an eye bank in Bethesda, Maryland, and from there to a recipient in South Carolina. A young man, age 28, went from darkness to sight. That young man was so profoundly grateful that he wrote to the eye bank thanking them for existing. It was only the second “thank you” that the eye bank and received after giving out in excess of 30,000 eyes!
Furthermore, he said he wanted to thank the parents of the donor. They must indeed be magnificent folks to have a child who would give away her eyes. He was given the name of the British family and he decided to fly in to see them on Staten Island. He arrived unannounced and rang the doorbell. After hearing his introduction, Mrs. British reached out and embraced him. She said, “Young man, if you’ve got nowhere to go, my husband and I would love for you to spend your weekend with us.”
He stayed, and as he was looking around Linda’s room, he saw that she’d read Hegel. He’d read Hegel in Braille.
The next morning Mrs. British was looking at him and said, “You know, I’m sure I’ve seen you somewhere before, but I don’t know where.” All of a sudden she remembered. She ran upstairs and pulled out the last picture Linda had ever drawn. It was a portrait of her ideal man.
The picture was virtually identical to this young man who had received Linda’s eyes.
Then her mother read the last poem Linda had written on her deathbed. It read:
Two hearts passing in the night
falling in love
never able to gain each other’s sight.
Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen
Once you’ve made the decision to give this gift of life, make sure to share your intention with your family. They must give permission for donation and can only honor your wishes if you make them be known.
In more primitive societies, people’s basic needs have been fulfilled in more direct and informal ways. Even in this country, less than 150 years ago, most Americans lived on farms or in small towns with extended families and relatives close by. If financial or other needs arose, relatives, the church, and neighbors were there to “lend a helping hand.” Problems were visible and personal; everyone knew everyone else in the community. When a need arose, it was taken for granted that those with resources would do whatever they could to alleviate the difficulty. If, for example, the need was financial, personal acquaintance with the storekeeper or banker usually was sufficient to obtain needed goods or money. Clearly, we are now living in a different era. Our technology, economic base, social patterns, and living styles have changed dramatically. Our commercial, industrial, political, educational, and religious institutions are considerably larger and more impersonal. We tend to live in large urban communities, away from families or relatives, frequently without even establishing acquaintances with neighbors. We have become much more mobile, often having few roots and limited knowledge of the community in which we live. Vocationally, we also have specialized and become more interdependent on others, and as a result we have diminishing control over large aspects of our lives. Our rapidly changing society is a breeding ground for exacerbating former social ills and creating new problems, such as the expanding number of homeless people, higher crime rates, recurring energy crises, terrorism, and the destruction of our environment. Obviously, the old rural-frontier methods of meeting social welfare needs are no longer viable.
It is the business of social welfare:
To find homes for parentless children.
To rehabilitate people who are addicted to alcohol or drugs.
To treat those with emotional difficulties.
To make life more meaningful for the aged.
To provide vocational rehabilitation services to the physically and mentally handicapped.
To end all types of discrimination.
To counteract provide child-care services for working mothers.
To counteract problems and violence in families, including child abuse and spouse abuse.
To fulfill the health and legal exigencies of those in financial need.
To counsel individuals and groups having a wide variety of personal and social difficulties.
To provide services to persons with AIDS and their families and friends.
To provide recreational and leisure-time services to all age groups.
To educate and provide socialization experiences to children who are mentally retarded or emotionally disturbed.
To serve families struck by such physical disasters as fires and tornadoes.
To provide adequate housing for the homeless.
To provide programs that support and enhance the normal growth and development of all children and adults.
To provide vocational training services and employment opportunities to the unskilled and unemployed.
To meet the special needs of Native Americans, migrant workers, and other minority groups.
I have flown hundreds of flights since graduation, but one stands out among the many.
We were flying from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C, when I answered a lavatory call light in the coach cabin. There I found a young mother struggling with her infant. Everything was a mess, to say the least, and the mother, who was near hysterics, told me she had no more diapers or other clothing onboard the aircraft.
Through her tears, she informed me that they had missed their flight the previous night in Los Angeles and because she had very little money, she and her son had spent the night on the airport floor. Since she hadn’t expected to miss the flight, she was forced to use up most of her supplies and whatever money she had to feed them.
With the saddest eyes I have ever seen she continued. She told me she was on her way to New Hampshire to deliver her son to the family that was adopting him. She could no longer support the two of them.
As she stood in front of me, crying, holding her beautiful son, I could see the despair and hopelessness on her face. And, as a mother of three beautiful daughters, I could feel her pain.
I immediately rang the flight attendant call button and asked for assistance from the other flight attendants. They brought cloth towels from first class to assist in cleaning up both mom and the infant. I ran and got my suitcase; because this woman and I were about the same size, I gave her a sweater and a pair of pants I had brought for my layover. Then I asked several families if they could spare extra diapers, formula and clothes for the child. After the young mother and her son had changed their clothes and the baby had gone to sleep, I sat with her, holding her hand, trying to provide some support and comfort for the remainder of the flight.
Once we landed, I walked them to their next flight, which would take them to their final destination; separation. I briefed the gate agent and the new flight attendant crew on the situation and asked them to give her special attention.
With tears in my eyes I gave her a hug and told her, “You have shown me the true meaning of courage and a mother’s love. I will never forget you.”
As she thanked me for all I had done she said softly, “You’re not the flight attendant, you’re a sky angel.” Touching my flight attendant wings, she continued, “And those are your angel wings.”
With those words she turned and walked down the jetway, her child in her arms, and boarded the plane for New Hampshire.
Though I am no longer a flight attendant, my “angel wings” are still on prominent display in my office. And each time I see them, I am reminded of that young woman, her infant son and the gift that she gave me on that special day – that we truly are all spiritual beings traveling in human form.
Sweet Dreams
If you were to ask 10 people what dreams are made of, you’d probably get 10 different answers. That’s because scientists are still unraveling this mystery. One possibility: Dreaming exercises brain by stimulating the trafficking of synapses between brain cells. Another theory is that people dream about tasks and emotions that they didn’t take care of during the day, and that the process can help solidify thoughts and memories. In general, scientists agree that dreaming happens during your deepest sleep, called Rapid Eye Movement (REM).
Slumber Sleuth
Fruit flies do it. Tigers do it. And humans can’t seem to get enough of it. No, not that. We’re talking about shut-eye, so crucial we spend more than a quarter of our lives at it. Yet the underlying reasons for sleep remain as puzzling as a rambling dream. One thing scientists do know: Sleep is crucial for survival in mammals. Extended sleeplessness can lead to mood swings, hallucination, and in extreme cases, death. There are two states of sleep – non-rapid eye movement (NREM), during which the brain exhibits low metabolic activity, and rapid eye movement (REM), during which the brain is very active. Some scientists think NREM sleep gives your body a break, and in turn conserves energy, similar to hibernation. REM sleep could help to organize memories. However, this idea isn’t proven, and dreams during REM sleep don’t always correlate with memories.
Phantom Feelings
It’s estimated that about 80 percent of amputees experience sensations, including warmth, itching, pressure and pain, coming from the missing limb. People who experience this phenomenon, known as “phantom limb,” feel sensations as if the missing limb were part of their bodies. One explanation says that the nerves area where the limb severed create new connections to the spinal cord and continue to send signals to the brain as if the missing limb was still there. Another possibility is that the brain is “hard-wired” to operate as if the body were fully intact – meaning the brain holds a blueprint of the body with all parts attached.
Mission Control
Residing in the hypothalamus of the brain, the suprachiasmatic nucleus, or biological clock, programs the body to follow a 24-hour rhythm. The most evident effect of circadian rhythm is the sleep-wake cycle, but the biological clock also impacts digestion, body temperature, blood pressure, and hormone production. Researchers have found that light intensity can adjust the clock forward or backward by regulating the hormone melatonin. The latest debate is whether or not melatonin supplements could help prevent jet lag – the drowsy, achy feeling you get when “jetting” across time zones.
Memory Lane
Some experiences are hard to forget, like perhaps your first kiss. But how does a person hold onto these personal movies? Using brain-imaging techniques, scientists are unraveling the mechanism responsible for creating and storing memories. They are finding that the hippocampus, within the brain’s gray matter, could act as a memory box. But this storage area isn’t so discriminatory. It turns out that both true and false memories activate similar brain regions. To pull out the real memory, some researchers ask a subject to recall the memory in context, something that’s much more difficult when the event didn’t actually occur.
Brain Teaser
Laughter is one of the least understood of human behaviors. Scientists have found that during a good laugh three parts of the brain light up: a thinking part that helps you get the joke, a movement area that tells your muscles to move, and an emotional region that elicits the “giddy” feeling. But it remains unknown why one person laughs at your brother’s foolish jokes while another chuckles while watching a horror movie. John Morreall, who is a pioneer of humor research at the college of William and Mary, has found that laughter is a playful response to incongruities – stories that disobey conventional expectations. Others in the humor field point to laughter as a way of signaling to another person that this action is meant “in fun.” One thing is clear: Laughter makes us feel better.
Nature vs. Nurture
In the long-running battle of whether our thoughts and personalities are controlled by genes or environment, scientists are building a convincing body of evidence that it could be either or both! The ability to study individual genes points to many human traits that we have little control over, yet in many realms, peer pressure or upbringing has been shown heavily influence who we are and what we do.
Mortal Mystery
Living forever is just for Hollywood. But why do humans age? You are born with a robust toolbox full of mechanisms to fight disease and injury, which you might think should arm you against stiff joints and other ailments. But as we age, the body’s repair mechanisms get out of shape. In effect, your resilience to physical injury and stress declines. Theories for why people age can be divided into two categories: 1) Like other human characteristics, aging could just be a part of human genetics and is somehow beneficial. 2) In the less optimistic view, aging has no purpose and results from cellular damage that occurs over a person’s lifetime. A handful of researchers, however, think science will ultimately delay aging at least long enough to double life spans.
Deep Freeze
Living forever may not be a reality. But a pioneering field called cryonics could give some people two lives. Cryonics centers like Alcor life Extension Foundation, in Arizona, store posthumous bodies in vats filled with liquid nitrogen at bone-chilling temperatures of minus 320 degrees Fahrenheit (78 Kelvin). The idea is that a person who dies from a presently incurable disease could be thawed and revived in the future when a cure has been found. The body of the late baseball legend Ted Williams is stored in one of Alcor’s freezers. Like the other human popsicles, Williams is positioned head down. That way, if there were ever a leak in the tank, the brain would stay submerged in the cold liquid. Not one of the cryopreserved bodies has been revived, because that technology doesn’t exist. For one, if the body isn’t thawed at exactly the right temperature, the person’s cells could turn to ice and blast into pieces.
Consciousness
When you wake up in the morning, you might perceive that the Sun is just rising, hear a few birds chirping, and maybe even feel a flash of Happiness as the fresh morning air hits your face. In other words, you are conscious. This complex topic has plagued the scientific community since antiquity. Only recently have neuroscientists considered consciousness a realistic research topic. The greatest brainteaser in this field has been to explain how processes in the brain give rise to subjective experiences. So far, scientists have managed to develop a great list of questions.
Some pieces of advice that can help people to give their best to catch the success they want to.
To catch the success is not an easy thing. First of all you have to know yourself very well. This means that you have to understand your wishes,your personal power and your ability to use it in a way that can attract the success.
The next thing is that you have to know the importance of being yourself with all your positive attitudes. If you want to succeed in life you can concentrate on the important things for you-health,love,family,career,happiness,etc. Concentrate on them and try to visualize them. It is claimed that you will attract the positive energy and you will be like a magnet for this powerful energy. You can write your wish on a sheet of paper or say it aloud as many times you want during the day. You have to do this until your wish becomes a real thing.
Third,you can dress yourself in bright colors, so you will attract people who eventually will like you and probably they will be ready to help you, at least with a piece of advice.Being dressed in such clothes means that you will feel much more better than usual. There is a science about colors and everyone can choose the best colors for himself or herself.
Last but not least,you have to find time for relaxation and thinking about your wish. So, your thoughts will be clear. Do not think about the past and all bad things that have happened!Do not think about the future because you will move your wish into the future time!”NO” and “NOT” are important and they do not have any place in your wish. It is better to say:”I want…” instead of”I do NOT want…”
My last advice:Live,think and act in the present! There is enough power in the Universe! Use your personal power to catch the success!
