Archive for category: 熱門英文試題 (Page 2)

SpaceX has a new partner for commercial private astronaut flights aboard its Dragon spacecraft: Space Adventures, a private space tourism company that has already launched private astronauts including Anousheh Ansari, Guy Laliberté and Mark Shuttleworth to space.

Space Adventures has worked with seven clients across eight separate missions to the International Space Station (ISS) for private paying commercial space missions, using paid seats on the Russian Soyuz rocket to get its clients to their destination. Its experience means it’s uniquely positioned in the commercial space tourism industry to actually make this happen, which means SpaceX likely will start flying paying customers as soon as its able to human-rate its Dragon spacecraft and begin scheduling flights.

This is not exactly a surprising development: SpaceX has been working towards certifying Dragon for human flight through the Commercial Crew program with NASA. This program has involved testing and development of the Crew Dragon spacecraft for carrying human astronauts, and it’s only a few months away from actually carrying NASA astronauts for the first time during a demonstration mission to the ISS.

SpaceX and NASA have both discussed how they envision the agency being only one of multiple customers for the company’s human-rated space travel service, since the entire purpose of the program is to help the agency defray the cost of transporting its astronauts by becoming one among many clients of a revenue-generating commercial spaceflight service.

SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk has previously discussed flying space tourists aboard Crew Dragon, which can carry up to four passengers per flight. He brought up the prior example of Soyuz as a model that could work for Crew Dragon once it’s operational. Musk and SpaceX have also already booked a Moon pass-by trip for Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa in 2023 on its forthcoming Starship spacecraft.

The Space Adventures Crew Dragon private astronaut trips are expected to begin sometime in either late 2021 or 2022 (likely around the same time or just after SpaceX will begin regular astronaut service for NASA if all goes well), and it will take off from SpaceX’s launch site at Cape Canaveral in Florida. They won’t actually go to the ISS, like the Soyuz missions that Space Adventures has flown previously. But it will fly higher than any previous private citizen has flown before during a trip to space and offer obviously spectacular Earth views. No word yet on pricing, but expect it to be steep – likely much steeper than tickets aboard Virgin Galactic’s much lower altitude trip, for instance.

If you wear black to look slimmer, you’ll be surprised to learn that it has even more benefits! According to researchers who questioned over 1,000 people about their associations with different colors, wearing black can add confidence, attractiveness, and intelligence to a look.

The color black is associated with intelligence.

The survey was conducted by Buytshirtsonline, a U.K. based supplier. Researchers presented survey participants nearly-identical photos of people of the opposite sex where the only thing that was changed was the person’s shirt color. “The Perception of Color” study asked participants to share what colors correlated with certain traits, in their opinion. Black took the lead (or second place in very few cases) in every positive category like sexiness, trustworthiness, and intelligence.

According to the research, pink was associated with all sorts of negative connotations. Only 5% of the participants said that intelligent people would wear pink. Along with black, people also named blue, white, and green as markers of intelligence.

Black is perfect for making the right first impression.

It was also found that black is the perfect color to wear when you’re trying to impress someone without seeming vulgar or attention-hungry. Additionally, 66% of women thought that black was the most attractive color on a man, and 48% of men liked black on women the most.

Orange and yellow don’t inspire confidence.

On the other hand, colors that were hardly associated with confidence, attractiveness, and intelligence were orange, yellow, green, and brown. Orange was actually the last color that people identified as a confident color, just as pink was considered “not intelligent.”

What color do you wear to feel more confident? Do you have many black items in your wardrobe? We’d be happy to hear from you in the comments below!

Running

1. I think it’s because running teaches you how to persist. The entire act of running is to not listen to your body’s urges to stop and to persist instead.

2. You will also learn how to focus on a singular goal, to keep your legs moving until you reach your destination. The skill of focus is one of the most underrated and misunderstood. Many people think your ability to focus is inborn, but I know from personal experience it’s a skill that we train through out the day.

3. Running also tends to weed out bad habits like smoking because it’s so difficult to run and to keep smoking.

4. Also when you travel, you will get a intimate view of the city because you will know what it’s like to see the city on foot.

5. You will also be able to learn things because podcasts​ and books are some of the best things to listen to while you are on a long run.

6. Also runners tend to eat healthier which helps them lose weight and have good skin. I know I don’t like eating fried food if I’m going to be running later because I will feel sluggish.

7. When you run you also feel very confident because you will feel like you are becoming a stronger person.

8. Finally, you should run, because one day, you won’t be able to.

Larry Tesler, a computer scientist who is most well-known for creating the seminal computer concepts cut, copy, and paste, died on Monday at age 74. Tesler was born in 1945 in New York and studied computer science at Stanford, according to Gizmodo. After working in AI research, he joined Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in 1973, where he developed cut, copy, and paste. The concepts would later become instrumental user interface building blocks for both text editors and entire computer operating systems.

PARC is most famous for its early work on graphical user interfaces and how to navigate them with a mouse — and because Apple co-founder Steve Jobs saw this early research and used it as inspiration to develop better iterations of the ideas for Apple products.

Tesler was also a champion of a concept called “modeless” computing, which is the idea that a program shouldn’t have different “modes” where a user’s input does different things based on whichever mode you’re in. Tesler’s personal website says he and a colleague, Tim Mott, developed the idea while working at PARC on the Gypsy text editor.

Tesler believed so strongly in modeless that his consultancy’s website’s URL is nomodes.com, and that website has a picture of what appears to be Tesler’s license plate, which reads “NOMODES.”

In 1980, Tesler joined Apple and worked at the company until 1997. He worked on a number of products including the Macintosh, QuickTime, Lisa, and the Newton tablet. (The Macintosh and Lisa were the first personal computers to popularize the cut and copy-and-paste operations, thanks largely to Tesler’s involvement.) In 1993, he rose to the role of chief scientist — a role that has also been held by Steve Wozniak, according to Gizmodo.

After leaving Apple, Tesler worked at Stagecast, an education software startup that was spun out of Apple, and also spent time at Amazon, Yahoo, and 23andMe. Since 2009, he had been a UX consultant based in California.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced Monday he is committing $10 billion to fight climate change, which he calls “the biggest threat to our planet.” Bezos says the funds will go toward the creation of the Bezos Earth Fund.

“This global initiative will fund scientists, activists, NGOs — any effort that offers a real possibility to help preserve and protect the natural world,” he writes in an Instagram post. “I want to work alongside others both to amplify known ways and to explore new ways of fighting the devastating impact of climate change on this planet.” Bezos adds, “It’s going to take collective action from big companies, small companies, nation states, global organizations, and individuals.”

But some Amazon workers, deeply critical of their employer’s own environmental record, say it is Amazon itself that has been complicit in the climate crisis and must change its ways. “We applaud Jeff Bezos’ philanthropy, but one hand cannot give what the other is taking away,” Amazon Employees For Climate Justice said in a statement in response to the pledge. “When is Amazon going to stop helping oil & gas companies ravage Earth with still more oil and gas wells? When is Amazon going to stop funding climate-denying think tanks like the Competitive Enterprise Institute and climate-delaying policy? When will Amazon take responsibility for the lungs of children near its warehouses by moving from diesel to all-electric trucking?”

In April, thousands of Amazon workers signed an open letter to Bezos and Amazon’s board of directors, calling on them to end contracts with oil and gas companies, halt donations to climate change-denying lawmakers and setting measurable goals. Around 1,700 workers joined a global climate walkout on Sept. 20. In a statement, they said “as employees at one of the largest and most powerful companies in the world, our role in facing the climate crisis is to ensure our company is leading on climate, not following.”

A day before the walkout, Amazon addressed the demands, announcing its Climate Pledge, committing to use 100% renewable energy by 2030 and reach carbon neutrality by 2040. Part of its pledge involves the purchase of 100,000 emissions-free electric vehicles from Rivian, a Michigan-based company in which it is investing hundreds of millions of dollars.

The e-commerce behemoth ships billions of items worldwide, relying on fossil fuels to power its fleet of planes and trucks. Bezos is the richest person in the world, according to Forbes, which puts his net worth at $126.9 billion. The world’s second wealthiest person, Bill Gates, who Forbes says trails Bezos by $14.5 billion, is also making the climate crisis a philanthropic priority.