Generally speaking, people like those who have a good sense of humor.

    Sometimes a touch of humor might well enable us to win. Consider the case of a young friend of mine, who hit a traffic jam on his way to work shortly after receiving an ultimatum (最后通牒) about being late on the job. Although there was a good reason for Brian's being late—serious illness at home—he decided that this by-now-familiar excuse wouldn't work any longer. His boss was probably already pacing up and down preparing a dismissal speech.

    Yes, the boss was, as Brian entered the office at 9:35. The place was as quiet as a locker room (更衣室): everyone was hard at work. Brian's boss came up to him. Suddenly, Brian forced a smile and stretched out his hand. "How do you do!" he said. "I'm Brian. I'm applying for a job, which, I understand, became available just 35 minutes ago. Doesn't the early bird get the worm?"

    The room exploded in laughter. The boss clamped off a smile and walked back to his office. Brian had saved his job, with the only tool that could win—a laugh.

    Humor is a most effective, yet frequently neglected means of handling the difficult situations in our lives. It can be used for patching up differences, apologizing, saying "no", criticizing, getting the other fellow to do what you want without his losing face. For some jobs, it's the only tool that can succeed. It is a way to discuss subjects so sensitive that serious dialog may start a quarrel. For example, many believe that comedians on television are doing more today for racial and religious tolerance (忍受力) than people in any other forum.

    "Don't answer it," I said to Sam. Our door in the inner city is constantly knocked on; our previous door in the suburbs rarely so. Sam has a full-time job and cannot spend his days answering requests to fix leaking baths or carry cash to the bank.

    Sam opened the door and it was Mervin.

    "There's a bird on the second floor," he said. "It's in trouble."

    Sam followed Mervin upstairs. Mervin pointed and turned to let Sam look. It was a pigeon, the most common of all birds, the bird most likely to foul (弄脏) your newly washed car. And it wasn't flying away. It was stamping in circles. As Sam bent to look, Mervin coughed, "Number two."

    Sam asked him to repeat that. "Number two," Mervin said. "The pigeon has been sitting in his own number two, and now it's stuck to his foot."

It had rained for five days, and the bird was young. It could have been sheltering in a     wet nest of its own waste, which had then dried on its foot, preventing it from flying away. The pigeon moved in a few more circles. Sam bent to take another look. Mervin said, "All right, then." and walked away.

    "Why does everyone think you must solve the problems around here?" I said to Sam when he returned with his story. "It's a bird. Just leave it on the stairs, and let nature take its course." Sam didn't agree. Then he went to the garage and emptied the cardboard box containing our imported camping mats. He returned with the gray pigeon in the box. He showed the bird to our children and they decided to keep it.

    They put its foot in the warm water bath and got rid of its waste. Immediately the pigeon erupted in a bomb of feathers and began flying.

    "What kind of rubbish are you?" This question might normally cause anger, but in Shanghai it was brought about weary complaints over the past few months. On July 1st, the city introduced strict rubbish-sorting regulations that are expected to be used as a model for our country. Citizens must divide their waste into four separate categories and put it into specific public bins. They must do so at scheduled times, when monitors are present to ensure that rules are obeyed and to examine the nature of one's rubbish.

    Violators could be hit with fines of up to 200 yuan ($29). For repeat violators, the city can add black marks to their credit records, making it harder for them to obtain hank loans or even buy train tickets.

    Shanghai authorities are responding to obvious environmental problem. It produces 9 million tons of garbage a year. But like other cities in china, it lacks a recycling system. Instead, it has relied on rubbish pickers to pick out whatever can be reused. This has limits. As people get wealthier, fewer of them want to do such dirty work. The waste, meanwhile, just keeps piling up. China produces 80 billion pairs of one-off chopsticks a year.

    Many citizens appear to support the idea of recycling in general but are frustrated by the details. Rubbish must be divided according to whether it is food, recyclable, dry or hazardous(有害的), the distinctions among which can be confusing, though there are apps to help work it out. Some have complained about the rules surrounding food waste. They must put it straight in the required public bin, forcing them to tear open plastic bags and toss(投掷）it by hand, Most annoying are the short periods for throwing trash, typically a couple of hours, morning and evening. Along with the monitors at the bins, this means that people go at around the same time and can keep an eye on what is being thrown out; no one wants to look bad.

A 293-million-mile journey of the NASA Perseverance rover (探测器) to Mars: ended successfully on February 18, 2021, with a picture-perfect landing inside the Jezero Crater. The car-sized, six-wheeled rover, nicknamed Percy is the US space agency's biggest and most advanced explorer to date. Its primary mission is to search for signs of ancient microbial (微生物的) life on Mars.

Landing on Mars is extremely tricky. The Red Planet's gravitational pull causes approaching spacecraft to go faster to high speeds, while its thin atmosphere-just 1 percent that of Earth's-does little to help slow it down as it approaches the surface.

The scientists had to reduce Percy's 12,000 mph speed to a safe landing speed of less than five mph-in just six and a half minutes. The target entry angle also had to be a precise 12 degrees-any steeper, and the spacecraft would burn up; any flatter, and it would get lost in space. It is no wonder that the final approach is often referred to as the "seven minutes of terror. "

Upon attaining a manageable speed, Percy briefly flew over the Martian surface to seek out the perfect landing spot. Its complex map-reading system rapidly scanned the area and matched it with maps in its database to find the best location.

The NASA scientists will spend the next two months testing Percy's scientific instruments. Once ready, the rover will begin to carry out its mission.

"Perseverance is the smartest robot ever made, but confirming that microbial life once existed carries an unusually large burden of proof," said Lori Glaze, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division. "While we'll learn a lot with the great instruments we have aboard the rover, it may very well require the far more well-equipped laboratories and delicate instruments back here on Earth to tell us whether our samples (样本) carry evidence that Mars once harbored life. "

When you are online, you can be anyone or anything. You can create your own image and a new personality. These digital identities are known as avatars(化身).

The first simple 2D avatars appeared in role-playing computer games in the 1980s. Yet, very few people knew that future avatars would have such a wide variety of forms and uses. By the late 1990s, they had been used in web chats.

When people started creating their own avatars, they discovered that they were going to have the power to create new identities that did not look or act like their real selves at all. They could dress their avatars in fancy clothes, or they could try being someone of the opposite sex. When Internet users realized that their avatars would be seen by many people, not just their friends, they started having more than one avatar. Avatars let you express yourself and they give you lots of room for creativity.

Of course, the avatar you choose says a lot about your personality. If your blog avatar is a picture of a cute cat, your message is "like relaxing and having fun". Well-known cartoon characters or laughing monkeys say "I'm a really funny person". Most people create avatars that have similar features to their personalities and that look more or less like them and act like them. However, people obviously make their avatars look better than they do in real life.

Nowadays, avatars are everywhere and very useful. In most web chats, people choose an avatar from a selection of ready-made images or create their own images. You can also use avatars that move around and talk when you type in your message. 

Despite the advantages of avatars, the use of avatars has also caused a few concerns. Some users worry that they are spending so much time in virtual worlds that they are becoming afraid of meeting people in the real world. The use of several avatars can also be a risk, as people can use avatars to cheat others online.