Leonardo da Vinci, one of the greatest thinkers in the world, began his career as an artist. Very little is known about Leonardo's early life. He was born in 1452 in the town of Vinci. As a boy, Leonardo showed a great interest in drawing, sculpting and observing nature.

    However, because Leonardo was born to parents who were not married to each other, he was barred from some studies and professions. He trained as an artist after moving to Florence with his father in the 1460s. It was an exciting time to be in Florence, one of the cultural capitals of Europe. Leonardo trained with one of the city's very successful artists, Andrea del Verrocchio. He was a painter, sculptor and gold worker. Verrocchio told his students that they needed to understand the body's bones and muscles when drawing people.

    Leonardo took the teacher's advice very seriously. He spent several periods of his life studying the human body by taking apart and examining dead bodies. While training as an artist, Leonardo also learned about and improved on relatively new painting methods at the time. One was the use of perspective(透视) to show depth. A method called “sfumato” helped to create a cloudy effect to suggest distance. “Chiaroscuro” is a method using light and shade as a painterly effect.

    Leonardo's first known portrait now hangs in the National Gallery in Washington, D. C. He made this painting of a young woman named Ginevra de' Benci around 1474. The woman has a pale face with dark hair. In the distance, Leonardo painted the Italian countryside.

    He soon received attention for his extraordinary artistic skills. Around 1475 he was asked to draw an angel in Verrocchio's painting “Baptism of Christ.” One story says that when Verrocchio saw Leonardo's addition to the painting, he was so amazed by his student's skill that he said he would never paint again.

    To the people who came to Christopher Morley Park in Roslyn, he had no name. To them, he was “the ice cream man”. He was just two hands and a smile handing back ice cream from the van（面包车）window. To me, he was my older brother, Andrew.

    Once, he worked on Wall Street. But later he spent his days selling ice cream to an endless line of kids, moms and dads in swimming suits, perhaps daydreaming of a beach faraway.

    All day long, while he sold bags of potato chips, cans of soda, and all types of ice cream, he would do this sort of robotic motion—turn to the right, stoop down, hand the item out of the window and collect the money.

    His drinking days were over now. They neared their end one night after he took a severe beating when someone followed him home and robbed him when he was drunk. It left him memories of pain and misery. He was determined he would never take another drink again.

    One day years later, I went to look for him. I slipped into the high driver's seat and sat quietly watching him work. Occasionally, he would ask me to hand him a diet root beer or a bag of chips for sale, all the time bending over as he worked the long line.

    As I watched him sell ice cream from a van window, he taught me something about living this life that we all pass through too quickly. It was a lesson about trying to live it with grace and dignity and style, no matter what.

    He died in March 1999. He had served in the Army for two years in Europe in the 1950s. They gave him a soldier's funeral with a folded flag.

    Chinese retail giant Alibaba has developed a new automated(自动化的) vehicle which is easy to mass-produce and could serve a number of functions. These could include delivery messenger or automated coffee selling machine, it said.

    The Cainiao G Plus can travel at up to nine miles per hour, reports The Verge news site. It was showed at a conference where Alibaba founder Jack Ma announced a 100bn yuan ($15.5bn) would be put into smart logistics(物流).This includes devices such as warehouse robots as well as delivery aids.

    AI expert and author Calum Chace described the G Plus as being like the "ugly big brother" of a delivery project developed by UK firm Starship Technologies. Starship has been working on this project for several years, so the Alibaba project looks to be behind as well as ugly, he said. "But that won't matter. Anything to do with artificial intelligence is put in the first place for China, which has set itself the target of overtaking the US as world leader in AI by 2030".

    China benefits from having free access to large amounts of data, essential for training algorithms(算法), he added, probably a disadvantage in Europe since the introduction of GDPR law, designed to protect privacy.

    "Don't bet against the Chinese pulling ahead in any AI-related competition, be it self-driving cars, facial recognition, or delivery projects," Mr Chace said.

    The G Plus vehicle is fitted with solid state Lidar – the laser sensors which form an important part of the system autonomous vehicles use to be aware of their surroundings.

    Solid state Lidar is cheaper and easier to produce than the traditional system, which involves spinning multiple lasers in circles to help build up a 360-degree image of what surrounds the vehicle. There are various developers creating their own versions but essentially it uses fewer lasers and a tiny swinging mirror.

    Last month BMW said that its autonomous vehicles will be fitted with solid state Lidar when they will be launched in 2021.

    Christa Marie Eastburn has added a new name to the list of people she sends Father's Day cards to—a father she grew up never knowing. In North Kansas City, the 57-year-old woman thought her father died 54 years ago, but this summer she learned he is alive. "I have a real father to send a card to this time, "she told the newspaper last week. “But I still don't have everything that goes with it—like the memories.” Her parents, Karl Beinfohr and Ingeborg Mueller, got married in Germany in the 1940s when World War II was on and a year later Marie was born—a daughter who grew up thinking her father, a German soldier, died in the war.

    This year, Eastburn found and got in touch with relatives in Germany, hoping they could tell her about her father. One day, a letter arrived in her mailbox.

    "All these years of quietness, "Beinfohr wrote, "I don't know what you have lived through. The news that she had a father who lived an ocean away brought tears to Eastburn's eyes.

    Eastburn and her father began writing to each other. In his letters, Beinfohr tried to explain the years lost. Finally, last month, Eastburn went to Germany to meet her father. They looked through old photos. Beinfohr showed his daughter one of her old toys he had kept.

    The movie The Wizard of Oz has thousands of fans around the world. But back in 1939 when the film opened, audiences were not particularly fond of it. It was only a modest box office success. It was nominated for Best Picture at that year's Academy Awards, but so were nine other great films. It lost out to Gone with the Wind.

    The Wizard of Oz really gained an audience when it was broadcast regularly on TV. That began in the 1950s. The film's plot follows young Dorothy who is knocked unconscious during a tornado. She dreams about following a Yellow Brick Road through the Land of Oz to the Emerald City. She wants to meet the Wizard of Oz who lives there. He's the only one who can help her to return home to Kansas. Along the way she makes friends with the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion. They help her and her dog Toto overcome the Wicked Witch of the West!

    According to the Library of Congress, The Wizard of Oz is the most watched movie of all time. What is it about the film that appeals to people? It includes themes that people can relate to. Through most of the movie Dorothy is trying to get home to Kansas. When she finally gets to go, she speaks the words, "there's no place like home." People identify with that thought. Home is the welcoming place where they feel secure.

    At the beginning of the film, Dorothy sings of a place "over the rainbow." There, the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true. So while home is a great place, dreaming about something different is all right too.

    The Wizard of Oz also deals with courage. Dorothy learns that true courage isn't being unafraid. It's facing danger when you are afraid. Her friends face plenty of danger to rescue her.

    As one of the true classics of American literature, The Wizard of Oz has stirred the imagination of young and old alike for over four generations. Celebrate the 80th year of this fabulous film by watching it again.

Forget Cyclists, Pedestrians are Real Danger

    We are having a debate about this topic. Here are some letters from our readers.

    Yes, many cyclists behave dangerously. Many drivers are disrespectful of cyclists. But pedestrians are probably the worse offenders.

    People of all ages happily walk along the pavement with eyes and hands glued to the mobile phone, quite unaware of what is going on around them. They may even do the same thing while crossing a road at a pedestrian crossing or elsewhere. The rest of us have to evade (避让) them or just stand still to wait for the unavoidable collision.

    The real problem is that some pedestrians seem to be, at least for the moment, in worlds of their own that are, to them, much more important than the welfare of others.

——Michael Horan

    I loved the letter from Bob Brooks about cyclists (Viewpoints, May 29). I am afraid they seem to think they own the roads.

    I was walking across Altrincharn Road one morning when a cyclist went round me and on being asked what he was doing he shouted at me.

    The government built a cycle lane on the road but it is hardly used.

    The police do nothing. What a laugh they are!

    The cyclists should all have to be made to use the cycle lanes and wear helmets, fluorescent (发荧光的)jacket and tights at night and in the morning. They should pay some sort of tax and be fined for not wearing them.

——Carol Harvey

    Cyclists jump on and off pavements (which are meant for pedestrians), ride at speed along the pavements, and think they have a special right to go through traffic lights when they are on red.

    I was almost knocked down recently by a cyclist riding on the pavement when there was a cycle lane right next to him.

    Other road users, including horse riders, manage to obey the rules so why not cyclists?

    It's about time they had to be registered and insured, so when they do hit a pedestrian or a vehicle, or cause an accident, at least they can be traced and there might be an opportunity to claim.

——JML

    Write to Viewpoints of the newspaper.