Two things changed my life: my mother and a white plastic bike basket. I have thought long and hard about it and it's true. I would be a different person if my mom hadn't turned a silly bicycle accessory into a life lesson I carry with me today.

My mother and father were united in their way of raising children, but it mostly fell to my mother to actually carry it out. Looking back, I honestly don'tknow how she did it. Managing the family budget must have been a very hard task,but she made it look effortless. If we complained about not having what another kid did, we'd hear something like, “I don't care what so –and –so got for his birthday, you are not getting a TV in your room a car for your birthday a lavish sweet-16 party.” We had to earn our allowance by doing chores around the house. I can still remember how long it took to polish the legs of our coffee table. My brothers canno doubt remember hours spent cleaning the house .Like the two little girls growing up at the White House, we made our own beds (no one left the house until that was done) and picked up after ourselves. We had to keep track of our belongings, and if something was lost, it was not replaced.

It was summer and ,one day ,my mother drove me to the bike shop to get a tire fixed—and there it was in the window, White, shiny, plastic and decorated with flowers ,the basket winked at me and I knew —I knew—I had to have it.

       “It's beautiful,” my mother said when I pointed it out to her,” What a neat basket.”

       I tried to hold off at first, I played it cool for a short while. But then I guess I couldn't at and it any longer: “Mom, please can I please, pleaseget it? I‘ll do extra chores for as long as you say, I'll do anything, but I need that basket, I love that basket. Please, Mom .Please?”

         I was desperate.

      “You know,” she said, gently rubbing my back while we both staredat what I believes was the coolest thing ever,” If you save up you could buy thisyourself.”

“By the time I makeenough it'll but gone!”

      “Maybe Roger here could hold it for you,” she smiled at Roger, thebike guy.

“He can't hold it for that long, Mom. Someone else will buy it .Please,Mom, Please?”

      “There might be another way,” she said.

And so our paying plan unfolded. My mother bought the beautiful basket and put it safely in some hiding place I couldn't find. Each week I eagerly counted my growing saving increased by extra work here and there (washing the car ,helpingmy mother make dinner, delivering or collecting things on my bike that already looked naked without the basket in front).And then ,weeks later ,I counted ,re-counted and jumped for joy. Oh, happy day! I made it! I finally had the exact amount we'dagreed upon….

       Days later the unthinkable happened. A neighborhood girl I'd played with millions of times appeared with the exact same basket fixed to her shiny, new bike that already had all the bells and whistles. I rode hard and fast home to tell my mother about this disaster. This horrible turn of events.

And then came the lesson. I've taken with me through my life: ”Honey,Your basket is extra-special,” Mom said, gently wiping away my hot tears.” Yourbasket is special because you paid for it yourself.”

D

    University graduates Mallorie Brodie and Lauren Hasegawa, who invented a smartphone app that tracks construction defects for commercial builders, had a tiger by the tail.

    Bridgit, which they founded in 2012, launched a cloud-based communications platform that helped manage defects on construction sites, which can delay projects and result in costly repairs if left unchecked. The smartphone application lets site supervisors take photos of cracks or damaged paint, share them with employees and track the problems to solution.

    More than 600 subcontractors used the pilot version in many building sites before the commercial version, called Closeout, officially launched.

    Feedback(反馈)was so good that they began to wonder: Why limit their invention to a specific industry? Why not turn it into some kind of a handy tool for consumers too? This became their dilemma. In other words, should they stay the course or look for wider applications of their app?

    The experts polled all agreed Bridgit should stay focused on its original goal. Ms. Hasegawa and Ms. Brodie took that advice.

    As more business customers signed on, it became clear that they made the right decision. Since then, the company's growth has been rapid.

    Earlier this year, Bridgit launched Closeout ,which is designed so that even the least tech-savvy can use it easily. Today, the app is being used on sites across Canada and the United States and even by top general contractors.

    In October, Bridgit was named to the Canadian Innovation Exchange's top 20 list of Canada's most innovative (创新的) companies working in digital media and information and communication technology .

    But Ms. Hasegawa and Ms. Brodie are not resting on their glories. They have also been collecting feedback on Closeout from customers, and they'll launch a new version in the spring. It will target not only general contractors but developers and building owners, too.

Festivals in Wales this spring

    There's lots to see, do and experience in Wales this spring. And now it's time to embrace all things new and get ready to be entertained in the spring, come rain or shine.

    Wrexham, 10-12 May

    The annual festival showcases over 200 acts consisting of music, comedy, film and more. Since its opening event in 2011, Focus Wales has done a lot for emerging（新兴的）musicians across the country, and 2018 sees Welsh Music Prize winner The Gentle Good and Y Selar Best Band winners. Candelas, take the stage.

    Aberystwyth, 19-29 May

    Whether you prefer Hill Climbs or Sportives, the AberCycle Festival allows you to take all of it in from the saddle（鞍）of a bike, enjoying the world's most beautiful scenery. However, all work and no play makes us all dull boys and girls, so while you're in town be sure to pop in to one or two of the plenty of pubs in Aber（as the locals call it）for a nice, cold pint of Brains beer. You'll need it after all that cycling!

    Hay on Wye, 25-28 May

    The world's biggest music and philosophy festival returns in 2018 with its unique mix of tunes, talks and trapeze（吊杠）（yes, there are even circus performers!） Based in the magical surroundings of Hay on Wye, this four day festival takes place at the end of May and is perfect for everyone who likes a side of intellectualism（理智主义）with their traditional festival experience.

Lawrenny, 25-28 May

    In late May in the heart of the Pembrokeshire National Park, the Big Retreat Wales takes place. Essentially the festival is about wellness, but it's also so much more than that. Join in this May for four days of “fed good”, leaving your usual routine behind and diving into a delightful mix of workshops, activities, music and sustainable food produce.

    Indian-origin Anvitha Vijay has given a new meaning to the phrase “age is just a number”; she has proved that achievements and knowledge follow passion and not just age and experience.

    Vijay, who lives with her parents in Melbourne, Australia, at the age of seven realized that her piggy bank did not have enough money to hire a developer to make her an app, so she decided to teach herself how to code. With the help of YouTube videos, the young techie learned to code. For one entire year, she watched multiple coding tutorials on the web and became a programmer herself.

    Vijay's inspiration for developing the apps was her little sister, who was still learning to talk. Therefore, Vijay developed an educational app for children that were her sister's age. The app is called Smartkins, which uses about 100 sounds and flashcards of different animals that help children learn and identify. Later, Vijay developed a similar iOS app for children to identify and learn colors. Each app has been downloaded thousands of times.

    Anvitha's skills won her a scholarship to attend a big tech conference hosted by Apple in San Francisco, California. There, she got tips from the pros. She went to workshops where she learned about the latest software for app building.

    All that training led to an idea for a third app. This one, called GoalsHi, inspires kids to practice good habits. Users are rewarded for achieving goals, such as eating their vegetables or practicing piano. Anvitha says the rewards are like getting a sticker for a job well done.

    Anvitha's goal is to continue creating technology that helps kids learn while having fun. But even more important to her is that the world sees the power of technology in kids' hands. “The more training we get in tech at an early age,” she says, “the better chance we have of becoming creativity champions who will one day change the world.”

Reading a book and watching a film are two very different experiences, but expectations can be high when a film of a favourite book is made. There are very many times I have been disappointed by a film of a book I love. So maybe highly regarded books do not always make good films. It is safe to say that great movies may be made from not particularly good books.

The source material may be anything from classic novels, short stones, comic books and stage plays, as well as non­fiction such as biography and autobiography, even those written by ghostwriters. All can work well, but why do many adaptations and indeed remakes fail with both cinema audiences and critics?

A key question is obviously how close to the original the film is. Since a typical film is only around two hours long, it becomes a question of what to leave out, and how to script the dialogue. Sometimes there may be changes to the plot, additions and even different endings to please producers, directors and test audiences. I, like many people, have often left the cinema feeling "the film is not like the book".

Another problem area is the cast. Whether suitable actors are found or not can mean the difference between success and failure. Readers of the book use their imaginations to visualize characters and have very definite ideas about how characters look and sound. This is where I think many film adaptations fall down.

Some books are just too difficult to film for technical reasons, although movies like The Life of Pi are changing this perception. The impact of CGI technology has had a huge impact on the movie industry and allowed the previously unfilmable to become a reality.

 Sometimes authors are very involved in the process and many may even be the screenwriters. This can actually be a bad thing because they may be too close to the material and find it difficult to adapt. At other times they are not the screenwriters, and there are instances where writers have been very unhappy with the film versions of their work. Roald Dahl and Stephen King are examples of this. Even more extreme was novelist J. D. Salinger who made sure no film versions of his popular novels could ever be made. In this situation, it is clear viewers will not be disappointed.

A video of dolphins playing in the wake of the waves near a man-made island, east of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, has caught the attention from netizens across China.

The 55-km Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge is the world's longest cross-sea bridge, connecting the mainland province of Guangdong with the country's two special administrative regions, Hong Kong and Macao.

During the nine-year bridge construction period, researchers have identified and registered a total of 2,367 dolphins, with no injuries of any dolphins reported.

According to local authorities, the Pearl River Estuary Chinese White Dolphin Reserve has supported more than 100 researchers in studying and protecting the mammal and trained thousands of dolphin watchers. Luo Guocai, a certificated dolphin watcher, said his duty was to conduct a 10-minute observation of the sea each time before construction started. The dolphins have to breathe every few minutes above the water, and in order to prevent potential harm, the watchers would knock on their boat a few times to scare them away.

The preservation efforts never stopped even after the construction was completed. "Managerial personnel will continue to monitor the nearby environment and the dolphins via intelligent equipment including the bridge video surveillance(监控) system, the underwater tunnel's environmental monitoring as well as specially established research and observation stations on the man-made islands," said Yu Lie, deputy director of the bridge management bureau.

"Currently, Hong Kong, Macao, the country's two special administrative regions, and Guangdong plan to establish a conservation alliance for the dolphins, involving non-governmental organisations in the routine rescue, information sharing, and scientific research," said Chen Hailiang, head of the administration of the reserve. "We are constructing a bigger rescue and conservation base as well as increasing tissue samples and gene banks in a bid to better preserve the dolphins for generations to come," Chen said.