Philo Farnsworth is not a name most people know. But his work changed the way we learn, the way we live, and even the way we think. Philo Farnsworth is responsible for one of the 20^th century: television.

    Philo Farnsworth was born in America in 1906. He was interested in science and technology at an early age. When he was twelve years old, he built an electric motor for his family's washing machine. When he was fourteen, he was already giving a lot of thought to electrons（电子）. As he was driving the family's horse-drawn plowing machine, he noticed the evenly spaced rows of the potato fields. This sight gave him the idea that electrons could scan（扫描） an image one row at a time—an idea that was the key to electronic television.

    By the time he was twenty-one years old, Farnsworth had started his own company and had managed to build the world's first electronic television. It was a very simple device（设备）. But after years of hard work, Farnsworth was able to introduce the kind of television we now use.

    Farnsworth was a great inventor, but lived an unhappy life. He had a legal battle with the company, Radio Corporation of America (RCA) over who the real inventor of the TV was. He won the case, but the government stopped companies from making TVs during the war, so Farnsworth didn't make much money from the invention.

    When Farnsworth was young, he imagined television as a convenient way for distant audiences to enjoy lectures by famous professors, or entertainment by the best symphonies（交响乐） and ballets. When he was older, television became much more popular, but he was very disappointed in the silly programs on TV. He even told his own son, “There's nothing on it worthwhile, and we're not going to watch it in this household.”

    Sandra Cisneros was born in Chicago in 1954 to a Mexican American family. As the only girl in a family of seven children, she often felt like she had "seven fathers ", because her six brothers, as well as her father, tried to control her. Feeling shy and unimportant, she hid herself into books. Despite her love of reading, she did not do well in elementary school because she was too shy to participate.

    In high school, with the encouragement of one particular teacher, Cisneros improved her grades and worked for the school literary magazine. Her father encouraged her to go to college because he thought it would be a good way for her to find a husband. Cisneros did attend college, but instead of searching for a husband, she found a teacher who helped her join the famous graduate writing program at the University of Iowa. At the University's Writers' Workshop, however, she felt lonely—a Mexican American from a poor neighborhood among students from wealthy families. The feeling of being so different helped Cisneros find her "creative voice".

    "It was not until this moment when I considered myself truly different that my writing acquired a voice. I knew I was a Mexican woman, but I didn't think it had anything to do with why I felt so much imbalanced in my life, but it had everything to do with it! That's when I decided I would write about something my classmates couldn't write about."

    Cisneros published her first work, The House on Mango Street , when she was twenty-nine. The book tells about a young Mexican American girl growing up in a Spanish-speaking area in Chicago, much like the neighborhoods in which Cisneros lived as a child. The book won an award in 1985 and has been used in classes from high school through graduate school level. Since then, Cisneros has published several books of poetry, a children's book, and a shortstory collection.

    Having a smart phone may not be as smart as you think. They may let you surf the Internet, listen to music and take photos wherever you are…but they also turn you into a workaholic（工作狂）,it seems.

    A study suggests that, by giving you access to emails at all times, the smart phone adds as much as two hours to your working day. Experts found that British people work an additional 460 hours a year on average as they are able to respond to emails on their mobiles. The study shows the average UK working day is between 9 and 10 hours, but 2 more hours is spent responding to or sending work emails, or making work calls.

    Almost one in ten admits spending up to three hours outside their normal working day checking work emails. Some workers say they are on call almost 24 hours a day. Nearly two-thirds say they often check work emails just before they go to bed and as soon as they wake up, while over a third have replied to one in the middle of the night. The average time for first checking emails is between 6 a.m and 7 a.m, with more than a third checking their first email in the period, and a quarter checking them between 11 p.m.and midnight.

    Ghadi Hobeika, marketing director of Pixmania, said: “The ability to access millions of Apps has made smart phone invaluable for many people. However, there are disadvantages. Many companies expect their employees to be on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and smart phones mean that people cannot get away from work. The more frequently in contact we become, the more is expected of us in a work capacity.”

    For over 70 years, UNICEF has been putting children first, working to protect their rights and provide the assistance and services they need to survive and develop all over the world.

    It's the end-of-year giving season, and UNICEF has lots of good news to share about the influence its supporters have had on the lives of children. Thanks to its generous donors, UNICEF has helped save more lives than any other humanitarian organization.

    Monthly donors are a major reason why UNICEF can make that claim, according to Karla Coello, UNICEF USA Senior Director for Monthly Giving. “Last year, UNICEF responded to 377 humanitarian emergencies, from conflicts to natural disasters,” says Coello. “Emergency appeals bring in important revenue - but after the emergency, there are still a lot of things children need to make life bearable. That's what our monthly donors provide.”

    When drought destroys crops, conflict forces families from their homes, an epidemic breaks out or a disaster strikes, children suffer most. And in some countries, even the best of times are dangerous for its youngest citizens. Every day more than 15,000 children under 5 die from preventable causes.

    Protecting children before, during and after a crisis requires a reliable source of funding. The constant stream of revenue provided by monthly donations enables UNICEF to reach children with what they need most when they need it, prepositioning emergency supplies before a disaster strikes and continuing to build sustainable solutions after an immediate crisis has subsided.

    Monthly giving is also important to funding large-scale interventions(介入). Thanks to UNICEF's global immune campaigns, the world is now nearly free of polio(小儿麻痹症)and there are only 14 countries where mothers and children still face maternal and neonatal tetanus(破伤风)deadly threat. And UNICEF programs in 120 countries are helping to prevent and treat malnutrition, which is linked to nearly half of all deaths of children under 5.

    “UNICEF USA monthly donors are our most engaged, most dedicated supporters,” says Rebecca Volpe, UNICEF USA Manager, Monthly Giving. “So we do our best to make them feel appreciated by keeping them thoroughly updated about the powerful impact they are having and showing them how much they matter to us.” In turn, monthly donors tend to be dedicated supporters. “Protecting children - giving them opportunities to play, learn, feel safer, heal - is critical to us,” explained a survey respondent, expressing a commitment to children that UNICEF USA's Monthly Giving team sees every day.

    Supporters who sign up with UNICEF USA to give monthly automatically become members of the Guardian Circle, which affords them benefits, including:

    Annual statements to make tax time easier

    An easy-to-use donor access that simplifies modifying gift amounts, updating payment methods and making other changes, including the timing of donations with the option to cancel at any point

    Targeted communications in the form of monthly statements and a quarterly 8-page newsletter with stories from the field.

    A team available to answer questions via email or phone.

    “We have some donors who are on fixed income, others who can afford to make considerable monthly donations," says Coello. “Whether you give $5 or $700 a month, you are super important to us. What's important is that they all really want to give and help children. And that's amazing.”

    It can be time-consuming and difficult to track charitable donations. At end of year, Guardian Circle monthly supporters receive one statement that makes filing tax returns easier - and it's always delightful to see how much good has been done for the world's most vulnerable(受伤害的)children.

Amsterdam Destination Guide

    Amsterdam is one of the most popular travel destinations in the world, famous for its beautiful canals, top art museums, cycling culture and so on. It is the capital and most populous city in the Netherlands and often referred to as the “Venice of the North” because of its expansive system of bridges and canals. Here are some of the key points to remember as you plan your trip to Amsterdam.

    Must-See Attractions

    Most visitors begin their Amsterdam adventure in the Old Centre, which is full of traditional architecture, shopping centers, and coffee shops. You'll also want to check out Amsterdam's Museum Quarter in the South District, which is great for shopping at the Albert Cuyp Market and having a picnic in the Vondel park. The top museums to visit there are the Rijks musuem, the Ann Frank House, and the Van Gogh Museum.

    If You Have Time

    There are several other unique districts in Amsterdam, and you should try to explore as many of them as time allows. The Canal Ring is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that was originally built to attract wealthy home owners and is a center for celebrity spotting and nightlife today. The Plantage area has most of the city's museums, including the Jewish Historical Museum, the Scheepvaart Museum, and the botanical gardens.

    Money Saving Tips

    Unless you really want to see the tulips (郁金香) blooming, avoid booking between mid-March and mid-May. This is when hotel and flight prices rise.

    Look for accommodations in Amsterdam's South District, where rates are generally cheaper than in the city center.

    Buy train tickets at the machine instead of the counter to save a bit of money.

    Instead of hiring a tour guide, hop on a canal boat. They're inexpensive and will give you a special point of view of the city.

    Check out our homepage to view price comparisons for flights, hotels, and rental cars before you book.

    Researchers at the University of Chicago have trained an artificial intelligence system, to write fake reviews on Yelp, a website showing customers reviews on shopping or something else, and it's pretty hard to tell them apart from a human review.

    Their study, which will be presented at the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security in October, aimed to throw attention onto how easily these systems can write reviews like humans and how damaging they can become if they're not monitored properly.

    Since many small businesses rely on online reviews to help grow and keep their reputation, a future where someone—like a rival or angry customer—could crazily fill their page with negative reviews written by a machine is pretty worrying.

    And, according to the research team, the threat goes far beyond a bunch of fake reviews on Yelp. "In general the threat is bigger," Ben Y. Zhao, one of the authors of the study, said. "I think the threat towards society is large and it really misleads users and shakes our belief in what is real and what is not. I think that's going to be even unimaginable."

    To test how believable these reviews came across, the researchers invited 40 volunteers and had AI generate five fake reviews for 40 actual restaurants. The volunteers were asked how useful they thought the review was and whether or not they thought it was fake. The AI reviews ranked as "effectively indistinguishable" from real reviews，according to the study. Further, the fake reviews were given a 3.15 "usefulness" rating, compared to a 3.28 rating for human reviews.