Worlds of Fun

    Location: Worlds of Fun is located off Highway 435 in Kansas City, Missouri.

    History: Worlds of Fun was opened on May 26, 1973, at a cost of 25 million dollars. Loosely themed around the Jules Verne book, Around the World in Eighty Days, the park was founded by Hunt Midwest Company. In 1982, Hunt Midwest bought a nearby waterpark, Oceans of Fun. In 2013, Worlds of Fun and Oceans of Fun were combined to a one ticket admission, providing all guests with access to 235 acres of amusement and water rides.

    Hours: Worlds of Fun is open from April through Halloween.

    Tickets: Buy and print online. Always try to buy your tickets in advance, to save time when you get to the park.

    Reservations: Worlds of Fun sells “Fast Lane” cards that save riders' time by allowing them to bypass the majority of wait for most of rides and attractions including Mamba, Prowler, and Patriot. Ride as many times as you want all day long.

    Strategy: Most visitors tend to begin the day with Prowler, the hottest attraction in the park. Use that tendency to your advantage and head to the Patriot first. After that, try the Dragons. Then work your way back to the Prowler. After riding the Prowler, there is only one coaster left, Mamba. Hit it next. If the park is not very crowded, you can ride Boomerang on the way to Mamba. After riding Mamba, head back for a ride on the Wolf. By then you will have tried most of the popular rides and attractions in the shortest possible time.

    News: In 2017, Worlds of Fun is adding Steel Hawk, a ride that will take guests up 301 feet in the air and spin them at a 45-degree angle for a 60-second flight. Wait to have a try!

    First it was worry about second-hand smoke, now there's major concern over third-hand smoke which gets into hair, clothes, furniture or a car rather than directly from a cigarette or someone breathing it out.

    To be honest, I've always been worried about the health dangers of this even though I didn't know it had a name. My worry made me reluctant to let smokers hold my babies even though they didn't smoke in my house.

    Tests for its effects have been only carried out on mice, but I don't think they can be ignored. Researchers at California University last month suggested third-hand smoke (THS) could cause type 2 diabetes, liver and lung damage.

    They analyzed how people are affected by taking in smoke from another person's clothing, hair, home, or car. They say they can see an impact on the brain and liver. Lead author Manuela Martins-Green said: “Our goal was to decide the smallest amount of time required to cause physiological changes in mice when they are exposed(暴露) to THS.” This was done using an exposure system that is the same as human exposure.

    “We found THS exposure as early as one month caused liver damage. Exposure for two months lead to further molecular(分子的) damage, and at four to six months caused even more such damage. We also found the mice showed insulin resistance（抗胰岛素） after long-term exposure.”

    “THS is a hidden danger, a silent killer. Pollutants can be absorbed through the skin and through breathing.”

    “Although our research was not done on humans, people should be aware that hotel rooms, cars and homes that were used by smokers are very likely to be polluted with THS.” Martins-Green believes most people don't know they're being exposed to THS, or don't believe in the damage it can do.

    THS toxins(毒素) remain on surfaces for many years, and resist even strong cleaning agents.

    Before we came to Canada in 1951, when I was three, my parents and I spent a year at refugee camp (难民营) in Austria. We had escaped from what was then called Czechoslovakia. My parents had already lost their livelihood once to the Nazi. Mummy was freed from the Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen and spent the years after the war trying to find her family, only to discover she was the only survivor. She met my father in a small town outside Prague. They married and had me in 1948. When we arrived in Montreal, everything we owned was contained in an army trunk and a couple of army blankets. Mummy bought an old sewing machine and some inexpensive materials and using patterns in magazines, taught herself to sew. Her hands were always going, making something. She learned English by singing along to the hit song as she worked.

    For me, high school was a lonely time. My mother worried that I'd never come out of my shell so she signed me up for classes at the Montreal Children's Theatre. That's where I found my voice with her strong faith in me, Mummy had opened a door. Although she was an educated woman, I never heard my mother said “This is what I gave up for you.” She was always there for my younger brother and me. When I sat in the kitchen with her, I felt safe. When she made soup or sewed a ballet costume for me, it was all a gift, a labor of love. She wanted to make us happy. For a long time, I had a picture hanging in the kitchen saying “Put your heart into it.” I grew up with that phrase. Mummy taught that lesson by example, and it has become my own work ethic(职业道德).

    Two of the saddest words in the English language are “if only”. I live my life with the goal of never having to say those words, because they convey regret, lost opportunities, mistakes, and disappointment.

    My father is famous in our family for saying “Take the extra minute to do it right”. I always try to live by the “extra minute” rule.  When my children were young and likely to cause accidents, I always thought about what I could do to avoid an “if only” moment，whether it was something minor like moving a cup full of hot coffee away from the edge of a counter, or something that required a little more work such as taping padding (衬垫)onto the sharp corners of a glass coffee table.

    I don't only avoid those “if only” moments when it comes to safety. It's equally important to avoid “if only” in our personal relationships. We all know people who lost a loved one and regretted that they had foregone an opportunity to say “I love you“ or “I forgive you”. When my father announced he was going to the eye doctor across from my office on Good Friday，I told him that it was a holiday for my company and I wouldn't be here. But then I thought about the fact that he's 84 years old and I realized that I shouldn't give up an opportunity to see him.  I called him and told him I had decided to go to work on my day off after all.

    I know there will still be occasions when I have to say “ if only” about something, but my life is definitely better because of my policy of doing everything possible to avoid that eventuality. And even though it takes an extra minute to do something right, or it occasionally takes an hour or two in my busy schedule to make a personal connection, I know that I'm doing the right thing. I'm buying myself peace of mind and that's the best kind of insurance for my emotional well-being.

    One day, I received a call from a colleague. He was about to give a student a zero for his answer to a physical problem， while the student claimed a perfect score. I was elected as their arbiter. I read the examination problem: “Show how it is possible to determine the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer(气压计).” The student had answered: “Take the barometer to the top of the building，attach a long rope to it，lower it to the street， and then bring it up, measuring the length of the rope. The length of it is the height of the building. ”

    The student had really answered the question completely, but the answer didn't confirm his competence in physics. I suggested the student try again. I gave him six minutes to answer the question, warning that the answer should show some knowledge of physics. Five minutes later, he said he had many answers and clashed off one, which read： “Take the barometer to the top of the building and lean over the edge of the roof. Drop the barometer, timing its fall with a stopwatch. Then, use the physical formula (公式）to calculate the height of the building. ”

    At this point, my colleague had to accept it, and then the student made almost full marks. I couldn't help asking the student what the other answers were. He listed many others ，and then added “Probably the best is to take the barometer to the administrator and said to him，' Sir, here is a fine barometer. If you tell me the height of the building, I will give it to you.，”

    Then, I asked the student if he really did not know the conventional answer to this question. He admitted that he did, but said that he was fed up with high school and college instructors trying to teach him how to think.

    The name of the student was Bohr who later was famous all over the world. He won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1922.

From rolling hills to mountain ranges, views make any road trip memorable, but for blin d passengers this is part of the experience they miss. Motor company Ford tries to change that. It teamed up with GTB Rom a and AedoProject—to develop a technology that will give those unfortunate passengers a way to feel nature's beauty through their car windows.

The prototype (原型) of the smart car window has a device with an outside-facing camera. With just a press of a button, the system takes a picture of the current view. The colorful picture is then turned into an image with different shades of grey through, LED lights, which vibrates (震动) differently. As the finger passes over different regions of the image, its shaking movements provide feedback through the sense of touch to the person using it. The smart window also comes with a voice assistant that uses AI to identify the scene and help the passengers get information on what they're seeing.

"As the prototype started taking shape, we realized we were giving birth to a completely new language that would give blind people a new chance to visualize and experience traveling," Federico Russo.-one director of GTBRoma, said. "When the idea was at its first stage, we looked for suppliers all around the world to make it come to life." He believes the technology can be employed not just in cars. "It could be introduced into schools and in stitutions for blind people as a tool that could be used in multiple ways."

The technology may show up in a Ford autonomous vehicle. It's known that the company is testing their technology and future business model and struggling to figure out how an autonomous vehicle gives different passengers the details needed to get from one destination to another. It's unclear when this technology will be made available. However, the idea of building something for the less advanced is indeed a kind and influential action.