Close your eyes for a minute and imagine what life would be like if you had a hundred dollars less．Also imagine what it would be like spending the rest of your life with you eyes closed．Imagine having to read this page, not with your eyes but with your finger-tips．

    With existing medical knowledge and skills, two-thirds of the world's 42 million blind should not have to suffer．Unfortunately, rich countries posses most of this knowledge, while developing countries do not．

    ORBIS is an international non-profit organization which operates the world's only flying teaching eye hospital．ORBIS intends to help fight blindness worldwide．Inside a DC-8 aircraft, there is a fully-equipped teaching hospital with television studio and classroom．Doctors are taught the latest techniques of bringing sight back to people there．Project ORBIS also aims at promoting peaceful cooperation（合作） among countries．

    ORBIS tries to help developing countries by providing training during three-week medical programs．ORBIS has taught sight-saving techniques to over 35,000 doctors and nurses, who continue to cure tens of thousands of blind people every year．ORBIS has conducted 17 plane programs is China so far．For the seven to ten million blind in China ORBIS is planning to do more for them．At the moment an ORBIS is working on a long-term plan to develop a training center and to provide eye care service to Shanxi Province．ORBIS needs your help to continue their work and free people from blindness．

    For just US$38,you can help one person see; for $380 you can bring sight to 10 people; $1,300 helps teach a doctor new skills; and for $13,000 you can provide a training program for a group of doctors who can make thousands of blind people see again．Your money can open their eyes to the world．Please help ORBIS improve the quality of life for so many people less fortunate than ourselves．

    I have learned something about myself since I moved from Long Island to Florida three years ago. Even though I own a home in Port St, Lucie just minutes from the ocean, an un-controllable urge wells up to return to Long Island even as others make their way south. I guess I am a snowbird stuck in reverse. Instead of enjoying Florida's mild winters, I willingly endure the severe weather on Long Island, the place I called home for 65 years.

    I'm like a migratory bird (候鸟) that has lost its sense of timing and direction, my wings flapping against season.

    So what makes me fly against the tide of snowbirds? The answer has a lot to do with my reluctance to give up the things that define who I am. Once I hear that the temperature on Long Island has dipped into the range of 40 to 50 degrees, I begin to long for the sight and crackling sound of a wood fire. I also long for the bright display of colors-first in the fall trees, and then in the lights around homes and at Rockefeller Center. Floridians decorate too, but can't create the special feel of a New England winter.

    I suppose the biggest reason why I return is to celebrate the holidays with people I haven't seen in months. What could be better than sitting with family and friends for a Thanksgiving turkey dinner, or watching neighbors children excitedly open gifts on Christmas? Even the first snowfall seems special. I especially enjoy seeing a bright red bird settling on a snow-covered branch. (My wife and I spend winters at a retirement community in Ridge, and I'm grateful that I don't have to shovel.)

    While these simple pleasures are not unique to Long Island, they are some of the reasons why I come back. Who says you can't go home?

Harry, the first camel to arrive in Australia in 1840, was an unlucky beast. He was imported from the Canary Islands by explorer John Horrocks. On an expedition (探险), Horrocks picked up his gun in order to shoot “a beautiful bird to be added to the collection.” Perhaps Harry was an ecologist —- he lurched (突然倾斜), and the gun discharged, shooting Horrocks in the face.

    Horrocks not surprisingly died of his injuries, and his treatments ordered Harry to be shot. The first importation of a camel into Australia came to naught.

    In 1860, 24 camels arrived in Australia to be part of an expedition by explorers Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills. It was an unlucky expedition. The pair made one mistake after another, and ended up eating most of their camels, before starving to death.

    Six years later, more than 100 camels and their Afghan minders, arrived in Australia. This time it succeeded and thousands more camels followed.

    Sir Thomas Elder set up the first camel studs (种畜场) in South Australia, while others were set up in Western Australia. This time the camels bred (繁殖) like wildfire. They were used for working, rather than exploring expeditions.

    The imported Afghan cameleers were just as hardy and vital, leading camel trains across the cruel interior (腹地) of Australia, where few dared to go. The camels carried heavy packs of wool and supplies and opened up the desert areas as none had managed to do before. The train that does this crossing today is called The Ghan, in their honor.

    Motorization put these camel trains out of business, and many camels were turned loose. The camels loved Australia, and multiplied in amazing numbers. What is to be done with them?

    Not surprisingly they have become quite a tourist attraction and you can take a camel ride in the desert as the Afghan cameleers once did. But the fact is that camels create quite a problem in areas where they have taken over, as they damage local vegetation, muscle out native animals competing for food, and create chaos when they wander into settled area.

    Even for a first-time visitor to China, it is impossible to ignore the popularity of Quick-Response (QR) codes. These square-shaped black-and-white symbols in WeChat or Alipay where QR codes are scanned to add new friends or make payments.

    The QR Code system originated in Japan. The engineer Masahiro Hara felt the limitation of the one-dimension barcode in use and thus developed the QR codes which could carry data horizontally and vertically. QR codes could hold much more information than barcode due to their extra dimension. In addition, QR codes have larger data capacity, smaller print—out size and higher resistance to dirt and damage, which make them widely applied in many other applications.

    Though the technology of QR codes is complicated, we can easily create our own QR codes with the help of QR code generators, many of which are available online for free. Users could enter the data they wish the QR code to display, and the generator turns it into a symbol that can be printed or displayed in electronic form. The process of creating QR codes could be really fun when we customise the design of the codes according to our specific needs. For instance, we can adjust the color, add a logo, and create social options etc. Moreover, dynamic (动态的) QR codes are also available. They are more various than standard QR codes because they allow users to edit data entered previously whereas data in standard QR codes cannot be edited once printed. Plus, don't limit your QR code to one mobile scanner. Anyone can scan your code with any reader. A lower barrier to entry makes success more likely for you and the user.

    Meanwhile, we must also recognize the vulnerability of QR codes. Due to its easy access, criminals can steal simply by replacing the QR codes with their own, routing cash into their own bank accounts. Hence, we should all become more conscious towards virtual money transactions through QR codes and participate in additional security measures.

Planning a visit to the UK? Here we help with ways to cut your costs. 

AVOID BIG EVENTS Big sporting events, concerts and exhibitions can increase the cost of accommodation and make it harder to find a room. A standard double room at the Thistle Brighton on the final Friday of the Brighton Comedy Festival （19 Oct. ） cost £ 169. 15 at Booking. com. A week later, the same room cost £ 118. 15.

If you can be flexible and want to know dates to avoid or you're looking for a big event to pass your time-check out sites such as Whatsonwhen.com, which allow you to search for events in the UK by city, date and category. 

STAYAWAY FROM THE STATION If traveling to your destination by train, you -may want to find a good base close to the station, but you could end up paying more for the sake of convenience at the start of your holiday. 

Don't be too choosy about the part of town you stay in. Booking two months in advance, the cheapest room at Travelodge's Central Euston hotel in London for Saturday 22 September was £ 95. 95. A room just a tube journey away at its Covent Garden hotel was £ 75. 75. And at Farringdon, a double room cost just £ 62. 95.

LOOK AFTER YOURSELF Really central hotels in cities such as London, Edinburgh and Cardiff can cost a fortune, especially at weekends and during big events. As an alternative consider checking into a self-catering flat with its own kitchen. Often these flats are hidden away on the top floors of city centre buildings. A great example is the historic O'Neill Flat on Edinburgh's Royal Mile, available for £ 420 for five days in late September, with room for four adults. 

GET ON A BIKE London's "Boris bikes' have attracted the most attention, but other cities also have similar programmes that let you rent a bicycle and explore at your own pace, saving you. on public transport or car parking costs. 

Among the smaller cities with their own programmes are Newcastle （casual members pay around £ 1. 50 for two hours） and Cardiff （free for up to 30 minutes, or £ 5 per day）. 

Josefa Marin went to New York from Mexico in 1987, supporting her daughter back home with the $140 a week she earned at a sweater factory. With that small income, she had to collect recyclables, trading in cans for five cents each.

When the clothing factory closed down in the late 2000s, she became a full-time recycler, picking up cans and bottles to make ends meet.

Marin's story is not unique. Millions around the world make a living from picking through waste and reselling it – a vital role that keeps waste manageable. In New York City, the administrative department collects only about 28 percent of the cans that could be recycled. Rubbish collectors keep millions of additional recyclables out of landfills every year.

Yet collectors are ruled out by government policies. The United States Supreme Court in 1988 stated that household garbage is public property once it's on the street. That enables police to search rubbish for evidence, but that protection hasn't always been extended to recyclers. And in places like New York City, which is testing city-owned locked containers to hide garbage from rats, containers are made clearly inaccessible for collectors.

"There's value in the waste, and we feel that value should belong to the people, not the city or the corporations", says Ryan Castalia, director of a nonprofit recycling and community center in Brooklyn.

Recognized or not, waste pickers have long been treated with disrespect. Marin recalls an occasion when someone living next to a building where she was collecting cans threw water at her. "Because I recycle it doesn't mean I am less of a person than anyone else," she says.

Some governments are starting to realize that protecting the environment and humanity go hand in hand. The United Nation's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, for example, calls for an end to poverty and all the risks it brings.