Last year, I was on a plane with my friend, waiting for it to take off. The pilot's voice was heard throughout the plane: “Sorry for the delay, ladies and gentlemen. Our engines don't work. We are going to jump-start them. Once we get them going, we'll get up in the air and see what happens.”

    That was all he said. “See what happens? Shouldn't we have had a better plan than that?” At that point, I could only laugh nervously. One woman started crying: “Oh, no! We are going to crash!” There are sighs of desperation and anxiety, and we hadn't even taken off yet.

    The pilot even seemed unhappy. He told us one engine was working double time, and his plan was to get up in the air and see what happens! Then we did. We got up in the air, and what happened? Nothing. We arrived in Norfolk, and no sooner had the wheels touched down than applause burst out as everyone on the airplane breathed a sigh of relief.

    All too often, people stop achieving their goals just because they don't have a guaranteed result. But success will never be guaranteed. The best thing that you can do is to just get up in the air, and see what happens.

    If your aim is to build a business, then get up in the air and see what happens! Don't give yourself all the reasons why you can't. Do not wait until you have everything you need. You never will.

    If your goal is to start a friendship, say “Hello”, get up in the air and see what happens! The results could be very rewarding. If your goal is to learn a new skill, get up in the air and see what happens! It might not be as difficult as you think. It could be fun!

    When asked how technology might improve the lives of people with vision impairments (视力障碍), Joann Becker presented a misleadingly simple challenge. “Well,” the vision impairments tech specialist recalls saying. “I'd like to be able to find my bus slop through Be My Eyes”.

    Be My Eyes, which went live in 2015, establishes a direct video connection between visually impaired users and sighted volunteers. The assumption is simple: Many people who are blind don't need any actual assistance in completing their daily tasks, but merely need a little help.

    A sighted volunteer might be asked to help identify which of two cans contains tomatoes. In this case, the visually impaired user can cook a meal just fine on his/her own-all he/she needs is a quick confirmation that he/she has the correct can. The model appears to be working; more than 540,000 volunteers and nearly 40,000 people with low vision are registered on the app.

    “An elderly woman can now help a visually impaired technician set up his computer,” says founder Hans Wiberg, who has very low vision. “She doesn't need to know a thing about computers. She only needs to read what is presented on the screen. Then he can do the rest.”

    Early assistive technology centered on dedicated devices (专用设备), because of the niche market (缝隙市场), which sold for hundreds or even thousands of dollars. But the smartphone, multipurpose and near-universal, has completely changed the economy of scale.

    “There are larger market forces driving high-powered computation, high-quality engineering and high-quality battery management in the smartphone market than those in a specialty product,” says Aaron Steinfeld, a research professor at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

    “The reality is, most sighted people don't know somebody who is blind.” Becker says. “They think the solutions that a blind person needs arc far more expansive, it turns out, they need to be. I think these apps are enabling sighted people to see that blind people just need some simple clues to help them do any number of things in their lives.”

    Cosmo Books Ltd.,                         14, Woodman Road,

    Hertford Estate,                            Two Bridges,

    Rickmansworth,                            West Sussex.

    Middx.                                  25^th February

Dear Sir,

    Just over six months ago, I saw an advertisement in the Morning Mail for a set of the complete works of William Shakespeare. Your company, Cosmo books Ltd., offered this set (eight books of plays and two books of poetry) at what was claimed to be a 'remarkable' price: fifteen pounds and fifty pence, including postage and packing. I had wanted a set of Shakespeare's plays and poems for some time, and these books, in red imitation leather, looked particularly attractive; so I sent for them.

    Two weeks later, the books arrived, together with a set of the complete works of Charles Dickens which I had not ordered. So I returned the Dickens books to you, with a cheque for fifteen pounds and fifty pence for the works of Shakespeare. Two more weeks passed. Then there arrived on my door step a second set of the works of Shakespeare, the same set of novels by Dickens and a six book set of the plays of Moliere, in French. Since I do not read French, these were of no use to me at all. However, I could not afford to post all these books back to you, so I wrote to you at the end of August of last year, instructing you to come and collect all the books that I did not want, and asking you not to send any other books until further notice.

    You did not reply to that letter. Instead you sent me a bill for forty two pounds, and a set of the plays of Schiller, in German. Since then, a new set of books has arrived every two weeks, the works of Goethe, the poems of Milton, the plays of Strindberg; I hardly know what I have. The books are still all in their boxes, in the garage, and my car has to stand in the rain outside.

    I have no room for any more books, and even if I read from now until the Last Judgment, I should not finish reading all the books that you have sent me.

    Please send no more books, send no more bills, send no more angry letters demanding payment. Just send one large lorry and take all the books away, leaving me only with the one set of the complete works of Shakespeare for which I have paid.

Yours faithfully,

SIMON WALKER

    The kids in this village wear dirty, ragged clothes. They sleep beside cows and sheep in huts made of sticks and mud. They have no school. Yet they all can chant the English alphabet, and some can make words.

    The key to their success: 20 tablet computers(平板电脑) dropped off in their Ethiopian village in February by a U.S. group called One Laptop Per Child.

    The goal is to find out whether kids using today's new technology can teach themselves to read in places where no schools or teachers exist. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers analyzing the project data say they're already amazed. “What I think has already happened is that the kids have already learned more than they would have in one year of kindergarten,” said Matt Keller, who runs the Ethiopia program.

    The fastest learner—and the first to turn on one of the tablets—is 8-year-old Kelbesa Negusse. The device's camera was disabled to save memory, yet within weeks Kelbesa had figured out its workings and made the camera work. He called himself a lion, a marker of accompli shment in Ethiopia.

    With his tablet, Kelbasa rearranged the letters HSROE into one of the many English animal names he knows. Then he spelled words on his own. “Seven months ago he didn't know any English. That's unbelievable,” said Keller.

    The project aims to get kids to a stage called “deep reading,” where they can read to learn. It won't be in Amharic, Ethiopia's first language, but in English, which is widely seen as the ticket to higher paying jobs.

    An unconventional new initiative(首创)in Canada will soon allow doctors to prescribe art to their patients—by giving them free access to a local museum. Wandering through the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts(MMFA), these patients and their loved ones will be able to feast their eyes on the peaceful collections of art.

    The initiative is the first of its kind in the world. And while you certainly can't replace a conventional treatment with a couple of paintings, the idea is for such “prescriptions” to assist a person's current treatment plan. Under the new program, members of the Francophone Association of Doctors in Canada(MFDC)will be able to hand out up to 50 prescriptions for their patients.

    These prescriptions will be available for those with a wide range of mental and physical illnesses, and each of them will allow two adults and two children to visit the museum for free.

    “By offering free admission to a safe, welcoming place, a relaxing experience, a moment of relief, and an opportunity to strengthen ties with loved ones, MMFA—MFDC Museum Prescriptions contribute to the patient's well-being and recovery, ”explains a news conference from the MMFA.

    It may look a lot like a marketing effort for the museum but there's also increasing evidence that the display of visual art, especially if it's showing nature, can have positive effects on health outcomes.

    In some ways, the benefits of looking at art appear a little similar to physical activity. A systematic review of clinical art therapy(疗法) found that visual art has significant and positive effects on depression, anxiety, mood, and self-esteem. Findings like these are slowly gaining attraction in the medical community, making artwork a higher priority(优先)in hospitals around the world.

    In the US, nearly half of all health care institutions have reported including art in health care programming, such as art therapy and the placement of visual art in hospitals. With spaces dedicated(专用的)to art therapy and also a medical consultation room, the MMFA already provides services for people with mental health issues, eating disorders, and Alzheimer's disease, just to name a few.

    Millions of Americans sit behind a computer screen, chained to their desk all day because the vast majority of stable, high-paying professions(职业) are "office jobs". However, having a successful career does not require you to sit behind a desk and plug away at a computer all day.

    In fact, there are a large number of non-desk jobs in a variety of industries that are growing and offering workers a direct path to the middle class, according to a new analysis of labor market information from CareerBuilder. While most of the highest-paying non-desk jobs are medical professions that require a doctoral or professional degree, there are 170 non-desk professions that pay $15 per hour or more, do not require a bachelor's degree(学士学位) for a typical entry-level position, and have seen at least 6 percent job growth over the last four years.

    "The US workforce has gradually changed to office-based work because of the rise of the professional service economy and productivity gains associated with information technology," Rosemary Haefner, Vice President of Human Resources Officer at CareerBuilder, said in a statement. "But some of the healthiest areas of job growth year after year are in middle-skill professions that don't require workers to sit in front of computer monitors and phones for 40 hours a weel."

    Here are the top-paying jobs that don't require you to work at a desk in various kinds — none of which require a four-year college degree — and their hourly salary(工资) and growth rate since 2010: professional assistants(助理) : $26.57, 14 percent; elevator repairers: $37.81, 6 percent; mechanical engineering technicians: $25.19, 10 percent; and electromechanical(电动机械的) technicians: $24.68, 8 percent.

    While they tend to pay less than traditional office jobs, non-desk professions provide a variety of benefits. Haefner points to a 2014 CareerBuilder survey that discovered workers who don't work at a desk all day are less likely to complain about their work environment and less likely to report being overweight.