I'd always dreamed of exploring Africa, ever since I read my first Tarzan (《人猿泰山》)comic as a child. Finally, in 2004, to celebrate my 60th birthday, I went to Tanzania to experience a safari （东非游猎）and climb Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa. Seated next to me on the flight was Tanzania's minister of water and wildlife development. We talked for thousands of miles, and he arranged me to visit a school. When I toured the school, I was shocked. The leaky (漏的) roofs turned the dirt floors into mud during the rainy season, and the walls couldn't keep out the heat, cold or bugs (小昆虫). The school was in need of all material goods, but the kids possessed great human spirit.

    It broke my heart that these children had to struggle to survive, so I asked the headmaster what it would cost to feed them. As little as 20 cents per child per day, he told me. Immediately I got home, I founded Kids of Kilimanjaro. Since then we've grown to provide hot lunches for nearly 13,000 schoolchildren every day. The free lunch program has eased a major problem the youngsters face.

    I know a good education could really make a difference in these children's lives. My parents always stressed the importance of education. I paid my own way through college in Tokyo by teaching English to students and businesspeople. After attending university I moved to San Francisco, when I was 25 years old. In 1978 I realized my American dream when I founded my own company. My success all started with a good education.

    It's amazing that something as simple as a nutritious lunch can change and enrich so many lives. Giving young people a better, healthier life can inspire them to go all the way through college and lead a movement that transforms their country.

    Imagine that you're the creator and show runner of the newest comedy show on television. Only it isn't so popular yet, and your live Studio audience isn't giving you the big laughs the show deserves. Do you film the show all over again, hoping that this time the audience will laugh? Or is there another option for making a joke sound funnier than it was received?

    Sweeten(改善) the sound by adding a laugh track! “Sweetening,” or the addition of sound effects such as laughs, screams, and other audience-produced noises to the audio track of a TV show, has been used since the 1940s to produce the appearance, or rather the sound, of an engaged and entertained response to a show's comedy. Laugh tracks came into existence as not only a solution, and sometimes replacement, for an unengaged live audience but also as a way to engage an at-home audience into a more-traditional, public, and theaterlike experience. Adding a laugh track to a television show makes the viewers at home feel much less like they're sitting on a couch staring at the television screen and much more like they're in a room full of laughing happy people to varying degrees of success.

    Though the art of sweetening has risen and fallen in popularity over the past 60 years, credit for its creation and continued use is owed to laugh-track pioneer and sound engineer Charles Douglass. Douglass was the first to develop, in 1953, a machine for producing “canned laughter”, accessible at the push of a button or pull of a lever (操纵杆). Despite being artificial, sensibly edited laugh tracks are found by television studios to bring about a positive audience response, as their use is usually accompanied by higher ratings and increased audience memory. Though some television audiences may disagree with the value of the laugh track, the cheerful and repetitive sound holds a permanent place in the history and future of television comedy.

    Women make better drivers than men for many reasons. Why is that? If you ask me, I'd like to say, men know that women are better drivers but do not have the courage to admit the truth—women are queens of the road.

    Unlike men, women stop for directions when they have no idea as to where they are going. We don't drive around for hours pointlessly wasting a tank of gas only to find ourselves heading in the wrong direction. Have you ever been in a car with a man who is lost? He tells you to shut up when you begin to open your mouth. And every five minutes or so he takes a turn going forty-five miles per hour only to find out he's made another wrong turn.

    Speeding is what men do best on the road. There is a reason why men get more speeding tickets than women. Not because we trick to get out of tickets but only because we don't get pulled over as frequently. We don't speed. We have more intelligence than senselessly to put our own lives as well as the lives of others in danger.

    My largest issue with male drivers is how a majority of them drive with one hand on the wheel and the other hand doing only God knows what. The seat is backed as far as possible, and they're totally lost into loud music beyond a necessary level. You don't ever see women driving like that.

    I feel that the above evidence more than proves my points that women are not only better drivers but also safer drivers than men. We women rule the road. Oh, and men, if you want to continue criticizing（批评）women for being bad drivers, bring it on.

    The Boy Made It!

    One Sunday, Nicholas, a teenager, went skiing at Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine. In the early afternoon, when he was planning to go home, a fierce snowstorm swept into the area. Unable to see far, he accidentally turned off the path. Before he knew it, Nicholas was lost, all alone! He didn't have food, water, a phone, or other supplies. He was getting colder by the minute.

    Nicholas had no idea where he was. He tried not to panic. He thought about all the survival shows he had watched on TV. It was time to put the tips he had learned to use.

    He decided to stop skiing. There was a better chance of someone finding him if he stayed put. The first thing he did was to find shelter form the freezing wind and snow. If he didn't, his body temperature would get very low, which could quickly kill him.

    Using his skis, Nicholas built a snow cave. He gathered a huge mass of snow and dug out a hole in the middle. Then he piled branches on top of himself, like a blanket, to stay as warm as he could.

    By that evening, Nicholas was really hungry. He ate snow and drank water from a nearby stream so that his body wouldn't lose too much water. Not knowing how much longer he could last, Nicholas did the only thing he could- he huddled(蜷缩) in his cave and slept.

    The next day, Nicholas went out to look for help, but he couldn't find anyone. He followed his tracks and returned to the snow cave, because without shelter, he could die that night. On Tuesday, Nicholas went out to find help. He had walked for about a mile when a volunteer searcher found him. After two days stuck in the snow, Nicholas was saved.

    Nicholas might not have survived this snowstorm had it not been for TV. He had often watched Grylls' survival show. Man vs. Wild. That's where he learned the tips that saved his life, In each episode(一期节目)of Man vs. Wild, Grylls is abandoned in a wild area and has to find his way out.

    When Grylls heard about Nicholas' amazing deeds, he was super impressed that Nicholas had made it since he knew better than anyone how hard Nicholas had to work to stay alive.

    There are some very good things about open education. This way of teaching allows the students to grow as people, and to develop their own interests in many subjects. Open education allows students to be responsible for their own education, as they are responsible for what they do in life. Some students do badly in a traditional classroom. The open classroom may allow them to enjoy learning. Some students will be happier in an open education school. They will not have to worry about grades or rules. For students who worry about these things a lot, it is a good idea to be in an open classroom.

    But many students will not do well in an open classroom. For some students, there are too few rules. These students will do little in school. They will not make good use of open education. Because open education is so different from traditional education, these students may have a problem getting used to making so many choices. For many students it is important to have some rules in the classroom. They worry about the rules even when there are no rules. Even a few rules will help this kind of students. The last point about open education is that some traditional teachers do not like it. Many teachers do not believe in open education. Teachers who want to have an open classroom may have many problems at their schools.

    You now know what open education is. Some of its good points and bad points have been explained. You may have your own opinion about open education. The writer thinks that open education is a good idea, but only in theory. In actual fact, it may not work very well in a real class or school. The writer believes that most students, but of course not all students, want some structure in their classes. They want and need to have rules. In some cases, they must be made to study some subjects. Many students are pleased to find subjects they have to study interesting. They would not study those subjects if they did not have to.

    Angel Garcia Crespo is a computer engineer at Carlos III University of Madrid in Spain. His group has invented a new way for deaf-blind people to "watch" TV. The idea for the technology grew out of previous work by his group. The team had already worked on making audiovisual(视听的) materials accessible to people with either vision or hearing disabilities. But the group wanted to help people with both challenges. So they asked some deaf-blind people what would help.

    In addition to relying on their sense of touch to communicate, deaf-blind people can also get and send information with a Braille line. The Braille system uses patterns of raised dots to stand for letters and numbers. A Braille line is an electronic machine with a changeable Braille display. Dots rise up or drop down based on the information sent to the machine.

    Now the new system changes TV signals to data a Braille line can use. "The key to the system is the possibility of using subtitles(字幕) to collect TV information, " Garcia Crespo explains. "Subtitles travel with the image(影像) and the audio in electromagnetic waves we don't see. But an electronic system can keep those waves. "

    First, a computer program, or app, pulls out the subtitles and visual descriptions from the broadcast signal. The system then combines the information and changes both into data for Braille.

    Now another app gets to work, which sends the data out to people's Braille lines on demand. "This is done in real time, in less than a second," Garcia Crespo says. This lets a deaf-blind person "watch" TV as it's broadcast. The system will work with various Braille lines, as long as there's a bluetooth connection available. Now, the system is only used in Europe, and it should soon be available in the US.