“People are ruder today because they are rushed and more 'time poor' than ever before，” says Patsy Rowe, “Manners_have_fallen_off_the_radar(雷达)．” Due to our strong attraction to electronic equipment it is a wonder more people don't wake up each morning and greet the singing birds with a complaint(抱怨)about the noise. Here are some examples of rudeness.

    Some people prefer to do almost everything over the Internet. To them, dealing with an actual human needs more patience. It feels very slow because humans don't work at 4G speeds. When you have dinner with friends, you will often notice someone paying more attention to his mobile phone. We have programmed ourselves to think that every new message brings life－changing news, so taking calls and checking our texts are more important than talking to the people we are with. What is worse, some people even tend to send anonymous(匿名的) rude messages by email.

    However, rudeness is never acceptable. Don't assume it is OK to be rude if the person you're in touch with won't recognize you. If you have something awful to say, have the courage to face the person and say it, write a letter or email and sign it, or forget it. Upsetting people with unsigned messages is cruel and disgusting.（令人厌恶的）

    We shouldn't blame technology for our shortcomings. Technology is here to help us，but we should not allow it to take over our lives. An important step is acknowledging our shortcomings. People spend a lot of time pointing out bad manners but it would be even more helpful if we'd publicly acknowledge good manners when we see them.

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    Alvin Irby, a former kindergarten and first-grade teacher, was at a barbershop when he saw one of his former students sitting in the shop with a bored look on his face. That's when Irby realized that by pairing barbershops and books, he might be able to inspire young black boys to read.

    Four years ago, he launched Barbershop Books as a way to not just get books into the hands of young black boys, but to also create community reading spaces in a place where kids go frequently. Since its inception in 2013, the program has created kid-friendly reading spaces in 50 barbershops in 12 states throughout the United States.

    Irby isn't the first person to see the connection between barbers and books and boys. Hair stylist Courtney Holmes, launched a program a few years ago offering free haircuts to kids as long as they read to him while he cuts their hair.

    That's the kind of environment that Irby wants to promote with his program. The reading spaces created by Barbershop Books help to spark an interest in books by showing kids that reading is about more than just spelling and vocabulary skills, it's about making reading a low-stress activity that can help them relax, laugh and have fun.

    “Our belief is that if we can create positive reading experiences early and often for young black boys, then they will choose to read for fun because they will identify as a reader,” Irby noted, adding, “This is really what Barbershop Books is about, getting young black boys to say three words: I'm a reader.”

Irby's idea is catching on, and it will continue to spread thanks in part to the National Book Foundation. Barbershop Books recently won the organization's 2017 Innovations in Reading prize, which is given to Programs that use reading to make a social impact.

C

    There's a new frontier in 3D printing that's beginning to come into focus: food. Recent development has made possible machines that print, cook, and serve foods on a mass scale. And the industry isn't stopping there.

Food production

    With a 3D printer, a cook can print complicated chocolate sculptures and beautiful pieces for decoration on a wedding cake. Not everybody can do that — it takes years of experience, but a printer makes it easy. A restaurant in Spain uses a Foodini to "re-create forms and pieces" of food that are "exactly the same," freeing cooks to complete other tasks. In another restaurant, all of the dishes and desserts it serves are 3D-printed, rather than farm to table.

Sustainability(可持续性）

    The global population is expected to grow to 9.6 billion by 2050, and some analysts estimate that food production will need to be raised by 50 percent to maintain current levels. Sustainability is becoming a necessity. 3D food printing could probably contribute to the solution. Some experts believe printers could use hydrocolloids (水解胶体) from plentiful renewables like algae(藻类) and grass to replace the familiar ingredients(烹饪原料). 3D printing can reduce fuel use and emissions. Grocery stores of the future might stock "food" that lasts years on end, freeing up shelf space and reducing transportation and storage requirements.

Nutrition

    Future 3D food printers could make processed food healthier. Hod Lipson, a professor at Columbia University, said, "Food printing could allow consumers to print food with customized nutritional content, like vitamins. So instead of eating a piece of yesterday's bread from the supermarket, you'd eat something baked just for you on demand."

Challenges

    Despite recent advancements in 3D food printing, the industry has many challenges to overcome. Currently, most ingredients must be changed to a paste(糊状物) before a printer can use them, and the printing process is quite time-consuming, because ingredients interact with each other in very complex ways. On top of that, most of the 3D food printers now are restricted to dry ingredients, because meat and milk products may easily go bad. Some experts are skeptical about 3D food printers, believing they are better suited for fast food restaurants than homes and high-end restaurants.

    Steven Spielberg never fails to blow us away with his imagination.

    The US director's latest film Ready Player One, which was released in Chinese mainland cinemas on March 30, is a story set in the year 2045, when people escape their hopeless everyday lives by putting on a VR mask and entering a virtual (虚拟的) world named Oasis. This fantasy land is filled with characters and settings right out of classic films and videogames like The Shining and Overwatch. It's a feast both for the eyes and mind. And at the age of 71, Spielberg is still “at the top of his game”, wrote reporter Rafer Guzman on Newsday.

    Indeed, Spielberg has always been a gamer himself or rather a game changer. When his thriller Jaws came out in 1975, it struck a chord (引起共鸣) with audiences all over the world and kept people from going swimming for fear. The film was also the first example of what we now know as summer blockbusters.

    “Jaws invented that form of pleasurable entertainment, wrote Stephen Marche on Esquire. It also turned sharks, in the popular imagination, from fish into monsters.”

    And again, in his 1982 film E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial Spielberg challenged people's beliefs that aliens are something to be feared by telling a story about a loving friendship between a space creature and a little boy. “Spielberg redefined popular sci-fi”, wrote Marc Lee on The Telegraph. “Extra-terrestrials no longer had to be a threat to humanity: the universe, he was saying, is also full of awe and wonder.”

    Now comes Ready Player One. When Wade Watts, the film's teenage protagonist (主角), finally prevents Oasis from falling into the wrong hands, he's given ownership of the virtual world by its late designer James Halliday. But Watts makes a decision that he hopes will make people want to appreciate their real lives, instead of spending all their free time escaping reality in Oasis, which is a real-life message that Spielberg is trying to deliver to the audience.

    “He almost didn't see the old lady, stranded(困在) on the side of the road, but even in the dim light of day, he could see she needed help. So he pulled up in front her Mercedes and got out.

    Even with the smile on his face, she was worried. No one had stopped to help for the last hour or so. Was he going to hurt her? He didn't look safe; he looked poor and hungry. He could see that she was frightened, standing out there in the cold. He knew how she felt.

    He said, “I am here to help you, ma'am. Why don't you wait in the car where it's warm? By the way, my name is Bryan Anderson.”

    Well, all she had was a flat tire, but for an old lady, that was bad enough. Bryan crawled under the car looking for a place to put the jack, skinning his knuckles a time or two. Soon he was able to change the tire. But he had to get dirty and his hands hurt.

    As he was tightening up the lug nuts, she rolled down the window and began to talk to him. She told him that she was from St. Louis and was just passing through. She couldn't thank him enough for coming to her aid.

    Bryan just smiled as he closed her trunk. The lady asked how much she owed him. Any amount would have been all right with her. She already imagined all the awful things that could have happened, had he not stopped. Bryan never thought twice about being paid. This was not a job to him. This was helping someone in need, and God knows there were many people who had given him a hand in the past. He had lived his whole life that way, and it never occurred to him to act any other way.

    He told her that if she really wanted to pay him back, the next time she saw someone who needed help, she could give that person the assistance they needed, and Bryan added, “And think of me.”

    He waited until she started her car and drove off. It had been a cold and depressing day, but he felt good as he headed for home, disappearing into the twilight.

    I was raised in a house where my sisters and I weren't trusted by our mother to manage our own appearance. As a result, there were rules, and trends were largely ignored. A few years ago, I was home for a visit when my mom, now in her early 70s, called me into her bedroom. We were about ready to leave for dinner. “I don't know what to wear” she complained “You girls always look so good. ”

    I paused in the doorway and looked at her, wondering if I'd misheard. “What do you mean?” I asked her. “You know what to wear" No. ”she answered. “I don't. Can you pick something?” I was so surprised.

    This was the same woman who, in 1989, told my younger sister she wasn't allowed to leave the house wearing a pair of ripped(有破洞的)jeans；the same woman who, in high school, called me while l was out at a party to ask if my hair was up. “You look better with it down, ”she told me, before I could answer I realized, suddenly, that my mother—always so strong—not only wanted my opinion, but needed it. I pulled a pair of blue jeans from the closet and a light blue sweater from her drawer “Wear this with your black shoes, ”I told her. She did My mother certainly doesn't need anyone to take care of her. In fact, she still cares for my grandmother who lives with her. But with that one question, my mother and I started the role reversal(转变)that happens with all parents and all children, from caregiver to receiver.

    Now, if I'm visiting or we're together, it's rare for her to wear anything without checking with me first. But every so often, it seems like she asks me just to be able to disagree with my answer and pick out something on her own. And when she does, I just tell her what I think of the way she looks. Sometimes it's “great”. And sometimes it's "awful."