“Cleverness is a gift while kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy—they're given after all. Choices can be hard.”—Jeff Bezos

    I got the idea to start Amazon 16 years ago. I came across the fact that the Internet usage was growing at 2,300 percent per year. I'd never seen or heard of anything that grew that fast, and the idea of building an online bookstore with millions of titles was very exciting to me. I had just turned 30 years old, and I'd been married for a year. I told my wife MacKenzie that I wanted to quit my job and go to do this crazy thing that probably wouldn't work since most start-ups don't, and I wasn't sure what to expect. MacKenzie told me I should go for it. As a young boy, I'd been a garage inventor. I'd always wanted to be an inventor, and she wanted me to follow my passion.

    I was working at a financial firm in New York City with a bunch of very smart people, and I had a brilliant boss that I much admired. I went to my boss and told him I wanted to start a company selling books on the Internet. He took me on a long walk in Central Park, listened carefully to me, and finally said, “That sounds like a really good idea, but it would be an even better idea for someone who didn't already have a good job.” That logic made some sense to me, and he convinced me to think about it for 48 hours before making a final decision. Seen in that light, it really was a difficult choice, but finally, I decided I had to give it a shot. I didn't think I'd regret trying and failing. And I suspected I would always be haunted by a decision not to try at all.

    After much consideration, I took the less safe path to follow my passion, and I'm proud of that choice. For all of us, in the end, we are our choices.

    There's no doubt that man is the smartest. But do you know what other animals are smart, too?

Dolphins

    Dolphins are very smart. Most of the “tricks” they're taught to do are actually behavior they would engage in on their own. They love to play, race and generally enjoy their life to the fullest. They speak a language we have yet to completely understand and like all civilized creatures, dolphins' mothers always provide their young children with guidance and possibly, love.

Great apes

    The great ape family primarily consists of gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans. Their brain chemistry is so similar to humans' that NASA once used chimpanzees in place of astronauts during many dangerous missions. Gorillas have been taught sign language and orangutans exist in complex familial relationships.

Elephants

    Everyone has heard the phrase “an elephant never forgets”. Elephants establish long-term friendships, recognizing and remembering their friends years later. If an elephant comes upon a fallen friend, it has even been known to feel sad.

Parrots

    As proved by this list, parrots are very smart. They are also the only animals listed that can actually hold a conversation. Some parrots know hundreds of words by imitating humans. The birds are also capable of remembering words and using them intelligently in response to situations.

    When Steve Jobs was born on Febuary24,1955, in San Francisco , California, his unmarried mother decided to put him for adoption because she wanted a girl. So in the middle of the night, his mother called a lawyer named Paul Jobs and said, “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” But his mother told his future parents to promise that they would send Jobs to college. After Steve Jobs graduated from high school, he went to college but decided to drop out because it was so expensive that he had to sleep on the floor in his friends' rooms.

At 20, he and a friend(Steve Wozniak) started a company in a garage on April 1, 1976. Jobs named their company —-Apple in memory of a happy summer he had spent as an orchard (果园) in Oregon.

    After 10 years of hard time and failures, starting from two kids working in a garage, Apple computer eventually grew into a big company with over 4000 employees.

    At 30, Jobs , however, was fired from the company he co-founded. But after he had to leave the company, Apple was under heavy pressure from rival (对手) Microsoft and in 1996 posted billions of dollars in losses. Apple needed Steve Jobs and he was appointed as Apple' CEO in1997. Under his leadership, Apple returned to profitability and introduced new products such as the iPhone and the iPod.

    Steve Jobs once said, “Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick, Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking.

    With the development of modern science and technology, the functions of cellphones have changed greatly. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}The only difference may be that they fit in your pocket and you pay by the minute to use them. Some of the things a cellphone can do for you will be available this year:

Surf at speed

    Cellphones that let you use the Web have been around for years. So, what's new? Well ,  faster third-generation (3G)  networks that let you surf at anywhere. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}Possible choices are from IJG Electronics VX 8000 and Motorola V1150.Listen as you go.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#} There is no doubt that it is about to change. Sony Ericsson's new W8001 can hold around 150 songs in its 500 MB memory. And Samsung's SPH-V5400 even comes with a l. 5 GB hard drive. Mobile phones may eventually replace miniMP3 players, especially for teens. Say cheese.

    Camera cellphones are not new either but most of them have limitations: around l- megapixel  (百万像素 ) .  However new technology has made 2-megapixel units more common ,and 3-megapixel units are showing up soon. Some 2-megapixel models, like Sony Ericsson's K7501, offer limited zoom and focus controls.   {#blank#}4{#/blank#}Portable TV.

    You say you like "watching TV"? That's what Samsung MMA700 wants to give you. The new model lets users watch popular TV programmes~ for a fee. Other choices are Nokia's 6620, Sanyo's MM740 and NEC's N940. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}

    The above are just a handful of what you ' ll see in the coming months.  Further down the road, your mobile phone may play a host of other roles, such as mobile credit card, position locator and so on. So what is there that a cellphone can't do?

A. The NEC model lets you watch public TV - no fee.

B. Without a cellphone, you can do nothing in your daily life.

C. Nowadays, new cellphones are much cheaper than old ones.

D. Today's do-it-all mobiles have a lot in common with the computer.

E. This then allows a carrier to send video, music, and games to your phone.

F. Others, like LG's recent A7110, can even capture 30 minutes of full-motion video.

G. The problem with most cellphone MP3 players is that they hold only a handful of songs.

    Many years ago, people relied on the sun, the moon and stars to find their way around. Later, the compass was introduced. And now, we have satnav（卫星导航）systems to guide us. A satnav system uses groups of satellites to show the user's location. They send information to a receiver, such as a smartphone, to show us where we are.

    The earliest built satnav system is the Global Positioning Satellite System, which belongs to the US. Then there is Russia's Global Navigation Satellite system，the European Union's Galileo and China's own satellite navigation system, Beidou.

On October 18, 2017, an ARJ21-700 plane, which was the first domestically（国内地） produced jet equipped with the Beidou navigation system, successfully completed a test flight. The results showed the performance of the system developed by China matches that of similar systems produced abroad, according to the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China.

    Since its introduction in 2000, the Beidou navigation system has been increasing numbers of applications linked to everyday life, from shared bikes to farming.

When it comes to shared bikes, smart locks that support Beidou chips offer more accurate positioning than others, making it easier to find a bike.

    Farmers can use Beidou-enabled tractors to plow（犁）the soil and use unmanned aircraft with Beidou to sow seeds, which can improve efficiency and make better use of resources. Beidou's farming applications have spread from Heilongjiang Province to Beijing, Liaoning, Shanxi, Hubei and other regions across China.

    With its many uses, the Beidou navigation system is even playing a big role in the Belt and Road Initiative（一带一路）. “To date, the Beidou system has covered most parts of the Asia-Pacific region, as well as countries along the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21^st Century Maritime Silk Road,” said Yang Changfeng, chief designer of the Beidou system.

    Today, there are more than 20 Beidou satellites above our heads, and China plans to launch even more this year to expand the Beidou network to better serve the Belt and Road Initiative.

    “As Beidou expands its overseas reach, it will be increasingly popular in the logistics（物流） industry,” said Miao Qianjun, Secretary General of the navigation services association. “Ships, for example, can use it to position themselves while sailing across oceans to European countries, no longer limited to Southeast Asian regions in the near future.

    "Acting is the least mysterious of all crafts," Marion Brando once said. But for scientists, working out what is going on in an actor's head has always been something of a puzzle.

    Now, researchers have said actors show different patterns of brain activity depending on whether they are in character or not.

    Dr Steven Brown, from McMaster University in Canada, said, "It looks like when you are acting, you are suppressing (压制) yourself; almost like the character is possessing you."

    Brown and colleagues report how 15 actors, mainly theatre students, were trained to take on a Shakespeare role — either Romeo or Juliet — in a theatre workshop. They were then invited into the laboratory, where their brains were scanned in a series of experiments.

    Once inside the MRI scanner, the actors were asked to answer a number of questions, such as: would they go to the party? And would they tell their parents that they had fallen in love?

    Each actor was asked to respond to different questions, based on two different premises (前提). In one, they were asked for their own perspective, while in the other, they were asked to respond as though they were either Romeo or Juliet.

    The results revealed that the brain activity differed depending on the situation being tested. The team found that when the actors were in character, they use some third-person knowledge or inferences about their character.

    The team said they also found additional reduction in activity in two regions of the prefrontal cortex (前额皮质) linked to the sense of self, compared with when the actors were responding as themselves.

    However, Philip Davis, a professor at the University of Liverpool, was unimpressed by the research, saying acting is about far more than "pretending" to be someone — it involves embodying (体现) the text and language.