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    Terrafugia Inc .said Monday that its new flying car has completed its first flight,bringing the company closer to its goal of selling the flying car within the next year.The vehicle-named the Transition – has two seats，four wheels and wings that fold up so it can be driven like a car.The Transition,which flew at 1,400 feet for eight minutes last month, can reach around 70 miles per hour on the road and 115 in the flies using a 23-gallon tank of gas and burns 5 gallons per hour in the air. On the ground, it gets 35 miles per gallon.

    Around 100 people have already put down a $10,000 deposit to get a Transition when they go on sale, and those numbers will likely rise after Terrafugia introduces the Transition to the public later this week at the New York Auto Show. But don't  expect it to show up in too many driveways. It's expected to cost $279,000.And it won't  help if you're stuck in traffic. The car needs a runway.

    Inventors have been trying to make flying cars since the 1930s, according to Robert Mann, an airline industry expert. But Mann thinks Terrafugia has come closer than anyone to making the flying car a reality. The govemment has already permitted the company to use special materials to make it easier for the vehicle to fly. The Transition  is now going through crash tests to make sure it meets federal safety standards.

    Mann said Terrafugia was helped by the Federal Aviation Administration's decision five years ago to create a separate set of standards for light sport aircraft, which are lower than those for pilots of larger planes. Terrafugia says an owner would need to pass a test and complete 20 hours of flying time to be able to fly the Transition,a requirement pilots would find relatively easy to meet.

    Competition occurs naturally between living beings which co-exist in the same environment. In modern society there is a great deal of argument about competition. Some value it highly, believing that it is responsible for social progress and prosperity(繁荣). Others say that competition is bad ;that it sets one person against another ;that it leads to unfriendly relationship between people.

    I have taught many children who held the belief that their self worth relied on how well they performed at tennis and other skills. For them playing well and winning are often life and death affairs. In their single minded pursuit(追求)of success, the development of many other human qualities is sadly forgotten.

    However, while some seem to be lost in the desire to succeed, others take an opposite attitude. In a culture which values only the winner and pays no attention to the ordinary players, they strongly blame competition. Among the most vocal are youngsters who have suffered under competitive pressures from their parents or society.

    Teaching these young people, I often observe in them a desire to fail. They seem to seek failure by not trying to win or achieve success. By not trying, they always have an excuse :”I may have lost, but it doesn't matter because I really didn't try.” What is not usually admitted by themselves is the belief that if they had really tried and lost, that would mean a lot. Such a loss would be a measure of their worth. Clearly, this belief is the same as that of the true competitors who try to prove them-selves. Both are based on the mistaken belief that one's self respect relies on how well one performs in comparison with others. Both are afraid of not being valued. Only as this basic and often troublesome fear begins to dissolve (缓解) can we discover a new meaning in competition.

    We always knew our daughter Kendall was going to be a performer of some sort. She entertained people in our small town by putting on shows on our front porch when she was only three or four. Blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and beautiful, she sang like a little angel.

    When Kendall was five, we began to notice that she was blinking a lot and clearing her throat frequently. We took her to our local children's hospital where she was diagnosed with Tourette's Syndrome.

    It was pretty devastating（毁灭性的）because other children constantly made fun of her, and sadly, even a teacher teased her. Through all this, Kendall continued to sing and entertain. Remarkably, her tics disappeared when she sang.

    In 2005 when Kendall was sixteen, we thought she was pretty much out of the woods -- or at least heading in that direction. However, a freak accident happened.

    At a birthday party, Kendall hopped on a friend for a piggyback ride. Kendall flew over his back and landed on the cement floor -- on her neck. An ambulance rushed her to the hospital where she spent the next week, paralyzed from the neck down. Ironically, her biggest concern wasn't whether she would walk again, but whether she would be able to audition（试唱）for American Idol.

    Doctors said Kendall had central cord syndrome. Sometimes the pain was so unbearable that she had to bite down on a toothbrush to take her mind off it. As the days dragged on, we didn't know for sure how much of her movement would ever come back.

    I believe Kendall wanted the American Idol audition so much that she willed herself to move again. One of her friends brought a microphone to the hospital and put it on her bed. Every day, Kendall tried hard to pick it up with her right hand. It was more important for her to pick up that microphone than a spoon or fork.

    Sometimes we all cried because of the pain we witnessed. But on the day Kendall walked into the stadium to audition for American Idol – a mere three months after her accident -- we cried tears of joy. And our tears turned into shouts when she was given a golden ticket to Hollywood.

    Kendall is eighteen now, living every day to its fullest. She's recorded a CD with some of John Mellencamp's band members. I'm absolutely sure she's going to make it big some day. Kendall just puts it all in God's hands.

    When she was a little girl trying hard to be strong, she looked up at me, her big eyes brimming with tears, and asked me why she had to have Tourette's Syndrome. My heart ached to make the word right for my child. But I looked right back at her and told her the truth as I see it.

    “Kendall, God gave you a pure heart, an angelic voice, a strong mind, and a beautiful presence. With all of that, he had to make it fair for everyone else.”

    A recent documentary produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has caused a stir in China and in the UK.

    The documentary, titled Are Our Kids Tough Enough? focuses on five Chinese teachers who are sent to teach 50 UK teens at a school in Hampshire.

    The teachers instruct the students for a month. The pupils are then tested, and the results are compared to the ones of those who have continued in the regular UK education system. The idea is to see if the Chinese method improves academic performance.

    The Chinese teachers use their own teaching methods but receive strong resistance from the students. A clip from the documentary online shows some problems, with Chinese teachers calling their students lazy and lacking in discipline, while the students say the high pressure and harsh teachers are driving them crazy.

    This has aroused a new debate in both China and the UK, with some arguing the teenagers need more regulation and discipline. Others say Chinese methods encourage rote learning (死记硬背) instead of independent thinking. For instance, Chinese language teachers should do more than pass on knowledge about words and characters. They should inspire students, helping them feel the sentiment from Chinese literature. This is a higher level of teaching.

    Yang Dongping, dean of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, says, "The Chinese teaching methods are designed to strictly train the majority. Foreign teaching methods, however, are more natural and relaxing, and designed to inspire students' interest in learning. Education methods are based on culture. That is why a successful education method in one place may not work that well when simply 'transplanted' into another place."

    Yang Dongping says, "The documentary does reflect some problems rooted in traditional Chinese teaching methods. Nobel prize winner, Yang Zhenning, gave a very fair comment on this issue. He said the Chinese-style education method works for most ordinary qualified students effectively, helping them reach high standards. However, it may weaken the training for high-potential outstanding students."

    Visit the Newseum During "Museum Day"！

    Museum Day is an annual celebration of boundless curiosity hosted by Smithsonian magazine. Participating museums and cultural institutions across the country provide free entry to anyone presenting a Museum Day ticket. The Museum Day ticket provides free admission for two people.

    Here is some information about a popular museum — the Newseum.

    EVENT DETAILS

    Registration: free tickets will be available for the public to download on December 15 via the link: https://www.smithsonianmag. com/museumday/museum-day-2018/.

    Advanced registration is requested so that the museum sites know how many people to expect. If you don't register beforehand you may still be admitted the day of the event, but no guarantee for admission. All are welcome to attend including children and groups.

    Meeting Point #1: From 7:45 – 8:00 some volunteers will be in the Starbucks at 325 7th St NW before walking 2 blocks to the Newseum.

    Meeting Point #2: Outside the Newseum's Pennsylvania Avenue entrance. The Newseum opens at 9:00 am. However, as this is an extremely popular event we highly recommend arriving as early as possible, by 8:15 if you can, to bypass the masses that will show up later in the day.

    Meeting Point #3: Once the museum opens we recommend immediately heading to the 6th floor to avoid the masses since most people start on the 1st floor. On the 6th floor, the Hank Greenspun Terrace, which overlooks Pennsylvania Avenue and the U. S. Capitol, has one of the best views in Washington, DC. After that you can proceed through the museum's exhibits starting on the 6th floor and working our way down. The Newseum is open until 5:00 pm and guests are free to arrive and depart whenever they like.

From rolling hills to mountain ranges, views make any road trip memorable, but for blin d passengers this is part of the experience they miss. Motor company Ford tries to change that. It teamed up with GTB Rom a and AedoProject—to develop a technology that will give those unfortunate passengers a way to feel nature's beauty through their car windows.

The prototype (原型) of the smart car window has a device with an outside-facing camera. With just a press of a button, the system takes a picture of the current view. The colorful picture is then turned into an image with different shades of grey through, LED lights, which vibrates (震动) differently. As the finger passes over different regions of the image, its shaking movements provide feedback through the sense of touch to the person using it. The smart window also comes with a voice assistant that uses AI to identify the scene and help the passengers get information on what they're seeing.

"As the prototype started taking shape, we realized we were giving birth to a completely new language that would give blind people a new chance to visualize and experience traveling," Federico Russo.-one director of GTBRoma, said. "When the idea was at its first stage, we looked for suppliers all around the world to make it come to life." He believes the technology can be employed not just in cars. "It could be introduced into schools and in stitutions for blind people as a tool that could be used in multiple ways."

The technology may show up in a Ford autonomous vehicle. It's known that the company is testing their technology and future business model and struggling to figure out how an autonomous vehicle gives different passengers the details needed to get from one destination to another. It's unclear when this technology will be made available. However, the idea of building something for the less advanced is indeed a kind and influential action.