Persuasion is the art of convincing someone to agree with you. According to the ancient Greeks, there are three basic tools of persuasion : ethos, pathos, and logos.

    Ethos is a speaker's way of convincing the audience that she is trustworthy, honest and reliable. One common way a speaker can develop ethos is by explaining how much experience or education she has in the field. After all, you're more likely to listen to advise about how to take care of your teeth from a dentist than a fireman. A speaker can also create ethos by convincing the audience that she is a good person. If an audience cannot trust you, you will not be able to persuade them.

    Pathos is a speaker's way of connecting with an audience's emotions. For example, a politician who is trying to convince an audience to vote for him might say that he alone can save the country from a terrible war. These words are intended to fill the audience with fear, thus making them support him. Similarly, an animal charity might show an audience pictures of injured dogs and cats, to make the viewers feel pity. If the audience feels bad for the animals, they will be more likely to donate money.

    Logos is the use of facts, statistics, or other evidence to support your argument. An audience will be more likely to believe you if you have convincing data to back up your claims. Presenting this evidence is much more persuasive than simply saying “believe me”.

    Although ethos, pathos, and logos all have their strengths, they are often most effective when used together. Indeed, most speakers use a combination of ethos, pathos, and logos to persuade their audiences. So, the next time you listen to a speech, watch a commercial, or listen to a friend try to convince you to lend him some money, be on the lookout for these ancient Greek tools of persuasion.

    People tend to become more personal and hide less of themselves when using email. Researchers from Open University in Britain have found in a recent study that there are good reasons for this.

    The team of researchers asked 83 pairs of students, all strangers to each other, to solve a problem. They had to discuss this question: If only five people in the world could be saved from a world disaster, who should they be? The pairs of students had to talk over the problem either face to face or by computers. Dr. Johnson said, “They told their partners four times as much about themselves when they talked over the Internet as when they talked face to face. When the computers were fitted with cameras so that students could see each other, this limited the personal side of the conversation.”

    Generally the information was not extremely personal. It was mainly about things such as where they went to school, or where they used to live. But some students discussed their love stories, and personal childhood experiences.

    Dr Johnson believes that emailing encourages people to focus on themselves. And when they do this, they become more open, especially if there are no cameras. “If you cannot see the other person, it becomes easier to talk about yourself. This is because you are not thinking what the other person is thinking of you. So emailing has become the modern way of talking,” said Dr. Johnson. However, this style of talking is not entirely new. “In the 19th century people started to use the ‘telegraph' to communicate. Now the same kind of thing has happened and people ended up speaking more freely.”

    Dr. Johnson thinks that emailers need to know about these effects of emailing, especially when they start work in a company. “ If you don't know about them, you could find yourself saying more about yourself than you wanted to.”

    You may have seen many pumpkins in posters and TV shows recently since Halloween came on October 31.

    Lanterns made of pumpkins, also known as jack-o'-lanterns, are often seen during Halloween. Many people in the U.S. like to make them and put them in front of their houses. People hollow out（挖空）a pumpkin, carve a face on one side and place a candle inside to make the pumpkin glow. The lanterns can look funny or scary.

    This is not the only way in which pumpkins are part of American culture.

    During the Thanksgiving holiday, pumpkin pie is a common food. It is made from pumpkins and has some delicious spices to give it a nice flavor. People often put some cream on top of it before serving it. It is one of my favorite things to eat during Thanksgiving.

    There is also “pumpkin chucking”. It's a competition where people build machines to throw pumpkins through the air. The person whose pumpkin flies the farthest wins the competition. The world record for pumpkin chucking was set in Utah in 2010. The distance for that world record was about 1.69 kilometers!

    Finally, there are also pumpkin growing contests. For these contests, farmers try to grow the biggest pumpkins they can. The person who has the biggest pumpkin will win the first prize.

    I live in Mumbai, India, a big city, but I came from a remote Kerala village. When I was a boy, hardly anyone spoke English around me. So, at age nine, Dad sent me to Montfort, an exclusive boarding school. There, I had to speak English or be punished. My uniform was typical English public school: grey jacket，tie，and black leather shoes-so different from the clothes most people in my village wore. And our official school sport was cricket, something I'd never heard of, let alone played, before arriving.

    Montfort had been built for the children of the British officials who once ruled India, but by the time I arrived in 1961, nearly all the students were from powerful Indian families. Its English traditions, however, continued.

    When I returned home for the holidays still wearing my uniform, people stared at me like I was an alien. "Speak some English," they teased. Looking back, I unwittingly brought a bit of English culture to my village.

    But English and too much Western influence are precisely what many traditionalists and politicians fear. They ask: Will such influences finish off our own culture?

    Various leaders have tried to erase the British traditions, pulling down old British statues and replacing many British-rule city names with older native names. Some even suggest changing our weekly day of rest from the "Western" Sunday to the "Hindu" Tuesday.

    Extreme responses I say. You can't change history, and it's only natural for foreign influences to affect a nation's culture. So Indian culture, as it is today, is really a mixture derived from centuries of foreign invasions.

    Add to that the massive changes of the 20th century resulting from the television, jet-age travel, the Internet, etc.

    Everything from clothes and language to food keeps changing, yet we remain Indian. I believe that Asian cultures are too ancient and deep-rooted to be weakened by foreign influences.

    Allow me to illustrate my point. Some time ago, I took my visiting Singapore-born-and-raised cousin to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. Later, while driving home，I talked about the fine Chinese food we'd just had.

    "Was that Chinese food?" my cousin exclaimed. "Oh, I didn't know." It must have tasted too Indian for him to realize it.

    Meanwhile, like countless others, my village has transformed over the past decades. Many people wear modern clothes and TV brings cricket into local homes. There's even an English- language school, where you can hear kids giggling, yelling, flirting-all in English, but with an Indian accent. Just like the Chinese food you get in India.

    Are these foreign influences something to worry about? I don't think so. India's Chinese food tastes pretty good to me!

Ecobee3 Smarter WiFi Thermostat

    Smart thermostats have become the face of smart home technology for most, but depending on what your home is like, it's possible to say the ecobee3 is superior.

    Most of the smart thermostats carry the same benefits, including the ecobee3. They can learn your preferences and schedules, and then adjust the temperature accordingly. They're better-looking and more enjoyable to use than the basic pieces of plastic that occupy most households. Their very presence will probably make you more conscious about saving energy. And once you're able to heat up or cool down your house from your phone, without having to get out of bed, you won't want to go back.

    If you live in a larger household, the ecobee3 can be much more convenient—provided you pick up a couple more remote sensors. Yes, it gets pretty expensive at that point, but having those gives you effective control over the temperature in different rooms around your house. In comparison, other thermostats' measurements are largely limited to the area in which they' re installed (安装).

    If you live in a smaller place, that's no big deal; the ecobee3 still has distinct advantages. It is touch-enabled and more spacious, making it less annoying when you want to enter a WiFi password, see weather information, and so on. Still, all the smart thermostats are pretty great. Which one is best just depends on whether you need a whole-home solution or a more straightforward one. For now, if it's the former, go with the ecobee3.

    Ecobee3 Smarter WiFi Thermostat with Remote Sensor, available at all shopping websites.

    Sila Sutharat, a roasted chicken street vendor from Phetchaburi, Thailand, has come up with a unique way of cooking chicken. He uses 1, 000 mobile mirrors that concentrate sunlight into a strong beam(光束).

    Like most other street vendors, Sila used to cook his chicken over a charcoal(木炭)fire. But that all changed in 1997, when an ordinary observation gave him a great idea. One day, he was hit by the sunlight reflected off the window of a passing bus, and he felt its heat. "I could possibly change it into energy," Sila told himself. Then he started working on how to make use of the sunlight to cook his chicken.

    "They said that I'd gone mad, and that cooking chicken like this was impossible," Sila told reporters about how people reacted to his idea. But he didn't let their jokes get to him, and in the end he was the one who had the last laugh. He invented a panel featuring 1, 000 small mirrors that could be moved. It worked exactly as he predicted, allowing him to cook a 1.5 kg chicken in just 10 to 15 minutes. "After a long time passed by, they'd say: "Actually, you could do it," " Sila Sutharat recalls. Sila says that his invention can make the temperature go up to 312'C. This is why he always wears a special mask instead of a cook's hat when operating it.

    Sila's solar roaster is an unusual sight. It has attracted quite a few curious people who are eager to taste Sila's sun-cooked chicken. He's been using this cooking method for two decades now. And he says it's much better than traditional roasting methods. It is free, cooks all parts of the chicken, and best of all, it's 100% clean. Phetchaburi Rajabhat University thought Sila's idea was very good and useful, so they awarded him an honorary science degree.