You get anxious if there's no wifi in the hotel or mobile phone signal up the mountain. You feel upset if your phone is getting low on power and you secretly worry things will go wrong at work if you're not there. All these can be called “always on” stress caused by smart phone addiction(上瘾).

    For some people, smart phones have freed them from the nine-to-five work. Flexible working has given them more autonomy (自主权) in their working lives and enabled them to spend more time with their friends and families. For many others, though, smart phones have become cruel masters in their pockets, never allowing them to turn them off and relax.

    Pittsburgh-based developer Kevin Holesh was worried about how much he was ignoring his family and friends in favor of his iPhone. So he developed an app — Moment — to monitor his usage. The app enables users to see how much time they're spending on the device(设备) and set up warnings if the usage limits are broken. “Moment's goal is to promote balance in your life,” his website explains. “Some time on your phone, some time off it enjoying your loving family and friends around you.”

    Dr. Christine Grant, an occupational psychologist at Coventry University, said, “The effects of this ‘always on' culture are that your mind is never resting, and you're not giving your body time to recover, so you're always stressed. And the more tired and stressed we get, the more mistakes we make. Physical and mental health can suffer.”

    And as the number of connected smart phones is increasing, so is the amount of data. This is leading to a sort of decision paralysis (瘫痪) and is creating more stress in the workplace because people have to receive a broader range of data and communications which are often difficult to manage. “It actually makes it more difficult to make decisions and many do less because they're controlled by it all and feel they can never escape the office,” said Dr. Christine Grant.

    A company in San Francisco, California, has found a way to turn used plastic bottles into women's shoes.

    Every day, millions of Americans drink water and other liquids from plastic bottles. More than 60 million of them are thrown away each day. Many of the plastic bottles end up in landfills or are burned with other waste products.

    A San Francisco start-up company called Rothy's, however, turns this plastic waste into environmentally friendly shoes. Roth Martin is the company's co-founder. He explains how they turn plastic into soft material for women's feet. They take the plastic, clean it, and break it down into small pieces. Then they press them through a device that makes soft fibers. Those fibers are then combined together. This is done by a 3D machine. It is designed to reduce waste while making the shoes. The knitted stuff and the inner part of the shoe are then attached to the shoe's outer part, called the sole (鞋底). This outer sole is also made from environmentally friendly material: responsibly sourced no-carbon rubber.

    Rothy's shoes are sold online. They are flat shoes, with either a rounded or pointed toe. They come in different colors and designs. They cost either $ 125 or $ 145 per pair, depending on the design. After American actress Gwyneth Paltrow discovered them last year, the demand for the shoes grew. Martin says there is no shortage of material to fill that demand. “We're not going to run out of water bottles any time soon. So we have a limitless supply of material, and I think that is a good sign for our future.” When the environmentally friendly shoes wear out, customers can return them at no cost to a company that uses the recycled materials to make other products.

    For now, the shoes are only available to be shipped in the United States. However, the company says it will add international shipping in the near future.

    There is no better way to enjoy Scottish traditions than going fishing and tasting a little bit of whisky (威士忌) at a quiet place like the Inverlochy Castle. When Queen Victoria visited the castle in 1873 she wrote in her diary, “I never saw a lovelier spot.” And she didn't even go fishing.

    Scotland is not easily defined. In certain moments, this quiet land of lakes and grasses and mountains changes before your very eyes. When evening gently sweeps the hillside into orange light, the rivers, teeming with fish, can turn into streams of gold. As you settle down with just a fishing pole and a basket on the bank of River Orchy, near the Inverlochy Castle, any frustration (烦恼) will float away as gently as the circling water. It's just you and purple, pink, white flowers, seeking a perfect harmony. If you are a new comer to fishing, learning the basics from a fishing guide may leave you with a lifetime's fun. For many, fishing is more than a sport; it is an art.

    Scotland offers interesting places where you can rest after a long day's fishing. Set against a wild mountain and hidden behind woodland, the beautiful Inverlochy Castle Hotel below the Nevis is a perfect place to see the beauty of Scotland's mountains. Ben Nevis is the highest of all British mountains, and reaching its 1343-metre top is a challenge. But it's not just what goes up that matters; what comes down is unique. More than 900 metres high, on the mountain's north face, lies an all-important source of pure water. Its name comes from the Gaelic language “usquebaugh” or “water of life”; and it is the single most important ingredient (原料) in Scotland's best known drink: whisky.

    Boomerang children who return to live with their parents after university can be good for families, leading to closer, more supportive relationships and increased contact between the generations, a study has found.

    The findings contradict research published earlier this year showing that returning adult children trigger a significant decline in their parents' quality of life and wellbeing.

    The young adults taking part in the study were “more positive than might have been expected” about moving back home – the shame is reduced as so many of their peers are in the same position, and they acknowledged the benefits of their parents' financial and emotional support. Daughters were happier than sons, often slipping back easily into teenage patterns of behaviour, the study found.

    Parents on the whole were more uncertain, expressing concern about the likely duration of the arrangement and how to manage it. But they acknowledged that things were different for graduates today, who leave university with huge debts and fewer job opportunities.

    The families featured in the study were middle-class and tended to view the achievement of adult independence for their children as a “family project”. Parents accepted that their children required support as university students and then as graduates returning home, as they tried to find jobs paying enough to enable them to move out and get on the housing ladder.

    “However,” the study says, “day-to-day tensions about the prospects of achieving different dimensions of independence, which in a few extreme cases came close to conflict, characterised the experience of a majority of parents and a little over half the graduates”.

    Areas of disagreement included chores, money and social life. While parents were keen to help, they also wanted different relationships from those they had with their own parents, and continuing to support their adult children allowed them to remain close.

    On one of her trips to New York several years ago, Eudora Welty decided to take a couple of New York friends out to dinner. They settled in at a comfortable East Side cafe and within minutes, another customer was approaching their table.

    "Hey, aren't you from Mississippi?" the elegant, white-haired writer remembered being asked by a stranger. "I'm from Mississippi too."

    Without a second thought, the woman joined the Welty's table. When her dinner partner showed up, she also pulled up a chair.

    "They began telling me all the news of Mississippi," Welty said. "I didn't know what my New York friends were thinking."

    Taxis on a rainy New York night are rarer than sunshine. By the time the group got up to leave, it was pouring outside. Welty's new friends immediately sent a waiter to find a cab. Heading back downtown toward her hotel, her big-city friends were amazed at the turn of events that had changed their Big Apple dinner into a Mississippi.

    "My friends said: ‘Now we believe your stories,'" Welty added. "And I said: ‘Now you know. These are the people that make me write them.

    Beauticians, bartenders, piano players and people with purple hats, Welty's people come from afternoons spent visiting with old friends, from walks through the streets beside her house, from conversations overheard on a bus.

    It annoys Welty that, at 78, her left ear has now given out. However, she continues to walk into life and notes the vivid life. Sometimes, sitting on a bus or a train, she hears only a fragment(片段) of a particularly interesting story, yet she quickly takes out a notebook and write something fantastic under her point of pen.

    Bike sharing have become popular words in cities from Cape Town to Shanghai to Melbourne. Planners, politicians and media keep showing off their benefits: reducing pollution, congestion, travel costs and oil dependence, while improving public health. Bike sharing also helps make cities appear modern, dynamic and worldwide--qualities much sought after by the creative class.

    But what makes for a successful public bike-sharing program? This is an important question because installing one requires significant public and private investment and adjustment to the built environment.

    While many programs have been launched among much praise, often their popularity has soon declined. Many end up operating at a financial loss and depend on other profitable enterprises to cross-subsidize (交叉补贴) them. Some have resulted in thrown-away bikes becoming an eyesore.

    Understanding which factors enhance or stop public bike sharing is critical in helping cities decide whether such a program is workable, before considering what design and sitting will work best.

    Drawing on current knowledge, we discuss the importance of the local landscape, climate, cycling infrastructure (基础设施) and land use. We also touch on other factors, such as the legal environment and the characteristics of the bike-sharing program itself.

    Take natural environment for example. Two natural environment factors are known to affect participation: hilliness and weather. Hilliness discourages balanced bike-sharing use, as users avoid returning bicycles to stations on hilltops. Those stations end up being empty, while stations on flat areas are often full, so users cannot find a station to return their bikes.

    As for weather, ideal temperature ranges vary by the climate zone. Case studies show warm and dry weather encourages public bike-sharing use. Rain and strong wind reduce the frequency of trips. However, some approaches, such as providing sheltered, shaded, or even heated or cooled cycling infrastructure, could prove useful.