Wanted, Someone for a Kiss

    We're looking for producers to join us in the second of London 100FM. You'll work on the station's music programs. Music production experience in radio is necessary, along with rich knowledge of modern dance music. Please apply in writing to Producer Vacancies, Kiss100.

                                                                                               Father Christmas

    We're looking for a very special person preferably over 40, to fill our Father Christmas suit.

Working days: Every Saturday from November 24 to December 15 and every day from December17 to December24 except Sunday, 10:30—16:00

Excellent pay.

    Please contact the Enterprise Shopping Center, Station Parade, East Bourne.

                                                                                            Accountants Assistant

    When you join the team in our Revenue Administration Unit, you will be providing assistance within all parts of the Revenue Division, dealing with post and other general duties. If you are educated to GCSE grade C level we would like to talk to you. This position is equally suitable for a school leaver or somebody who has office experience.

Wealden District Council

                                                                                                Software Trainer

    If you are aged 24-45 and have experience in teaching and training, you could be the person we are looking for. You should be good at the computer and have some experience in programme writing. You will be allowed to make our decision, and to design courses as well as present them. Pay upwards of ￡15,000 for the right person. Please apply by sending your CV (简历) to Mrs R. Oglivie, Palmlace Limited.

    Taxi-booking app Uber agreed to sell its business in China to Didi Chuxing. The two firms had been fierce competitors, but Didi Chuxing had controlled the Chinese market with an 87% share.

    Uber China launched in 2014, but it had failed to make any profit for a long time. Cheng Wei, founder and chief executive of Didi Chuxing, said the two companies had learned a great deal from each other over the past two years in China. He added that the deal would set the mobile transportation industry on a healthier path of growth at a higher level. As part of the deal, Mr. Cheng would join the board of Uber, while Uber chief executive Travis Kalanick would also join Didi's board.

    Uber's China business would own its separate branding while US-based Uber Technologies would hold about 17.5% in the combined company. Didi Chuxing is backed by Chinese Internet giants Tencent and Alibaba.

    Uber had been struggling to break into the Chinese market despite having Chinese search engine Baidu as an investor. Last February, the company admitted it was losing more than $1 billion a year in China. “Funding their Chinese dreams was becoming too expensive for Uber,” Duncan Clark, chairman of Beijing-based consultancy BDA, told the BBC. Travis Kalanick said, “As a businessman, I've learned that being successful is about listening to your head as well as following your heart.”

    The fierce competition had led both companies to spend much more on their journeys. The combination is likely to see fewer such subsidies（补贴）. “One thing to watch carefully is how quickly consumers feel the impact as subsidies are withdrawn.” Mr. Clark added.

    The deal with Didi Chuxing came just days after China had agreed to provide a legal framework for taxi-ordering apps. Both Uber and Didi welcomed the decision. The new rules took effect last November and could, among other things, forbid such platforms to operate below cost.

    Winter sports tend to be more dangerous than summer sports — they take place mostly outside at the mercy of ice or snow, involving (牵涉) metal edges, extreme speeds and crashes. Skeleton (俯视冰梭), however, stands apart as one of the most difficult and least accessible of all the winter sports. Adam Edelman, Israel's first Olympic skeleton athlete, would like to change that.

    Edelman was the 10th athlete named to the 2018 Israeli Olympic Team. Qualifying for the Olympics in any sport is impressive. But it's more impressive if you qualify for the Olympics after only four years in the sport — and without a coach.

    Edelman was first introduced to skeleton watching the game on television in late 2013. Sports have always been a part of his life. He grew up playing football and was a goalkeeper on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology football team. Ready for a new challenge, he set his sights on the Olympics.

Without a coach, Edelman learned to drive by watching endless hours of YouTube videos and taking more runs than anybody else on the track. “When everybody else would take three runs per day, I would take six to eight.” he recalled.

    Succeeding in skeleton takes a large amount of athletic ability and technical skill, but there's one more element (因素) required, one that can't be taught. “These tracks but built in the middle of nowhere, and it's gray and cold. You haven't seen your family in seven months and you really just want to give up. To continue, it takes tenacity.” Edelman said.

    Edelman is already looking beyond Pyeongchang. The 2022 Olympics could be in his future, but whether he continues to compete or not, he promises to stay in Israeli sports as long as possible-as instructor or as a coach.

    Long before iPhone, the cigarette was the companion of choice for restlessness. And long before Facebook and WeChat, it was tobacco that promised to better your social life. Now, quitting smartphones has become the new quitting smoking.

    Of course, technology does not yellow your teeth, cause disease or lead to cancer. But some individuals are so concerned that device addiction is damaging their mental health. In order to reduce their dependence, even in Silicon Valley, people are turning off the messages that constantly buzz for their attention, banning smartphones from the bedroom and, curiously, changing the colors on their screens to a less tempting scale of gray.

    The big tech companies will have to work out how to respond to this new generation of quitters. Facebook is the first to go public with its attempt, hoping its recent move can make the social network more homely.

Last year the tech industry got a bad name —Big Tech—with unfortunate echoes of other industries that have faced fierce opposition, including Big Tobacco. Like them, the tech industry has to reduce concern from a new generation of activist shareholders （股东） that are questioning its role in the world. These campaigns are never as fierce as those faced by Big Tobacco. In the 1990s, socially responsible investors refused to put money in tobacco stocks.

    It is far difficult for investors to challenge Big Tech and hard to separate the good these companies do in the world-connecting old friends and giving space for people to share their ideas-from the bad. In the meantime, stopping using technology remains problematic. In The World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech, Franklin Foer argues that tech should be seen in a similar way to junk food: a convenience that some reject for more continuing nutrition.

    So we need to do more to turn the tide. In the same way that public service announcements made smoking around your children taboo （禁忌）, we can warn parents against losing themselves in their smartphones while taking care of kids. We can also create no-smartphone zones at dinner. Eventually smartphones could be banned from all public places and help us give our attention to the people around us instead.

    Paris is the city of dreams. If you plan to head to Paris for a study period, then perhaps a little reality check is in order. But my experience was a romantic one.

    I paved my path to Paris through an exchange program. On arrival in Paris, I was constantly reminded of the official processes I had to complete — forms to be filled in, meetings to attend, the list seemed endless.

    Then the real work began. Once classes were underway, I found myself volunteering to do oral presentations and assignments first, rather than last. This method proved to be very helpful.

    Once I had finished class for the week, I had an ever-increasing list of museums to visit, neighborhoods to explore, and cafés to sit in. Read books about Paris. Talk to locals and other foreigners living there. But the one thing that reading a book or talking to someone cannot do is to provide you with the experience of wandering Paris on foot. The people watching, the sounds of the city, the colors as the seasons change, they all add to the ecstasy that I experience in Paris as an exchange student.

    After spending five months wandering through the charming neighborhoods, I fell in love with the atmosphere that came out from every open door, and with every spoken word. There is something comforting about walking to the market each Sunday to enjoy the beautiful display of fruits, vegetables and dairy products. There is warmth in saying bonjour to the passers-by.

    On my last day in Paris, I confidently said, "Bonjour Monsieur," as I passed the little store down the street. I guess the best part about going on exchange in Paris is falling in love with the city in your own way. And I know mine is unique and special to me, my own little pieces of Paris.

    WeChat, the Chinese social media smartphone app, saw an increase in user numbers of 41 percent year on year to 500 million at the end of last year, in a sign that parent company Tencent is extending its reach for the mobile Internet. As one of the largest Internet integrated service providers in Chinaand one of the most Internet users in China, Tencent's profit grew 24 percent to RMB 20.98 billion per year, slightly higher than forecasts, driven mainly by online gaming profits. It is unclear how much WeChat contributed to Tencent's profits but the app's growth is a strong indicator of the company's long-term health as it tries to adjust its business to be more suitable for mobile devices.

    "We extended our leadership in games and online media, and made breakthroughs in emerging platforms such as online security and mobile payments." Ma Huateng, Tencent chairman, said in a statement. WeChat is the second highest ranked social app in China, behind QQ, Tencent's another chatting app, which claimed to have 815 million registered monthly users at the end of 2014.

    Tencent has been unwilling to earn money through WeChat by flooding it with advertising, which could influence the users' experience. But this is expected to change. Some analysts anticipated(预期) that advertising would be introduced on a large scale later this year. Early attempts to test ads on the service have not always gone smoothly. After a BMW ad was introduced on some users' feedbacks in January, many users who were not targeted by the brand's marketing complained of "discrimination" by Tencent's data mining algorithm(数据挖掘算法). They claimed it unfairly treated them as not wealthy or successful enough to view the BMW ad.