Before the invention of hair dryer,vacuum cleaners were being used for the purpose of drying and styling hair. The early vacuum cleaners could draw in air as well as blowing air.So,towards the end of the 19^th century,women used to dry their hair by using a vacuum cleaner.

    In 1890,a French salon owner Alexander F.Godefroy invented the first hair dryer.It blew warm air.However,it was not widely used,mainly because of its large size.

    The first convenient hand-held hair dryer used at home came up in 1920.It weighed over 2 lbs.However,it only produced 100 watts of power,which was not enough to dry the hair.After almost ten years came the gas-heated dryers that were widely used in barber shops.However,these dryers produced heat that was harmful to hair and the air from them made people sick,so they were soon gone.

    Around the 1940s and 1950s,the helmet（头盔）style electric dryers came into being.Curly hairstyles were popular during that time.Therefore,women used curlers and sat under the dryers to set their curls.Later,the curly style began to drop,and so did the popularity of the helmet style electric dryer.

    In the late 1950s,the first workable hair dryer was made.It had a hand-held dryer.It used only 300-400 watts. Ever since the 1950s,hand-held dryers have experienced many changes,in order to become quieter,lighter and smaller.However,how it works largely remains the same.The modem technology has made improvements to the hair dryer,reducing the heat damage to a person's hair.For producing shinier,smoother and healthier hair,dryers have been included with negative ion（负离子）technology that dries hair faster and with less heat.

    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 smart phone, to show us where we are.

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

    On October 14, 2017, an ARJ21-700 plane, which was the first domestically-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 seen 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（— 带—路）. “To date, the BeiDou system has covered most parts of the Asia-Pacific region, as well as counties 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.”

    A body image is the way a person views his or her body. It affects how a person “feels” about his or her body. For example, when not looking in a mirror, people have a sense of what their bodies look like. A positive body image is having a realistic and accepting view of your body. However, very few women have a positive body image. Society, dieting, eating disorders, and overweight are all related to a negative body image.

    A century ago, full and curvaceous (曲线美的) bodies were admired. They were also more natural for women to keep. Nowadays, the best female body has a tiny waist, flat stomach, thin legs, and is very slim. Women are told to weight less than ever before. Supermodels are the new women's idols. However, most of them are teenagers, and many of them have eating disorders or diet strictly. Trying to follow these standards is hard to most women. As a result, they starve themselves, or exercise—excessively (过度地), or both.

    Most women who know the standard of beauty and body weight are dieting to reduce weight and change their figures. Eating disorders are not simply unhealthy diet habits; they are considered as mental illnesses and can sometimes end in death. Strict dieting or food restriction combined with a negative body image can become an eating disorder.

    A negative body image can also lead to overweight. This is due to excessive eating to comfort bad feelings about their bodies. In addition, yo-yo dieting, which often follows a negative body image, leads to increasingly higher weights with each diet attempt.

    A negative body image is bad for women. I may help them to see an advisor who is good at treating women with negative body images. Lastly, if society worked on encouraging healthy lifestyles and healthy looking bodies for women, a lot of good would come from it.

    Moving smoothly and silently through Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's futuristic "FlyZoo" hotel, black disc-shaped robots about a metre in height deliver food and drop off fresh towels.

    The robots are part of a set of high-tech tools that Alibaba says strongly cuts the hotel's cost of human labour and eliminates the need for guests to interact with other people.

    Formally opened to the public last month, the 290-room FlyZoo is an incubator for technology Alibaba wants to sell to the hotel industry in the future and an opportunity to showcase its prowess in artificial intelligence. It is also an experiment that tests consumer comfort levels with unmanned commerce in China.

    Inside the hotel, softly-lit white panelled walls bring to mind the interiors of Hollywood spaceships. Guests check in at podiums that scan their faces, as well as passports or other ID. Visitors with a Chinese national ID can scan their faces using their smartphones to check in ahead of time.

    Elevators scan guests' faces again to verify which floor they can access and hotel room doors are opened with another face scan.

    "It's very quick and safe. I haven't used it much yet, but basically, I can be in my room in one minute, "said guest Tracy Li. Li added that safety was one of her priorities and she was pleased her room could only be entered with a scan of her face.

    In the rooms, Alibaba's voice command technology is used to change the temperature, close the curtains, adjust the lighting and order room service.

    At the hotel's restaurant, taller capsule-shaped robots deliver food that guests have ordered via the FlyZoo app while at a separate bar, a large robotic arm can mix more than 20 different types of cocktails. Facial recognition cameras add charges to the room rate automatically.

    The hotel does employ humans, though Alibaba declined to detail how many. This includes chefs and cleaners as well as reception staff, who will assist with conventional check-in procedures for guests unwilling to have their faces scanned and want to use electronic key cards.

    There was an earthquake this morning. I was working in front of my computer when it hit the city. The quake started with a sudden loud noise. I thought that something heavy in a neighbor's house probably had fallen. However, the walls and the floor began to shake. I finally realized it was an earthquake.

    My son Zac, a sixteen­year­old boy, was sleeping with his door locked. Being sixteen, he can sleep through any kind of noise. "Zac!" I shouted. "Are you OK?" But nobody replied. I was a little worried. I couldn't imagine that someone was able to get such a deep sleep. The house was dancing. There were waves in the swimming pool. I was afraid the house would come down. "Zac!" I yelled, knocking on his door with an open palm (手掌). "Zac! Wake up! It's an earthquake! We need to get out!"

    My son finally emerged in his underpants. We looked around the room. I knew that we should hide under a table to stop things from falling on us and stay away from glass. Unfortunately, none of our furniture was designed for hiding under. "Should we go into the garden?" Zac asked. "No, trees could fall on us!" I said. Actually, Zac had done earthquake drills (训练) at school. He must have been told to hide under a desk and cover his head. But we had nothing to cover our heads in the house.

    Luckily, before we took any action, the windows stopped moving and the pool calmed down. Everything went back to normal soon. But both my son and I knew what we should do, because we knew if there had been a really big earthquake this morning, we couldn't have escaped from it.

Hobbs was an orphan. He worked in a factory and every day he got a little money. Hard work made him thin and weak. He wanted to borrow a lot of money to learn to paint pictures, but he did not think he could pay off the debts.

One day a lawyer said to him, "One thousand dollars, and here is the money. "As Hobbs took the package of notes, he was very dumbfounded. He didn't know where the money came from and how to spend it. He said to himself, "I could go to find a hotel and live like a rich man for a few days; or I give up my work in the factory and do what I'd like to do: painting pictures. I could do that for a few weeks, but what would I do after that? I should have lost my place in the factory and have no money to live on. If it were a little less money, I would buy a new coat, or a radio, or give a dinner to my friends. If it were more, I could give up the work and pay for painting pictures. But it's too much for one and too little for the other."

"Here is the reading of your uncle's will," said the lawyer, "telling what is to be done with this money after his death. I must ask you to remember one point, Your uncle has said you must bring me a paper showing exactly what you did with his money, as soon as you have spent it. "

"Yes I see. I'll do that, "said the young man.