The iPhone, the iPad: each of Apple's products sounds cool and has become a fad(一时的风尚). Apple has cleverly taken advantage of the power of the letter “i” --and many other brands are following suit. The BBC's iPlayer--which allows Web users to watch TV programs on the Internet--used the title in 2008. A lovely bear--popular in the US and UK--that plays music and video is called “iTeddy”. A slimmed-down version(简装本) of London's Independent newspaper was started last week under the name “i”.

    In general, single-letter prefixes(前缀) have been popular since the 1990s, when terms such as e-mail and e-commerce(电子商务) first came into use.

    Most “I” products are targeted at(针对) young people and considering the major readers of Independent's “I”, it's no surprise that they've selected this fashionable name.

    But it's hard to see what's so special about the letter “i”. Why not use “a”, “b”, or “c” instead? According to Tony Thorne, head of the Language Center at King's College, London, “i” works because its meaning has become ambiguous. When Apple uses “i”, no one knows whether it means Internet, information, individual or interactive, Thorne told BBC Magazines. “Even when Apple created the iPod, it seems it didn't have one clear definition(定义),” he says.

    “However, thanks to Apple, the term is now connected with portability (轻便).” adds Thorne.

    Clearly the letter “i” also agrees with the idea that the Western World is centered on the individual. Each person believes they have their own needs, and we love personalized products for this reason.

    Along with “Google” and “blog”, readers of BBC Magazines voted “I” as one of the top 20 words that have come to define the last decade(十年).

    But as history shows, people grow tired of fads. From the 1900s to 1990s, products with “2000” in their names became fashionable as the year was connected with all things advanced and modern. However, as we entered the new century, the fashion disappeared.

    In 1943, when I was 4, my parents moved from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, to Fairbanks, Alaska, where adventure was never very far away.

We arrived in the summer, just in time to enjoy the midnight sun. All that sunlight was fantastic for Mom's vegetable garden. Working in the garden at midnight tended to throw her timing off, so she didn't care much about my bedtime.

    Dad was a Railway Express agent and Mom was his clerk. That left me in a mess. I usually managed to find some trouble to get into. Once I had a little Are going in the dirt basement of a hotel. I had tried to light a barrel（桶） of paint but couldn't really get a good fire going. The smoke got pretty bad, though, and when 1 made my exit, a crowd and the police were there to greet me. The policemen took my matches and drove me

    Mom and Dad were occupied in the garden and Dad told the police to keep me, and they did! I had a tour of the prison before Mom rescued me. 1 hadn't turned 5 yet.

    As I entered kindergarten, the serious cold began to set in. Would it surprise you to know that I soon left part of my tongue on a metal handrail at school?

    As for Leonhard Seppala, famous as a dog sledder (驾雪橇者), I think I knew him well because I was taken for a ride with his white dog team one Sunday. At the time I didn't realize what a superstar he was, but I do remember the ride well. I was wrapped (包裹) heavily and well sheltered from the freezing and blowing weather.

    In 1950, we moved back to Coeur d'Alene, but we got one more Alaskan adventure when Leonhard invited us eight years later by paying a visit to Idaho to attend a gathering of former neighbors of Alaska.

    Getting older is a natural part of life. Changes as you get older are usually gradual. Certain physical changes are common. How fast your body can burn calories slows over time, which means that your body needs less food energy than before.

    How much and how well you sleep will likely change. Most people start needing reading glasses around forty, and many have some hearing loss later in life. Starting in your fifties, bone aging increase. How you feel as you get older depends on many things, including what health problems run in your family and the choices you make.

    If your family members have diseases or chronic (慢性的) health problems like high blood pressure, then you may have a greater chance of having those problems yourself. But it doesn't mean you will definitely have the same problems. Actually, the lifestyle choices you make can help reduce your chances of getting illness that run in your family. And even if you do get a family illness, choosing to be physically active, to eat healthy foods, and to learn how to deal with stress can keep the illness from destroying your ability to enjoy your golden years.

    What do you need to do to feel your best as you age? One of the most important things you can do for your health at any age is to be physically active. Physical activity keeps your body strong, and it helps with how you feel. People who stay active are less likely to get depressed.

    Your mental and emotional health is also important. Protect or improve your emotional health by staying in touch with friends, family, and the community. People who feel connected to others are more likely to feel happy than those who do not.

    Dublin City Guide

    Delightful and full of surprises, Dublin packs a blow that, delivered correctly, will leave you a shock. Dublin, locals will tell you, has personality, which is much more important than good looks and will last far longer. That's big talk for a small capital in true Irish style.

    About Dublin City Guide

    One Dublin author, over 500 hours of research, and over 300 shopping, eating and drinking recommendations.

    Insights into city life, from a local fashion designer's shopping tips to a food expert's top restaurant picks.

    Explore the living places that inspired Dublin's literary greats—Swift, Yeats, Beckett and Joyce.

    Book (USD $21.99)

    What you get:

    1 printed book

    Pages: 276 pages, 12 color pages, 29 maps

    Size: 128mm×197mm

    Weight: 0.31kg/0.68lb

    About books only purchase: We'll send you the physical printed book but you won't be given access to our e-book downloads. Select “Book + E-Book” and you would also like to download a digital version of this book.

    E-Book (USD $ 15.39)

    “Contents”, “Getting Started” and “Index” are all free.

    “Background”, “Neighborhoods”, “Eating &Drinking” and “Sleeping” are $4.95 each.

Book and E-Book (USD $28.59)

    Including: 1 printed book and all PDF chapters—8 PDF files.

    About book + E-book: We'll send you the physical printed book and while that's on the way you can download our e-books.

    It was a shock and a painful lesson for many people when the police announced the cause of a bus accident in Chongqing on Oct 28. Video footage (片段) from inside the bus suggested that after a passenger missed her stop and asked the driver to stop, but he refused. She began hitting him over the head with her cell phone. During the conflict, the driver lost control of the bus and it jumped into the Yangtze River, causing 15 deaths.

    Zheng Chuankai, a lawyer in Beijing, said the accident showed that it was important that those who cause danger to public safety face severe punishment. Such attacks are inhuman but common. In fact, it is not rare to hear of passengers attacking bus drivers in China. This month, a local court in Shenyang, Liaoning province, sentenced three people to up to three years in prison for endangering public safety by distracting bus drivers, Xinhua reported. “Passengers who interfere (妨碍) with bus drivers are endangering public safety, which is equal to serious crimes like arson (纵火) and poisoning.” Liu Changsong，a Beijing lawyer, told the Global Times.

To prevent similar cases from happening, many Chinese cities have taken measures to keep bus drivers safe. Dozens of cities including Beijing, Xi'an, Wuhan, Changsha and Nanning have plans to add safety fences to buses to protect drivers from any interference by passengers.

    The bus operator in Quanzhou, Fujian Province, has invited psychologists to teach drivers how to manage their emotions when facing an angry passenger. These measures are necessary, but they are not enough.

    “Public security is closely connected with social morality (道德). People should obey the law, be more self-disciplined and sensible.”

    Many countries have introduced measures to deal with the problem of violence against bus drivers. On every bus in the US state of New Jersey, a sign on the back of the driver's seat warns passengers that anyone attacking a driver can be fined or put into prison.

    In London, the local government has launched a program to train drivers to deal with angry passengers and avoid potential conflicts.

If you are a psychology enthusiast, you have probably heard of the famous marshmallow (棉花糖) test. In this task, kids are given a single treat, such as a marshmallow, and are told that they can eat that marshmallow now, or they can wait a little while, and have two marshmallows instead.

Some kids eat the marshmallow immediately, but most try their best to wait for the experimenter to come back with two marshmallows.

Wait times in the marshmallow test came to be seen as indicators of self-control. But what if the behavior in the marshmallow test has more to do with cultural norms (准则) than self-control? A 2022 study by Yanaoka tested the idea that children may decide how long to wait for rewards based on what they are accustomed to waiting for in their culture. In the United States (with some exceptions), there is no widespread custom of waiting until everyone is served to eat your food. However, in Japan, there is a mealtime custom of waiting until everyone has been served before anyone digs in.

Because of this difference in norms, the researchers assumed that Japanese children would wait longer in the marshmallow test than the American children. This is exactly what they found. The researchers did a clever follow-up experiment. They found one field where children in the U.S. are accustomed to waiting longer than Japanese children are: Opening presents. In the U.S., gifts are usually given on special occasions, such as birthdays and Christmas. On these occasions, children usually have to wait before they can open their presents. In Japan, however, gift-giving happens more often, and children usually open presents immediately.

Given these cultural differences, Yanaoka expected that if they ran the marshmallow test with Japanese and American kids, but they replaced marshmallows with packaged gifts, then American kids would wait longer to open them. Once again, their assumption was correct. When the potential rewards were packaged gifts instead of food, American children waited 15 minutes on average, and Japanese children waited about four minutes on average.

This is a powerful result because it demonstrates the importance of culture and habit in shaping behavior. If a child waits only four minutes before giving up on two marshmallows but then waits almost four times longer to open a gift, can we really say that that child lacks self-control? I don't think so.