Machines work well at a constant speed —and the faster the better.Whether they are spinning cotton {#blank#}1{#/blank#}dealing with numbers,regular,repetitive actions are what they excel at.

Increasingly,our world is being designed by machines and for machines.We adapt to machines and hold ourselves to their standards:People {#blank#}2{#/blank#}(judge)by the speed at which they respond, not the quality of their response."Always on"becomes something to take pride {#blank#}3{#/blank#}.When I ask people {#blank#}4{#/blank#} they are doing,they almost always answer "busy".Ticking things off the "to do"list becomes{#blank#}5{#/blank#}means of defining ourselves. {#blank#}6{#/blank#} (occupy)if not with work then with family or our social networks,most of us feel exhausted.

A few years ago,I became very interested in what it meant {#blank#}7{#/blank#}(pause).I started to notice where pauses show up in my own work and life.For example,I realized when I was writing,a short walk was a(n) {#blank#}8{#/blank#}(effective)way to focus than concentrating harder.The small walk acted as a pause, {#blank#}9{#/blank#}(enable)me to rest,reflect or refresh,appreciate and break a block in my {#blank#}10{#/blank#}(creative).I realized that pause is not nothing!

A minute eating ice-cream is not the same as a minute doing push-ups.Even time itself isn't a uniform raw material —as the physics of Einstein shows.

New discoveries and technological breakthroughs are made every year. Yet, as the information industry moves forward, many people in society are looking back to their roots in terms of the way they eat. A "locavore" movement has emerged in the United States. The movement supports eating foods grown locally and sustainably, rather than prepackaged foods shipped from other parts of the world.

Experts hold that eating local has many merits, and is expected to become a trend featuring sustainability. Erin Barnett is the director of Local Harvest, a company that aims to help connect people to farms in their area. By eating local, she argues, people have a better and more personal understanding of the impact their food consumption has on the rest of the world. "There is a way of connecting the point, where eating locally is an act that raises our awareness of sustainable living," Barnett says.

The United States' agricultural output is one of the highest in the world, says Timothy Beach, a professor of geography and geoscience at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas. "There's just no other place on Earth where the amount of input is so productive," Beach says of American agriculture. "Nobody can cut off the food we need."

However, the US food system is not sustainable because of its dependency on fossil (化石) fuels, says Beach. Equipment used on "extremely productive" farms is quickly consuming Earth's natural resources, particularly oil. Additionally, the production of agricultural supplements (补充剂)，such as fertilizer, uses large amounts of energy.

The world has used close to half of the global oil supply, Beach says, and the second half will be consumed at an even faster rate because of the growing population and economic development. Although many businesses are experimenting with wind, solar, and biofuel, Beach says there's nothing that we see on the horizon that can replace it. "There is no way on Earth we are using fossil fuels sustainably. Then we have to reconsider the impact of eating local," he says.

One of the interesting things about languages is the way they change over time. In English, everything from spelling to vocabulary has 1  major changes over the years. In fact, to a modern speaker, the English of 1000 years ago looks like a 2  language!

The history of English dates back around 100 years. At that time, groups of Europeans 3  England, bringing their language with them. It developed into old English. Later in 1066, English was invaded by the Normans from France. The language went through an important shift leading to what we now call Middle English. Over the next 500 years, the language underwent 4  shifts, leading to modern English. As the language has developed over time, many things about it have changed.

5 is one of the most obvious areas. For example, in old English, people say "hus" and "mus". Now, we say house and mouse. These days there are many differences in the way English is pronounced in the U.S., India and elsewhere. When people live in groups separated by great distances, the 6 of change can be fast.

Vocabulary changes happen even more quickly. English has grown by borrowing words from languages such as French, Spanish and 7 , 8 . This often happens with types of 9 -for example, "tofu". Then there is slang which enters and 10 the language every year! Thirty years ago, one often heard people saying "groovy", meaning great. These days you rarely hear the word 11 on old TV shows or movies.

Because English is spoken by so many people worldwide, it really is an exciting time for the language. Just as American and British versions are always changing, so are versions 12  in Canada, 13  and elsewhere. At the same time, an entirely new version of English is appearing on the Internet with whole new 14  and writing styles. In a way, learning English is a never-ending process, even for native speakers! The atmosphere is as much a part of the earth as 15  its soil and water of its lakes, rivers and oceans.