Johnny Smith was a good math student at a high school. He loved his computer. He came home early every day, then he worked with it till midnight. But Johnny was not a good English student, not good at all. He got an F in his English class. One day after school Johnny joined his computer to the computer in his high school office. The school office computer had the grades of all the students: the math grades, the science grades, the grades in arts and music, and the grades in English. He found his English grade. An F! Johnny changed his English grade from an F to A. Johnny' parents looked at his report card. They were very happy.

    "An A in English!" said Johnny's Dad. "You're a very clever boy, Johnny."

    Johnny is a hacker (黑客). Hackers know how to take informationfrom other computers and put new information in. Using a modem, they join their computers to other computers secretly. School headmasters and teachers are worried about hackers. So are the police, for some people even take money from bank computer accountand put it into their own ones. And they never have to leave home to do it! They are called hackers.

    Welcome to Inspire 21!

    Our aim is to provide ”Inspiring words for the 21st century”. So, here we offer a unique collection of inspiring short stories, motivational short stories, and humorous short stories for you to read and share.

    If you do care to share, click the “SHARE”button in the bottom left corner of each page. And thanks for telling others about Inspire 21.

    The inspiring stories that are labeled(标记)“TRUE”are done so to the best of our knowledge, but we do not have full proof in some cases. However, all of these stories and messages are provided because of their uplifting content, whether true or not. Many books we've read and movies we've watched were totally untrue, but we enjoyed the inspiration they gave us—especially if they had a happy ending.

    So, please read and share these stories at your own discretion(判断力). Thank you for your understanding!

    Also, many of the inspiring stories used here are used with permission from the author. However, we cannot grant(授予) permission to reuse any of these inspirational stories, as the majority of them are not ours.

    Lastly, many inspiring stories(emailed to us or we came across online )are listed as “Author Unknown” If you happen to know the author's name, to whom credit should be given, please contact us with that information so we can keep our inspiring story collection accurate. Thank you again!

    For generations, cereal（麦片） has been the base of the American breakfast, but it now seems to be losing some of its advantages. Sales of breakfast cereal in the US are not so popular.

    The consumer's desire for a healthier way to start the day is now at its highest ever. Shoppers are seeking out “high protein(蛋白质) and fiber content and natural ingredients,” an expert said in a report. “Consumers today believe cereal is overly processed and doesn't contain enough nutrients.” That means cereal is facing the competition from fresh fruit, yogurt, breakfast bars and drinks, and even all-day breakfast meals at McDonald's or other fast-food chains.

    Consumers are increasingly seeking products that match their personal definition of real food, and that can mean foods that are less processed. Another big challenge for the industry is the ever-changing pattern of breakfast eaters, with an emphasis increasingly being placed on satisfying time-squeezed lifestyles. This desire for convenience seems to be especially increasingly being placed on satisfying time-squeezed lifestyles. This desire for convenience seems to be especially evident among young people who believe that cereal is inconvenient because it involves cleaning a dish afterward.

    Then there's the issue of price. Brand-name cereal prices jumped after the financial crisis in 2008, owing largely to the higher prices of grains and other ingredients. It's only in the last two years that prices have stabilized（稳定）.

    However, manufacturers and industry analysts say that if breakfast cereal makers can keep on adapting to consumers' changing needs, especially among young people, the business can grow again; besides, young people are still eating a lot of cereal, just not always for breakfast. Ready-to-eat cereal is in 90 percent of all households and nearly 94 percent of young households. For this group, cereal is more than just a breakfast item. It is also a popular snack option.

    When she first started learning about the climate change from one of her elders, Fawn Sharp was invited on a helicopter flight over the Olympic Mountains to survey the Mount Anderson glacier(冰川). But the glacier was gone, melted by the warming climate. Sharp had a deep sense of loss when she discovered the glacier wasn't there anymore.

    Loss is a growing issue for people working and living on the front lines of climate change. And that gave Jennifer Wren Atkinson, a full-time lecturer at the University of Washington Bothell, US, an idea for a class.

    This term, she taught students on the Bothell campus about the emotional burdens of environmental study. She used the experiences of Nalive American tribes (部落) , scientists and activists, and asked her 24 students to face the reality that there is no easy fix -- that "this is such an intractable problem that they're going to be dealing with it for the rest of their lives.”

    Student Cody Dillon used to be a climate science skeptic (怀疑论者) . Then he did his own reading and research, and changed his mind.

    Dillon wasn't going into environmental work--he was a computer-science major. Yet, the potential for a worldwide environmental catastrophe seemed so real to him five years ago that he quit his job and became a full-time volunteer for an environmental group that worked on restoration (恢复) projects.

Six months into the work, he decided that Alkinson's class was just what he was looking for 一 a place where he could discuss his concerns about a changing climate.

Atkinson said she hopes the class helped her students prepare themselves for the amount of environmental loss that will happen over their lifetimes.

    “We are already changing the planet - . so many species are going to be lost, displaced or massively impacted (巨大影响的) ,”she said. “The future isn't going to be what they imagined.”

    Last year marked the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. There were events around the world in memory of those who died in the conflict. We have picked out three of them inEuropean countries. Let's take a look.

    Belgium

    In a park, the famous Belgian artist Koen Vanmechelen had an exhibition called Coming World, Remember Me. The work consisted of 600,000 individual(个别的) clay sculptures, one for each person killed during the World War. In the center of the exhibition was a big egg made of clay, symbolizing a new world.

    UK

    In a small town called Aldridge, almost 100 houses in one street were covered with 24,000 poppies and statues of soldiers. They stood for the men from the area who had been' killed in the war. The flowers were chosen because of a poem written by the Canadian doctor John McCrea in 1915. They made people think of fields of blood.

    France

    The British artist Guy Denning arrived in La Feuille, a small town in the northwest of France, to stick life-size drawings of soldiers who never came back home. Armed with glue and a brush, Denning stuck his drawings carefully on walls. Before long 112 men, mainly young adults, were brought back to mind, if not to life.

    A new Magic Bench designed by Disney Research lets you interact (互动) with lovely animated (动画的) character—and no special glasses or earphones are required. Instead, the complete environment-the seat, the sitter and the cartoon characters-is mirrored on a screen opposite the bench making it possible for others to watch the scene unfold.

    How does the illusion work? A camera and sensor catch images and gather depth information about physical objects the bench and the person. And then computer translates them into the 3D animations. Meanwhile sensors of touch built into the bench deliver shaking that is happening at the same time and speed to animated actions on the screen, creating the illusion that the animated figures are occupying real-world space next to the user.

    "Our goal for this project was: hear a character coming, see them enter the space, and feel them sit next to you," said Moshe Mahler, principal digital artist at Disney Research. Unlike the traditional mobile technology, one of whose limitations is that only a single user can see its illusion, the Magic Bench allows groups of people to gather in a single environment and collectively participate in an augmented—reality (扩充实境) experience, all at the same time.

    In a video show, a small cartoon donkey runs into view and kicks the bench, causing sharp sound and making the seated person jump in surprise. Another test shows two people on the bench, reacting as they feel an animated rabbit skip up beside them and jump up and down. When a user passes his hand over the rabbit, a shadow moves across its head, as though it were occupying the same physical space as the person next to it.