Inside the Rain Room

    The Rain Room has arrived and local art lovers are taking notice. Is it worth the wait? Yes, I assure you it is. Once inside, visitors find a long, dark room with a high ceiling. A single bright light shines through heavy rain falling around visitors. The mist. The damp air. The noise. It feels like a mighty storm is pouring down. But the storm is inside. And visitors aren't getting wet. Instead, visitors wander in awe, admiring the rain and the artists who created it.

    The Rain Room was created to highlight the connection between humans, nature and technology. With a tracking system that senses movement and stops the rain wherever visitors move, it does just that. Light and sound produce an experience that feels both natural and foreign. The exhibit is moving on to Atlanta next month. I urge you to visit before then. It's time to experience the Rain Room for yourself!

Welcome to the Rain Room

• The Rain Room features falling water. Please be aware you may get slightly wet. However, visitors wearing raincoats will be turned away.

• This exhibit features advanced technology. To ensure its effectiveness, please avoid wearing dark or reflective clothing.

• Visitors are welcome to take photographs of the exhibit.

• Children must be accompanied by an adult.

• For the convenience of all guests, visits are limited to 10 minutes.

    At thirteen, I was diagnosed(诊断) with a kind of attention disorder. It made school difficult for me. When everyone else in the class was focusing on tasks, I could not.

    In my first literature class, Mrs. Smith asked us to read a story and then write on it, all within 45 minutes. I raised my hand right away and said, “Mrs. Smith, you see, the doctor said I have attention problems. I might not be able to do it.” She glanced down at me through her glasses, “You are no different from your classmates, young man.”

    I tried, but I didn't finish the reading when the bell rang. I had to take it home.

    In the quietness of my bedroom, the story suddenly all became clear to me. It was about a blind person, Louis Braille. He lived in a time when the blind couldn't get much education. But Louis didn't give up. Instead, he invented a reading system of raised dots(点), which opened up a whole new world of knowledge to the blind.

    Wasn't I the “blind” in my class, being made to learn like the “sighted” students? My thoughts spilled out and my pen started to dance. I completed the task within 40 minutes. Indeed, I was no different from others; I just needed a quieter place. If Louis could find his way out of his problems, why should I ever give up?

    I didn't expect anything when I handed in my paper to Mrs. Smith, so it was quite a surprise when it came back to me the next day—with an “A” on it. At the bottom of the paper were these words: “See what you can do when you keep trying?”

    We face problems in our everyday life.{#blank#}1{#/blank#}Don't worry.As long as you are breathing,you can solve problems.

Be aware of problem

    First of all,it is important to know and understand the problem clearly.{#blank#}2{#/blank#}.Following questions like why,what, how,when,where and who will take you to the root cause of the problem.

Analyze the problem

    Analyzing the problem will give you time to think of a proper solution.{#blank#}3{#/blank#}.They can be diagrams（图表）, flowcharts or a lists,etc.

Plan a strategy（策略）

    Planning a strategy will help you waste less energy and time in attempting all the solutions.This step includes knowing the advantages and disadvantages of applying a solution.In this way,you can abandon the strategy that you don't find worthy to apply.

{#blank#}4{#/blank#}

    Leave out the information that is not required for the solving of the problem.You need to be accurate with the details.Keeping the unrelated information can sometimes complicate the simple problems as we tend to overlook the important information.

Carry out the solution

    Putting the solution into effect in a correct way to get the result expected is important while solving a problem. You need to be creative while actualizing（实施）a solution just in case some other problem arises while applying the solution.{#blank#}5{#/blank#}

A.Remove unrelated information.

B.You can use various tools to study the problem.

C.Use yes or no questions to get better information.

D.Knowing the problem means solving half the problem itself.

E.They can be social problems,relationship problems,or problems at work.

F.Being ready with alternatives is also important in case a solution works only half way.

G.Spend 10% of the time analyzing the problem and 90% on the solution,not the opposite.

    Google's new camera, called Clips, is a small, smart device. It comes with a case that has a clip (夹子), but it's not designed to be worn on your clothing. Most interestingly, it uses artificial intelligence to take photography out of your hands so it can capture moments on its own.

    This roughly 2-inch by 2-inch camera, with a three-hour battery life and Gorilla Glass for toughness, is intended for candid moments, like when a child does something cute that may happen too quickly for you to pull out your smartphone.

    Onboard the Clips device, it uses machine learning algorithms ( 计 算 程 序 ) to help capture scenes. Those algorithms include face recognition. "Once it learns that there's a face you see frequently, it'll try to get nice photos of those faces," said Juston Payne, the device's product manager. And they also want it to recognize facial expressions, which involved "training it to know what happiness looks like". The Google team also trained it to recognize what not to shoot—like when a child's hand is over the lens, or if it is tossed in a dark purse.

    The only way to see the images is by connecting the camera with your phone, as it has no screen for viewing or editing.

    Were people concerned it could seem strange? Yes, Payne admitted. But they said they addressed that by making it obvious what it is. A green light on the front signals that it is on. Besides, unlike a camera meant to monitor your home, it is not connected to the Internet.

    "This product is only possible because of the way that silicon has advanced," Payne said, noting that it was only in the past year or so that they could squeeze the technology down into a device this size. Going forward, we're likely to get more assistance from the artificial intelligence packed into our apps and gadgets.

    My husband and I recently went to Disney World with our three children. We had a wonderful time. Besides, I experienced something that left a deep impression on me.

    Our children were excited about the attraction where children could drive the cars. They were so delighted that I decided to stand beside the track to get pictures of everyone as they drove past on the track.

    As I waited for them to drive by, I noticed a car with a father and his son who was about 7 years old. They rolled down the hill at the beginning, but suddenly the car stopped. The young driver looked nervous, "I can't do it." His father quietly said, "Yes, you can."

    "No. I can't!"

    "Yes, you can, son."

    The little guy was almost in tears, "I can't!" With deep patience, the father said, "Son, you can do this. I'm going to help you." A moment later, with the father helping his son, the two went smoothly (顺利地) on their way down the track.

    The scene brought tears to my eyes and it reminded (使想起) me of my dear father. Just like that little boy's dad, my father used to say the same words to me. Every time things got hard or when I experienced setbacks along the way, he would say, "Michelle, you can do this. I'm going to help you."

    Time and time again the words greatly encouraged me on the journey. I'm aware that I can't do things under my own power, but the words "Yes, you can" come beside me and give me wisdom and strength. As I benefited (受益) a lot from them, I often tell my children never to say "I can't" easily when they meet something difficult.

The American Psychological Association（APA） has issued its first advisory on social media use in adolescence（青春期）. What's most striking in its data based on recommendations is how little we really know about how these apps affect our kids.

The relative newness of platforms like Snapchat and Tik Tok means little research is available about their long-term effects on teen and tween brains. Getting better data will require significant funding—and much more openness from tech companies.

"What little evidence we do have unsurprisingly suggests that social media trades on motivators that aren't great for young brains. Many kids' first exposure to social media occurs at the worst possible time when it comes to brain development," says Mitch Prinstein, a psychologist and neuroscientist at the University of North Carolina（UNC）.

"Things like 'button and artificial intelligence（in general）' are going to affect young people's brains in a way that's very different from adult brains when it comes to the desire to stay online and to say or do almost anything to get followers." When it comes to social interactions, he compares kids' brains to a car with a huge gas pedal and weak brakes（刹车）.

Earlier this year, Prinstein and his UNC colleagues published the results of one of the first studies of how the adolescent brain reacts to social media. The team surveyed a group of middle schoolers to understand their social media habits, and then stuck them in an MRI machine to watch their brains as they reacted to social rewards or punishments. They found that 12-year-olds who habitually checked social media had distinct neural patterns, with more activities over time in parts of the brain associated with motivation, salience（or where attention is focused） and cognitive control.

The team didn't weigh in on whether those differences were good or bad, or whether the relationship was causal or correlational. But their work points to the need for more research. It should also remind parents of the need to be keenly aware of social media's hidden influence on still-developing brains.