If you feel yourself turning into an old grouch(脾气坏的人), don't worry — happiness is just around the bend. A survey has found that although happiness dips in those in their 30s and 40s, people start to feel more content with life after the age of 50.

    However an economist found that older people will never again regain the excitement of youth. Rather it is thought that with age, individuals become more pragmatic about the ups and downs that life brings and accept their fortune.

    He questioned those in Britain, Switzerland and Germany and applied the findings to people's life cycle.

    Mr. Van Landeghem, 29, said:“A happiness curve does not necessarily imply that a 65-year-old prefers his own life to the life of a 25-year-old.”

    “Both the 25-year-old and 65-year-old might agree that it is nicer to be 25 than to be 65. But te 65-year-old might nevertheless be more satisfied, as he has learned to be satisfied with what he has.”

    It was suggested the mid-life happiness dip is because this is when people have the most responsibilities — taking care of a family, paying a mortgage (抵押贷款) and having a demanding career. The middle-aged dip in happiness was also compared to that of losing a close relative or suddenly becoming unemployed.

    The study is just one of many put forward as an indicator of what makes for a happy life.

    Psychologists concluded that having money makes you happier, but only if you have a lot more than your friends and neighbors. At the same time, you'd better have enough tie to enjoy yourself instead of spending all your time on making money.

    Separate research found that owning the house of your dreams, the car you always longed for and having millions in the bank doesn't stop that desire to keep up with the Joneses (攀比). And if the Joneses have more than you do, you'll be miserable. It seems envy at being lower in the social pecking order (权势等级) reduces the satisfaction of being well off.

    If you just do what you love and you are good at, which society also values much, you may have a higher probability to be happy. But if your job pays less, how can you stick to it in disregard of responsibilities? Happiness means different things from different points of view, and point of view grows from one's experience and knowledge. Perhaps it comes with you when you don't need to think about adult problems or when you are wise enough to understand what satisfaction is.

B

    According to a new study ,a smiley face emoji（笑脸符）in work-related e-mails may not create a positive impression and could even weaken information sharing. In formal business emails, a smiley is not a smile.

    In one of the experiments, people were asked to read a work-related e-mail from an unknown person and then tell about both the ability and warmth of that person. Before that, they all received similar messages. But some included smileys while others did not. The results suggested that contrary to face-to-face smiles, which increase both ability and warmth, the smileys in a business e-mail had no effect on the perception（感知）of warmth, and in fact had a bad effect on the perception of ability. The perceptions of low ability in turn weakened information sharing.

    In another experiment, the use of a smiley was compared to a smiling or neutral photograph. The findings showed that in the case（情况）of a photograph, a smiling sender was judged to be more able and friendly than a neutral one. However, when an e-mail on formal work-related maters included a smiley, the sender was thought to be less able. The smiley did not influence the opinion on the sender's friendliness.

    “People are easy to accept that a smiley equals a real smile, but the findings of this study show that in the workplace, this seems not the case, especially when first communications are concerned.” Dr. Glikson says. “In such a situation, it is better not to use smileys to people at whatever age. Smileys could hardly be a wise choice to a person you are not familiar with.”

    When my sister Mertie told me she had put out tomato plants last summer, I was quite impressed.

    Since she was a garden-beginner, Mertie researched exactly how far apart to space her tomato plants; what kind of fertilizer to use; how to keep away the bugs（害虫）, etc. Once they were planted, she took care of them daily, anxiously awaiting the juicy tomatoes to appear. But, day after day, her plants were tomato-less while all of her neighbors who had also put out tomato plants were already enjoying the fruit of their labor.

    Frustrated (upset), Mertie gave in and went to the market to search fresh tomatoes. While paying, Mertie told the farmer her troubles. The farmer paused to think for a moment and then asked, "Well, what kind of tomatoes did you plant?"

    "I think they were called Big Boy," Mertie remembered.

    "Well there's your problem," the farmer explained. "Big Boy and Better Boy tomatoes have a 95-day growing period whereas regular tomato plants produce fruit in as few as 70 days…you just have to wait a little longer for the Big Boys."

    With that new knowledge, Mertie went home with excitement, knowing they would be worth the wait.

    Thinking about my sister's gardening experience, I had to smile. She just didn't know that Big Boy tomatoes took longer--neither did I--but once she discovered that information, she was no longer discouraged and upset about the lack of tomatoes on her plants. Instead, she was encouraged and excited to see them a few weeks later.

    It makes me wonder how many of us have "Big Boy" dreams in our hearts, yet we just don't realize that they are of the "Big Boy" variety so we are discouraged and worn out with the waiting process. Instead of waiting with excitement, we give up on our dreams and figure we must have done something wrong to stop them from coming to pass. Frustrated, we see other people's dreams coming true, and we wonder why ours haven't yet been achieved.

The hottest cities in the world

    The locations below are the hottest and also travel destinations on the planet.

    Bangkok

    According to the data, Bangkok is the hottest city on the planet﹣not because of any particularly impressive high temperatures, but because it is consistently hot all the year round. The city has an average annual temperature of 29℃, coupled with high dampness and an average of 128rainy days per year; while the highest temperature on record is 40℃.

    Timbuktu, Mali

    Located on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert, the African city of Timbuktu is similar to everything remote. It's also one of the hottest cities in the world, with a hot, dry climate offering record highs of 49℃. Throughout April, May and June, average maximum temperatures are beyond 40℃. Modern﹣day Timbuktu is slowly being swallowed by the desert and is certainly a shadow of the trade center that it once was.

    Ahvaz, Iran

    Built on the bank of the Karun River, Ahvaz is an industrial city with average highs of around 46℃ during July, its warmest month. The city's record high is 54℃, making it one of the world's hottest cities during the summer. Frequent sand and dust storms and an absence of rain from July to September mix with its sky﹣high temperatures.

    Kuwait City

    The wealthy capital of Kuwait is another competitor for the title of the world's hottest summertime city with average highs of over 45℃ from June to August. Nightfall brings little respite（缓解）, with after﹣dark low temperatures often over 30℃ during the summer months. Kuwait City's record high is 52℃, while it rains on an average of just 19 days per year.

Dear Miss Hanff,

    You will be glad to know that the two boxes of eggs and the tins of tongue have all arrived safely and once again we all wish to thank you most sincerely for your extreme generosity. Mr. Martin, one of the older members of our staff, has been on the sick list for some time and we therefore let him have the lion's share of the eggs, one whole boxful in fact, and of course he was delighted to get them. The tins of tongue look very inviting and will be a welcome addition to our larders (食物橱) and in my case will be put on one side for a special occasion.

    I enquired at all the local music shops but was unable to get the Messiah or Bach's St. Matthew Passion in stiff covers in clean, secondhand copies, and then I found they were available from the publisher in new editions. Their prices seemed a bit high, but I thought I had better get them and they have been sent by Book Post a few days ago, so should arrive any day now. Our invoice, total $4.20, is enclosed with the books.

    We are sending you a little gift for Christmas. We do hope you will not have to pay any duty on it. We will mark it "Christmas Gift" and keep our fingers crossed. Anyway, we hope you will like it and accept it with our sincere best wishes for Christmas and the coming year.

    My name is certainly not of Welsh origin. As it is pronounced to rhyme with the French word "Noel", I think there may be a possibility that it originated in France.

Yours sincerely,

Frank Doel

At Englands University of Plymouth, Professor Eduardo Miranda has been programming pairs of robots to compose music. Miranda's robots have simple " vocal cords" (声带)and are programmed to sing and to listen to each other. The robots' unique warbling sounds (颤音) do not perfectly match the human voice, but each machine is exactly sharing music with the other in a new and unique way.

Each robot is equipped with speakers, software that mimics the human voice, a mouth that opens as it "sings," a microphone for ears, and a camera for eyes. The robots also move. Miranda hopes that by studying his robot vocalists, he can discover something about how and why humans create, perform, and listen to music.

When the robots sing, first one robot makes six random sounds. Its partner responds with more sounds. The first robot analyzes the sounds to see if their sequences (序列)) are similar. If they are, it nods its head and commits the sounds to memory, and the second robot notices and "memorizes" the musical sequence, too. If the first robot thinks the sounds are too different, it shakes its head and both robots ignore the sounds. Then the process continues.

Miranda set up an experiment in which he left the two robots alone in his study for two weeks. When he returned, his little warblers had, by imitating each other, not only shared notes but combined them. The product of their cooperation was far from symphonic, but the robots had begun to combine the notes into their own self-developed "songs".

With the help of his warbling robots, one of Miranda's goals is to create music that no human would ever compose. Miranda believes the robots are ideal for this purpose because they would not be influenced by any existing musical styles or rules.