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    Don't you just hate it when you have to take an important phone call and you're surrounded by potential eavesdroppers(潜在偷听者)? You either have to whisper or go outside to keep the conversation private, which is not good. Now Hushme aims to fix this problem by muffling your voice and making you look like Bane in the film Batman.

    Hushme is a strange high-tech mask(口罩)that blocks the sound of the wearer's voice so that people nearby can't hear what is being said. It connects to your phone via Blucetooth and comes with a pair of earphones. When you get a private call, all you have to do is put the mask on and it will do the rest. The pair of thick pads over your mouth does a good job of muffling your voice, but to ensure nothing gets through. Hushme also has speakers that play a variety of sounds when you speak.

    The Hushme mask, which comes in a variety of colors, can be worn around the neck, like a regular pair of earphones, and attaches in front of your mouth thanks to a couple of very powerful magnets(磁铁). It's not yet clear how comfortable speaking with this Bane-like mask over your mouth really is, or how effective its speech muffling ability is, so we know so far is that it makes you look strange. The sound choices for covering your voice currently include wind, ocean, rain, birds, monkey, but new ones could be added in the future.

    Advertised as the “world's first voice mask for mobile phones'. Hushme was showed at CES. At the becoming of this year. Its makers plan to sell it by the end of this year. It will cost about $200.

    A few years ago, a company called Space Marketing came up with a plan to send a mile–long advertisement into space. To advertising agencies (机构), it would have been “a dream come true”. However, advertising standards agencies finally decided not to allow Space Marketing to go ahead with their plans and they were forced to give them up.

    Space may indeed be the final place for advertisers, because on Earth we are already surrounded by advertising wherever we are and whatever we are doing. Apart from the obvious adverts that we see every day on TV, and in newspapers and magazines, there is a whole 'other world' of advertising messages for our attention. There are ads that we see on the side of the bus we catch to work, for example. And what about the logos (商标) we see on the clothing of the people we walk past in the streets?

    Most of the time, we are probably not even aware of (意识到的) these less obvious advertising methods, but that doesn't mean that they don't work. Take 'product placement', for example. You are in a cinema, watching the latest Hollywood movie. Look carefully at the make of car your favorite actor is driving. And what about his watch? Can you see what brand it is? Chances are, you can, and the company that owns the brand is likely to have paid thousands for it to appear in the film.

    So, whether Space Marketing finally succeeds in sending ads into space or not is perhaps less important than it might seem. This would not change a thing. Our everyday lives are already strongly influenced by advertising whether we realize it or not.

    Ireland has had a very difficult history. The problems started in the 16th century when English ruler tried to conquer(征服) Ireland. For hundreds of years, the Irish people fought against the English. Finally, in 1921, the British government was forced to give independence to the south of Ireland. The result in that today there are two “Irelands”. Northern Ireland, in the north, is part of the United Kingdom. The Republic of Ireland, in the south is an independent country.

    In the 1840s the main crop, was affected by disease and about 750,000 people died of hunger. This, and a shortage(短缺) of work, forced many people to leave Ireland and live in the USA, the UK, Australia and Canada. As a result of these problems, the population fell from 8.2 million in 1841 to 6.6 million in 1851.

    For many years, the majority of Irish people earned their living as farmers. Today, many people will work on the land but more and more people are moving to the cities to work in factories and offices. Life in the cities is very different from life in the countryside, where things move at a quieter and slower pace.

    The Irish are famous for being warm-hearted and friendly. Oscar Wilde, a famous Irish writer, once said that the Irish were “the greatest talkers since the Creeks”. Since independence, Ireland has revived(复兴) its own culture of music, language, literature and singing. Different areas have different styles of old Irish songs which are sung without instruments. Other kinds of Irish music use many different instruments such as the violin, whistles, etc.

    "When someone is rude to you, it can put you in a bad mood. It may even lead you to be rude to someone else, creating a chain of rudeness. In fact, this troubling chain may even be caused by simply seeing someone be rude to another person. You don't even have to be the target of the had behavior," stated a researcher.

    The researchers worked with 81 persons, with occupations ranging from security to business to medicine, who were asked to complete online surveys over a 10-day period. Participants recorded their moods when they woke up; and in the evening, they described their experiences over the course of that day.

    Each morning the participants also viewed a short video, describing workplace interaction of some kind. Half of the mornings, the video included some kind of rudeness while the other half had some kind of warm interaction in the workplace. Rudeness was conveyed through various means, including a lack of eye contact or unpleasant language.

    Participants who watched the rudeness videos reported seeing or experiencing rudeness during the day, and they were also more likely to escape from fellow employees to avoid being the victims of rudeness themselves. They reported their overall work suffered that day as a result.

    Not all participants were affected by the rudeness videos, however. A few weeks before the study began, the participants completed an evaluation that measured their self-confidence and emotional stability among other things. The participants who scored higher on this evaluation were significantly less likely to be influenced by the rudeness.

    Consequently, one of the researchers recommended that companies hire managers who can limit exposure to rudeness, provide plenty of positive reinforcement (强化) and build a civil workplace environment. This, in turn, could help employees build their confidence levels and help them better handle workplace rudeness.

    A couple in their 60s has travelled 12,000 miles across 16 countries from Britain to China - riding their bikes all the way. Grandparents Peter and Chris stepped on the long journey after deciding to "do something a bit different". They traversed (横穿) cities, deserts, mountains and everything in between across Europe, the Middle East and the East Asia.

    Peter, 66, said the moment they finally had a look at the famous Great Wall after a year and a half of cycling 30 miles a day was "really exciting". At the end of their journey, the special pair didn't fly home but instead choose to book a cabin (舱) inside a 400m-long ship.

    "You never know what the day is going to bring. All you know is that you are going to get on your bike and cycle. Every day is an adventure and every day is new. Overall, the experience is unbelievable," Peter said.

    At first Peter and Chris set out to cycle from Britain in January 2017 but were forced home. They had cycled all the way to Hungary when Peter slipped and broke his leg. After seven months of recovery, the couple set out again in Britain. They finally arrived in China in November 2018.

    Both Peter and Chris agreed that the best part of the entire trip was coming across the kindness of strangers along the way, many of whom invited the couple for food and drink. Chris, 64, said, "It was a wonderful experience, particularly wonderful because of the amazing people we met along the way."