Neither rain nor snow nor the dark of night can separate Tennessee postal carrier “Mailman Mike” from his 4-and-a-half-year-old friend Carter Lawson – or keep them from their appointments.

    For the past nine months, the two have teamed up every day in the preschooler's Knoxville neighborhood for a few minutes of delivering mail together and chatting with fellow neighbors. Lawson wants to be a mail carrier when he grows up, and in an inspiring story, his mom told us how mailman Mike Crenshaw has been a role model to her son. “Anyone could just be like 'Go away, kid', but Mike has really gone out of his way to talk with Carter,” said Cassie Lawson of the United States Postal Service carrier. Little Carter even got his own uniform to match Mike's. “It's been really cute. I just couldn't believe he got a full mailman's costume,” the postal service employee said.

    “Every letter carrier has stops he looks forward to and this is the one I look forward to every day,” said Mike. “He's the end of my day, and the best part of my day. Not because it's the end, but because he's such a cute little guy.”

    The man and the little boy's connection isn't a surprise to Fredric Rolando, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers. “Kids respond to mailmen because letter carriers are a friendly, uniformed part of the neighborhood who bring something to their house every day, and are someone they come to recognize and trust,” Rolando said. “It's the same for the elderly, but in addition, letter carriers may be the only person they communicate with all day.”

Hobbies Help Cure Addiction to the Internet

    While some parents have expressed concerns about the amount of time their children spent surfing the Internet during the summer break from school, it wasn't a problem for Yin Qiming.

    Instead, the 37-year-old Shanghai resident and his daughter divided their vacation between cyberspace and the 8-year-old's other interests.

    “My daughter has many hobbies and I and her mother respect her choices, so we accompany her to classes she enjoys, such as learning to play the drums and drawing,” he said.

    “She loves to play outside with her friends, so she doesn't think the Internet is a must-have thing in her life.”

    Yin added that he rarely imposes a time limit on his daughter's online activity.

    “She sometimes uses WeChat (a popular instant-messaging tool) on my mobile phone, but only to contact her mother,” he said. “Once she has her own plans every day and realizes that the internet is just a part of life, she won't become addicted to it.”

    Li Lin, a primary school teacher from Liaoning province, expressed a similar opinion.

    “We do some homework online, including reciting stories, and the children use the Internet frequently every day of their lives,” she said, noting that the children's online activity is limited to 30 minutes a day at school.

    “We should make better use of the Internet to provide children with more knowledge and help them to grow up,” said Li, who has a 10-year-old son.

    The key to preventing children, especially those at primary and middle schools, from becoming addicted to the Internet is to limit the time they spend online and to ensure that they know cyberspace cannot replace traditional forms of communication, she said.

    Mao Feizhu, a psychologist from Fujian province in southeast China, said people overestimate the influence of the internet.

    “Many people, even some parents, believe the Internet plays a big role in our daily lives, and many things can be completed online, but that's not completely right,” she said.

    “We can use social applications to talk or play basketball games, and even share what we are thinking about, but sometimes it's impossible for our emotions to be accurately reflected in this way. What children need is emotional communication and real physical exercise. After all, love cannot be bought on the net,” she said.

    Perhaps, the best way to stop young netizens spending too much time online is to encourage their other interests but also accompany them when they go online: “We should use the Internet, not become its slaves.

    Four years ago, we asked ourselves: what if we could create a shopping experience with no waiting in lines and no checkout? Or could we create a physical store where customers could simply take what they want and go? Our answer to those questions is Amazon Go, where you could experience the idea of "just walk out shopping".

    Amazon Go is a new kind of store with no checkout required. We created the world's most advanced shopping technology, so you never have to wait in line. With our "just walk out shopping" experience, simply use the Amazon Go app to enter the store, take the products you want, and go! No lines, no checkout.

    Our checkout-free shopping experience is made possible by the same types of technologies used in self-driving cars: computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning. Our "just walk out technology" automatically detects when products are taken from or returned to the shelves and keeps track of them in your virtual cart（虚拟购物车）. When you've done shopping, you can just leave the store. Shortly after, we'll charge your Amazon account and send you a receipt(收据).

    We offer delicious ready-to-eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack options made fresh every day by our on-site chefs and favorite local kitchens and bakeries. Our selection of foodstuff ranges from bread and milk to cheeses and locally made chocolates. You'll find well-known brands we love, plus special finds we're excited to introduce to customers. For a quick home-cooked dinner, pick up one of our chef-designed Amazon Meal Kits, and you can make a meal for two in about 30 minutes.

    Our 1,800-square-foot shopping space is conveniently compact(紧凑的), so busy customers can get in and out fast. It is located at 2131, 7th Ave, Seattle, WA, on the corner of 7th Avenue and Blanchard Street. All you need is an Amazon account, a supported smartphone, and the free Amazon Go app.

    Amazon Go is currently only open to Amazon employees in our testing program, and will be open to the public soon.

    It is the ideal way for traveler to ensure they wake up with the perfect view — a portable Eco-capsule that can be set up anywhere in the world. The egg-shaped pod (独立舱) ensures travelers can camp in the most extreme corners with all the luxury of a hotel room.

    Looking like something in a sci-fi movie, the pod is equipped with solar panels, which guarantee solar energy as its power. In this way the tiny home can let you live comfortably wherever you travel. It even has its own shower and toilet, sleeping area for two, and a small kitchen. The 3,306 ib pods can be transported in a sea-container, meaning the possibilities are endless.

    Bratislava-based Nice Architects are behind the extraordinary Eco-capsules and said they initially designed them for people who stay in the nature for a long time. However, it quickly became apparent that they could be opened up to the wider public and even used in urban areas to fight against high rent and placed on roofs for studio space or living quarters. The Eco-capsule can serve as a cottage, a pop-up hotel or even as a charging station for electric cars.

The Eco-capsules could even be quickly imported for housing for emergency teams who have been quickly arranged to help with natural disasters. Described by the website as a "Swiss Army knife" — it packs everything you need, the self-contained unit can sustain long periods of time without external resources.

    The 86 sqft pods are able to sleep two people for up to year and for those worried about a cold night's sleep, the Eco-capsule has a thick layer which significantly reduce heat loss.

    The pod is designed to cope with extreme weather conditions due to its innovative (创新的) design and materials used. No wonder the Nice Architects are so confident about its future and the producers are receiving heavy orders.

    Did you ever have to say "no" to somebody? Such as a classmate who asks to go to lunch with you? New research suggests that, at least socially, a rejection (拒绝) should not include an apology. In other words, saying you are sorry does not make the person being rejected feel any better. In fact, it might make the rejected person feel worse. That is surprising. Many people consider it to be good manners to say they are sorry when they turn down a request.

    Gili Freedman is doing some related research at Dartmouth College. For her research, she asked over 1,000 people to respond to different examples of social rejection. In one example, the researchers asked people for their reaction (反应）after a person named Taylor asked to join a co-worker who went out to lunch every Friday. And Taylor was told "no". But in some cases, the person rejecting Taylor offered an apology. In other cases, the people doing the rejection did not say they were sorry. People were asked how they would feel if they were being turned down, just as Taylor was. Most said they would be more hurt by a rejection with an apology than a rejection without an apology.

    Freedman said the reason is that apologies make people feel like they need to say that the rejection was okay— even when they felt like it was not okay. Rejection without an apology lets them express their feelings of disappointment, hurt or anger more easily. Freedman also said that an apology often makes the person doing the rejection feel better—even as it makes the person being rejected feel worse.

    Her research deals only with social communication. A business situation might be very different. "If a manager rejects a job interviewee or a boss must tell an employee that he or she is being fired from a job," Freedman said, "reactions to apologies may be different."