【推荐2】In the American colonies (殖民地) there was little money. England did not supply the colonies with coins and it did not allow the colonies to make their own coins. Only the Massachusetts Bay Colony received permission for a short period in 1652 to make several kinds of silver coins. England wanted to keep money out of America as a means of controlling trade; America was forced to trade only with England as it did not have the money to buy products from other countries. The result during the pre-revolutionary period was that the colonists used various goods in place of money: beaver furs, Indian wampum, and tobacco leaves were all commonly used as substitutes for money. The colonists also made use of any foreign coins they could obtain. Dutch, Spanish, French, and English coins were all in use in the American colonies.

Individual states and the Continental Congress issued paper money. So much of this paper money was printed that by the end of the Revolutionary War it was actually worthless. As a result, trade-in goods and the use of foreign coins were still common during this period.

By the time the Revolutionary War had been won by the American colonists, the monetary (货币的) system was in a state of total confusion. To change this situation, the new Constitution of the United States, approved in 1789, allowed only Congress to issue money. The individual states could no longer have their own money supply. A few years later, the Coinage Act of 1792 made the dollar the official currency of the United States and put the country on a bimetallic (双金属的) standard. In this bimetallic system, both gold and silver were legal money, and the rate of exchange of silver to gold was fixed by the government at sixteen to one.

【推荐3】Studying a subject that you feel pointless is never a fun or easy task. If you’re studying history, asking yourself the question “why is history important” is a very good first step. History is an essential part of human civilization. You will find something here that will arouse your interest, or get you thinking about the significance of history.

History grounds us in our roots. History is an important and interesting field of study, and learning the history of our home country can give us a deeper, more meaningful glimpse (一瞥) into our ancestral pasts, and how we got to where we are today. Many people feel like they need a sense of cultural belonging, which is something that studying your roots and being open-minded to the evolution (演变) of your culture can provide.

History enriches our experience. Reading history is an amazing experience because it enables us to reflect on the social and economic life of the people living long time ago. According to the experts, problems faced by people regardless of the past and present are the same. With the information about the ancestors, one can become more experienced in handling challenges of life.

History makes us more empathetic (具有共情能力的). Studying history can give us insight (洞察力) into why our culture does certain things, and how the past has shaped it into what we know now. It also provides a rather strong foundation for empathy across cultures. Fear and hate for others is usually caused by ignorance (无知). We’re scared of the things that we don’t understand. History has the potential to break down those boundaries by offering us insight into entire worlds that would otherwise be foreign to us.

History can inspire us to learn more. What’s fantastic about history is the way it broadens our horizons. It’s almost impossible to learn about one historical period without having dozens of questions about related concepts. Study the 19re century England, and you might catch a glimpse of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist. Look up Charles Dickens, and you might learn a thing or two about realism. Or maybe you end up switching your attention away from novels, and discover the history of romantic poets in England. It can go anywhere, and there is something in there for absolutely anybody.

The value of history cannot be underestimated. We don’t have to live in the past, but we can definitely do better by learning from it and using the lessons learnt to lead more meaningful lives.

If you’re looking for a moving story that explores themes of mental illness, grief, and love, pick up a copy of How It Feels to Float and follow Biz as she turns 18. This moving novel will stay with you long after you finish reading it.

Put on your crime-solving cap and get swept away in this thriller about a girl, a boy, and a string of unsolved murders. As threats and hints pile up, you’ll be burning the midnight oil trying to finish the book before dawn.

The first book in the Rise of the Empress series takes the bones of a traditional fairy tale--- a poor girl fated for power, an evil queen determined to stop her, love for someone who doesn’t love back, and magic--- and gives them a richly imagined East Asian setting.

If the Star Wars movies have made you fall in love with the space opera, eventually you’re going to read Frank Herbert’s most famous creation. The story of centuries -old political plotting—about warring factions battling over control of the extremely valuable planet Arrakis—is a classic and remains a wonderful introduction to the larger, more complex world of science fiction just beyond the Star Wars trilogies.

【推荐3】Tess still stood hesitating like a swimmer about to make his dive, hardly knowing whether to return or move forward, when a figure came out from the dark door of the tent.It was a tall young man, smoking.

He had an almost black face, though red and smooth. His moustache was black with curled points, though he could not be more than twenty-three or-four. There was an unusual force in his face, and in his daring rolling eyes.

“Well, my beauty, what can I do for you?” said he, coming forward. And seeing that she was quite at a loss: “Never mind me, I am Mr. D’ Urberville. Have you come to see me or my mother?”

This differed greatly from what Tess had expected. She had dreamed of an aged and dignified face. She tried to keep calm and answered—“I came to see your mother, sir.”

“I am afraid you cannot see her—she is ill in bed,” replied the representative of the house; for this was Mr. Alec, the only son of the noble family. “What is the business you wish to see her about?”

“It isn’t business—it is—I can hardly say what!”

“Pleasure?”

“Oh no. Why, sir, if I tell you, it will seem…”

Tess’s sense of a certain ridicule was now so strong that, despite her general discomfort at being here, her rosy lips curved (弯曲) towards a smile, much to the attraction of the young man.

“It is so foolish,” she stammered(结结巴巴地说); “I fear I can’t tell you!”

“Never mind; I like foolish things. Try again, my dear, “ said he kindly.

“Mother asked me to come.” Tess continued; “and, indeed, I was in the mind to do so myself. But I did not think it would be like this. I came, sir, to tell you that we are of the same family as you.”

“Ho! Poor relations?”

“Yes.”

“Stokes？”

“No; d’Urbervilles.”

“Ay, ay; I mean d’Urbervilles.”

“Our names are worn away to Durbeyfield; but we have several proofs that we are d’Urbervilles. The local scholars hold the view that we are, and…and we have an old seal and a silver spoon marked with the same castle as yours. So mother said we ought to make ourselves known to you, as we’ve lost our horse by a bad accident; we can hardly make a living.”

“Very kind of your mother, I’m sure.” Alec looked at Tess as he spoke, in a way that made her uneasy.” And so, my pretty girl, you’ve come on a friendly visit to us, as relations?”

“I Suppose I have,” looking less confident and uncomfortable again.

“Well— there’s no harm in it. Where do you live? What are you?”

——Tess of the d’Urbervilles By Thomas Hardy

【推荐1】When I first got an e-mail account ten years ago, I received communications only from family, friends, and colleagues. Now it seems that every time I check my e-mail, I have an endless series of advertisements and other correspondence that do not interest me at all. If we want e-mail to continue to be useful, we need specific laws that make spamming a crime.

If lawmakers do not do something soon to prohibit spam, the problem will certainly get much worse. Computer programs allow spammers to send hundreds of millions of e-mails almost instantly. As more and more advertisers turn to spam to sell their products, individual e-mail boxes are often flooded with spam e-mails. Would people continue to use e-mail if they had to deal with an annoying amount of spam each time?

This problem is troubling for individuals and companies as well. Many spam e-mails contain computer viruses that can shut down the entire network of a company. Companies rely on e-mail for their employees to communicate with each other. Spam frequently causes failures in their local communications networks, and their employees are thus unable to communicate effectively. Such a situation results in a loss of productivity and requires companies to repeatedly repair their networks. These computer problems raise production costs of companies, which are, in the end, passes on to the consumer.

For these reasons, I believe that lawmakers need to legislate against spam. Spammers should be fined, and perhaps sent to prison if they continue to disturb people. E-mail is a tool which helps people all over the world to communicate conveniently, but spam is destroying this convenience.

【推荐2】You get anxious if there’s no Wi­Fi in the hotel or mobile phone signal up the mountain. You feel upset if your phone is getting low on power and you secretly worry things will go wrong at work if you’re not there. All these can be called “always on” stress caused by smart­phone addiction.

For some people, smartphones have set them free from the nine­to­five work. Flexible working has given them more control over their working lives and enabled them to spend more time with their friends and families. For many others though, smartphones have become cruel masters in their pockets, never allowing them to turn them off and relax.

Pittsburgh­based developer Kevin Holesh was worried about how much he was ignoring his family and friends in favor of his iPhone. So he developed an app — Moment — to monitor his usage. The app enables users to see how much time they’re spending on the device and set up warnings if the usage limits are broken.“Moment’s goal is to promote balance in your life,” his website explains. “Some time on your phone, some time off it enjoying your loving family and friends around you.”

Dr Christine Grant, an occupational psychologist at Coventry University, said, “The effects of this ‘always on’ culture are that your mind is never resting, and you’re not giving your body time to recover, so you’re always stressed. And the more tired and stressed we get, the more mistakes we make. Physical and mental health can suffer.”

And as the number of connected smartphones is increasing, so is the amount of data. This is leading to a sort of decision paralysis (瘫痪) and is creating more stress in the workplace because people have to receive a broader range of data and communications which are often difficult to manage. “It actually makes it more difficult to make decisions and many do less because they’re controlled by it all and feel they can never escape the office,” said Dr Christine Grant.

【推荐3】An underwater robot named Icefin has gone to the bottom of Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier (冰川) recently, which is one of Antarctica’s fastest melting glaciers. Even so, scientists learned unexpectedly that waters at the ground line, the region where the glacier meets the sea, are more than 2 degrees Celsius above the normal freezing temperature.

The journey to collect the data wasn’t easy. Scientists dropped Icefin through a 700-meter-deep hole they had drilled through the glacier. “We’re proud of Icefin, since it represents a new way of looking at glaciers,” said Britney Schmidt, lead scientist for Icefin. “For really the first time, we can drive miles under the ice to measure and map processes we can’t otherwise reach. We’ve taken the first close-up look at a grounding zone. It’s our ‘walking on the moon’ moment.” The grounding zone is the region where the bottom of the glacier meets the sea water beneath it.

The team spent the last two months in minus 30℃ weather at the glacier for the project. After going down the nearly half-mile hole through the glacier, Icefin swam more than a mile to the grounding zone. As it moved along, Icefin took measurements and recorded what it saw with an inside camera so that scientists could later map the area, as well as understand the temperatures and the changing landscape there.

Thwaites Glacier, roughly the size of Florida, which prevents the ice behind it from freely flowing into the ocean, is melting at an increasingly fast rate. Its melting already accounts for about 4% of the global sea rise, Georgia Tech reported. The amount of ice flowing out of Thwaites into the sea has doubled in the past 30 years, greatly changing the landscape, temperatures and the ecosystem of Antarctica.

“We know that warmer ocean waters are eroding many of West Antarctica’s glaciers, but we’re particularly concerned about Thwaites,” Keith Nicholls, an oceanographer with the British Antarctic Survey and the United Kingdom lead on the team, said in the Georgia Tech statement. “This new data will provide a new viewpoint of the processes taking place, so we can predict future change with more certainty.”