【推荐1】It is said that most people have not more than 30 friends at any given time, and 400 over the whole of their lives. However, on social networking sites, most users have about 150 friends.    1    

Also, there are no rules about friendship. There are no instructions about how to make friends, how to keep friendships going, and how to finish friendships if we want to move on. People have very different opinions about this: some people would die for their friends and they value them more than family. Others say that friends are temporary, only there to help each other until they are no longer needed.     2    

Because of these different definitions of friendship, it is easy to be unhappy about our friendships. We may want them to be deeper or closer, or we may want to have more friends in our lives.     3     Sometimes we fear we have left it too late in life to start. If we move to another country or city, we have to find ways to make new friends again.

    4     We should not think that it could be too late to build friendships. We also need to understand that the need to be around other people is one that is shared by many. Therefore, we should not be too frightened about starting to talk to people who in the future may become our friends.     5     Remember what people say: strangers are friends we have not met yet.

【推荐2】How would you feel if moving to a new town meant losing track of your friends? What if the only way of getting news from far away friends was writing letters that took ages to be delivered?     1     Thanks to progress in technology, how we make friends and communicate with them has changed significantly.

Nowadays, we can move around the world and still stay in touch with the people that we want to remain friends with.     2     All you need is a wi-fi connection. The digital age also helps us find people who share our interests, such as playing an unusual instrument. Whatever our hobbies, the Internet can connect people who share the same hobbies, ever if they live on the other side of the world.

    3     It depends. If people always exchange true personal information online, these friendships can be real and meaningful. Yet we need to keep in mind that what we see on social media is often not the whole truth. On social media sites, people tend to post only positive updates that make them appear happy and friendly.     4    Remember the saying: on the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog. A young person could be old; a woman could be a man; we could even be sharing our information with bad guys.

This doesn’t mean that we should throw the baby out with the bath water, though. Technology has changed the way we make friends, but the meaning of friendship and our longing for friends remain the same.     5    

【推荐3】It has become a daily routine(常规) for the students on bus No.7 in Arlington, Washington to wave to the “grandma in window”.

Every day for the past five years, you could find the old lady Louise Edlen sitting at her dining room table having breakfast as the kids were passing by. But one day in early October this year she was not found sitting in her usual place.

The kids didn’t see their old friend for a few days. They got worried. Finally, they learned that she had suffered a stroke(中风). “It was kind of heartbreaking to us because she was always there in the past five years,” seventh-grader Axtin Bandewerfhorst said.

But she was upset and was obviously still thinking about the 20 boys and girls who passed by her home every day. The day after the bus driver Carol Mitzelfeld brought a bouquet of flowers from the students to Edlen, the kids looked out of the window to find a sign reading “Thank you”.

“That really made me happy,” 10^th-grader Cheyanne Holt said. “It shows how much we mean to her.”

So to welcome Edlen home from the hospital, they made her a sign of their own: a photo of the kids waving from inside the bus.

“Carol told us that a lot of times she even does not remember her daughter’s name, but she always remembers to wave to the kids on the bus,” Bandewerfhorst said. “That made me feel really special.”

Louise’s husband, Dave Elden, said, “The students’ daily move gives her something to look forward to every day.”

Elden has returned home, and is back to waving to the students every day.

【推荐2】Global Positioning Systems are now a part of everyday driving in many countries. These satellite-based systems provide turn-by-turn directions to help people get to where they want to go. But, they can also cause a lot of problems, send you to the wrong place or leave you completely lost. Many times, the driver is to blame. Sometimes a GPS error is responsible. Most often, says Barry Brown, it is a combination of the two.

We spoke to Mr. Brown by Skype. He told us about an incident involving a friend who had flown to an airport in the eastern United States. There he borrowed a GPS-equipped car to use during his stay. Barry Brown: “ And they just plugged in an address and then set off to their destination. And, then it wasn’t until they were driving for thirty minutes that they realized they actually put in a destination back on the West Coast where they lived. They actually put their home address in. So again, the GPS is kind of ‘garbage in garbage out’.”

Mr. Brown says this is a common human error. But, he says, what makes the problem worse has something to do with some of the shortcomings, or failures, of GPS equipment. Barry Brown: “One problem with a lot of the GPS units is that they have a very small screen and they just tell you the next turn. Because they just give you the next turn, sometimes that means that it is not really giving you the overview that you would need to know that it is going to the wrong place.”

Barry Brown formerly served as a professor with the University of California, San Diego. While there, he worked on a project with Eric Laurier from the University of Edinburgh. The two men studied the effects of GPS devices on Driving by placing cameras in people’s cars. They wrote a paper based on their research. It is called “The Normal, Natural Troubles of Driving with GPS.” It lists several areas where GPS systems can cause confusion for drivers. These include maps that are outdated, incorrect or difficult to understand. They also include timing issues related to when GPS commands are given.

Barry Brown says to make GPS systems better, we need a better understanding of how drivers, passengers and GPS systems work together.

【推荐3】How would you feel about celebrity(名人) deaths? Despite this person being a perfect stranger, it can feel kind of like you've lost an acquaintance or even a friend, when a beloved celebrity dies. It's not quite the same, of course. You have no memories of times you hung out, or no cards they sent you. Instead, it's a different kind of grief(悲痛), one marked by big screens crowded stadiums, and a unique feeling of love and admiration you've probably never felt for someone you actually know.

If you've ever cried or felt sad for days about a celebrity's death, you're   certainly not alone. According to expert Rachel O'Neill, feeling grief after a celebrity's death is common because we form personal attachments to celebrities. "Celebrities' presence is felt in our lives," she says. "Maybe they represented an ideal, something you hoped that you could be. Or perhaps the celebrity held a particular important memory in your life---for example, they starred in a TV show that you watched growing up. In those cases, the death can feel like a loss of that particular part of your past."

It can also be more than a connection to your past, but a joyful part of your everyday life, according to therapist Cynthia Catchings. "Celebrities may provide us with laughs, comfort entertainment, excitement, or sense of escape. When a celebrity we feel connected to passes away, it can feel like losing someone close to us because they may have been integral in some of our happiest or saddest moments, "Catchings says . "They made us laugh, they made us cry, but most importantly, they helped us forget about our difficult moments when we needed it most."

Still, it can feel strange to grieve someone you didn't actually know. But both O'Neill and Catchings agree that it's a totally normal way to feel for any number of reasons---the most understandable of which is that death is just sad.

It doesn't matter that you didn't know the celebrity in person. If you're experiencing grief, O'Neill says, it's important to give yourself space to feel it. "Remembering the celebrity in whatever way you feel will be helpful,"she says. "Some people find comfort in sharing their memories on social media and connecting with other users who are also experiencing grief and loss.”

The more we feel, the more we grow, however painful. That's why medical officer Neeraj Gandotra says you should use your grief over a celebrity to prepare you for grief you might feel down the road. "Use the feelings of loss as an opportunity to have a more academic discussion about what happens when someone dies." he said. " This discussion can help prepare one for when someone close to them dies. The topic is healthy and a great opportunity to find areas where you could improve, and even change the direction of your life for the better."