【推荐3】Snapchat is rolling out parental controls that allow parents to see their teenager’s contacts and report to the social media company — without their child’s knowledge — any accounts that may worry them.

The goal, executives say, is to enable parents to monitor their child’s connections without giving up teens’ autonomy (自主性). Named Family Center, the new suite of tools released Tuesday requires both caregiver and teen to be involved in.

“It allows parents to see who’s in their teen’s universe,” said Nona Farahnik, director of platform policy for Snap, the company that makes Snapchat. “It offers parents the ability to ask who someone might be, how they might know a contact, which improves those real-time conversations about who teens are talking to.”

Farahnik says Family Center is modeled on real-life parenting. “If your teen is headed to the mall, you might ask who they’re going with. ‘How do you know them? Are you guys on a sports team together? Do you go to school together?’” said Farahnik. “But you won’t be sitting there at the mall with them listening to their conversations.” Similarly, parents cannot see the content that their teen is sending or receiving on Snapchat. They can only view whom their child has communicated with in the past seven days. Snapchat is popular with young people, partially because messages on the platform disappear within 24 hours.

The company says it consulted with safety experts and academics and conducted focus groups with parents to develop Family Center and it plans to roll out more features in the coming months. The tool is only for parents of kids under 18.

With Family Center, Snap follows other social media platforms, including Instagram, which recently have advanced parental controls. By at least one survey, Snapchat is the second-most popular social network among teens. The first, TikTok, offers “Family Sharing,” which gives parents a few ways to limit the videos shown to their kids.

“I think these platforms want to show that they can take steps to protect kids, that they can self-regulate and that they’re capable of doing it themselves without getting the government involved,” said Irene Ly, policy counsel for Common Sense Media, which reviews apps, games and media for families.

【推荐2】Of the many events held as part of the X Games — an annual world extreme sports event, Zhong Chengzhan likes skiing most, despite having lost the use of both legs in a skiing accident some nine years ago.

Before the accident in 2013, which left him with paraplegia (截肢) of the upper limbs, Zhong was a committed X Games fan and was already involved in activities such as snowboarding, bicycle climbing, paragliding and nautical sports. He’s also the owner of Kailas, a climbing wear and equipment company founded in 2003 that is a household name to outdoor enthusiasts worldwide.

Zhong’s passion for the X Games grew out of his love for snow and ice, which he first developed on a cycling trip from Sichuan Province to the Tibet Autonomous Region when he was 21. After his accident, Zhong continued to ski and discovered that there were still many sports that people with disabilities could do.

In 2015, he traveled to Austria to learn how to ski in a wheelchair. He visited a number of resorts in Australia, New Zealand and Germany for training over the following two years, which helped him master the skills he’d need to ski in a wheelchair. His persistence paid off. Zhong took fifth place in the National Disabled Alpine Skiing and Snowboarding Champions in January 2018.

The 44-year-old plans to organize a grassroots ski team of disabled people and hopes to encourage more people to join. With his skill as a wheelchair skier improving, Zhong set up another company in 2014 to focus on the design, research and production of wheelchairs, helping to fill a gap in the domestic production of high-end wheelchairs.

With the conclusion of the 2022 Beijing Winter Paralympic Games, Zhong feels the improvement of sports facilities and equipment will encourage more people with disabilities to participate in parasports.

【推荐1】Nikos was an ordinary man. He went through life accepting the mixture of good things and bad things. He never looked for any explanation or reason about why things happened just the way they did.

One morning Nikos woke up. He started to shave, as he did every morning, but then he noticed that the mirror on the bathroom wall wasn’t quite straight. He tried to adjust it, but as soon as he touched it, the mirror fell off the wall and hit the floor with a huge crash. It broke into a thousand pieces. Nikos knew that some people thought this was unlucky. “Seven years’ bad luck,” they said, “when a mirror broke.” But Nikos didn’t care.

After that he went to make himself a sandwich, which needed some tomato sauce. When he picked up a jar of tomato sauce, it fell from his hand. Tomato sauce was everywhere. Some people, he knew, thought that this was also supposed to bring bad luck. But Nikos didn’t care.

On his way to work, he saw a black cat running away from him. He didn’t care.

Even though Nikos wasn’t superstitious, he thought that something bad was certain to happen to him today. He told everybody at work what had happened. “Something bad will happen to you today,” they all said. But nothing bad happened to him.

That evening, his friend thought Nikos was going to have bad things. However, whatever they played, Nikos won. “Go on then, Nikos,” his friend shouted, “use all the money you have won to buy some lottery tickets!” Nikos did it. The next day, everybody was watching the draw for the lottery on TV. The first number came out, for the third prize. It was Nikos’ number. Then the second number, for the second prize. It was Nikos’ number. Then the first prize. It was Nikos’ number as well.

He WON all three of the big lottery prizes!

【推荐2】I’m a 22-year-old young man and came to China 4 months ago for the same reasons most people of my age do. They want to see the world and expand their minds. To explore more about China, I am currently teaching English in Guangdong.

China hasn’t been the expected. Before I came, I was an aware of the level of ongoing development within the country. High-rise buildings, flat screen televisions, well-equipped classrooms... I found myself pleasantly surprised. Like other foreigners, I saw the funny side of the language barrier and tasted the chicken feet. I gave in to the flow of Chinese culture and haven’t looked back since, but it wasn't until today that I realized how naturally similar it is to my own.

When the Chinese take a photograph, they won’t say “Cheese!” like we do back home in the U. K. Instead, they say the word “Eggplant! (茄子).” Amused at first, I suddenly realized that I had no reason to be critical. Cheese? Eggplant? Any difference?

China is home to one of the oldest and greatest cultures in the world. It is in this country that I have witnessed some of the most beautiful scenes that the human race can offer. We all share a way of life, no matter where we’re from or where we go. It’s my conclusion that though we shout random foods at a camera, at least, we’re all shouting words from the same category. How different can we really be?

So, instead of grasping onto your own culture, take a break and allow the culture of another country to embrace you. You may be surprised at the amount of similarities you find, just as I was this afternoon in sunny, southern China.

【推荐3】Settled in at the base camp, I noticed that a storm seemed to be approaching. But it was of little worry; my team had the determination to overcome any possible dangers. After all, extreme altitude climbing was a mind game as much as a physical challenge.

Of course, overconfidence was a dangerous position to take; it can lead to corner cutting and laziness. Anxiety is also dangerous; it causes you to overthink when you need to be in a flow state. So my habitual practice before any climb was to pitch (搭帐篷) somewhere in the middle neither fearful nor overly relaxed. But my aim was always to be aggressive: Whenever I attack a mountain, I attack a hundred percent.

The American writer Mark Twain once wrote that if a person’s job was to eat a frog then it was best to take care of business first thing in the morning. But if the work involved eating two frogs, it was best to eat the bigger one first. As we waited in base camp, a battle plan was set. Gasherbrum Ⅱ was very much the smaller frog, and we intended to take it at a relatively leisurely pace, resting in some of the lower camps as we climbed. But Gasherbrum I was the bigger, uglier test, so I wanted to take it first with Mingma and Geljen — in one hit, we hoped. I’d previously topped Makalu, the world’s fifth highest mountain, in 18 hours after climbing Everest and Lhotse and barely sleeping for four or five days. We had climbed Kangchenjunga, the world’s third highest, in similar circumstances. I thought we had it in us to do the northwest face of Gasherbrum I, more than 26,500 feet, in one push. By my estimation we'd reach the summit around midday.

One of the challenges was the Japanese Couloir (峡谷), which bordered a steep, 70-degree ridge (山脊). Once we’d climbed above it, our job was to pull ourselves to the top, the final stages of which involved a crossing over another sharp mountain. The work was extremely tough, and it took us much longer than expected. By the time we’d negotiated the Japanese Couloir and reached Camp3, the sun had fallen. We could not press on. We needed a new plan.