1 . Around 1870, the world entered an era of sustained rapid technological development that was unlike anything that had happened before; each successive generation found itself living in a new world, utterly transformed from the world into which its parents had been born.

Brad DeLong, an economics professor at the University of California, argues that there are two great puzzles about this transformation in his forthcoming book “Slouching Towards Utopia.” The first is why this happened. DeLong thinks there were three great “meta-innovations”- innovations that enabled innovation itself: the rise of large corporations, the invention of the industrial research lab and globalization. The second is why all this technological progress hasn’t made society better than it has. One thing I had not fully realized until reading this book is the extent to which progress hasn’t brought felicity. Over the 140 years surveyed, there have been only two eras during which the Western world felt generally optimistic about the way things were going.

The first such era was the 40 or so years leading up to 1914, when people began to realize just how much progress was being made and started to take it for granted. Unfortunately, that era of optimism died in fire and blood, with technology enhancing rather than lessening the horror. The second era was the “30 glorious years”, the decades after World War II when social democracy(民主)-a market economy with its rough edges smoothed off by labour unions and a strong social safety net-seemed to be producing the most decent societies humanity had ever known. But that era, too, came to an end, partly in the face of economic setbacks and bitter politics.

It would be silly to say that the incredible progress of technology since 1870 has done nothing to improve things; in many ways, today’s average American has a far better life than the richest people of the Gilded Age. But the progress hasn’t made us satisfied or optimistic. DeLong offers some explanations for this disconnect. His book definitely asks the right questions and teaches us a lot of crucial history along the way.

2 . The Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, completed in 1436, is the most important landmark in Florence, Italy, and the fourth largest church in the world.

The most famous part of the church is the dome (穹顶). It was created by the genius of the Renaissance (文艺复兴), Filippo Brunelleschi, who showed a great mastery of technical knowledge. Interestingly, Brunelleschi had been a trained goldsmith (金匠) and had never built anything in his life before building the masterpiece. This may sound crazy, but in many ways we look at the relation between Brunelleschi and the church, it seemed that he was “the chosen one” to complete the construction.

When he was born in 1377, the church had been under construction for 80 years with no solution to the dome-shaped roof. The building of the church had grown so larger and grander than the original plans that no one had any idea how it would or could be done. In 1418 a public competition was announced for the construction of the dome. Of course, there was the possibility of building the dome with a wooden structure to support it, but that would end up being costly requiring over 400 trees, lots of manpower and time. When Brunelleschi entered the competition, he was the only one with an idea that did not use wood, which caught the attention of the judges. Brunelleschi did many mathematical calculations and invented a lot of new tools and machines for the project, which was started two years after he won the competition. He finished the dome in only sixteen years, which was shockingly fast back in his time.

Always known as a secretive person, Brunelleschi didn’t leave a single building plan, drawing, or even a letter behind on how he managed to come up with such an amazing design. For years, the structure was a huge mystery about how the dome was built.

3 . There are plenty of concerns about robots stealing jobs from hard-working, flesh-and-blood humans. However, Japan’s Henna “Strange” Hotel has fired half of its 243 robot staff, because these labor-saving machines were causing more problems than they were solving— and requiring humans to come in and fix things as a result.

One of the victims of the robot layoffs was a doll-shaped robot called Cheri, which functioned as an artificial intelligence assistant. Unfortunately. Cheri tuned out to be pretty poor at answering questions from hotel guests. A pair of dinosaur robots, which worked at the hotel check-in, were also made non-existent by the firings since they wound up being unable to do many of the jobs required of 8 receptionist. A concierge (服务台职员) robot, meanwhile, was replaced by a human better able to answer important questions about nearby tourist attractions. Humans are also now going to carry luggage to the rooms, one quarter of which the previous porter robots were only able to reach—and only in excellent weather conditions.

Not surprisingly, the hotel, recognized in 2016 as the world’s first robot-staffed hotel by Guinness World Records, allured curious visitors from all around the world. Encouraged by the success the hotel s owner, Sawada opened seven additional locations across Japan and announced plans to build at least 50 more.

In the end, though, it seems that—as great as robots can be—they’re simply not suitable for every role just yet. With the rise of robot bar-tenders, robot-staffed restaurants and the like, it will be interesting to see how many similar concepts fall apart in the coming years. After all, once the novelty of a dinosaur robot on reception wears off, you’re just faced with a receptionist who can’t properly understand you and lacks an effective number of fingers on each hand to properly photocopy your passport.

5 . In one of the more unusual experiments we’ve seen recently, researchers attached a large pair of cartoonish huge eyes to the front of a small, self-driving vehicle—and it turns out that this kind of adaptation could actually improve pedestrian (行人) safety.

A pair of eyes on the front of driverless vehicles could, according to the researchers, give people standing by the road a better idea of whether they’ve been seen. That’s one useful bit of information to have when it comes to determining the perfect moment to cross in front of oncoming traffic. “If the car is not looking at the pedestrian, this implies that the car does not recognize the pedestrian,” said one of the researchers. “Thus, pedestrians can judge that they should not cross the street, thereby avoiding potential traffic accidents.”

For the purposes of this study, the researchers used a car which seemed as if no one was inside. A pair of large, swiveling (旋转的) eyes on the front were controlled by researchers, but in the future could be controlled by the car’s AI on an actual self-driving vehicle.

To keep the 18 participants safe, experiments were conducted in virtual reality. The volunteers—nine men and nine women—were asked to decide whether or not to cross the road as the car approached. Four scenarios(方案) were tested in total; two when the car was fitted with eyes, and two when it wasn’t. The researchers measured how often people hesitated to cross when it was in fact safe to do so, and how often they chose to cross when it was dangerous. Overall, the presence of the eyes led to safer and smoother crossing experiences for the participants.

However, there was a gender split in the results. For men, the eyes only really helped in dangerous situations, warning them to pause when they might otherwise proceed. For women, the eyes boosted confidence by signaling it was safe to cross.

US President Joe Biden formally started his reelection Campaign    1    April 25. The    2    (announce) fell on the four-year anniversary of Biden    3     (launch) his 2020 US presidential campaign.

According to a new NBC News national poll, 70% of Americans think that Biden should not run for    4    second term. Half of those    5    say Biden, aged 80 years old,    6    (probable) fails to take the helm for US in the right direction.

It January 2021, Biden started his presidency amidst the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the aftermath of the Capitol Hill riot. He carried out economic stimulus (刺激) policies    7    (reduce) the pandemic’s impact,     8    due to some factors such as the Russia-Ukraine conflict and constantly rising energy prices, US inflation (通胀)     9    (skyrocket) for more than a year, showing no signs of stopping. Nevertheless, Biden could still be in the top job    10    the election scheduled for Nov. 5, 2024.