Jack London: A Fascinating Character

When one mentions Jack London, the most common contemporary references that pop to mind are The Call of the Wild and White Fang. However, upon a closer look at the author, the true depth of how varied and interesting his life and works were can really be     1    .

London is considered America’s best author by many. Most successful and at ease writing short stories, he was also the first author to become genuinely wealthy during his lifetime from selling his work. However, this did not happen overnight: in fact, London received 600     2     before his first story was published for a spread out payment of $5.

During his 40 years, London seemed to have lived 1000     3    . By the age of 18, he had already worked as a coal miner, worked on sealing ships and can factories, and been in a(n)     4     of beggars. At 17, he went to jail in Buffalo, NY for 30 days due to the latter, an experience which proved to be one that even the productive writer himself called     5    .

When he did return to his formal education, he completed high school and then attended UC Berkley, which had been a major dream for him. However, he stopped after just one semester as he ran out of money and carried on to     6     the Klondike Gold Rush with his brother-in-law. That would later be the       7     for some of his most famous works. It was also in the Yukon that London became very ill and began writing. When he returned home, he     8     to become a commercially successful writer and began to write 1000 words daily. He wrote of adventure, politics, humanity, survival, often     9     from a large number of him personal experiences.

London died at the age of 40, from a drug overdose. It is not known whether it was     10     or not, as he made many references to suicide throughout his works.

You’ll Never Be Truly Alone

In the decades to come, a large number of home robots could make today’s appliances seem interesting. The market for consumer and office robots is expected to develop quickly in the next three years, according to a 2015 report by Business Insider Intelligence, being greater than $1.5 billion and far     1     the growth of robots in manufacturing.

We already have robots that clean the house, like the Roomba, but in the future we’ll also have robot arms that can     2     surfaces and bathe people, says Christopher Atkeson, a roboticist at Carnegie Mellon, whose lab has produced such machines. Eventually, robots will fold laundry and cook meals. And if they work well, you won’t even notice them. The key to effective robots is ”being     3    of predicting what people will do,“ says Julie Shah, the head of the Interactive Robotics Group at MIT. ”The idea is either     4     people or staying out of their way.“

That said, some people may want a robot that hangs around. In Japan, a friendly humanoid robot called Pepper that can    5    and respond to human emotion has proved enormously popular since it went on sale two years ago. Pepper might turn out to be the     6    roommate- helpful, kind, and always up for hanging out, but never in the way.

Perhaps the already     7    line between online and offline life will disappear, and human relationships with intelligent machines will represent a new extension of our social    8    . Your in-hour robot could serve as an avatar(化身)for friends and family,     9     from afar so that, with the help of robotic arms and legs, you could dance with or hug a loved one who is halfway around the planet. The real     10    of - or problem with - the house of the future, then, might be that you’ll never have to leave it. However, what the future house will be like still remains to be seen.

The office used to be a place people went because they had to. Meetings happened in conference rooms and in person. Desks took up most of the space. The kingdom of Dilbert and of David Brent is now under threat. The pandemic has     1     the office to competition from remote working, and brought up questions about how it should be designed in the future.

Start with what the office is for. In the past it was a place for employees to get their work done, whatever form that took. Now other conceptions of its role strive for attention. Some think of the office as the new offsite (异地活动) . Its purpose is to get people together in person so they can do the things that remote working makes harder: establishing deeper relationships or     2     in real time on specific projects. Others talk of the office as a destination, a place that has to make the idea of getting out of bed earlier, in order to socialize with people who may have covid-19, seem       3     .

In other words, a layout that is largely devoted to people working at desks alongside the same colleagues each day all feels very 2019. With fewer people coming in and more emphasis on cooperation, fewer desks will be       4     to individuals. Instead, there will be more shared areas, where people in a team can work together flexible. More hot-desking (轮用办公桌) will also necessitate storage space for personal     5     : lockers may soon be back in your life.

To     6     gaps between teams, one strategy is to set aside more of the office to present the work of each department. Another option is to provide everyone with drink. Expect more space to be set aside for     7     and events. Bars in offices are apparently going to be a thing. Robin Avia of Gensler, an architecture firm, says she is seeing lots of       8     for places, like large auditoriums, where a company's clients can have “experiences”.

Designs for the post-covid office must also allow for hybrid work. Meetings have to work for       9     participants as well as for in-person contributors; cameras, screens and microphones will multiply. Gensler's New York offices feature mini-meeting rooms that have a monitor and a half-table sticking out from the wall below it, with seating for 4 or 5 people arranged to face the       10    , not each other.

For those who have seen War for the Planet of the Apes, it’s easy to come to this conclusion — this movie isn’t about war or the planet, and it’s not    1     even about the apes.

Being the third in the trilogy (三部曲), War for the Planet of the Apes takes us back to a familiar world from    2     films. A pandemic (流行病)has greatly reduced the human population while    3     the intelligence of apes. Humans, led by the Colonel, want to survive by killing the apes, and the apes, led by an ape named Caesar, also try to fight their way to live.

With a story that should be full of    4     and violence, War for the Planet of the Apes takes a different    5    —it only has small pockets of action and most of the film consists of quiet conservation. While recent sci-fi movies have become known for their action scenes. War for the Planet of the Apes has taken science fiction in a thoughtful and     6    direction.

In order to survive, characters, good or bad, all have to make their decisions. They all wander in a moral gray area where evil acts are    7     for understandable reasons and characters we    8     with have serious flaws. Movie grants him.

For example, we would find the Colonel to be nothing but evil at the beginning of the film since his ambition is to kill every ape in    9    . But the movie grants him his reasons. He has a long conservation with Caesar in the middle of the film, in which he explains his ideas and his personal history, so that we have a glimpse into a    10    personality.

A growing number of Japanese have become recluses（隐居者）. Pressure from work and society is causing some to escape.

About a year ago, Mika Shibata's youngest son returned to the family home and went     1    upstairs. He has yet to emerge from his bedroom. At the age of 26, he sleeps during the day and stays awake at night. His mother feeds and shelters him, hoping he will recover from this state.

The Shibata family's pain is shared by many others in Japan. The government says there are more than 1 million hikikomori, or recluses,       2    as people who have played no part in society for at least six months. Many have barely stepped outside their homes for decades.

A handful of     3    crimes have pushed them back into public view. In Maya recluse, aged 51, killed two people, including a child, in the city of Kawasaki before committing suicide.

When the phenomenon became widely noticed over a generation ago, few understood it. Recluses were considered lazy or odd. Mental-health care was scarce and official support     4    

Parents felt responsible and were too embarrassed to look for help. But even now, occasional crimes involved recluses cause concerns that they are dangerous, says Morito Ishizaki, a recovered hikikomori who runs a magazine for sufferers.

In fact, he explains, they are rarely criminals. Many have just collapsed under pressure at school or work and have     5    to their childhood sanctuaries（避难所）.

Support groups are     6    up around the country. Tokyo is among several cities with helplines and websites that try to reach shut-ins, who range from teenage school dropouts to salarymen who have lost their jobs.

Ageing parents often come     7    help, says Ichiro of Tokyo's metropolitan government. He says they worry that after they die, their hikikomori children will not be able to survive.

More than half of Japan's recluses are now aged over 40, according to a Cabinet Office survey this year. That shocked the government, which had     8    the condition mainly affected the young.

Tamaki Saito, a psychiatrist who     9    the term hikikomori, says the government is partly to blame for turning a blind eye. Now the problem has grown. If it is not taken     10    , many more might become recluses, he says.

What can you do to avoid Telecoms fraud (诈骗)?

Telecoms fraud and other security breaches (安全漏洞) can be prevented and minimized by implementing a full end-to-end procedure. In addition, it’s important for you to secure your devices and services to strengthen your security and avoid any fraudulent activity or threats.

Due to the    1    nature of the internet, it’s not always possible to guarantee protection against fraud. However, there are a variety of methods that you can put in    2    within your phone system’s security that can prevent this further:

The most important action to take when protecting your phone system or PBX (Private Branch Exchange) is investing in good security and password/account management software. You should be using password    3    and saving systems, as well as choosing passwords with complex combinations. It’s also important that you don’t use the same password for    4     accounts or systems. If a hacker finds this password, they can use it to get into and take control of all your systems, so remember to    5     update your passwords and make sure no two passwords are the same.

Another way to protect your systems with passwords is to password protect your mobile phone. If you leave your mobile phone    6    , it’s very easy for a hacker or scammer to get in and setup call features, like    7    and voicemails on the handsets.

Call pattern analysis helps    8    patterns in call traffic and monitors and prevents calls which go over specific limits. This can be based around costs, call duration, volume, time of day and call destinations. Call traffic can’t be monitored all the time; however, a vast majority of fraudulent traffic can occur during holidays and weekends, when customers and suppliers arc away from the office and their devices. Any spikes (高峰) in traffic should generate    9    alerts to relevant parties and this activity can then be restricted, and additional measures can be put into place to protect you and your systems.

Call baring lets you bar or block certain types of call, IP addresses and destinations from being made to or from your phone. You can    10    our call barring settings for both UK and international numbers. It’s also a good idea to bar calls from certain IP addresses and only authorize business or employee IP addresses to make calls.

Pokemon Stickers Are Back for Koreans Nostalgic (怀旧的) for Childhood

Small pastries include a surprise sticker, and the goal is to find all 159 varieties — just like a trend more than 20 years ago.

Jeong Bo-ram’s new fascination has him     1     mass-produced pastries(糕点), delivery trucks and his childhood memories. His     2     are $1.20 bakery items sold with random Pokemon stickers that fly off store shelves in South Korea.

Just a few short of a full 159-sticker collection, 29-year-old Mr. Jeong has gone to more than 10 convenience stores and supermarkets a day, often leaving empty-handed. He has paid hundreds of dollars. He has learned the evening     3     times throughout his neighborhood to know when fresh drop-offs occur.

More than two decades ago, the Pokemon sticker-treat duo caught on with a generation of South Korean children, before the craze passed after a few years and the products were discontinued. Now the goodies are back just in time for the country’s broader retro boom,     4     by adults nostaglic for simpler times.

South Koreans are going to great     5     to live out the Pokemon tagline of “Gotta catch ’em all,” with some     6     the stickers in display booklets. Pokemon, originally a Japanese game for the Nintendo Game Boy that     7     hundreds of monster characters, has expanded into globally popular animated series, toys and video-games,     8     the recent hit Pokemon Go for smartphones.

Retailers have posted signs on their entrances that read, “We have no Pokemon bread,” while some store owners are     9     of bundling the in-demand pastries with unpopular items. Hunters camp outside supermarkets early in the morning. The rarest of stickers, such as that of the legendary characters Mew (梦幻) and Mewtwo (超梦), fetch $40 online. A full collection     10     more than $700, the listings show. Actual children also try to find the stickers, but adults are using their greater resources for the hunt.

Ko Hyo-jin shrieked when she ripped open a package of “Diglett Strawberry Custard Bread” recently and discovered inside a sticker of Mewtwo - a two-legged monster shown extending its paw. She immediately dialed up her husband. “It felt like winning the lottery,” said the 39-year-old homemaker in the Seoul Suburbs.

The nostalgic chase has been embraced by young adults facing Korea’s stagnant economy, soaring real-estate prices and a tight labor market.

American authorities arrested Masphal Kry, an official in Cambodia’s forestry administration, last November when he was heading to an international meeting about trade regulations for endangered species in Panama. Prosecutors accused him of conspiring with a smuggling ring. The contraband (违禁品): monkeys,     1     long-tailed macaques. His     2     allegedly grabbed wild macaques in Cambodia’s national parks and bribed officials to label them as captive-bred. Fake papers allowed Vanny Bio Research, a Cambodian pharma company, to ship these unfortunate primates (灵长类动物) to America for use in research. Mr Kry is facing trial in Florida’s Southern District Court. The federal government funds seven National Primate Research Centres (NPRCs), which     3     in total around 20,000 primates, not only macaques but also baboons and marmosets. These centres then     4     primates to labs across America. NPRCs have fulfilled only a third of requests for untested-on macaques in 2021 and prices have soared. Before the covid-19 pandemic a rhesus macaque cost $8,000; by 2022 they had     5     $24,000. Another species, long-tail macaques, is probably per pound currently the most expensive     6     wildlife, says Lisa Jones-Engel, a science adviser at PETA, an animal-rights group.

Getting lab monkeys from abroad became harder during the pandemic. Chinese authorities banned the export of all primates in early 2020. The Chinese government wanted to     7     the country’s wildlife trade, which is thought to encourage the     8     of pathogens—like sars-cov-2—from animals to humans.

That forced American companies to rely on less     9     South-East Asian suppliers. Many scientists believe poaching is prevalent across Cambodia. In February, the Department of Justice subpoenaed Charles River over 1,000 juvenile macaques the pharmaceutical company had bought from Cambodia; the DoJ suspected they were     10     in the wild then exported. These primates are now in Texas and Maryland but also in dilemma: they cannot be tested on, nor can they be flown back to Cambodia.

Hamlet is the most     1     of William Shakespeare’s plays. While you read this article, somewhere there is an actor on a stage pouring out his heart to the audience.

The character of Hamlet has a personal, painful quality that still draws readers and playgoers today as it did 400 years ago. The problems he faces, such as what is     2    and how he should respond to events, are ones we all face in our lives.

Hamlet is the young prince of Denmark. At the beginning, he is sad about his dead father. Everyone else around him is     3     the marriage of his mother Gertrude to her brother-in-law Claudius, the new king. Hamlet thinks that the short time between the death of his father and the marriage of his mother and uncle is     4     .

Hamlet is told that a spirit has been walking around Elsinore castle. He meets it and it says that his father was killed, and by his brother Claudius — it was “murder most horrid (可怕的)”! Now, the ghost instructs him, it is his     5     to avenge (报仇).

Hamlet is in a terrible position. He does not know whether the ghost is who he says he is, or a being sent by the devil (魔鬼). Matters are     6     because Claudius is suspicious of his nephew. There is a cat-and-mouse game played between the king and Hamlet.

Hamlet has a play performed for the king which stages the way the ghost told him of his father’s murder. Claudius reacts with horror, proving to hamlet that he is     7    . But Hamlet misses the opportunity to take his revenge.

He tells Gertrude he hates her     8     to Claudius. During their meeting he kills Polonius, who is the father of his love, Ophelia. Then, Lacerates comes back to the court. He’s heard that his father, Polonius, has been killed, so he wants to kill Hamlet.

Cunning (奸诈的) Claudius attempts to play Lacerates and Hamlet against each other, and in the final scene it all goes horribly wrong.

One     9     speech in the play begins “to be or not to be”: it is about how Hamlet can’t decide whether to get out of his bad situation by killing himself. Hamlet is a thinking man. One who thinks too much in the world where others, like Claudius, show no     10    .