Dear Sir: We are writing to you in reference to your e-mail dated October 20, 2014. Regarding your request, we have checked your order and found that the order form was signed on September 21, 2014. According to the contractual conditions of your advertisement order, the applicant can withdraw the order within seven days from the signing of the order form. Yet, having studied your case, it seems that your cancellation request was sent to us after the authorized cancellation period. What this means is that it is not possible to cancel your order now. We hope you understand our position. Yours faithfully, John Mark on behalf of X&Y ADVERTISING

When you are in the supermarket, do you buy something from each and every aisle? Of course not. You go to aisles that have something you want and skip the aisles that don't have anything you need. But when it comes to watching television, many of us seem to follow the buy-something-from-every-aisle plan. Too often we watch TV because that's what we usually do rather than because there is something we actually want to see. Ask yourself when you are watching TV, Is this something I want to see? Don't turn on the TV just because it's there and that's what you usually do.

A symbol differs from an imitative representation. It stands for something else but does not attempt to accurately duplicate it. A connection between a symbol and its referent is not necessarily causal as is a visual representation of, for example, a living room on television. The heart-shaped symbol '' stands for the word 'love' in our culture, but the connection between the symbol and its meaning had to be learned. In a culture where the heart-shaped symbol has no known meaning, it is unlikely to get a response, or it may get a different response. In other words, a symbol is understood only because there are shared conventional meanings.

Paper is not only useful for preserving information. In its role as a wrapping material, paper also does a good job of hiding it. What would birthdays be like without this material, which performs the role of building excitement and anticipation better than all others? I have received presents wrapped in cloth, or hidden in a cupboard, but nothing has the magic of wrapping paper. A present really isn't a present unless it is wrapped in a paper. It is the paper that, by concealing and revealing an object, ritualizes the act of giving and receiving, turning that object into a gift. This is not just a cultural association. The material has fundamental properties that make it ideal for this role.

There is an important difference between having an ideal and making a rule to live by. The ideal may be a perfect and flawless standard that one would be proud to attain. Such an ideal provides you with a guide, but it should not be a daily standard. Making the ideal into a rule is digging oneself a trap. If you constantly fall into the trap, you feel so bad about yourself that it becomes increasingly hard to keep going. The rule needs to be clear, and to direct you toward the ideal if that is what you want, but it also needs to be realistic, if it is not to undermine your self-esteem. That is why it makes more sense to do the best you can — rather than aim for perfection.

The graph above compares the percentage of the U.S. population with the percentage of newspaper readership among four different age groups. Among the four age groups, the 18-24 group accounts for the lowest percentage of both population and newspaper readership. Compared to the 45-64 age group, the 25ᅳ44 age group is 1% more of the population but 16% less of the newspaper readership. The age group that represents the largest percentage in population is the 25-44 age gruop while 65-plus group represents the largest percentage in newspaper readership. The percentage gap in newspaper readership between the youngest group and the oldest one is 32%. The two youngest groups have greater population than newspaper readership percentage while the two oldest groups have greater newspaper readership than population percentage.

《2014 Winter Youth Artist Program》 5-day Music Workshop for Teens at the JH Center December 8th to 12th, 4pm-6pm In this workshop you will get to: • listen to new, unreleased music • write songs with professional musicians • visit a professional recording studio Registration: • November 11th through 28th • Registration fee： $99 • Sign up at the JH Center or online at www.youtharts.com.

《Map Reading and Navigation Course》 Are you new to hill walking? Find your way around the hills with our one day basic navigation course. Dates in November: Every Saturday • The course starts with an indoor lesson, followed by a walk through fields and hills. • We cover reading map symbols, using a compass, planning a route, and estimating distance. • Don't forget to bring a lunch and wear walking boots. • All participants under 18 must be accompanied by an adult. • We provide a compass for all participants! For more information, visit www.hillwalking.com.

The Icelandic horse is a breed of horse developed in Iceland. Although the horse is small, at times pony-sized, it's a sturdy animal perfectly suited to the rough Icelandic terrain. The first horses were introduced by the early settlers and, since no other horses have been imported recently, the breeding stock remains pure. From the first years of settlement in Iceland to the early part of this century, these horses were the primary form of transportation in the country. Horsefights were organized as a source of entertainment and the meat was consumed as a staple. Even today the horse is still used for traditional farm work, as well as for leisure activities.

Debating is as old as language itself and has taken many forms throughout human history. In ancient Rome, debate in the Senate was critical to the conduct of civil society and the justice system. In Greece, advocates for policy changes would routinely make their cases before citizen juries composed of hundreds of Athenians. In India, debate was used to settle religious controversies and was a very popular form of entertainment. Indian kings sponsored great debating contests, offering prizes for the winners. China has its own ancient and distinguished tradition of debate. Beginning in the 2nd Century A.D., Taoist and Confucian scholars engaged in a practice known as 'pure talk' where they debated spiritual and philosophical issues before audiences in contests that might last for a day and a night.

Even before we were born, we were compared with others. Through the latest medical technology parents may begin comparing their children with other babies before birth. For the rest of our lives, we are compared with others, and rather than celebrating our uniqueness, comparisons usually point up who is stronger, brighter, or more beautiful. Comparisons such as He has more money than I have or She looks better than I look are likely to deflate our self-worth. Rather than finding others who seemingly are better off, focus on the unique attributes that make you who you are. Avoid judging your own value by comparing yourself with others. A healthy, positive self-concept is fueled not by judgments of others, but by a genuine sense of worth that you recognize in yourself.

Patrick's neighbor had played the part of Santa Claus for several years, creating a tradition of a visit from Santa to all the children in the neighborhood. But one year, Santa had a cold and asked whether Patrick could take over for him that day. Instead of the neighbor, he wore the suit and passed out candy canes to all the neighborhood children, convincing them he was for real. When I put on the suit, I actually felt like Santa Claus, Patrick says. When the old Santa saw how much Patrick enjoyed the job, he told Patrick he would be happy to let him take over. Patrick has been playing Santa for so long now that he is beginning to see the children of the children he saw as Santa when he first started out. But Patrick has no plans to find a new man for the suit. Santa never retires, he says.

We live in an age of opportunity: If you've got ambition, drive, and smarts, you can rise to the top of your chosen profession ― regardless of where you started out. But with this opportunity comes responsibility. Companies today aren't managing their knowledge workers' careers. Rather, we must each be our own chief executive officer. Simply put, it's up to you to keep yourself engaged and productive during a work life. To do all of these things well, you'll need to cultivate a deep understanding of yourself. What are your most valuable strengths and most dangerous weakness? Equally important, how do you learn and work with others? What are your most deeply held values? The implication is clear: Only when you operate from a combination of your strengths and self-knowledge can you achieve true ― and lasting ―excellence.

In order to succeed, a work of art must be above a certain minimum size, but this requirement is not about the nature of art so much as about the nature of the human perceptive apparatus. Without sufficient size, no object can be perceived as having parts that can be arranged in a pattern, or a perceptible structure. A lion or a shark, therefore, can be beautiful, because their parts form a meaningful, well-structured whole. A flea, however, cannot be beautiful, not because it is a trifling or disagreeable animal, but because it is too minute for the unaided eye to perceive parts that are arranged meaningfully. A speck cannot possibly by itself be beautiful; beauty is only possible where an object has visible parts.

Consciousness is one of the most profound puzzles of existence, and it is a cutting-edge topic of investigation among scientists. How is it that mere physical processes in the brain give rise to the subjective, conscious experience? One of the promising hypotheses for how consciousness arises comes from John Searle. He claims that as an emergent property, the processes and elements within the brain cause consciousness, but it is not a property of any individual elements. For example, consider a cup of coffee. The liquidity of the coffee is explained by the behavior of the molecules that compose it, but none of the individual molecules are liquid. Consciousness, like the liquidity of brewed coffee, is a property that emerges from the behavior of many individual elements that cannot be reduced or explained by any single element in the system.

Psychologists have noted a strong difference that separates Western from Chinese thought: the way each culture explains social events. Suppose, for example, that you see a person driving carelessly through a red traffic light. Westerners are more likely to criticize the person, assuming he generally cares little for the safety of others. In contrast, East Asians including Chinese are more likely to believe that the driver has been forced to drive fast because he's in the midst of an emergency. Perhaps he's transporting someone to the hospital, or perhaps he's going to school to pick up a sick child. In other words, the person is behaving badly because he's responding to the situation, and not because he's irresponsible.

Yesterday I got up early because I wanted to clean my room before school. I began to organize my desk, but then I heard a knocking sound from the front door. It was too early in the morning for someone to be there. I wondered who it could be. Since my parents were still asleep, they didn't answer the door. So I headed downstairs to investigate. At the door I asked, Who is it? The person replied, It's me! Open up. It was a voice I knew very well. Grandma! I can't believe you're here! I screamed as I flung open the door. It was such an unexpected delight to see her standing there. I welcomed her with plenty of hugs and kisses.

One of the easiest ways to be likeable and win others over is to offer a sincere compliment. Developing awareness of others will help you notice things about them to compliment. The key is to put your own self-centered thoughts aside and become genuinely interested in other people. When you give people a genuine, sincere compliment about a trait or accomplishment, you've given them a valuable gift. You make them feel valued, acknowledged, and important. When people feel this way, their self-esteem goes up, they like themselves more, and because of this, they find you likeable.

On the surface, some products are easier to sell online than others. For instance, anything that can be delivered in a digital format is likely to do well online and we have already seen the decline of traditional record shops and photo processors. However, there are many products which benefit from being touched or experienced in some way before being purchased. Thus a customer may wish to test-drive a new car before buying it or feel the weight of a piece of furniture to assess its solidity. Michael de Kare-Silver suggests that a product's propensity to online selling depends to a certain degree on which of the five senses it appeals to. Thus, products which are sold on the basis of sight or sound alone can be sold online relatively easily, whereas those appealing to the senses of touch, taste, or smell cannot.

Dieter Rams, a German industrial designer, is driven by the idea that almost everything is noise. He believes very few things are essential. His job is to filter through that noise until he gets to the essence. For example, when he was the lead designer at a company, he was asked to collaborate on a record player. The norm at the time was to cover the turntable in a solid wooden lid or even to incorporate the player into a piece of living room furniture. Instead, he and his team removed the clutter and designed a player with a clear plastic cover on the top and nothing more. It was the first time such a design had been used, and it was so revolutionary that people worried it might bankrupt the company because nobody would buy it. It took courage, as it always does, to eliminate the non-essential. By the sixties this aesthetic started to become more and more popular. In time it became the design every other record player followed.

During the Stone Age, our ancestor's tools were made of flint, wood, and bone. Anyone who has ever tried to make anything with these kinds of tools knows how limiting they are: if you hit a piece of wood it either cracks or snaps. Metals are fundamentally different from these other materials because they can be hammered into shape. Not only that, they get stronger when you hit them; you can harden a blade just by hammering it. And you can reverse the process simply by putting metal in a fire and heating it up, which will cause it to get softer. The first people to discover these properties ten thousand years ago had found a material that was almost as hard as rock but behaved like a plastic and was almost infinitely reusable. In other words, they had discovered the perfect material for tools, and in particular cutting tools like axes and razors.

Philosophers have long argued about the process people use to understand one another. Some believe that we are careful theorizers. We come up with hypotheses about how other people will behave, and then test those hypotheses against the evidence we observe minute by minute. In this theory, people come across as rational scientists, constantly weighing evidence and testing explanations. And there's clear evidence that this sort of hypothesis testing is part of how we understand one another. But these days most of the research supports the idea that we automatically simulate others, and understand what others feel by feeling what they are experiencing, in ourselves. In this view, people aren't cold theorizers who are making judgments about other creatures. They are unconscious actors who understand by sharing or at least simulating the responses they see in the people around them.

More than 40 years ago, psychologist Sibylle Escalona carried out what has become a classic study of the play behaviors of 128 infants and their mothers. Her major finding was that, even if the infants had a large variety of toys to play with, the sensorimotor play of babies playing alone was less sustained than that of babies who had an adult to interact with. The mothers seemed to be skilled social directors. They tended to adapt the play activities to the immediate needs of children by varying their own activities in response to what the children were doing. For example, mothers would vary the rate at which they offered new play materials and introduce variations or increase the intensity of play when the children seemed to be losing interest. As a result, the mothers were able to sustain their children's interest in the various play activities and thereby increase the length of their attention spans.

From the moment instant baking mixes of all kinds were introduced in the late 1940s, they had a strong presence in American grocery carts, and ultimately at the dinner table. However, not all mixes were greeted with equal enthusiasm. Housewives were peculiarly reluctant to use instant cake mixes, which required simply adding water. Some marketers wondered whether the cake mixes were too sweet or artificial-tasting. But no one could explain why the mixes used to make biscuits, having pretty much the same basic ingredients, were so popular, while cake mixes didn't sell. One explanation was that the cake mixes simplified the process to such an extent that the women did not feel as though the cakes they made were theirs. Normally, biscuits are not a dish by themselves. A housewife could happily receive a compliment on a dish that included a purchased component without feeling that it was inappropriately earned. A cake, on the other hand, is often served by itself and represents a complete dish. On top of that, cakes often carry great emotional significance, symbolizing special occasions. A would-be baker would hardly be willing to consider herself someone who makes birthday cakes from just a mix. Not only would she feel humiliated or guilty but she might also disappoint her guests. They would feel that they were not being treated to something special.

Jason was ten years old and loved baseball, but he suffered from physical disabilities. His father, Bob, wanted to protect him, and so he played catch with him in their back yard and avoided any community games. One day Bob got home from work and asked Jason if he wanted to play catch, but Jason hung his head and said no. Bob wondered why Jason said no, and when he asked, Jason started to cry: I want to play on a team, Daddy. Why won't you let me play with the other kids? Although Bob was worried that Jason might be teased or mocked by the other kids, he decided to take the risk, and so he brought Jason to the town baseball field that evening. When they arrived at the field, it turned out that a baseball game was about to start. Bob talked to the coach about Jason, and the coach invited Jason to play. At the coach's suggestion, Jason was very excited, and he hurried to put on his baseball gear. Most of the kids on the town team recognized Jason from school, but no one from the other team knew him. However, they could see that he was different by the way he moved as he ran onto the field to hit the ball for his team. To make it easier for Jason, the pitcher moved in closer, threw the ball gently, and kept throwing until he could hit one. When Jason finally hit the ball after seven swings, it didn't go far, but the kids who knew Jason started yelling, Run, Jason! Run! Their voices were soon joined by those of all the players, on both teams. Everyone was cheering and Jason's face glowed when he finally scored. He shouted, I did it Daddy! I did it! Tears slid down Bob's cheeks as he hugged his joyful son.