EBS Force (Chapters 1 and 2)

Chapter 1

 

This is one kind of skill to amuse other people. There are many TV shows or contests where ordinary people can show this in front of the public. They often have others rolling with laughter. There are some celebrities who are well known especially for their distinctive features of talking and singing. People enjoy catching their unique traits of voice and showing them exactly the same way as the famous people. Also, a lot of entertainers practice this as one of their special skills to display in variety shows.

 

1. This is a great aerobic activity for lifetime fitness. Nearly all major muscle groups are exercised when you do this. This offers a total body workout to improve muscle tone and strength. This is a non-weight bearing exercise and is particularly appropriate for those who are overweight, pregnant or suffering from joint problems or injury. No other activity provides so many health benefits with so few dangers. While enjoying this, you don't have to worry about dogs, cars, potholes, curbs, bad weather, and even air pollution. Although no one expects to need it, emergency assistance from a lifeguard is usually available and never more than a few seconds away.

 

2. If you find yourself away from a city, spend an hour looking up on any clear, moonless night. You're bound to see things that move very fast in the sky. Actually, they have nothing to do with stars. If your viewing conditions are good, you can see about seven per hour on any given night. They are caused by bits of rocky material that enter our atmosphere from space, then burn up because of friction. They don't have to be big for you to see them. Surprisingly, they are most visible when they are caused by debris no larger than a single grain of sand. They burn so brightly because of tremendous friction when they hit our atmosphere at more than forty miles per second.

 

3. This was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, most fully developed in France between 1907 and 1914. This brought about a major revolution in Western painting. This overturned the rational tradition that had been built up since the Renaissance. In this, natural forms were broken down analytically into geometric shapes. No longer was a clear differentiation made between the figure and the background of a painting. In artworks of this, objects are broken up, analyzed, and re-assembled in an abstracted form-instead of depicting objects from one viewpoint. The artist depicts the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context. Often the surfaces intersect at seemingly random angles, removing a coherent sense of depth.

 

4. This tends to spread rapidly in seasonal epidemics. Infection of this usually lasts for about a week, and is characterized by a sudden outbreak of high fever, aching muscles, headache, severe cough, and sore throat. This is transmitted easily from person to person through small particles produced when infected people cough or sneeze. Most infected people recover within one to two weeks without requiring medical treatment. However, this can be serious, even deadly, for elderly people, newborn babies and people with certain chronic illnesses. The best way to prevent this is to get a vaccination. Getting plenty of sleep, being physically active, managing your stress, drinking plenty of fluids and eating nutritious food are other key prevention measures. As the viruses causing this can be removed by soap, frequent hand washing reduces the risk of infection.

 

Chapter 2

We are reminded daily of this phenomenon. In the corner of a traditional Korean home sits a television set tuned to a baseball game in which a visiting American team is losing. A Canadian family, meanwhile, decorates their home with sculptures and paintings imported from Pakistan. Teenagers in Singapore and Hong Kong pay for American blue jeans while high school students in England and France take courses on the making of traditional Indonesian costumes. Around the planet the streams of the world's cultures merge together to form new currents of human interaction.

 

1. It was once in the best economic interests of fishermen to catchall the fish they could from the oceans. Likewise, herdsmen and farmers tried to graze as many cattle and to plant `as many crops. In the case of loggers and manufacturers, they wanted to cut down as much timber and dump as much toxic waste as they could get away with. Yet when individuals act independently to maximize profit, they ultimately lose all because every resource is limited and at some point no longer renewable. Then the yield for the individual as well as for society diminishes and may even vanish. This case is called a social trap.

 

2. We have to remember that people still lived their lives among the animals in the Medieval Age. Most farmers lived in traditional "long-houses," which combined both house and stable. Farmers and their cattle entered the house from the same entrance and were separated inside only by a lone wall. But the flowering of urban life in the fifteenth century changed this lifestyle. By the late Elizabethan era, the English expelled animals from the house altogether, separating them in stables and barns. The English despised the Irish, Welsh and Scots because they still slept under a common roof with their animals.

 

3. In a world where everyone is connected via cyberspace and information is being exchanged at the speed of light, many companies decide to adopt a new business model. For example, while Encyclopedia Britannica still charges $1,395 for its twenty-two-volume set of books, the company sells far fewer physical books. Instead, the company puts the books' contents on the World Wide Web, where information can be updated and accessed continuously. Users now pay a subscription fee to access the information over an extended period of time. The company has thus made the transition from selling a physical product to a buyer to providing the user access to a service over time.

 

4. When I met the Prime Minister, I became aware of a key ingredient in her leadership. She could narrow her focus and gaze directly into the eyes of the person with whom she is engaged, shutting out all else around her. It makes her listener feel special, chosen, for a full forty-five seconds! Then the Prime Minister's gaze shifts past that one person to the next. And she narrows her focus upon the new contact. Suddenly, someone else feels special! Then, like clockwork, that person's time is up, and the Prime Minister moves on to work the rest of the room. Everyone feels singled out and special for a fraction of a minute. The Prime Minister had the ability to turn the limited time into such momentarily meaningful contacts.