英语四六级典藏笔记（3）

目录英语四六级典藏笔记

1.6billion users,a billionof whomuse itevery dayfor anaverage ofover20minuteseach.In theWestern world,Facebook accountsfor thelargest shareof themostpopular activitysocial networkingon themost widelyused computingdevicessmartphones;its variousapps accountfor30%of mobileinternet usebyAmericans.And it is thesixth-most-valuable publiccompany onEarth,worth some$325billion.Even so,Mark Zuckerberg,Facebook!s31-year-old founderand chiefexecutive,haseven greaterambitions.He hasplans toconnect thedigitally unconnectedin poorcountriesby beaminginternet signalsfrom solar-powered drones,and ismakingbig betson artificialintelligence AI,“chatbots”and virtualreality VR.This bidfordominance willbring himinto increasingconflict with the othergreat empiresofthe technologyworld,and Googlein particular.The ensuingbattle willshape thedigitalfuture for everyone.Facebook hasprospered bybuilding compellingservices thatattract largeaudiences,whose attentioncan thenbe soldto advertisers.The sameis trueof Google.The twoplaydifferent rolesin theirusers1lives:Google hasmasses ofdata aboutthe world,whereas Facebookknows aboutyou andyour friends;you goto Googleto getthingsdone,but turnto Facebookwhen youhave timeto kill.Yet theirpositions ofdominanceand theirstrategies arebecoming remarkablysimilar.Unparalleledtroves ofdata makeboth firmsdifficult tochallenge andimmensely profitable,giving themthe wealthto makebold betsand todeal withpotential competitorsbybuying them.And bothfirms cravemoreusers andmore data—which,for allthe do-gooding rhetoric,explains whytheyare bothso interestedin extendinginternet accessin thedeveloping world,using dronesor,in Googlescase,giant balloons.The taskis toharness datato offernew servicesand makemoney innew ways.Facebooks beton AIis arecognition thatmachine learning一in whichsoftwarelearns bycrunching data,rather thanhaving tobe explicitlyprogrammed—isabigpart of the answer.本文选自2016年5月《经济学人》杂志中一篇名为《马克•扎克伯格准备为争夺下一个计算时代的统治地位而战》的文章参考译文自罗马帝国时代以来，“竖起大拇指”这一手势就成为了公开且有力的权力象征成立仅十二年之后，Facebook已成为一个伟大的帝国，人口众多、财富无数、领袖魅力非凡，且影响力和影响范围令人难以想象这一全球最大的社交网络拥有16亿用户，其中十亿每天平均使用时间超过20分钟在西方世界，Facebook在最广泛使用的计算设备（智能手机）上的最受欢迎的活动（社交网络）中所占份额最大；它各种各样的应用占美国人移动互联网使用的30%它是全球市值第六大的上市公司，价值3250亿美元即便如此，31岁的Facebook创始人及首席执行官马克•扎克伯格（Mark Zuckerberg）仍有更宏伟的志向他计划用太阳能供电的无人机发送互联网信号，以连接贫困国家尚未连入数字世界的人，他在人工智能（AD、聊天机器人和虚拟现实（VR）上押下重注对统治地位的竞逐会令他和科技世界其他伟大帝国之间的冲突不断增加，尤其是同谷歌之间今后的战斗将为每个人塑造数字化的未来Facebook打造多个引人瞩目的服务吸引大量用户，继而将用户的关注卖给广告商，以此取得成功谷歌也是如此这两大公司在其用户的生活中扮演着不同的角色谷歌拥有关于这个世界的大量数据，而Facebook了解你和你的朋友；你用谷歌是为了完成任务，但要打发时间时你会找Facebook然而它们的统治地位和战略正变得越来越相似无与伦比的数据宝藏让两家公司都难有敌手，且获利颇丰，它们的财富足以掷下豪注并且通过收购解决潜在竞争者这两家公司渴求更多用户、更多数据，用冠冕堂皇的说法，这解释了为何它们都对在发展中国家扩展互联网连接兴趣浓厚，Facebook使用无人机，谷歌则使用巨型气球现在的任务是利用数据提供新的服务，以新的方式赚钱Facebook在人工智能方面的赌注是对“机器学习”的认可，即软件通过分析数据学习，而不需要精确编写程序《卫报》时文Sleep issurprisingly littleunderstood.Scientists stillhavent agreedon howitevolved,or whatits purposeis.What wedo know,however,is thatitisvital-andthat manyof usarent gettingenough.This ispartly asymptom ofwhat Icall uthegreat acceleration^the speedingup of一everyday life,driven largelyby technology.As wework andplay harder,sleep getssqueezedout.Studies showthat weregetting lessand worsesleep:in onesurveyonly15%of Britonssaid theyfelt refreshedby it.Weve allread thewarnings aboutreading iPhonesin bed.But whilethats partofthe problem,theres somethingmuch biggergoing on.What wethink ofas thebodyclock isntone clockat all.Its billionsof themembedded intoour everycell.This iswhy weget jet lag:those billionsof clocks,and theprocesses theygovernsuch asdigestion orlight-dark perception,get outof kilterwith eachother.The greatacceleration hasnudged ourbodies outof synchwiththeday/night cycle-and theresult is what expertscall socialjetlag.We liveat“work oclock”,wrenching ourselvesback tonormal atweekends.According toTill Roenneberg,one of the worldsleading sleepresearchers,uthe majorityof thepopulation in theindustrialized worldsuffers fromthis“forced synchrony”and paysthe priceinterms ofhealth andwellbeing sincethose clocksalso controlvital processessuchas detoxificationor DNArepair.The moreantisocial yourschedule,the greaterthe problems.Shift workis nowclassifiedas aprobable carcinogenby theWorld HealthOrganization,followingmonitoring ofnight workerssuch asnurses aswell asstudies inwhich micewereforced toflip theirday/night cycle.As wellas increasedcancer risk,the animalsdevelopedall kindsof otherproblems andhad shorterlife spans.Long nightshifts have been heldresponsible forall mannerof accidents,includingChernobyl where the workershad beenon dutyfor atleast13hours.One ofthekey symptomsof sleepdeprivation justlike beingdrunk-is thatyou dontrealize一how badlyoff youare.When scientistsmonitored juniordoctors atnight,theyfound“micro-sleep”events happeningall overtheir brains:they wouldbe partlyorlargely asleepinthemiddle ofconversations,and evenoperations.So howcan wefix thisWe doneed to look afternight workersbetter-and putdownthe iPhonebefore bed.But wecan alsofind andfollow our“chronotype”.Being alark oran owlis notjust amatter ofpsychological preference,itsgenetically determined.Some ofus tendto feelmore awakeand alertlate on;others springup at the crackof dawn.本文选自2016年4月《卫报》中一篇题为《睡眠、科学和如何打败社会时差》的文章参考译文出人意料地，人类对于睡眠的了解微乎其微关于睡眠是如何演化和其目的是什么，科学家始终没有达成一致但是我们确实知道的是，它至关重要的，并且我们中的大多数人都没有得到足够的睡眠这就是我们所谓“伟大的加速”的症状之一，技术从很大程度上促使我们提高了日常生活的速度我们拼命地工作，尽情地玩，睡眠时间却被挤占了研究表明我们睡眠更少了而且睡眠质量更差了一项调查表明，只有15%的英国人睡醒后感到活力焕发我们都读到过不能在床上看苹果手机的警告但尽管这是问题的一部分，但是还有更加严重的问题存在我们所认为的生物钟根本不是一个时钟，它是存在于我们每一个细胞中的数十亿个时钟这就是为什么我们会有时差感那数十亿个时钟以及他们管理的过程比如消化或者光明暗感觉，彼此间失去平衡这个伟大的加速让我们的身体脱离了昼/夜循环的周期同步，其结果是产生专家所谓的社会时差我们生活在“工作时间”里，然后强迫自己在周末恢复正常世界领先顶尖的睡眠研究人员之一，Till Roenneberg,指出“工业社会的大多数人”都受到这个“强制同步”的影响，在健康和幸福上付出了很大的代价，因为生物钟控制着诸如排毒和DNA修复这样关键的过程你的日程越脱离社会，问题就会越严重世界卫生组织通过对上夜班的护士进行监测,并且对被迫不停日夜进行颠倒的老鼠进行了研究之后，把倒班工作制度列为一个可能的致癌因素除了癌症风险增加，接受实验的动物身上出现了各种问题，而且寿命偏短长时间的夜班导致了各种各样工作事故的发生，比如切尔诺贝利事件（事发时相关人员已经工作了至少13小时）睡眠不足的一个主要症状一就像醉酒一样一就是你自己意识不到你自己的状况有多糟糕当科学家们在夜里观测初级医师时，科学家们发现这些医生一直处于“微睡眠”状态他们在说话甚至手术时，会进入半睡眠甚至完全睡着的状态那么我们如何来解决这个问题？我们确实需要更加关心夜班工作者，然后在上床睡觉前放下苹果手机但是我们需要发现并顺应我们的“时型”做一个早起的云雀还是晚睡的猫头鹰不只是心理偏好，这是基因决定的有的人在晚上会很清醒和警觉，有的人在则会在破晓时分更精神《哈佛商业评论》时文When organizationsget intobig trouble,fixing theculture isusually theprescription.Thats whatmost everyonesaid GeneralMotors neededto doafter itsrecallcrisis in2014—and eversince,CEO MaryBarra hasbeen focusingoncreating“the rightenvironment55to promoteaccountability andhead offfuturedisasters.Cultural reformhas likewisebeen proposedasthesolution toexcessiveuse offorce bypolice departments,unethical behaviorin banks,and justabout anyothermajor organizationalproblem youcan thinkof.All eyesare onculture asthecause andthe cure.But thecorporate leaderswe haveinterviewed—current andformer CEOswhohave successfullyled majortransformations—say that culture isntsomething youfix.Rather,in theirexperience,cultural changeiswhatyou getafter youveputnew processesor structuresin placeto tackletough businesschallenges likereworkingan outdatedstrategy orbusiness model.The cultureevolves asyou dothatimportant work.Though thisruns counterto thegoing wisdomabout howto turnthings aroundatGM,the VAand elsewhere,it makesintuitive sensetolookatcultureas anoutcome—not acause ora fix.Organizations arecomplex systemswith manyrippleeffects.Reworking fundamentalpractices willinevitably leadto somenewvalues and behaviors.Employees maystart seeingtheir contributionsto societyina wholenew light.This iswhat happenedat Ecolabwhen CEODoug Bakerpusheddecisions downto thefront linesto strengthencustomer relationships.Or peoplemightbecome lessadversarial towardsenior executives—as Northwestemployeesdid afterDelta CEORichard Andersonacquired theairline andgot workersonboard bymeeting theirday-to-day needs.The leaderswe spokewith tookdifferent approachesfor differentends.Forexample,Alan Mulallyworked tobreak downbarriers betweenunits atFord,whereas DanVasella dida fairamount ofdecentralizing tounleash creativeenergyat Novartis.But inevery case,when theleaders usedtools suchas decisionrights,performance measurement,and rewardsystems to address theirparticularbusiness challenges,organizational cultureevolved ininteresting waysas aresult,reinforcing thenew direction.Revisiting theirstories providesa richerunderstanding ofcorporatetransformation andcultures rolein it.All ofthese storiesshow,in arange ofsettings,that cultureisnt afinal destination.It morphsright alongwith thecompanyscompetitive environmentand objectives.Its reallymore ofa temporarylandingplace—wheretheorganization shouldbe atthat moment,if therightmanagement levershavebeenpulled.本文选自2016年4月《哈佛商业评论》一篇题为《问题不是出在文化上》的文章参考译文当组织陷入困境，解决的惯例通常是对文化进行修复几乎人人都说，通用汽车在2014年遭遇汽车召回危机后，需要做的就是修复文化而自召回事件以后，通用CEO玛丽•芭拉就一直致力于创造一个“正确的环境”，来增强责任感，避免未来再次发生危机同样，文化改革也被提议作为防止警察部门过度使用武力、银行不道德行为和任何你能想到的重大组织问题的解决方案所有人都将文化视为问题的原因和对策但我们采访的企业领导者一一包括那些曾成功领导重要改革的现任和前任CEO称，文化不是让你修复的东西相反，依照他们的经验，文化变革应该是像像修改落后的战略或商业模式那样，采用新的流程和新的结构去应对艰巨商业挑战之后所得到的尽管这与通用汽车和VA等组织扭转危机所用的理念有冲突，但将文化视为结果，而非原因或解决方案，在直觉上是成立的组织是会产生涟漪反应的复杂系统，修改基础流程必然带来新的价值观和行为员工会开始从全新的视角看待自己对社会的贡献，它就发生在艺康公司为加强客户关系，艺康公司执行总裁道格•贝克，将决定权下放到一线或者，员工对高管的敌对情绪也可能得到缓解，例如达美航空执行总裁理查德•安德森在收购西北航空后，通过满足原西北航空员工的正当需求，赢得支持我们所采访的领导者为了不同的目标，采用不同的做法比如艾伦•穆拉利致力于消除福特各部门之间的隔阂，而丹尼•魏昌乐下了很大力气将权力下放，释放诺华制药公司的创造力但在所有例子中，每当领导者使用如决策权利、绩效考核和奖励制度等办法来解决自己所面临的业务挑战时，组织文化都会以奇妙的方式随之演进，进一步确定新方向回顾这些领导者的故事，让我们更深刻地了解到企业改革和企业文化在变革中的作用于是我们分享了访谈中最精彩的部分所有故事都表明，文化在很多情况下不是终点，它随公司的竞争环境和目标而改变，文化更像是暂时的停驻点--如果应对挑战的方法正确，文化就是组织当下应该在的位置《科学美国人》时文Having anactive sociallife is one ofthe strongestpredictors oflongevity andgoodhealth.Human connectionisoneofthemost fundamentaland importanthumandrives.But itcan alsobe ourmost tiring!As humanbeings,we tendto overplayour differences,and underestimatejusthow similarwe allreally aredeep downin ourbasic needs,strivings,andfrustrations.Emerging researchshows thateven thoughwe eachshow distinctpatternsof thoughts,motivations,andbehaviorsthat makeus differentfrom eachother,we actuallydisplay thewhole spectrumof behaviorsin oureveryday life.Everybody sometimesgets tiredfrom too many social interactions,sometimesacts likea jerk,sometimes islazy,etc.In abrand newstudy,two Finnishresearchers lookedat oneofthemostprominent descriptionsabout introverts:that theyneed tobe aloneand rechargeaftertoomanysocialinteractions.While this is undoubtedlytrue,does thisreallydifferentiate introvertsfrom extravertsIncredibly thisidea hasnever actuallybeentested scientificallyuntil now.Over thecourse of12days,48participants filledout measuresof theirpersonality,mood,stress,and levels of fatigue.Five timesa day,they wereasked todescribetheir behavior,feelings,and situationsduring thelast hour.They alsowere askedtodescribe theextent towhich theyinteracted inperson withothers inthe pasthour.In additionto lookingattheeffects ofbehaving extraverted,they alsolookedat theeffects ofbehaving conscientiously.They foundthat themore peoplewere acting extraverted andconscientious,themore theyreported beingin apositive moodand feelinglower levelsof fatigueinthe moment,but after3hours theyreported higherlevelsoffatigue.The leveloffatigue dependedon thenumber ofpeople metduring thelast hour,the intensityofthe socialinteractions,and howmuch theyhad aspecific goalin mindwhenthey werestudying orworking.Interestingly,these effectswere foundfor bothintrovertsand extraverts.While thefindings onconscientiousness arenot surprisinghard workis hardwork!,thisisthe firstdirect evidencesuggesting thattoo muchsocializing isdrainingforeveryone.Indeed,prior researchhas shownthat ingeneral,whenunder stress,tired,or livingin crowdedcircumstances,people oftenchoose tobealone ifthey can.This researchalso addstoagrowing literaturesuggesting thatinthe moment,actingextravertedhas thesame consequenceson moodfor bothintrovertsand extraverts.Taken together,all ofthis researchsuggests thatformost humanson thisplanet,having areasonable amountof socialinteraction andworkinghard towardgoals makespeople feelgood,but toomuch ofeither tendstomake peopletired aftera fewhours.本文选自2016年6月14日《科学美国人》杂志中一篇题为《外向者和内向者在过多社交后都会筋疲力尽》的文章参考译文积极的社交生活是长寿以及健康最为有利的判断之一人类之间相互联系是人类进化的最基本也是最重要的动力之一但是它也会使我们感到很疲劳作为人类，我们往往过分夸大我们之间的不同，并且低估了我们实际上在基本需求，努力以及挫折方面有着极大的相似近来研究表明即使我们每个人思维模式不同，动机不同,行为不同，实际上我们在日常生活中展现了我们全部的行为每个人都会时而因为太多的社交活动而感到疲劳，时而表现像个笨蛋，时而表现懒惰，等等在一项全新研究中，两个芬兰研究人员看到了一个对内向性格最典型的描述之一:他们需要独处并且太多的社交活动之后他们需要再次充电这无疑是正确的，但是就凭这一点就能区分性格内向和性格外向？难以置信的是这一想法直到现在从来没有得到验证。