新世纪研究生公共英语教材阅读A第二版 第二课.doc

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1、Unit two What the internet cannot do?1. it is impossible that old prejudices and hostilities should longer exist,while such an instrument has been created for the exchange of thought between all the nations of the earth.acclaimed victorian enthusiasts on the arrival in 1858 of the first transatlanti

2、c telegraph cable. People say that sort of thing about new technologies,even today. Biotechnology is said to be the cure of world hunger.the sequencing of the human genome will supposedly eradicate cancer and other diseases. The wildest optimism,though,has greeted the Internet. A whole industry of c

3、yber gurus has enthralled audiences and made a fine living with exuberant claims that the internet will prevent wars,ruduce pollution,and combat various forms of inequality.however,although the internet is still young enough to inspire idealism,it has also been around long enough to test whether the

4、 prophets can be right.2. Grandest of all the claims are those made by some of the savants at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology about the internets potential as a force for peace.one guru,Nicholas Negroponte ,has declared that,thanks to the Internet ,the children of the future are not going

5、to know what nationalism is .His colleagues ,Michael Dertouzos ,has written that digital communications will bring computer aided peacewhich may helpstave off future flare ups of ethnic hatred and national break ups.The idea is that improved communications will reduce misunderstandings and avert con

6、flict.3. This is not new, alas,any more than were the claims for the peace making possibilities of other new technologies.In the early years of the 20th century,aeroplanes were expected to end wars,by promoting international communication and less credibly by making armies obsolete.since they would

7、be vulnerable to attack from the air.After the First World War had dispelled such notions,it was the turn of radio.Nation shall speak peace unto nation,ran the fine motto of britainBBC World Service.Sadly,Radio of Rwanda disproved the idea that radeo was an intrinsically pacific force once and for a

8、ll .4. The mistake people make is to assume that wars are caused simply by the failure of different peoples to understand each other adequately.Indeed,even if that were true ,the Internet can also be used to advocate conflict.Hate speech and intolerance flourish in its murkier corners,where governme

9、nt find it hard to intervene.Although the Internet undeniably fosters communication,it will no put an end to war .5. But might it reduce energy consumption and pollution?The Centre For Energy and Climate Solutions ,a washington think tank ,has advance just such a case ,based largely on energy consum

10、ption figures for 1997 and 1998.While the American economy grew by 9% over those two years ,energy demand was almost unchanged because ,the CECS ventures,the Internet can turn paper and CDs into electrons,and replace trucks with fibreoptic cable .No wonder enthusiastic newspaper headline begged, Sho

11、p on line- save the earth .6. Sadly,earth saving is harder than that.Certainly,shopping on line from home is far less polluting that driving to a shopping mall.Ordering groceries on line and having them delivered,means that,if the logistics are handled efficiently,one truck journey can replace dozen

12、s of families;separate car trips.Reading newspapers,magazines and other documents on line is more efficient than printing and transporting them physically.Yet dong things on line is more energy-efficient only if it genuinely displaces real world activities.If people shop on line as well as visiting

13、the bricks and mortar store, the result is an overall increase in energy consumption.Thanks to the Internet,it is now easy for Europeans to order boos and have them extravagantly air frighted from America before they are available in Europe.And it is more efficient to read documents on line if doing

14、 so replaces,rather than adds to the amount of printed bumf.7. Furthermore,as more and more offices and homes connect to the internet,millions of PCs,printers,servers and other devices gobble significant quantities of energy.Home computers are becoming part of the fabric of everyday life,and are inc

15、reasingly left switched on all the time .one controversial assessment concluded that fully 8% of electricity consumption in America is due to internet connected computers .the construction of vast server farms warehouses full of computers and their attendant cooling systems-has contributed to overlo

16、ading of the electrical power network that has caused brown-outs in Silicon Valley.8. What about the belief that the internet will reduce inequality?According to a study carried out by Americas department of commerce,households with annual incomes above $75.000 are more than 20 times as likely to ha

17、ve internet access sa the poorest households .Bill Clinton,struck by the digital divide between rich and poor,argues that universal intretnet access would help to reduce incomes inequality.9. But ,as the cost of using the internet continues to fall services offering free access are becoming the norm

18、,and a basic PC can now be hard for little more than a video recorder or a large television,the true reason for the digital divide between rich and poor will beocme apparent.The poor are not shunning the internet because they cannot afford it ,the problem is that the lack the skills to exploit it ef

19、fctively.So it is difficult to see how connecting the poor to the internet will improve their finances.it would make more sense to aim for universal literacy than universal internet access.10. Yet,even in the more ludicrous claims for the internet,there may be germs of truth .This open network,so ha

20、rd for government to control,may indeed help to give more power to individual citizens and encourage democracies .As democratic governments rarely fight each other ,that might promote peace.As for the environment,the internet will allow many pieces of machinery to be monitored and tuned more precise

21、ly from afar .that will promote energy efficiency.taxing or merely measuring pollution will be less expensive and so easier for governments to undertake.11. Even inequality may,in some cases,be reduced thanks to the internet .A computer progammer inbangalore or siberia can use the internet to work f

22、or a software company in seattle without liaving home , and can expect to be paid a wage that is closer to that of his virtual colleagues at the other end of the cable.the effect is to reduce income inequality between people doing similar jobs in different countries,but to increase the inequality be

23、tween information workers in poor countries and their poorest compatriots .12. The internet changes many things .it has had a dramatic impact on the world of business.Firms can now link their systems diredtly to those of their suppliers and partners,can do business on line around the clock,and can l

24、earn more than ever about their customers.Economies may be more productive as a result.For individuals, e-mail has emerged as the most important new form of personal communication since the invention of the telephone.13. The extent to which the internet will transform other fields of human endeavor,

25、however,is less certain.Even when everyone on the planet has been connected to the internet,there will still be wars ,pollution,and inequality.As new gizmos come and go,human nature seems to remain stubbornly unchanged,despite the claims of the techno-prophets,humanity cannot simply invent away its

26、failings .The internet is not the first technology to have been hailed as a panacea and it will certainly not be the last .Editors note: Judson Jones is a meteorologist, journalist and photographer. He has freelanced with CNN for four years, covering severe weather from tornadoes to typhoons. Follow

27、 him on Twitter: jnjonesjr (CNN) - I will always wonder what it was like to huddle around a shortwave radio and through the crackling static from space hear the faint beeps of the worlds first satellite - Sputnik. I also missed watching Neil Armstrong step foot on the moon and the first space shuttl

28、e take off for the stars. Those events were way before my time.As a kid, I was fascinated with what goes on in the sky, and when NASA pulled the plug on the shuttle program I was heartbroken. Yet the privatized space race has renewed my childhood dreams to reach for the stars.As a meteorologist, Ive

29、 still seen many important weather and space events, but right now, if you were sitting next to me, youd hear my foot tapping rapidly under my desk. Im anxious for the next one: a space capsule hanging from a crane in the New Mexico desert.Its like the set for a George Lucas movie floating to the ed

30、ge of space.You and I will have the chance to watch a man take a leap into an unimaginable free fall from the edge of space - live.The (lack of) air up there Watch man jump from 96,000 feet Tuesday, I sat at work glued to the live stream of the Red Bull Stratos Mission. I watched the balloons positi

31、oned at different altitudes in the sky to test the winds, knowing that if they would just line up in a vertical straight line we would be go for launch.I feel this mission was created for me because I am also a journalist and a photographer, but above all I live for taking a leap of faith - the feel

32、ing of pushing the envelope into uncharted territory.The guy who is going to do this, Felix Baumgartner, must have that same feeling, at a level I will never reach. However, it did not stop me from feeling his pain when a gust of swirling wind kicked up and twisted the partially filled balloon that

33、would take him to the upper end of our atmosphere. As soon as the 40-acre balloon, with skin no thicker than a dry cleaning bag, scraped the ground I knew it was over.How claustrophobia almost grounded supersonic skydiver待添加的隐藏文字内容2With each twist, you could see the wrinkles of disappointment on the

34、 face of the current record holder and capcom (capsule communications), Col. Joe Kittinger. He hung his head low in mission control as he told Baumgartner the disappointing news: Mission aborted.The supersonic descent could happen as early as Sunday.The weather plays an important role in this missio

35、n. Starting at the ground, conditions have to be very calm - winds less than 2 mph, with no precipitation or humidity and limited cloud cover. The balloon, with capsule attached, will move through the lower level of the atmosphere (the troposphere) where our day-to-day weather lives. It will climb h

36、igher than the tip of Mount Everest (5.5 miles/8.85 kilometers), drifting even higher than the cruising altitude of commercial airliners (5.6 miles/9.17 kilometers) and into the stratosphere. As he crosses the boundary layer (called the tropopause), he can expect a lot of turbulence.The balloon will

37、 slowly drift to the edge of space at 120,000 feet (22.7 miles/36.53 kilometers). Here, Fearless Felix will unclip. He will roll back the door.Then, I would assume, he will slowly step out onto something resembling an Olympic diving platform.Below, the Earth becomes the concrete bottom of a swimming

38、 pool that he wants to land on, but not too hard. Still, hell be traveling fast, so despite the distance, it will not be like diving into the deep end of a pool. It will be like he is diving into the shallow end.Skydiver preps for the big jumpWhen he jumps, he is expected to reach the speed of sound

39、 - 690 mph (1,110 kph) - in less than 40 seconds. Like hitting the top of the water, he will begin to slow as he approaches the more dense air closer to Earth. But this will not be enough to stop him completely.If he goes too fast or spins out of control, he has a stabilization parachute that can be

40、 deployed to slow him down. His team hopes its not needed. Instead, he plans to deploy his 270-square-foot (25-square-meter) main chute at an altitude of around 5,000 feet (1,524 meters).In order to deploy this chute successfully, he will have to slow to 172 mph (277 kph). He will have a reserve par

41、achute that will open automatically if he loses consciousness at mach speeds.Even if everything goes as planned, it wont. Baumgartner still will free fall at a speed that would cause you and me to pass out, and no parachute is guaranteed to work higher than 25,000 feet (7,620 meters).It might not be

42、 the moon, but Kittinger free fell from 102,800 feet in 1960 - at the dawn of an infamous space race that captured the hearts of many. Baumgartner will attempt to break that record, a feat that boggles the mind. This is one of those monumental moments I will always remember, because there is no way Id miss this.14.