Unit Five Remote Control 课文翻译
1、 Recently the Washington Post printed an article explaining how the appliance manufacturers plan to drive consumers insane.最近《华盛顿邮报》刊登了一篇文章，解释家用电器制造商是如何谋划把消费者逼疯的。
2、 Of course they don‘t say they want to drive us insane. What they say they want to do is have us live in homes where ―all appliances are on the Internet, sharing information‖and appliances will be ―smarter than most of their owners.‖
当然制造商们并没有说他们想把我们逼疯，他们说他们想做的是让我们生活在―所有电器通过互联网实现信息共享‖的住宅里。而这些电器比―大多数主人聪明得多‖。
For example, the article states, you could have a home where the dishwasher ―can be turned on from the office‖and the refrigerator ―knows when it‘s out of milk‖ and the bathroom scale ―transmits your weight to the gym.‖例如，文章说到你可以拥有这样一个家：洗碗机―可以从你办公室启动‖、电冰箱―知道何时牛奶喝完了‖、浴室磅秤可以―把你的体重传送到健身房‖。
3、 I frankly wonder whether the appliance manufacturers, with all due respect, have been smoking crack. 恕我直言，我满怀敬意地想知道电器制造商们是不是晕了头。
I mean, did they ever stop to ask themselves why a consumer, after loading a dishwasher, would go to the office to start it? Would there be some kind of career benefit?我的意思是他们是否该停下来问问自己：为什么消费者把碗碟放进洗碗机后，要跑到办公室去启动它？难道这样可以在职场上获益吗？
YOUR BOSS: What are you doing? 老板：你在干什么？
YOU ( tapping computer keyboard ): I‘m starting my dishwasher! 你（敲打键盘）：我正在启动我家的洗碗机！
YOUR BOSS: That‘s the kind of productivity we need around here! 老板：这恰恰是我们这儿需要的工作效率。
YOU: Now I‘m flushing the upstairs toilet! 你：我现在就冲洗楼上厕所！
4、 Listen, appliance manufacturers: We don‘t need a dishwaher that we can communicate with from afar. 电器制造商们听好：我们不需要从远处来启动洗碗机。
If you want to improve our dishwashers, give us one that senses when people leave dirty on the kitchen counter, and shouts at them: ―Put those dishes in the dishwasher rignt now or I‘ll
leak all over your shoes!‖如果你想改进洗碗机，那就给我们这样一台：当人们把脏碗放在碗柜上时，洗碗机能够感应并且大声冲人喊：―立刻把碗放进来，不然我就会漏水把你鞋子弄湿！‖
5、 Likewise, we don‘t need a refrigerator that knows when it‘s out of milk. 同样，我们也不需要电冰箱知道什么时候没有牛奶。
We alrealy have a foolproof system for determining if we‘re out of milk. We ask our wife. 我们已经有了一个傻瓜也明白的万无一失的方法来确定牛奶是否喝完：我们可以问一下妻子。What we could use is a refrigerator that refuses to let us open its door when it senses that we are about to consume our fourth Jell-O Pudding Snack in two hours.
我们需要的是这样一台电冰箱：当它意识到我们要在两小时内就要把第四个吉露果子冻布丁吃完时，冰箱门就再也打不开了。
6、 As for a scale that transmits our weight to the gym: Are they nuts? 至于可以把我们的体重传送到健身房的磅秤：这是不是疯了？
We don‘t want our weight transmitted to our own eyeballs! 我们自己都不想看到自己的体重！What if the gym decided to trainsmit our weight to all these other appliances on the Internet?
如果健身房决定把我们的体重传给网上的其他电器怎么办？ What if, God forbid, our refrigerator found out what our weight was! 要是电冰箱知道我们的体重会怎么样呢？但愿不会如此。
We‘d never get the door open again!否则，我们将再也不能打开冰箱门了！
7、 But here is what really concerns me about these new ―smart‖ appliances:Even if we like the features, we won‘t be able to use them. 但是对于这些新型的―智能‖电器，我真正关心的是：即使我们喜欢这些功能，我们也无法使用它们。
We can‘t use the appliance features we have now. 甚至现在电器已有的功能我们也不会使用。 I have a feature-packed telephone with 43 buttons, at least 20 of which I am afraid to touch.
我有一部功能齐全的电话机，上面有43个键，但至少有20个功能健我是不敢碰的。 This phone probably can communicate with the dead, but I don‘t know to operate it, just as I don‘t know how to operate my TV, which requires three remote controls. 这部电话或许可以与死人交流，我却不知如何使用，这就如同我不知道怎样操纵我的电视一样，它需要3
个遥控器。One control (44 buttons ) came with the TV; a second (39 buttons )came with the VCR; the third (37 buttons ) was brought here by the cable man, who apparently felt that I did not have enough buttons.其中一个遥控器（有44个功能键）与电视机相连，另一个（有39个功能键）与录像机配套；再一个（有37个功能键）是有线电视管理员带来的，显然他觉得我的遥控器的功能键还不够多。
8、 So when I want to watch TV, I‘m confronted with a total of 120 buttons, identified by such helpful labels as PIP , MTS, DBS, FZ, JUMP and BLANK.
所以当我想看电视时，我面对的是120个功能键，通过诸多PIP、MTS、DBS、FZ、JUMP、BLANK等有用的标签来识别它们的功能。
There are three buttons labeled POWER, but there are times-especially if my son and his friends, who are not afraid of features, have changed the settings-when I honestly cannot figure out how to turn the TV on. 其中3个功能键的标签都是POWER，但有些时候尤其是如果我儿子和他的朋友们——他们都不害怕破坏原有的功能——改变了设置，我真不知道该如何打开电视机。 I stand there, holding three remote controls, pressing buttons at random, until eventually I give up and go turn on the dishwasher. 我站在那儿，手中握着3个遥控器胡乱地按着，直到最终放弃转而去开洗碗机。
It has been, literally, years since I have successfully recorded a TV show. 毫不夸张地说，我花了几年的工夫才学会了录制电视节目。
That is how ―smart‖my appliances have become.我的电器就―智能‖到了这种程度。 9、 And now the appliance manfacturers want to give us even more features. 现在电器制造商们想给我们提供更多电器功能。 Do you know what this means? 你知道这意味着什么吗？
It means that some night you‘ll open the door of your ―smart‖ refrigerator, looking for a beer, and you‘ll hear a pleasant, cheerful voice-recorded by the same woman who informs you that Your Call Is Important when you call a business that does not wish to speak with you persinally-telling you: Your celery is Limp.‖ 这意味着某天晚上你打开你那―智能‖的电冰箱寻找一瓶啤酒时，你会听到甜美而讨人喜欢的声音，―您的芹菜发蔫了‖， 当你致电一个商家，而对方又不想和你直接交谈时，你会听到一个相同的录音女声告诉你：―这个电话很重要‖。
You will not know who else your refrigerator knows this, and, what is worse, you will not
know how your refrigerator is telling about it你不知道电冰箱是如何知道这些的，更糟糕的是，你不知道电冰箱把这句话告诉了别的什么人。
( Hey, Bob! I hear your celery is limp!‖ ). （―嘿：鲍勃！听说你的芹菜发蔫了！‖） And, if you want to try to make the refrigerator stop, you‘ll have to decipher Owner‘s Manual instructions written by and for nuclear physicists
如果你想让你的冰箱停下来，你不得不被破译由核物理学家编写的用户使用手册指南。 (―To disable the Produce Crispness Monitoring feature, enter the Command Mode, then elect the Edit function, then select Change Vegetable Defaults, then assume that Train A leaves Chicago traveling westbound at 47 mph, while Train B…..‖
（―取消产品保鲜监控功能：进入命令模式，然后选择编辑功能，再选择变化蔬菜默认值，然后假设火车A从芝加哥以47英里/小时的速度向西行驶，火车B……‖）。
10、 Is this the kind of future you want, consumers? 消费者们：这就是你们所期望的未来
吗？Do you want appliances that are smarter than you? 你希望电器比你还聪明？ Your appliances should be dumber than you, just like your furniture, your pets and your represetatives in Congress.
当然不是，家用电器应该比你笨，就像你的家具、宠物和国会众议员一样。
So Iam urging you to let the appliance industry know, by phone, letter, fax and e-mail, that when it comes to ―smart‖appliances, you vote NO. 所以我敦促你们通过电话、信件、传真或电子邮件的方式让电器制造厂商知道：当论及―智能电器‖时你们会投反对票。
You need to act quickly. Because while you‘re reading this, your microwave oven is voting YES.必须尽快行动。因为在你读这篇文章时，你的微波炉正在投赞成票。
UNIT 9
What Does Sex/Gender Have to Do with Your Job?（性别与工作之关系)
by Jeffrey Bernbach
Labor lawyer Jeffrey Bernbach is Specializing in discrimination and sexual harassment cases.(歧视和性骚扰案件)Since he graduated from Cornell law school, Bernbach has practiced law for more than 25 years and is called a workplace warrior.In this acticle,he describes the workplace sex/gender discrimination and analyzes the underlying reasons for this phenomenon.While reading,please consider about the topic and see if you are for his view.
1 Although there have been laws against employment discrimination for more than a hundred years in the United States, they varied from state to state.
? 在美国，虽然反对就业歧视的法律已存在了一百多年，但各州法律却不尽相同。
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