心情叙事

1．  But why, after decades of increase—at least for women—are the numbers falling now? One possibility is that changes in the field itself ate tending to turn away women. Indeed, computer science is becoming more mathematically oriented as it coalesces with computer engineering. “As computer science has matured, the two fields are growing closer together,” notes Young. “And the more that it looks like engineering, the more the numbers [for women and minorities] look like those for engineering”—which has the fewest women of any scientific area.（旧书P260第8段）

 但是，在计算机领域，为什么在人数保持增长的几十年之后现在却处于下降趋势？至少对于女性来说是这样。一种可能性是因为这个领域自身的变化正趋向于排斥女性的涉足。的确，由于与计算机工程学的结合，计算机科学逐渐成为一门更多地以数学为主的学科。杨先生强调到：“随着计算机科学的成熟，这两个领域的发展使它们结合地更加紧密，而且，这个领域如果越类似于工程学，那么在此领域的人数分布情况[对于女性和未被代表的少数群体来说]也就会越像工程学领域。”——因为在工程学领域的女性人数是任何科学领域中最少的。

 2．  These ideas are based on the premise that the complexity and urgency of the world’s problems are increasing at a rate that is greater than mankind’s ability to cope. Engelbart’s solution is bound up in his idea of augmenting the collective IQ of organizations through a process known as bootstrapping. Though these ideas have driven him for the better part of 45 years, to the outside world they remain largely ungrokked.（旧书P359第3段）

 这些想法都是基于一个前提：世界上问题的复杂性和紧迫性都在以一个速率不断增长，而这个速度远远超过了我们人类能力所能做出的应对。Engelbart热衷于这样一种解决问题的方式：将他的想法通过一个所谓解靴带的过程扩大为组织结构的共有智商。虽然这些想法带领他走过了较好的45年，但对于外部世界，这些想法仍然不能被广泛地迅速理解。

 3. “[Western] provides truly new and important solutions to conservation dilemmas from the inside out,” says William Conway, president of the Wildlife Conservation Society, “the result of growing up with the local peoples amidst the problems facing wildlife in East Africa. Most of us must go into the field, and inevitably we look from the outside in.” He gains authority, says Mr. Conway, “from covering the spectrum as no other scientist, from academic ecologist to actual manager of a national park system.”

 温斯顿为我们提供了解决动物保护困境的重要新方法，这种方法十分现实可行，野生动物保护社区主席威廉姆·康威说道，“能有这样的想法是因为他一直和面临野生动物问题的东非居民一同生活。我们大多数人并非如此，所以不可避免地只会作为局外人考虑，缺乏对当地情况的了解。”康威先生继续郑重地说，“温斯顿提供的想法比任何一位科学家的想法都更全面，他比任何一个拥有学术造诣的生态学家或是国家公园系统的经理人都更有价值”

 4. In Dolly’s case, the cells the scientists wanted to clone came from the udder of a pregnant sheep. To stop them from dividing, researchers starved the cells of nutrients for a week. In response, the cells fell into a slumbering state that resembled deep hibernation. At this point, Wilmut and his colleagues switched to a mainstream cloning technique known as nuclear transfer.（P5）

 克隆多利羊时，科学家想要克隆的细胞取自一头怀孕的母羊的乳房。为了防止细胞分裂，研究人员迫使其在一星期中停止其接触任何营养物质，细胞进入休止状态就像深度冬眠。此时，威尔穆特和他的工作伙伴开始应用主流克隆技术即核转移技术

 5. (Crime and Punishment P93)It hardly needs saying that, to have much hope of succeeding, a comprehensive(广泛的,综合的) anti-crime policy must go far beyond ideas about criminal justice. Punishment of whatever sort counts for less in the end than whether jobs are available for young men who might otherwise turn to crime, whether schools have equipped them with the skills they will need to make a legitimate living, and so on .But imprisonment, and how to use it ,does matter. It must be made to work better.

  为了有更多成功的希望，不得不说，一个广泛的反对刑罚的政策应该远远超越有关刑事正义的想法。那些年轻人是否有合适的工作（否则他们就可能走上犯罪的道路），学校是否教会他们拥有正当生活所需的技能等等，与这些相比，无论任何种类的惩罚最终都收效甚微。但是，监禁以及如何使用它，关系重大。必须保证它能够很好的发挥作用。

 6. (No Picture Please P141) Then it happens. Another door opens and they pass into the small partitioned room. There is a kind of explosion---as if they have been swimming all this way from East Jerusalem(东耶路撒冷), swimming up from the bottom of a deep pool of water, working their muscles against pressure in a murky shadow, and now they’ve reached the surface, broken through, are splashing around in the water, playing , laughing.

   接下来，事情发生了。另一扇门打开了，他们通过那个小分割室。有一种强烈的感情的爆发——他们似乎一直以这样的方式从东耶路撒冷游过，从一个很深的水池游上来，在黑暗的阴影中他们战胜了压力，现在已经到达了水面，获得了突破，他们正在在水边用眼神交换表示喜悦的心情，正在游戏，正在欢笑。

 7 As a scientist, I immediately seized on the facts. An asymetry was glariingly apparent. Hardy packs 250 pounds onto a frame that is a good foot taller than feeble laurel. Hardy could dismantle Laurel as easily as a toy. While asymmetries have great appeal for scientists, they are too mundance for lawyers. These lawyers were sniffing for something that would add some drama to an open-and-shut case. They settled for trying to ridicule each other’s client.

 作为一名科学家，我马上就抓住了事实。他们之间的反差是显而易见的。250磅块头的Hardy比瘦弱的Laurel足足高了一尺。Hardy能够像拆卸一个玩具一样轻松的对付Hardy。虽然这些差异对科学家来说是非常有吸引力的，但这些差异对律师来说是非常庸俗的。律师们轻视那些会给一个可开放或封闭的案例带来戏剧性冲突的东西。他们只满足于嘲笑彼此的当事人。（P147）

 8 But a study published in this week’s science, by Joseph Kirschvink of the California Institute of Technology and his colleagues, suggests that catastrophes can be creative as well as destructive. Dr Kirschvin proposes that the so-called “Cambrian explosion”---which saw the appearance in the fossil record, appearance from nowhere，of the ancestors of all the main animal groups that are alive today---was the result of a slow wish, but literally earth-moving, catastrophe.

 但是这周在《科学》杂志上刊登的一项由加利福尼亚科技研究所的Joseph Kirschvink和他的同事们进行的研究表明，与灾难具有破坏性一样，灾难同样具有创造性。Kirschvink 博士指出所谓的“寒武纪大爆炸”理论是缓慢但逐渐的地壳移动的结果，该理论参考了在化石记载中的，来自于任何地方的主要动物群种祖先的外貌，这些动物群种至今仍然存在。（P169）

 9、Admittedly, Columbus had already found an ocean route to Asia in 1492, but Cabot thought he could go one better. He reasoned that the Earth being spherical, the further from the equator one sailed when voyaging east or west, the shorter would be one’s journey.

 被公认的是，哥伦布已经于1492年发现了通往亚洲大陆的海上航线，但是卡伯特认为他可以找到更好的。他详尽论述了这一观点：地球是球状的，一个人向东或者向西的航行距离赤道越远，他的行程就越短。（P228）

 10、Yet Cabot voyage, in terms of its goals, was a total failure; we now know that he had found North America instead of Asia, and everyone knew even then that he had found fish and timber instead of jewels and spices. He had even lost the race to North America by the substantial margin of five centuries. For while the notorious Vinland map, apparently showing a knowledge of the North America coastline before Cabot, is almost certainly a modern forgery, archaeological evidence proves that the Vikings were in Newfoundland around 1000AD.

 然而，对目标本身来说，卡伯特的航行是一场彻底的失败；现在我们都知道他发现的是北美大陆而不是亚洲大陆，甚至每一个人都知道他发现的是鱼类和木材而不是珠宝和香料。他甚至失去了关于北美大陆五个世纪以来的空白的竞争。在作为现代伪造品的臭名昭著的文兰地图，显然在卡伯特之前就展示了关于北美大陆的海岸线的情况时，考古学也证明北欧海盗在公元1000年左右就已经到达了纽芬兰岛。（P228）