■ 1. .
■ 2. :
) ;
) ;
) ;
) ;
)
.
■ 3. , .
■ 4. .
■ 5. .
■ 6. , , .
■ 7. , , .
|
■ 8. .
1
A Breach in Language Barriers
Moshi-moshi? Nan no goyoo de- suka? English speakers who call Japan may be puzzled by those words. But don't despair. Work is under way to convert these questions into a familiar "Hello? May I help you?"
Automated translation of both ends of telephone conversation held in two different languages probably will not become reality for a decade or so. However research is now being conducted at several American, European and Japanese universities and at electronics companies. One such project, launched by Japan's Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International, will receive $107 million from the Japanese government, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. and a handful of corporate giants for the first seven years alone. IBM is one sponsor of similar efforts at Carnegie-Mellon University. The goal is a system that will produce text out of the speech sounds of one language, analyze and translate it in context and reconvert the translated signals into speech.
-? - ? , , , . . , : "? ".
-, , , , . - , , , . , " - ", , " " 107 . . - - -
One day callers may simply need to hook their telephones up to personal computers and plug-in voice-recognition and synthesizing units to "converse" in a foreign language. They will also need a data file on the grammar of their own language and those they don't speak. (Such files already exist in Japanese and English and are being developed for French, German and Spanish.) Another requirement is "universal parser" software that identifies the relations between the words in a sentence and locates analogous constructions in the target language from the data files. Such parsers already perform satisfactory text-to-text translations. But they need to become faster, more accurate and less expensive before they can translate actual speech.
|
|
|
--. , , , .
-, "" , . , . ( , , .) " ", . "" . , , .
Speech-recognition modules convert sound signals into digital pulses. The computer matches the digitized data to the phonemes the shortest pronounceable segments of speech registered in its software. Files can contain enough phonemes to cover most of the local derivations from the standard form of a given language. However, voice-recogniz- ing equipment cannot yet tell actual speech from other sounds it picks up: laughter, crying, coughs and further background noises. Voice synthesizers, which reconvert the translated text into sounds, are further ahead than recognition units: they do not have to cope with the whimsical pronunciations and unpredictable noises emitted by humans.
, , . , . , , , , , , . , , , , .
|
|
|
2
A Glimpse of Airport
Baggage handling is the least efficient part of air travel. An astounding amount of airline baggage goes to wrong destinations, is delayed, or lost entirely. Airport executives point woefully
. , , to the many opportunities for human error which exists with baggage handling.
Freight is now going aboard Flight Two in a steady stream. So is mail. The heavier-than-usual mail load is a bonus for Trans America. A flight of British Overseas Airways Corporation, scheduled to leave shortly before Trans America Flight, has just announced a three-hour delay. The post office supervisor, who keeps constant watch on schedules and delays, promptly ordered a switch of mail from the BOAC airliner to Trans America. The British airline will be unhappy because carriage of mail is highly profitable, and competition for post office business keen. All airlines keep uniformed representatives at airport post offices, their job is to keep an eye on the flow of mail and ensure that their own airline got a "fair share" or more of the outgoing volume. Post office supervisors sometimes have favourites among the airline men and see to it that business comes their way. But in cases of delay, friendship doesn't count. At such moments there is an inflexible rule: the mail goes by the fastest route.
. , . 2, . ' ". , " ", , 3 . , , . , . , , . , , ,
Inside the terminal is Trans America Control Centre. The centre is a bustling, jampacked, noisy conglomeration of people, desks, telephones, teletypes, private- line TV and information boards. Its personnel are responsible for directing the preparation of all Trans America flights. On occasions like tonight with schedules chaotic because of the storm, the atmosphere is pandemonic, the scene resembling an old-time newspaper city, as seen by Hollywood.
| 3 My Mr. Jones I was one time Mr. Jones' lodger, but I had to leave him because I - . could not see eye to eye with my , landlord in his desire to dine in dress trousers, a flannel shirt, , - and a shooting coat. I had known . - |
. . : , . . , , , , , , . . , , - , , , .
|
|
|
him ever since I was a kid, and from boyhood up this old boy had put the fear of death into me. Time, the great healer, could never remove from my memory the occasion when he found me then a stripling of fifteen smoking one of his special cigars in the stables. Since then I have trodden on his toes in many ways. I always felt that unless I was jolly careful and nipped his arrogance in the bud, he would be always bossing me. He had the aspect of a distinctly resolute blighter. You have to keep these fellows in their place. You have to work the good old iron-hand-in- the-velvet-glove wheeze. If you give them a what's-its-name, they take a thingummy.
But now he was a rather stiff, precise sort of old boy, who liked a quiet life. He was just finishing a history of the family or something, which he had been working on for the last year, and didn't stir much from the library. He was rather a good instance of what they say about its being a good scheme for a fellow to sow his wild oats. I'd been told that in his youth he had , . , , . , , 15- . , , . . , , , . . , , . . , , , , , . , , , . - , , . , , , been a bit of a bounder. You would never have thought it to look at him now.
. , , . , .
4
Polling the People
Opinion polls are on their strongest ground when the question put seeks to define a proposed pattern of behaviour. That is why the "will you vote conservative, labour, liberal or abstain" type of question has shown a fairly high correlation with actual election results in spite of occasional wild lapses. Most people, whether or not they are able to rationalize their attitudes are generally aware of a change in their political allegiance or enthusiasm. The answer is therefore meaningful. For the same reason a question such as "do you think Mr. X will make a good minister?" evokes a response in which the variation has some statistical significance.
, . , , " , , ?", , . , , , , , . . " , , - X. ?" .
|
|
|
But the introduction of abstract concepts immediately reduces the validity of the whole procedure. The term "standards of living", for example, means many different things to different people. It can be defined fairly precisely by economists, but it means something quite different to an old- age pensioner supporting herself in her own cottage, to a skilled printer living in a council house with a family of earning teenagers, and to the director of a large company. And since the standard of living as opposed to the illusion of higher money income, has in fact barely increased by a statistically perceptible amount within the last year, what significance should be attached to the fact that 23 per cent of those asked in the poll think that their standard of living has increased?
. , " " . , , , , , , . , , , , , 23% , ?
5
History and Hard Heads
Never in the long range of history has the world been in such a state of flux as it is today. Never has there been so much anxious questioning, so much doubt and bewilderment, so much examin-
| 16 . 2642 |
, . , , ing of old institutions, existing ills, and suggested remedies.
There is a continuous process of change and revolution going all over the world, and anxious statesmen are at their wits' end and grope about in the dark. It is obvious that we are a part of this great world problem, and must be affected by world events. And yet little attempt is made to understand forces that are shaking and reforming the world before our eyes. Without this understanding history, whether past or present, becomes just a magic show with no lesson for us which might guide our future path. On the gaily-decked official stage phantom figures come and go, posing for a while as great statesmen. Their main concern is how to save the vested interests of various classes or groups; their main diversion, apart from feasting, is self-praise. Some people, blissfully ignorant of all that has happened in the last half-century, still talk the jargon of the Victorian Age and are surprised and resentful that nobody listens to them. Even the Nasmyth hammer of war and revolution and world change has failed to produce the slightest dent on their remarkably hard heads.
, . , . , , . , . , - , . , - . , , , . , ,
|
|
|
You Can Buy Happiness
All my life I've been told you can't buy happiness, and I must say I used to believe it. But lately I've changed my mind. Money can buy happiness and usually does.
Take my friends, the Schmicks. They're poor, honest, hard-work- ing people. All they have each other, and they are miserable.
Then take my friends, the Smugs he's banker; she inherited money from her father. They live on Park Avenue in the winter and Westhampton in the summer, unless they go abroad. Everything they do costs money, and you won't find happier people anywhere.
The Schmicks live in a small apartment in Brooklin in the win- 2T 6
, , , . . , , , .
| , , . . |
, . , . , , . : . , , : , . , - , . , . , . , - ter, and they vacation in the same small apartment in Brooklin in the summer. When they really get desperate, they go to Far Rockway for a swim. Once Mrs. Schmick said to me, "We may not have all the comforts and pleasures of the rich, but do you think that makes us unhappy? You bet your sweet life does."
The Smugs, on the other hand, wouldn't have it any other way. Mr. Smug told me, one night when he'd had a few drinks too many, "You know, when I was young, I was in love with a poor girl who worked as a secretary. Then I met my wife who was rich, so I decided to marry her. You know something? I bumped into that poor girl a few weeks ago and she had gone all to pieces. It takes money for a woman to keep looking young. I was sure glad I married the rich girl."
The Smugs are not happy all the time. Sometimes they fight and then Mrs. Smug flies off to California to visit friends. But the Schmicks fight, too. Only, when they get into a quarrel, Mrs. Schmick has no place to go, so they yell at each other until the police come. Last year the Schmicks were fined thirty dollars for disturbing the peace.
. , , , .
- : " , , , . , ? , ". , , . , , - : ", ; . . , . , , . ! , . , ". . . - . . - , , . -
The Smugs entertain a lot of important and influencial people who accept their invitations because the Smugs are rich. The Schmicks can only afford to entertain relatives they don't like, who complain afterward about the food and liquor. When it comes to children, the Smugs and Schmicks also differ. Smug told me, "We have two children. We've given them the best of everything. Private schools, riding lessons, tennis lessons, catered parties we've bought everything for them that money will buy, and they're smart, happy, contented children."
Schmick, on the other hand, told me, "We haven't been able to give our children anything but love and devotion and they hate us."
Smug told me, "I've tried to impress on the children the importance of being rich and the great benefits that can be derived from having money. They know exactly what I'm talking about, and they respect me for my wisdom." Schmick said, "I tell my kids money isn't everything. There are some values in life that are much more important, such as love, friendship, and family. And you know . , , . , , .
-. : " . . , , , , , , , , ". " , . ", .
-: " , . ".
: " , . : , , . , what they do? They go around the neighborhood and tell everyone, 'Our father is nuts.'
And so it goes with Smugs and Schmicks economically, socially, and intellectually, they are poles apart. But because they live in America, the land of opportunity, the only difference between them is that the Smugs are happy and the Schmicks are not.
? , , , ".
, . , , , , , .
.
7
Thoughts
of a Candidate 's Wife
by Art Buchwald
It is regrettable that when the , , wife of someone running for pub- - lic office is interviewed, she can't say what is really on her mind, , In order to be a good candidate's . - wife, she must show a stiff up- - per lip and stick with the stan- , dard cliches about her husband, , her home, and her children. . Now, for the first time, thanks , - to a new extrasensory perception , - process, I can reveal what is re- - ally going on in the mind of the , wife of the candidate. Her ( - thoughts are in bold-faced type: .)
"Mrs. Goodfellow, what is the most important role a wife must play in her husband's political career?"
"She must give him moral support when he is discouraged. She must be his ears and eyes when he isn't around, and she must be able to make him relax at the end of a hard day's campaigning."
As well as keep him off the bottle and away from all the skirts who think he's God's gift to women.
"You have four children. Do you find they miss their father when he is out making speeches all the time?"
"I imagine they do. But Charlton's a wonderful father, and he always makes time for the children, no matter how many political commitments he has."
Would you believe he hasn't seen them since the Fourth of July?
"Do you find the children understand that both of you have to be away from home so much?"
"Oh, yes, they're wonderful about it, and they're as interested in the race as we are."
, , , ?
. , . , .
, -- "", , , .
. , , , , .
, , . , , , .
: 4 .
, , ?
, . , .
