lingua franca

下載本文Part 1請點我 下載Part 1聲音檔請點我 下載本文Part 2請點我 下載Part 2聲音檔請點我 From 蘋果日報雙語天下長春藤美語

下載聲音檔請點我 下載填空卷請點我 下載解析版請點我 Prevent Your Password From Becoming Easy Pickings (Or PyPfbEp) by Wendy Kaufman Recent news that 6.5 million passwords were stolen from LinkedIn got us thinking once again about those security words and phrases. Their strength depends on how cleaver or how lazy we are when we dream them up. Which raises the question 引發問題 of how we can make our online accounts a little bit safer. NPR's Wendy Kaufman has some suggestions. WENDY KAUFMAN, BYLINE: Aaron Brown and Erin Gilmer have very different approaches to passwords. When I caught up with them 跟他們見到面 in a suburban Seattle mall, he said... AARON BROWN: I try to keep as few as possible. KAUFMAN: And she said I have too many. ERIN GILMER: They're totally weird. I just make up a different one for a different thing every time, usually doesn't even make any sense 沒什麼道理 . Most of the time I can't remember it later. KAUFMAN: And therein lies the conundrum 謎語 / 難題 . If pas...

這是一篇 華盛頓郵報The Washington Post 網站所刊登的文章，本周與各位分享。 英文每周一文當初是我的一片美意。我向來鼓勵大家每周精讀一篇文章，當成是寫作的資糧，為了讓同學願意練習寫作，我可是想破了頭，從推薦作家、上傳好文、到各種英文寫作工具無一不用，目的就是希望能啟發各位的靈感，讓大家願意敲鍵盤寫作。我的部落格有三十幾篇好文，若能篇篇精讀，下筆就算不「如有神」，至少也不會腦袋一片空白啊。 暑假也是我個人寫作旺季，很多中英文文案都是在這段期間內發生，所以我目前只要醒著，如果不是在上班上課，就是在敲鍵盤。因為可支配的閒暇時間不多，所以我幾乎都是利用坐捷運的時間看我喜歡的文章或是小說。我統計過，搭捷運閱讀，我一天也能閱讀一小時半。之前我閱讀Iron Lake這本小說，就是這樣一點一滴累積慢慢看完的，四百多頁的小說差不多兩個多月也看完了。所以時間跟擠牙膏一樣，再怎樣都能擠出一點來。另外，我已經戒掉睡前閱讀的習慣了，因為這樣會看書看到天亮，所以不敢再嘗試。倒是這幾年出現了老人病，就是 一看電視節目就能馬上躺平 。現在的我，睡前會躺在床上看十分鐘的「世間情」重播版，真的很有效，每次看差不多十分鐘，我就會進入愉快的睡眠狀態，連安眠藥都省了啦。 Thinking about breaking up with someone? Flip a coin 下載本文請點我 In their latest book,   ‘Think Like a Freak,”   Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner urge readers to think about the world differently by training readers’ brains to approach problems in unique ways . In the final chapter, the Upside of Quitting , 放棄的好處 Levitt and Dubner suggest that, contrary to 與 … 相反 what many people have told you in life, you should quit. That is, when...

本周起推出為期兩周的 AI人工智慧短篇英文 專題報導，大家可以 下載聲音檔來練習口說或是筆記 。類似的短篇聽力部落格上還有三十幾篇，可挑有興趣的主題來練習，上課我們也可以來做做看。類似的能力是托福口說考題所要求的，越早開始練習越好。對於沒有練習過的人來說，類似短篇是非常好的暖身訓練。 下載聲音檔請點我 下載文字檔請點我 這個主題讓我想起多年前的那部賣座電影→ AI人工智慧 。 有興趣的同學可以欣賞。影片提供了許多發人深省的觀點。這一百年來，科技的突飛猛進，是否真正改善了我們的生活？科學的進步到底是替我們解決了問題，還是製造了更多的問題？ 多年前聽過一個辯論，主題是 Which is more important? Science or religion?主持人找來神學家與科學家做世紀大辯論。聽到了很多不錯的說法，尤其是來自於神學家的觀點。如下： 1. 科學的基本態度是凡事存疑，這樣的精神為當代的人性態度定調，同時也扭轉了人類對事情的看法。凡事存疑的態度，導致現代人逐漸對事物失去信念。因為在科學的領域裡，沒有證據或是無法被證實的事情，就不是事實。這讓我想起我最喜歡的一部電影，叫做 接觸未來Contact (1997年出品) 。我大推這部片，非常非常好看。暑假有空租回來看看。 2. 科學的進步截至目前為止，所帶來的壞處多於優點。如環境的破壞，人類以目的導向所衍生出的功利與多疑心態，以及為了科學成果，不惜一切且不擇手段只求達到目的做法，最後人類多半自食惡果(類似的題材好萊塢電影都拍過了)。我們到底需不需要機器人？永無止境的科學發展到底是好是壞？如果科學能解決問題，那麼為什麼現代人都那麼不開心呢？ 若說科學是人類進步過程中最大的盲點，且過程充斥著不擇手段的愚昧，這或許言過其實，但是貪婪的人類若不回頭，Our days on this Earth will be numbered. 下面這篇討論人工智慧的短文，下周還有下集。希望大家多聽英文廣播，反覆聽熟，好好練習，學習這件事情不能單靠科學捷徑，成就還得仰賴毅力。 科學不是所有問題的答案，這一點我再同意不過。 AI (Part I) 無所不在的人工智慧 From 蘋果日報雙語天下 長春藤美語 Robots containing ...

下載聲音檔請點我 下載填空卷請點我 下載解析版請點我 White Bread May Actually Build Strong Bodies One Way The guts of white bread eaters appear to contain more  Lactobacillus , a type of bacteria that wards off digestive disorders. Karen Hopkin reports  You can beat on 用力打或捏擠 Wonder Bread all you want. “You can make a completely credible pillow out of this stuff.” But it just keeps bouncing back—because despite its nutritional bad reputation, white bread appears to boost the growth 刺激生長 of good gut bacteria 好的腸道菌 . That’s according to a paper in the   Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry . In recent years, white bread has been shunned 迴避 as a glutinous slab 黏性的厚片 that lacks the health benefits of whole wheat. But this new study suggests there’s more to the story. The researchers were looking at the effects of foods on the types of microbes 微生物 that live in our intestines 腸道 . They gathered data on the diets of 38 healthy adults and then analyzed the bac...

網路連結成為汽車的標準配備，感覺上再自然不過，不過這樣的做法到底好不好？先聽這篇廣播再說！ 下載聲音檔請點我 下載填空卷請點我 下載解析版請點我 本周答案揭曉！ For Automakers, Internet-Connected Cars Are a Balancing Act 需兩相平衡的 by   SONARI GLINTON From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish. ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST: And I'm Robert Siegel. The Internet is coming to your car and General Motors is the largest company with a plan to put Internet connectivity 網路連結 directly into its vehicles. The rollout 首次登場展示 begins later this year. Of course, safety advocates 強調安全人士 have some concerns about more distractions for drivers. NPR's Sonari Glinton reports from his car about the challenge of bringing our always online culture to a moving vehicle. SONARI GLINTON, BYLINE: The promise of technology is always the same; that it's going to make our lives easier. But as anyone who's tried to make a hands-free call 非手持聽筒 in their car knows, that's not always true. UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Please say ...