作者：Eco Team

The universal diarist
风靡全球的日记作者
Nov 23rd 2006
From The Economist print edition

Mena Trott of Six Apart is at the forefront of the shift from mass media to “intimate media”
Six Apart公司的Mena Trott正在引领大众传媒走向“私人传媒”。

IT ALL began five years ago with a blog entry about a banjo. Mena Trott had recently graduated as an English major from college and, at 23, was living as an under-employed designer with her husband Ben in San Francisco, passing her time by keeping a personal online diary. Called Dollarshort, it was a blog about her childhood, her pets and that sort of thing. One day, on a girly whim, she wrote that she wanted to buy a banjo but that her husband, ever the “tyrant”, wouldn’t let her. Mena’s friends and family, knowing that “Ben is the sweetest guy in the world”, recognised the humour, says Ms Trott. But all sorts of strangers suddenly blogged back with angry feminist advice, advising her to get a separate bank account, to tell off her bullying husband, and even to leave him. Ms Trott was livid. “Why can’t people take a joke, and who are these people anyway?” she wondered.
故事要从五年前一篇关于班卓琴的博客文章说起。当时Mena Trott刚从大学英语专业毕业，与她的丈夫Ben一起住在旧金山。她的职业是一名设计师，但没多少活可干，就靠在网上写日记打发时光。那个名叫Dollarshort的博客记载了她的童年，她的宠物，等等不一而足。有一天，她突然萌生了一个孩子气的念头，就在日记中说她想买一把班卓琴，可她那位素来“专制”的丈夫不让她买。Trott女士说，她的亲朋好友都知道“Ben是世界上最可爱的小伙子”，所以一眼就看出来她这是在开玩笑。但是形形色色的陌生人却纷纷在她的博客中留言，愤怒地表示男女应该平等，有的建议她单独设立一个银行账户，有的让她教训一下她那横行霸道的丈夫，还有的甚至劝她离婚。Trott女士气不打一处来。她心想：“为什么人们看不出来这是玩笑呢？这都是些什么人呢？”

继续阅读“[2006.11.23]Face value：The universal diarist风靡全球的日记作者”

Wealthy women
女性富豪

Sex and money
性别与金钱
Jun 14th 2007
From The Economist print edition

By 2020 over half of Britain’s millionaires may be female. Why?
到2020年，英国可能有超过半数的富豪是女性。为什么呢？

IN APRIL this year, 92 females graced the Sunday Times Rich List, an annual round-up of Britain’s 1,000 wealthiest people. Ten years ago there were 64. And rich women are getting richer, too: over the decade the average worth of female millionaires has grown by more than half. Today Britain’s wealthiest woman has £4.9 billion ($9.6 billion) to her name, compared with the paltry £1.5 billion her counterpart had in 1997. The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) reckons female millionaires will outnumber male ones by 2020, and by 2025 women will control 60% of the nation’s private wealth. They do better at school and in higher education, and they live longer. Girl power, it seems, never had it so good.
今年4月，92名女性登上《星期日泰晤士报》富豪排行榜，令这一汇集了英国1000名有钱人的年度排行熠熠生辉。十年前，上榜的女性有64位，而且有钱的女人也越来越有钱：十年来，女性富豪的平均财产增幅超过50%。如今英国最富有的女人名下拥有价值49亿英镑（96亿美元）的财产，而1997年最富有的女人仅有15亿英镑。据经济和商业研究中心（Centre for Economics and Business Research, CEBR）估测，到2020年女富豪人数将超越男富豪，而到2025年女富豪将控有全国私有财产的60%。这些女富豪上中、小学和大学期间表现都比较优秀，而且都是高寿。“女生们”的力量似乎从未如今天这般强大。

继续阅读“[2007.6.14]Wealthy women: Sex and money”

In a fix
进退两难
Feb 21st 2008 | HONG KONG
From The Economist print edition

Putting caps on prices is only a short-term solution
价格管制只能是短期解决措施

ACROSS Asia inflation is rising, largely because of higher food and energy prices. China’s inflation rate surged to an 11-year high of 7.1% in January and looks set to climb further this month, after some severe snow storms. India, Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore all have inflation rates above 4%.
整个亚洲都在通胀，很大原因是由于高昂的食品与能源价格。1月份中国的通货膨胀率上升到11年的7.1％高点，而由于严重的雪灾，看上去这个月会继续上升。泰国和新加坡的通胀超过4％。

继续阅读“[2008.02.21]In a fix 进退两难”

Christmas Specials

Kitchens

Downstairs Upstairs
厨房：楼上楼下

Dec 19th 2007

Women have not escaped the kitchen; it has come after them
妇女们未能逃离厨房；它如影随形。

MEPL

THESE days, nobody needs to cook. Families graze on cholesterol-sodden take-aways and microwaved ready-meals. Cooking is an occasional hobby and a vehicle for celebrity chefs. Which makes it odd that, at the same time, the kitchen has become the heart of the modern house: what the great hall was to the medieval castle and the parlour was to the Victorian terrace, the kitchen is to the 21st-century home.
今天，人们无需下厨。家家户户都在吃富含胆固醇的外卖和微波热化的现成食品。烹饪成了一种偶尔嗜好以及名厨们的一种表演。奇怪的是，同一时间，厨房业已成为现代家居的核心：厨房之于21世纪的家园的地位就犹如大厅之于中世纪的城堡，以及客厅则之于维多利亚时代的庭院。

继续阅读“[2007.12.22][Christmas Specials]Downstairs Upstairs”

Antarctic science
南极科考

Snow place like home
冰天雪地 宾至如归
Jan 17th 2008 | THE SOUTH POLE
写于2008年1月17日|南极
From The Economist print edition
译自：《经济学家》印刷版

America’s new research station at the South Pole is officially opened
美国新建的南极科考站正式开放

MOVING house is always traumatic, and the odd tear would have been forgivable as the flag came down over America’s old base at the South Pole. It was handed from person to person along a line of scientists and support staff like an egg being passed between penguins. Slowly, it made its way past the marker that represents the exact point of the Pole, and then on to its new staff outside the third incarnation of the Amundsen-Scott station that is the home of America’s scientific effort at the Pole. This new station, which formally opened for business on January 12th, took almost 20 years to design and build, and cost $174m. It will house researchers from fields as diverse as neutrino astronomy, cosmology, seismology and atmospheric physics.
举家搬迁难免令人黯然神伤，看着国旗从美国南极站老基地上缓缓移下，即使潸然泪下也是情有可原。科学家及后勤人员排成一线依次传递国旗的情景，俨然一幅雌雄企鹅接替孵卵的画面。国旗缓慢地途经南极极点的标志物，然后在阿蒙森－斯科特站的第三代南极站点外的新旗杆上冉冉升起，这第三代科考站就是美国科学家在南极艰苦奋斗的家园。这座新的科考站于1月12日正式营业，设计和施工用了大约20年，花费达17400万美元。科考站将迎接来自各个领域的研究人员，研究领域涉及：微中子天文学、宇宙学、地震学和大气物理学。
继续阅读“[2008.01.17] Snow place like home 冰天雪地 宾至如归”

Retailing
零售业

Birth, death and shopping
生死与“购”
Dec 19th 2007
2007年12月19日

The rise and fall of the shopping mall
大型购物商场的兴衰

THE Southdale shopping centre in Minnesota has an atrium, a food court, fountains and acres of parking. Its shops include a Dairy Queen, a Victoria’s Secret and a purveyor of comic T-shirts. It may not seem like a landmark, as important to architectural history as the Louvre or New York’s Woolworth Building. But it is. “Ohmigod!” chimes a group of teenage girls, on learning that they are standing in the world’s first true shopping mall. “That is the coolest thing anybody has said to us all day.”
坐落于明尼苏达州的南谷购物中心，拥有大型的核心店、美食广场、喷泉和宽广的停车场。其中点缀着诸如奶品皇后、维多利亚的秘密和无厘头风格T恤衫代理等品牌店面。它看上去不像是一座具有里程碑意义的历史性建筑，与卢浮宫和伍尔沃斯大厦比较更是相形见绌。但是，如果让一群妙龄少女得知矗立在她们面前的就是世界上首家正宗购物商城的话，她们不但会尖语“Oh，My God！”，而且还会告诉你“这是我们今天听到的最酷的事情！”
继续阅读“[2007.12.19]Birth, death and shopping 生死与“购””

Abolishing ageing 阻止衰老

How to live forever
长生不老 青春永驻
Jan 3rd 2008 写于2008年1月3日
From The Economist print edition 译自：《经济学家》印刷版

It looks unlikely that medical science will abolish the process of ageing. But it no longer looks impossible     医学阻止衰老进程似乎是不太可能。但也看到了一丝希望。
Stephen Jeffrey斯蒂芬•杰佛里（图）

“IN THE long run,” as John Maynard Keynes observed, “we are all dead.” True. But can the short run be elongated in a way that makes the long run longer? And if so, how, and at what cost? People have dreamt of immortality since time immemorial. They have sought it since the first alchemist put an elixir of life on the same shopping list as a way to turn lead into gold. They have written about it in fiction, from Rider Haggard’s “She” to Frank Herbert’s “Dune”. And now, with the growth of biological knowledge that has marked the past few decades, a few researchers believe it might be within reach.
正如英国经济学家约翰•梅纳德•凯恩斯所言：“从长久来看，我们终有一死”。此言千真万确。但是，有没有一种使长久变得更长久的方法可以让短期延伸呢？如果可以的话，怎样做呢？以什么为代价呢？人们自古以来就梦想着永垂不朽。自从第一个炼丹师把长生不老药和点石成金的方法等同看待之日起，人们就开始为了长生不老孜孜探索。从瑞德•哈葛德的《她》到弗兰克•赫伯特的《沙丘》，人们在科幻小说中也多有描述。如今，随着过去几十年成绩显赫的生物知识不断发展，一些研究人员相信阻止衰老并非遥不可及。

继续阅读“[2008.01.03] How to live forever 长生不老 青春永驻”

Whaling

捕鲸

Salty shepherds

海上守护者

Jan 24th 2008 | SYDNEY
From The Economist print edition

A row between Australia and Japan

日澳龃龉

 

THE Southern Ocean is usually one of the world’s loneliest shipping lanes.This month it has turned into an unseemly battleground over a bid byAustralia’s government and various environmental groups to stop Japan huntingand slaughtering whales. Japan aims to kill more than 900 minke and 50 finwhales from a region bordering Antarctica by mid-April. It claims the hunt isfor scientific research; its critics say this is a brazen front for acommercial whale-meat harvest. As images of the protesters’ antics inflameanti-Japanese feeling in Australia, the clash is also threatening the stabilityof one of Australia’s strongest regional ties.

南太平洋原本是世界上最孤单的航线之一。在这个月却变成了澳洲政府和几个环保组织试图阻止日本猎杀鲸鱼的不适宜的战场。日本计划到四月中旬前，在邻近南极洲的一块区域内捕杀超过900头小须鲸和50头长须鲸。日本方面声称这些都是为了科学研究；它的批评者称这是商业捕鲸的“遮羞布”。抗议者做出滑稽的动作，这一印象点燃了澳洲的反日情绪，因此，这次冲突也威胁着澳洲的一个最强大的地域联系的稳定。

继续阅读“[2008.01.24]Salty shepherds 海上守护者”

Seeing is not always relieving
眼不见心不烦

Mar 8th 2007
From The Economist print edition Screening for lung cancer may do more harm than good
肺癌筛查可能弊大于利

SOMETIMES you can know too much. The aim of screening healthy people for cancer is to discover tumours when they are small and treatable. It sounds laudable and often it is. But it sometimes leads to unnecessary treatment. The body has a battery of mechanisms for stopping small tumours from becoming large ones. Treating those that would have been suppressed anyway does no good and can often be harmful.
有时候你可能知道得太多了。健康人群癌症筛查的目的是发现可治疗的小肿瘤，这似乎是值得称赞的，而事实常常也是如此。不过，有时它会导致不必要的治疗。机体自身有一套阻止小肿瘤生长的机制，对那些可用自身机制加以抑制的肿瘤采取治疗非但无益，反而可能造成危害。

继续阅读“[2007.3.8]Cancer screening: Seeing is not always relieving”