2010年
Text1
Of all the changes that have taken place in English-language newspapers during the past quarter-century, perhaps the most far-reaching has been the inexorable decline in the scope and seriousness of their arts coverage.
It is difficult to the point of impossibility for the average reader under the age of forty to imagine a time when high-quality arts criticism could be found in most big-city newspapers. Yet a considerable number of the most significant collections of criticism published in the 20th century consisted in large part of newspaper reviews. To read such books today is to marvel at the fact that their learned contents were once deemed suitable for publication in general-circulation dailies.
We are even farther removed from the unfocused newspaper reviews published in England between the turn of the 20th century and the eve of World War Ⅱ, at a time when newsprint was dirt-cheap and stylish arts criticism was considered an ornament to the publications in which it appeared. In those far-off days, it was taken for granted that the critics of major papers would write in detail and at length about the events they covered. Theirs was a serious business, and even those reviewers who wore their learning lightly, like George Bernard Shaw and Ernest Newman, could be trusted to know what they were about. These men believed in journalism as a calling, and were proud to be published in the daily press. “So few authors have brains en ough or literary gift enough to keep their own end up in journalism,” Newman wrote, “that I am tempted to define …journalism? as …a term of contempt applied by writers who are not read to writers who are? .”
Unfortunately, these critics are virtually forgotten. Neville Cardus, who wrote for the Manchester Guardian from 1917 until shortly before his death in 1975, is now known solely as a writer of essays on the game of cricket. During his lifetime, though, he was also one of England?s foremost classical-music critics, and a stylist so widely admired that his Autobiography (1947) became a best-seller. He was knighted in 1967, the first music critic to be so honored. Yet only one of his books is now in print, and his vast body of writings on music is unknown save to specialists.
Is there any chance that Cardus?s criticism will enjoy a revival? The prospect seems remote. Journalistic tastes had changed long before his death, and postmodern readers have little use for the richly upholstered Vicwardian prose in which he specialized. Moreover, the amateur tradition in music criticism has been in headlong retreat.
过去的25年，在英文报纸发生的所有变化中，或许最具有深远意义的变化就是这些报纸的文艺报道范围不断缩小，严肃性不断减弱，这是个无法逆转的必然趋势。
对于年龄低于40岁的普通读者来讲，让他们想象一下当年可以在许多大城市报纸上读到精品的文艺评论简直几乎是天方夜谭。然而，在20世纪出版的最重要的文艺批评集子里，人们读到的大部分评论文章都是从报纸上收集而来。现在，如果读到这些集子，人们肯定会惊诧，当年这般博学多才的精神食粮竟然被认为适合刊载在面向大众发行的报纸版面上。
从20世纪早期到二战以前，报纸纸张极为便宜，由于格调高雅的文艺批评
被认为可以装点刊载它的报纸，英国报纸对投来的评论文章来者不拒，对它们涉及什么主题无人在意。但我们现今的报纸离此已相去更远。在那些遥远的年代，人们理所当然地认为主流报纸的评论家们都会不遗余力地把他们评论的事实说清楚。他们写作是严肃的，甚至以文笔轻松风趣著称的George Bernard Shaw和Ernest Newman也知道自己在做什么，这一点足以让人信任。这些批评家们相信报刊评论是一门职业，并且对于他们的文章能够在报纸上发表感到很自豪。“鉴于几乎没有作家能拥有足够的思想或足够的文学天赋以保证他们在写批评时能不畏艰难，时刻保持乐观”，Newman曾写道，“我倾向于把…报刊评论?定义为“被某些作家所使用的一个轻蔑之词。对真正的作家而言，他们根本就没有学问”。
可令人悲哀的是，这样的批评家们现在却被人们所遗忘。从1917年开始一直到1975年去世不久前还在为曼彻斯特《卫报》写文章的Neville Cardus，如今仅仅作为一个撰写关于板球比赛文章的作家被人们所知。然而，在他的一生中，他也是英国首屈一指的古典音乐评论家之一。他也是一位深受读者青睐的文体家，所以1947年他的《自传》一书就成为热销读物。1967年他被授予爵士称号，也是第一位获此殊荣的音乐评论家。然而，他的书现在只有一本可以在市面上买到。他大量的音乐批评，除了专门研究音乐评论的人以外，已鲜为人知。
Cardus的评论还有可能享有在他死后重新流行吗？前景似乎渺茫。在他去世以前很久，新闻业的品味早就已经改变了，而且他所擅长的措词华丽的维多利亚爱德华时期的散文风格对后现代的读者一点都没用。何况，由业余爱好者作音乐批评的传统早已经成为昨日黄花了。
Text 2
Over the past decade, thousands of patents have seen granted for what are called business methods. https://www.doczj.com/doc/841798882.html, received one for its “one-click” online payment system. Merrill Lynch got legal protection for an asset allocation strategy. One inventor patented a technique for lying a box.
Now the nation?s top patent court appears completely-property lawyers abuzz the U.S. court of Appeals for the federal circuit said it would use a particular case to conduct a broad review of business-method patents. In the Bilski, as the case is known, is a “very big deal”, says Dennis?D Crouch of the University of Missouri School of law. It “has the potential to eliminate an entire class of patents.”
Curbs on business-method claims would be a dramatic about-face, because it was the federal circuit itself that introduced such patents with is 1998 decision in the so-called state Street Bank case, approving a patent on a way of pooling mutual-fund assets. That ruling produced an explosion in business-method patent filings, initially by emerging internet companies trying to stake out exclusive pinhts to specific types of online transactions. Later, move established companies raced to add such patents to their files, if only as a defensive move against rivals that might bent them to the punch. In 2005, IBM noted in a court filing that it had been issued more than 300 business-method patents despite the fact that it questioned the legal basis for granting them. Similarly, some Wall Street investment films armed themselves with patents for financial products, even as they took positions in court cases opposing the practice.
The Bilski case involves a claimed patent on a method for hedging risk in the energy market. The Federal circuit issued an unusual order stating that the case would be heard by all 12 of the court?s judges, rather than a typical panel of three and
that one issue it wants to evaluate is weather it should “reconsider” its state street Bank ruling.
The Fede ral Circuit?s action comes in the wake of a series of recent decisions by the supreme Count that has narrowed the scope of protections for patent holders. Last April, for example the justices signaled that too many patents were being upheld for “inventions” that are obvious. The judges on the Federal circuit are “reacting to the anti_patent trend at the supreme court”, says Harole C.wegner, a partend attorney and professor at aeorge Washington University Law School.
在过去的十年中，成千上万的商业方法被授予了专利权。亚马逊网站获得的专利是在线“单击”付费系统。美林公司的资产分配方案得到了法律保护。有个发明者的提箱技巧也获得了专利。
现在，该国最高专利法院似乎完全准备好要缩减商业方法专利，因为商业方法专利自从十年前第一次批准授予以来一直有争议。在一项使得知识产权律师们议论纷纷的提议中，美国联邦巡回上诉法院声称它将利用某个具体案件来对商业方法专利进行广泛的复审。密苏里大学法学院Dennis D. Crouch说，“正如人们所知道的那样，Bilski案例是一件非常大的事情”它可能将消除整个专利类别”。
对于商业方法诉求的限制是个戏剧性的彻底变化，因为正是联邦巡回法院自己引进了这种专利。那是在1998年，对于所谓的美国道富银行的案件中，联邦巡回法院做出了判决，批准了筹集共同基金资产的方法具有专利权。这一裁决使得商业方法专利文件以几何数级增加，起初只是一些新兴的网络公司对于某些特定类型的在线交易系统试图争取独家专有权。后来，更多的公司竞相添加这样的专利权，希望这样一个防御性的行为可以先下手为强。2005年，IBM公司在一份法院报告中声称：尽管怀疑这种专利授权的法律基础，但它已经申请了300多份商业方法专利。同样，当一些华尔街投资公司出席某些反对其金融产品的法庭案件时，他们会给其各类金融产品申请专利来作为自己的维权武器。
前面提到的Bilski案例牵扯到一份已申请的方法专利，即关于能源市场的风险规避方法（注：也可译为“套期保值或对冲风险”）。上诉法院罕见地裁定，该案件将不由三位法官听审，而是由全部十二名法官共同进行。另外，上诉法院还宣布，它想探讨的另一件事情是是否应该“重审”道富银行的裁决。
联邦巡回法院的这一裁决效仿了最高法院。最高法院最近做出了一系列的判决，缩小了专利持有者的受保范围。例如，去年四月，法官们认定太多的专利授予了一些显而易见的“发明”。乔治华盛顿大学法律学院的专利法律师Harold C. Wegner教授表示，“联邦巡回法院的法官们正在对最高法院的反专利动态做出反应”。
Text 3
In his book The Tipping Point, Malcolm aladuell alques that social epidemics are dliven in large part by the acting of a tiny minority of special individuals, often called influentials, who are unusually informed, persuasive, or we connect. The idea is intuitively compelling, but it doesn?t explain how ideas actually spread.
The supposed importance of influentials derives from a plansible sounding but largely untested theory called the “tow-step flow of communication”. Information allows from the media to the influentials and from them to everyone else Marketers have embraced the two-step flow because it suggests that if they can just find and influence the influentials, those select people will do most of the work for them. The
theory also seems to explain the sudden and unexpected popularity of people was wearing, promoting or developing whatever it is before anyone else paid attention. Anecdotal evidence of this kind fits nicely with the idea that only certain special people can drive trends.
In their recent work, however, some researchers have come up with the finding that influentials have far less impact on social epidemics than is generally supposed. In fact, they don?t seem to be re quired of all.
The researchers? argument stems from a simple observing about social influence, with the exception of a few celebrities like Oprah Winfrey-whose outsize presence is primarily a function of media, not interpersonal, influence-even the most influential members of a population simply don?t interact with that many others. Yet it is precisely these non-celebring influentials who according to the two-step-flow theory, are supposed to drive social epidemics, by influcenciny their friends and colleagues directly. For a social epidemic to occur, however, each person so affected, must then influence his or her own acquaintances, who must in turn influence theirs, and so on; and just how many others pay attention to each of these people has little to do with initial influential. If people in the network just two degrees removed from the initial influential prove resistant, for example the casecade of change won?t propagate very far or affect many people.
Building on the basic truth about interpersonal influence, the researchers studied the dynamics of populations manipulating a number of variables relating to people?s ability to influence others and their tendencies to be.
在《引爆流行》这本书中，作者Malcolm Gladwell认为社会流行潮流在很大程度上是由一小部分特殊个体的行为引起的，这些人就是人们常说的影响者。他们异乎寻常的博闻多识，能言善辩，人脉广泛。从直觉上讲，Malcolm Gladwell 的理论似乎很有说服力，但是它没有解释流行观念的实际传播过程。
人们之所以认为影响者很重要，是因为受到了“两级传播”理论的影响，即信息先从媒体流向影响者，然后再从影响者流向其他人。这一理论看似合理，但未经验证。营销人员接受两级传播理论是因为该理论认为，如果他们能够找到影响者，并对他们施加影响，这些精英们就会替他们完成大部分的营销传播工作。这一理论似乎还可以解释某些装扮、品牌或社区为何会突然受到出乎意料的追捧。对于许多诸如此类的情况，如果只是走马观花地寻找原因，你会发现总是有一小群人开风气之先，率先穿上、宣传和开发人们此前从未留意的东西。这种事实证据与该观点正好一拍即合——只有一些特别的人才能引领潮流。
但是，在最近的研究中，一些研究人员发现，影响者对社会流行潮流的影响力远比人们认为的要小。事实上，他们似乎根本就是无关紧要。
研究者的观点源于对社会影响力的简单观察：除了少数像Oprah Winfrey 这样的名人之外（她强大的人气影响力主要来自媒体影响力，而非她与观众互动的人际影响力），即使人群中最有影响力的人也无法与那么多的“其他人”互动，从而引领潮流。然而，根据两级传播理论，正是这些非名人影响者直接影响了他们的朋友和同事，从而推动了社会流行潮流。但是，要让一种社会流行潮流真正发生，每个受影响的人还必须影响他的熟人，而他的熟人又必须影响其他熟人，依此类推；但是会有多少人去关注这些熟人中的每个人，与最初的影响者几乎没有关系。举个例子来说，在这个人际影响的网络中，如果第一个影响者受到两次抵
制，那么他的连锁影响范围就不会继续扩大，或者说影响的人不会很多。
基于这一人际影响力的基本事实，研究者们研究了社会影响的动力机制。我们对不同人群进行了成千上万次计算机模拟，不断调整人们影响他人和受他人影响的各种变量。他们发现，人们所说的“全球连锁反应” 发生的主要前提，并不取决于是否存在着那么几个影响者，而主要取决于易受影响的人们是否达到了临界数量。
Text 4
Bankers have been blaming themselves for their troubles in public. Behind the scenes, they have been taking aim at someone else; the accounting standard-setters. Their rules, moan the banks, have forced them to report enormous losses, and it?s just not fair. These rules say they must valve some assets at the price a third party would pay, not the price managers and regulators would like them to fetch.
Unfortunately, banks? lobbying now seems to be working. The details may be unknowable, but the independence of standard-setters, essential to the proper functioning of capital markets, is being compromised. And, unless banks carry toxic assets at prices that attract buyers, reviving the banking system will be difficult. After a bruising encounter with Congress, America?s Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) rushed through rule changes. These gave banks more freedom to use models to value illiquid assets and more flexibility in recognizing losses on long-term assets in their income statement. Bob Herz, the FASB?s chairman, cried out against those who “question our motives.” Yet bank shares rose and the changes enhance what one lobby group politely call s “the use of judgment by management.”
European ministers instantly demanded that the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) do likewise. The IASB says it does not want to act without overall planning, but the pressure to fold when it completes it reconstruction of rules later this year is strong. Charlie McCreevy, a European commissioner, warned the IASB that it did “not live in a political vacuum” but “in the real world” and that Europe could yet develop different rules.
It was banks that were on the wrong planet, with accounts that vastly overvalued assets. Today they argue that market prices overstate losses, because they largely reflect the temporary illiquidity of markets, not the likely extent of bad debts. The truth will not be known for yea rs. But bank?s shares trade below their book value, suggesting that investors are skeptical. And dead markets partly reflect the paralysis of banks which will not sell assets for fear of booking losses, yet are reluctant to buy all those supposed bargains.
To get the system working again, losses must be recognized and dealt with. America?s new plan to buy up toxic assets will not work unless banks mark assets to levels which buyers find attractive. Successful markets require and even combative standard-setters. The FASB and IASB have been exactly that, cleaning up rules on stock options and pensions, for example, against hostility form special interests. But by giving in to critics now they are inviting pressure to make more concessions.
台面上，银行家们将他们的麻烦归咎于己身，台面下，他们一直把目标对准他人：会计准则制定者。银行业抱怨会计规则迫使他们报告巨大损失，认为这不公平。规则规定他们必须以第三方付出价格来评估部分资产的价值，而非按照管
理者和监管者期望该资产能够获得的价格。
不幸的是，银行的游说活动看来已显成效。其中细节可能无法获知，但是准则制定者在独立性方面——这正是资产市场正常运行的关键——已经做出妥协了。银行如果不以能够吸引买家的价格计量有毒资产，银行系统的复苏将会非常困难。
美国FASB（财务会计准则委员会）在与国会激烈摩擦之后，匆匆通过了规则的修改。这些修改使得银行在使用模型评估非流动资方面用有更大的自由，同时使得它们确认收益表中长期资产损失时更为灵活。FASB主席Bob Herz大声反对那些“怀疑我们的动机”的人们。然而银行股票上涨了，这些修改强化了“管理层使用理性判断”的说法，这种说法是一个游说团的客气之言。
欧洲的部长们立刻要求国际会计准则委员会(IASB)也这么做。IASB表示它不想没有完整计划就冒然行动，但它在今年下半年完成规则修订时必须屈服的压力十分巨大。4月1日，欧洲委员会委员Charlie McCreevy警告IASB说：它不是“处在政治真空中”而是“在现实世界里”，并表示欧洲可能最终会发展出不同的会计规则。
正是这些银行呆错了星球，它们的账目上充斥着估值过高的资产。现在他们争论道市价高估了损失，因为市价主要反映了市场的暂时性流动性不足，而非坏账的可能范围。几年中没人会知道真相。但是，银行股票以低于账面价值的价格交易，这一点反应了投资者的怀疑。死寂的市场一定程度上反应了瘫痪的银行既不希望承受账面损失而出售资产，也不愿意去购买这些被认为是便宜货的资产。
为了让银行系统重新运转起来，损失必须被确认和处理。美国收购有毒资产的新计划只有在银行将资产定价在足够吸引买家的水平上才会有效。成熟的市场需要独立的，甚至是好斗的标准制定者。FASB和IASB以往正是这样对抗特殊利益集团的敌意的，例如改进股权和退休金的相关规则。然而此次为了缓和危机，他们给自己带来了做出更多妥协的压力