Przykładowe Materiały Egzaminacyjne JĘzyk angielski poziom 3 Czytanie
Download 1.02 Mb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- Technologies become popular when they …
- Compared to PC manufacture, the computer services business…
- HP and Compaq hope they will …
- In the future people will …
- The author is being ironic about …
- The author thinks America is doing well …
- Efforts are being made to get the Pashtuns to join the new regime to …
- Clausewitz thinks a good general is someone who …
The Boringness of ComputersTechnologies come and go, but fame passes even more quickly. Back in the 1980s, when but a few technically-minded people were playing around with computer networks, who cared? It wasn't until technical changes made using the Internet easy enough that things really got interesting. Likewise, computers in the 1960s rarely made the evening news, but now everybody knows the story of those two kids in a garage who created the first Apple. In each case the technology had become personal. Computing and networking existed before they became popular, and they will continue to exist long after we stop thinking about them altogether. That day seems a whole lot closer now that Hewlett-Packard Corp. has announced its plan to acquire Compaq Computers. Each of these firms became recognizable by making attractive-looking products. At a time when PCs were deskbound, Compaq put them in a shock-resistant case and sold the first "portables." HP calculators had a superb design and manufacturing quality. And what pleasure could compare with operating an HP oscilloscope? Now Compaq's portables exist only in museums, and HP sold its instruments division years ago. Both companies make personal computers, but these have gotten so boring and static that they no longer inspire. By merging, HP and Compaq are trying to get away from selling hardware in favor of computer services. From a business point of view, the appeal of the services business is obvious. IBM, for instance, makes big profits on its services business which employs more than a third of its 300.000-plus work force. Analysts estimate IBM and other firms make 30 or 40 cents in profits for each dollar in services. PC makers are lucky to get a few pennies. What is a service? It is the toll-free phone number you call when your PC crashes after loading your favorite videogame. When a friend tells you whether or not you should upgrade to Windows XP, that's a service. Of course, if you happen to be the chief technology officer of a giant multinational, there's more to it than buying laptops for your sales force. These days computing and networking support every aspect of what a big company does. But only if a web of networked computers can absorb, analyze, and show the meaning of each and every datum. Off-the-shelf products cannot do this. One German auto manufacturer is going to want something very different from a bank in London or an oil company in Venezuela. Computer services also happen to require enormous pools of expertise and experience. That's what HP and Compaq are hoping their combined forces will amount to. Analysts say that the two firms' services business is made up mostly of less-profitable product support, not the fancier consulting work that IBM and other services firms do. Eventually, IBM and the combined HP-Compaq will be giant service companies with little involvement in computers and technology. So what does this mean for the future of computers? A popular notion is that computers will be everywhere – in our clothes, appliances and other everyday objects, and that they will communicate wirelessly with something resembling the Internet. IBM is now trying hard to fashion a vision of the Internet as a sort of autonomic nervous system. But what will these intelligent, communicative everyday objects actually do? If we knew, we most likely would cease to think about them in terms of the computer and networking technologies that make them possible, just as we now turn on our PCs while ignoring the electrical system we plug them into. It takes some effort to imagine that people once got excited over electric power. One day soon (if not already) it will be the same for PCs and Internet-service providers.
Text 47 The Pentagon will have to take note of the new rule for fighting America's wars – you have to win in one month. Actually three weeks. Last week, about 25 days into the campaign, political commentators in Washington decided that America was losing the war. (This bold conclusion was based on virtually no evidence, but that didn't stop any one.) Political magazines argued that the military operation was obviously doomed and that the only way to salvage it was an invasion of Afghanistan with U.S. ground forces. All this because three weeks into the war the Taliban had not collapsed! In fact, the campaign in Afghanistan is going reasonably well. Of course it's a tough assignment coupled with hellish logistics. Remember that the war against Iraq was preceded by a six-month buildup, using state-of-the-art military bases in neighboring Saudi Arabia. Kosovo was in NATO's backyard. Both places had military and industrial targets that could be bombed. We have become conditioned to believe that American military operations should have amazing, instant success – and if not, something must have gone terribly wrong. For the critics, it was the diplomacy that was all wrong. A week into the war they began complaining that Secretary of State Colin Powell's coalition-building was crippling the campaign, forcing us to make bad military decisions for political reasons. In fact, the diplomats have no incentive to slow down the military operations. Their efforts have led to logistic support from allies in the region. A senior American official told me: "The real problem is that we have no bases close by from which to fly and our allies on the ground are weak. Our aircraft are flying for several hours before they bomb, often being refuelled twice in the air. That's why we're flying fewer sorties than we did in Kosovo or the Persian Gulf." More important, the idea that political considerations should be excluded from military strategy is absurd. The central insight of Clausewitz's "On War" – perhaps the most influential book on the subject – is that war is an extension of politics by other means. Consider the current war. We need the support, intelligence, troops or bases of key Muslim states in the region – Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Turkey and these regimes are all fearful of public unrest. So we have been careful to minimize civilian casualties, launched a humanitarian effort and are drawing a sharp distinction between Islam and terrorism. Is this so stupid? Or take the efforts to help create a post-Taliban regime. It may look like altruistic nation-building but in fact it's smart strategy. The nightmare scenario for Washington is that the Pashtuns – who make up 40 percent of the country, dominate the south and don't like the Northern Alliance – coalesce around the Taliban to prevent an alliance victory. If the Taliban stays strong in the south, Al Qaeda will stay hidden and America will be in Afghanistan for a long time. So we are encouraging the Northern Alliance to adopt a "no reprisals" policy against the Pashtuns and other Taliban supporters. We are also trying – with some success – to persuade the Pashtuns that they will have an important place in a post-Taliban regime as well as offering up some economic aid. "We would be crazy not to worry about all these political considerations,” the American official told me. "If we help on the political front it makes our military strategy easier." Getting this mix right, amid a fog of information and misinformation, is slow and difficult. If the pundits don't see that, Clausewitz did. "A general in time of war is constantly bombarded by reports both true and false,” he wrote. "He is exposed to countless impressions, most of them disturbing, few of them encouraging…. If a man were to yield to these pressures, he would never complete the operation. Perseverance in the chosen course is the essential counterweight…. It is steadfastness that will earn the admiration of the world and of posterity." I think that means not losing faith in the third week.
Text 48 Directory: plik -> file -> Do pobrania - Mat. Egzaminacyjne -> Angielski Angielski -> Two texts. For questions 1 to 6 plik -> March 4th-8th 2000; ustroń, poland Download 1.02 Mb. Share with your friends:
|