【推荐1】I climb for all women

Between raising two daughters and working as a dishwasher at Whole Foods, the native of Nepal Lhakpa Sherpa just doesn’t have time for training to climb Qomolangma, known in the West as Mount Everest.     1     And she hopes to outdo herself this month again.

Lhakpa is recognized by Guinness World Records and is well known in mountaineering circles.     2     But as a girl growing up in the Sherpa ethnic community, she wasn’t allowed to attend school. Without a formal education, she has taken a job as a dishwasher to give her daughters and now-grown son a chance at a better life in the United States.

    3     Sherpa girls were discouraged from climbing. Becoming a climber was harder, especially after the first Nepali woman to reach the summit, Pasang Lhamu Sherpa, died on her way down the mountain in 1993. Lhakpa joined an expedition of five women in 2000 who convinced the government to give them a permit.     4    

Last month, her adopted home town of West Hartford claimed her to be “Queen of Mount Everest”. Despite being known as “Queen of Mount Everest”, to many of her co-workers, she’s just Lhakpa, a very humble person. “I don’t need to be famous.     5     There is no difference in climbing a mountain. I climb for all women. I want to keep doing my sport. If I don’t do my sport, I feel tired. I want to push my limits.”

【推荐2】Should universities focus on training workers for the next decade or curing diseases for the next century? A group of governors, educators, and CEOs weighed in on the best way universities can prepare for the future. They debated how the U.S. can take the responsibility for research while still preparing students for real jobs.

Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin said that the first thing she thinks about as governor is educating Oklahoma students and strengthening the workforce. So she’s carrying out a program called “America Works: Education and Training for Tomorrow’s Jobs” that aims to “reorganize our education system with the current needs of our employers”.

The state governor added that this new educational approach doesn’t just benefit students and companies, but also improves the state economy. “We’ve been able to attract new companies to our state because of what we’re doing with our universities, because our students are a pipeline for the workforce,” she said, “General Electric Company (one of the world’s biggest companies) is coming to Oklahoma.”

Other group members were more focused on the long-term goals of a research university. Amy Gutmann pointed out that “basic research is the foundation for everything else that happens at a university. And if we don’t do it, nobody else will.”

“And if nobody does that research, we’ll pay the price in health care bills,” argued Vagelos, who is a former CEO of Merck & Co., Inc, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. And a specific drug for a cold is reported to be produced by the company. “The jobs of universities are basic research, which is what is needed for attacks on disease,” he said. “There has been a reduction in coronary heart disease (冠心病) by 60% in the last forty years because of this research, and that reduces health care costs.”

James Hunt, former North Carolina governor, argued for a happy medium. Effective communication, he said, would help the public see that the research conducted at universities actually serves a practical purpose.

Eli Broad, founder of the Broad Foundations, agreed. “We have to show the public what research has achieved,” he said, “We have to show how it actually goes from basic research to something they can understand.”

【推荐3】DATE: March 11

TO: Sabrina Weissman

FROM: Grace Montgarden

CC: Marcus Stroud

SUBJECT: Letter of Concern

This memo(备忘录) serves as an official notice of concern as a result of your use of leave, and your unpunctuality(不守时) to work. Our records indicate that you have used an unusually large number of sick days over the past three months, using up your sick leave for the service year. You are now being docked pay(扣薪) for any sick leave reported. A breakdown of your leave usage during the past three months was as follows

● Sick or unscheduled(非计划中的) leave days 10 ●Scheduled leave days 5

In addition, during the past five months there were 8 days when you were more than 10 minutes late for work.

As an accountant for the Reykjavik public Works Department, you are responsible for financial activities that are critical(关键的) to effective operation of the office. I must be able to rely on your regular attendance in order to make decisions regarding distribution of work assignments. You should pay attention to the following requirements

● Doctor’s note required for absences of 3 or more days

●Obtain reliable child care in preparation for upcoming student vacation days

●Required call to supervisor(主管) when expecting to be more than 10 minutes late to work

You will be expected to stick to the above requirements. The above stated conditions and requirements-will be in effect for all future absences. Failure to obey the requirements will make you subject to(遭受) disciplinary action(纪律处分).

Respectfully, Grace Montgarden Personnel Officer

Reykjavik Public Works Department

【推荐1】Jennifer Destefano answered a call from a number she did not recognize. “Mom, I messed up,” her daughter’s voice told her, crying. “These bad men have me.” A man went on to demand money, or he would drug her daughter and leave her in Mexico. But while she kept him on the phone, friends managed to reach her daughter, only to discover that she was, in fact, free and well on a skiing trip in Arizona. The voice used on the phone was a fake.

Voice cloning’s influences will be huge. For several years, customers have been able to identify themselves over the phone to their bank and other companies using their voice. Not even a gifted mimic (巧于模仿的人) could fool the detection system. But the arrival of cloning will force adaptation in order to prevent cheating.

Creative industries could face the impact too. Voice actors’ skills, trained over a lifetime, can be copied in seconds. But some actors may, in fact, find cloning congenial. Val Kilmer, who has lost much of his voice to throat cancer, was delighted to have his voice restored for “Top Gun: Maverick”.

Another industry that will have to come to cope with the rise of clones is journalism. Now who will trust a story based on an audio clip (片段)? Slightly easier to manage might be the false positives: recordings claiming to be someone but which are fakes. The opposite problem — the false negatives — will appear when public figures deny real recordings. Proving that a clip is genuine is bard, perhaps even impossible. Journalists will need to show how they obtained and stored audio files.

The term “fake news” had existed long before voice cloning. Now, ever more people caught in a crime are likely to defend themselves. “It wasn’t me.” And many people will have even more reason to believe them.