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JPRangaswami_2012S-_信息就是食物_
I love my food. 我热爱食品
And I love information. 我也热爱信息。
My children usually tell me that one of those passions is a little more apparent than the other. 我的孩子们常常对我说 我看起来显然更像个吃货。
passions:n.强烈情感;激情;盛怒;(passion的复数) apparent:adj.显然的;表面上的;
(Laughter) （笑声）
But what I want to do in the next eight minutes or so is to take you through how those passions developed, the point in my life when the two passions merged , the journey of learning that took place from that point. 不过在接下来的八分钟里 我会向大家介绍这两个爱好是如何发展的, 它们合二为一的时刻, 以及此后我的学习旅程。
merged:adj.(美俚)结了婚的;v.(使)合并,并入;相融;(merge的过去分词和过去式) journey:n.旅行;行程;vi.旅行;
And one idea I want to leave you with today is what would would happen differently in your life if you saw information the way you saw food? 今天我想把下面这个问题留给你们: 如果像看待食物那样看待信息 你的生活会有什么样的改变？
I was born in Calcutta -- a family where my father and his father before him were journalists , and they wrote magazines in the English language. 我出生在加尔各答（印度城市） 我的父亲和祖父 都是记者, 他们用英语为杂志写文章。
Calcutta:n.加尔各答(印度城市); journalists:n.新闻记者(journalist的复数);
That was the family business. 这就是我家的家族产业。
And as a result of that, 因此,
as a result:结果;
I grew up with books everywhere around the house. 我小时候家里全是书。
And I mean books everywhere around the house. 真的是堆满了,就像这样。
And that's actually a shop in Calcutta, but it's a place where we like our books. 这其实是加尔各答的一家商店, 不过光顾那里的都是爱书人。
In fact, I've got 38,000 of them now and no Kindle in sight. 事实上,我现在一共有三万八千本书 而且没有Kindle（亚马逊出品的电子书）。
Kindle:vt.点燃;激起;照亮;vi.发亮;着火;激动起来;
But growing up as a child with the books around everywhere, with people to talk to about those books, this wasn't a sort of slightly learned thing. 我成长的时候身边全是书 和喜欢讨论书的人, 这对我的影响很大。
slightly:adv.些微地,轻微地;纤细地;
By the time I was 18, I had a deep passion for books. 我十八岁的时候就对书籍有着深深的依恋。
It wasn't the only passion I had. 读书不是我唯一的爱好。
I was a South Indian brought up in Bengal. 我来自印度南部 在孟加拉长大。
And two of the things about Bengal: they like their savory dishes and they like their sweets. 孟加拉人有两大爱好: 他们喜欢美食 和甜点。
savory:adj.可口的;风味极佳的;味美的;n.开胃菜;香薄荷;
So by the time I grew up, again, I had a well-established passion for food. 所以我长大之后, 对美食的爱好根深蒂固。
well-established:adj.得到确认的; v.已确立起来; (well-establish的过去分词);
Now I was growing up in the late '60s and early '70s, and there were a number of other passions I was also interested in, but these two were the ones that differentiated me. 我成长在六十年代末七十年代初, 也有不少其它兴趣, 但这两个爱好让我与众不同。
differentiated:adj.分化型;已分化的;可区分的;v.使有差别(differentiate的过去分词);
(Laughter) （笑声）
And then life was fine, dandy . 随后我的生活一帆风顺。
dandy:adj.上等的,极好的(口语);服装华丽的;n.花花公子;好打扮的人;
Everything was okay, until I got to about the age of 26, and I went to a movie called " Short Circuit ." 一切都挺好的, 直到我二十六岁那一年。 我看了一部名叫《雷霆五号》（Short Circuit）的电影。
Short Circuit:vt.使短路;缩短;使…不工作;使简短;vi.发生短路;
Oh, some of you have seen it. 哦,你们好多人都看过。
And apparently it's being remade right now and it's going to be coming out next year. 现在这部电影正在被重拍 明年上映。
apparently:adv.显然地;似乎,表面上; remade:v.重造,再做(remake的过去式及过去分词);
It's the story of this experimental robot which got electrocuted and found a life. 故事的主人公是这个实验机器人 它触电之后通了人性。
experimental:adj.实验的;根据实验的;试验性的; electrocuted:v.使触电受伤(或死亡);用电刑处死;(electrocute的过去分词和过去式)
And as it ran, this thing was saying, "Give me input . Give me input ." 在影片中,它一直说:“我要信息输入。我要信息输入。”
input:n.投入; v.把(数据等)输入计算机;
And I suddenly realized that for a robot both information as well as food were the same thing. 我突然意识到,对于机器人来说 信息和食物 是一个东西。
as well as:也;和…一样;不但…而且;
Energy came to it in some form or shape, data came to it in some form or shape. 能量以某种形式或形态进入它的身体, 数据以某种形式或形态进入它的身体。
And I began to think, 我开始思考
I wonder what it would be like to start imagining myself as if energy and information were the two things I had as input -- as if food and information were similar in some form or shape. 我在想 既然食物和信息从某种程度上来说十分相似 那么我们能否将能量和信息 统一视为输入呢？
I started doing some research then, and this was the 25-year journey, and started finding out that actually human beings as primates have far smaller stomachs than should be the size for our body weight and far larger brains. 我从那时起开始从事相关的研究,到现在已经二十五年了 我最早的发现就是 若以体重为标准 身为灵长类动物的人类 胃很小 大脑却很大
primates:n.灵长类;
And as I went to research that even further, 深入研究之后
I got to a point where I discovered something called the expensive tissue hypothesis . 我发现了 一种名为昂贵组织的假说
tissue:n.纸巾,手巾纸;(人、动植物细胞的)组织; hypothesis:n.假设;
That actually for a given body mass of a primate the metabolic rate was static . 这种假说认为:对于一定体重的灵长类动物来说 新陈代谢率是一定的。
mass:n.块,团; adj.群众的,民众的; v.聚集起来,聚集; metabolic:adj.变化的;新陈代谢的; static:adj.静止的; n.[物]静电(干扰);
What changed was the balance of the tissues available. 不同的是体内各种组织的平衡。
tissues:n.纸巾,手巾纸;(人、动植物细胞的)组织;(tissue的复数)
And two of the most expensive tissues in our human body are nervous tissue and digestive tissue. 而人体内两种最为昂贵的组织 是神经组织和消化组织
digestive:adj.消化的;助消化的;n.助消化药;
And what transpired was that people had put forward a hypothesis that was apparently coming up with some fabulous results by about 1995. 因此人们提出了一个假设 1995年的时候这个假设衍生出了不少精彩的成果。
transpired:v.公开;为人所知;发生;(植物)水分蒸发;(transpire的过去式和过去分词) put forward:v.提出;拿出;放出;推举出; fabulous:adj.难以置信的;传说的,寓言中的;极好的;
It's a lady named Leslie Aiello. 这些成果背后的功臣是一位名叫Leslie Aiello的女士。
And the paper then suggested that you traded one for the other. 相关的论文显示,胃和大脑,不可兼得。
If you wanted your brain for a particular body mass to be large, you had to live with a smaller gut . 在体重一定的情况下,如果你希望拥有更大的大脑的话, 就只能拥有一个比较小的胃。
gut:n.勇气;肠道;内脏;v.损毁内部;取出…的内脏;adj.非理性的;本能的
That then set me off completely to say, Okay, these two are connected. 这种观点让我确信 食物和信息一定有关联。
So I looked at the cultivation of information as if it were food and said, So we were hunter-gathers of information. 因此我把信息当成食物,研究了它的生产过程 我的结论是,我们都是信息的捕猎者和采集者。
cultivation:n.培养;耕作;耕种;教化;文雅;
We moved from that to becoming farmers and cultivators of information. 后来我们逐渐成为培育信息的农民和生产者。
cultivators:n.耕者;栽培者;耕田机;
Does that really explain what we're seeing with the intellectual property battles nowadays? 这是否能解释 今天的知识产权斗争呢？
intellectual property:知识产权;
Because those people who were hunter-gatherers in origin wanted to be free and roam and pick up information as they wanted, and those that were in the business of farming information wanted to build fences around it, create ownership and wealth and structure and settlement . 因为信息捕猎者和采集者 希望能自由自在的获取他们想要的信息, 而那些从事信息生产的人 希望用栅栏保护他们的产品 建立所有制,积累财富,形成体系,达成协议
hunter-gatherers:n.采集狩猎的人; origin:n.起源;起因;源头;出身; roam:vi.漫游,漫步;流浪;vt.在…漫步,漫游;在…流浪;n.漫步,漫游;流浪; wealth:n.财富;大量;富有; structure:n.结构;构造;建筑物;vt.组织;构成;建造; settlement:n.协议:处理:结算:定居点;
So there was always going to be a tension within that. 因此两者的关系总是有点紧张。
tension:n.张力;拉伸;矛盾;紧张局势(或关系,状况);v.绷紧;
And everything I saw in the cultivation said there were huge fights amongst the foodies between the cultivators and the hunter-gatherers. 在食物生产中 生产者和捕猎者以及采集者之间 一直都有诸多冲突。
amongst:prep.在…之中;在…当中(等于among); foodies:n.美食家(foodie的复数);
And this is happening here. 信息范畴也是如此。
When I moved to preparation, this same thing was true, expect that there were two schools. 我发现信息和食物在处理环节上也有相似之处, 而且都有两种风格。
One group of people said you can distill your information, you can extract value, separate it and serve it up, while another group turned around and said no, no you can ferment it. 一些人认为可以提炼食物的精华 将食物的价值从原料中提取和分离出来,然而呈现在餐桌上, 但是另外一部分人 不同意这种做法。
distill:vt.提取;蒸馏;使滴下;vi.蒸馏;滴下;作为精华产生(等于distil); extract:v.提取;取出;摘录;榨取;n.汁;摘录;榨出物;选粹; ferment:n.发酵;酵素;动乱;vi.发酵;动乱;vt.使发酵;酝酿;使动乱;
You bring it all together and mash it up and the value emerges that way. 他们认为要把原料混合在一起 才能体现食物的价值。
mash:n.饲料;糊状物;麦芽浆;vt.捣碎;调情; emerges:vi.浮现;摆脱;暴露;
The same is again true with information. 信息也是如此。
But consumption was where it started getting really enjoyable . 但摄入环节更加有趣
consumption:n.消费;消耗;肺痨; enjoyable:adj.快乐的;令人愉快的;
Because what I began to see then was there were so many different ways people would consume this. 因为我发现 人们摄取食物和信息的方法实在很多。
consume:v.消耗;吃;毁灭;烧毁;
They'd buy it from the shop as raw ingredients . 我们可以在商店里购买原材料。
ingredients:n.成分;(尤指烹饪)原料;(成功的)要素;(ingredient的复数)
Do you cook it? Do you have it served to you? 自己做饭;吃现成的;
Do you go to a restaurant? 或者下馆子。
The same is true every time as I started thinking about information. 信息也是这样
The analogies were getting crazy -- that information had sell-by dates, that people had misused information that wasn't dated properly and could really make an effect on the stock market , on corporate values, etc. 这个类比真是贴切无比—— 信息也有保质期, 误用过时新闻 可能对股票市场和企业市值等 造成影响。
analogies:n.类比;类推法; misused:vt.滥用;误用;虐待;n.滥用;误用;虐待; stock market:股票市场;证券市场;股票交易; corporate:adj.公司的;组成公司(或团体)的;法人的;社团的;
And by this time I was hooked . 至此我已经彻底沉迷其中不可自拔了。
hooked:adj.弯曲的; v.(使)钩住,挂住; (hook的过去分词和过去式)
And this is about 23 years into this process . 这差不多是在我进行了二十三年的研究之后发生的事情。
process:v.处理;加工;列队行进;n.过程,进行;方法,adj.经过特殊加工(或处理)的;
And I began to start thinking of myself as we start having mash-ups of fact and fiction, docu-dramas, mockumentaries, whatever you call it. 这时我开始想 我们逐渐开始将现实和虚构混合在一起, 发展出了纪录剧情片,伪纪录片,名字并不重要。
mash-ups:混搭;混搭式应用;混搭式内容;(mash-ups是mash-up的复数)
Are we going to reach the stage where information has a percentage for fact associated with it? 在未来的某个阶段 我们会不会给信息标上一个事实比例呢？
percentage:n.百分比;百分率;利润的分成;提成; associated:adj.有关联的; v.联想; (associate的过去分词和过去式)
We start labeling information for the fact percentage? 用事实比例来标记不同的信息？
labeling:n.标签;标记;[计]标号;v.贴标签;分类;(label的现在分词)
Are we going to start looking at what happens when your information source is turned off, as a famine ? 如果信息的源头被阻断 在信息饥荒中,又会发生什么呢？
source:n.来源;水源;原始资料; famine:n.饥荒;
Which brings me to the final element of this. 这也是我最后想探讨的一个问题。
element:n.元素;要素;原理;成分;自然环境;
Clay Shirky once stated that there is no such animal as information overload , there is only filter failure. Clay Shirky曾经说过世界上不存在信息过载, 只有过滤失败。
Clay:n.黏土;陶土; overload:vt.超载,超过负荷;n.超载;负荷过多; filter:n.滤波器;过滤器;滤光器;滤声器;v.过滤;渗入;(用程序)筛选;缓行;
I put it to you that information, if viewed from the point of food, is never a production issue; you never speak of food overload. 我认为, 如果从食物的角度思考, 信息的问题不在于生产;没有人会说食物过剩。
Fundamentally it's a consumption issue. 从根本上说,这是一个摄入的问题。
Fundamentally:adv.从根本上;基础地;重要地
And we have to start thinking about how we create diets within ourselves, exercise within ourselves, to have the faculties to be able to deal with information, to have the labeling to be able to do it responsibly . 我们必须开始思考 我们如何用合理的饮食习惯和身体锻炼 帮助身体处理消化各类信息, 确保信息得到准确有效的标记。
faculties:n.系,学院;才能,能力;全体教员(faculty的复数形式); responsibly:adv.负责地,可信赖地;
In fact, when I saw " Supersize Me," I starting thinking of saying, 事实上,我看《大号的我》(Supersize Me)的时候就在想,
Supersize:n.超大型快餐;超大量;
What would happen if an individual had 31 days nonstop Fox News? 如果一个人 连续看三十一天不眠不休的看福克斯新闻会怎么样？
individual:n.个人;有个性的人;adj.单独的;个别的; nonstop:adj.直达的;不休息的;不着陆的;n.直达车;adv.不休息地;
(Laughter) （笑声）
Would there be time to be able to work with it? 他会有时间消化这些信息吗？
So you start really understanding that you can have diseases , toxins , a need to balance your diet, and once you start looking, and from that point on, everything I have done in terms of the consumption of information, 这样你就会明白 你可能会得病、中毒,你需要平衡你的饮食, 一旦开始这样想,从那个时刻开始, 与信息有关的事情:信息的摄入、
diseases:n.[医]病(disease的复数);[医]疾病;[植保]病害;疾病种类; toxins:n.[毒物]毒素,毒质;毒素类(toxin的复数);
the production of information, the preparation of information, 信息的生产、信息的处理,
I've looked at from the viewpoint of food. 我都从食物的角度去思考。
viewpoint:n.观点;角度;看法;
It has probably not helped my waistline any because I like practicing on both sides. 这可能让我的腰围愈发可观 因为无论是信息还是食物我都喜欢亲身实验。
waistline:n.腰围;腰身部分;
But I'd like to leave you with just that question: 最后,我还是希望将这样一个问题留给你们:
If you began to think of all the information that you consume the way you think of food, what would you do differently? 如果从食物的角度 看待你接受的所有信息 你会做出怎样的改变？
Thank you very much for your time. 谢谢大家。
(Applause) （掌声）