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Файл:Английский язык для магистрантов в сфере компьютерных наук = English Master’s Course In Computer Science. Учебное пособие
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Text 4.
Pub lunches and making the boss tea:
what it’s like to work in the UK
From tea breaks to after-work drinks, Britain has
a unique work culture. Migrants from across the world
share their experiences of working in the UK
Charlotte Seager
Pub culture, long hours, after-work drinks and too many tea breaks:
Britain is a unique place to work. But what else sets the �K apart? For
a start, our employees work the longest hours in Europe, with those
in London working an average of eight hours overtime a week. We’re
also big moaners: the average �K employee spends si working days a
year moaning about their job.
So how do these differences translate to working life? We speak to
migrants from Sweden, Canada and Italy who tell us how working in
the �K differs to the rest of the world.
‘It’s hectic – British people work all year round’
Nejc Skoberne, head of growth at HonestBrew, moved from Sweden
to London in 2014
The biggest difference about the �K’s work culture is the driven and
“all-in” mentality. By this I mean that people are more dedicated to their
professions. They’re more motivated than people working in Sweden, where
the work pace is slower and people do not feel as devoted to their job. In the
�K there’s also no real summer break – like we have in Sweden – where
basically the whole country shuts down for two months. The summer break
in Sweden usually starts in the second week of July and ends in the second
week of August and it’s incredibly funny, as the subway in Stockholm is
almost empty for four weeks. There’s no similar period in the �K, so work
continues all year round ecept for the short Christmas holidays.
The thing I miss most about Sweden is the non-hectic lifestyle and
how everyone is relaed and a lot more laid back. London in particular
has an edgy and rushed feel to it, and you can’t seem to unwind until
you actually leave the city.
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The �K pub lunch culture is also bigger and better than in other
countries. In Sweden, pub culture just does not eist. The after-work pub
culture seems to be the only way to meet new people in London. Old
friends usually live at least 30 minutes away, so even if they are free,
it’s hard to meet after work. Generally, Swedish people hang out with
the same friends they met in school and don’t really interact with other
groups at after-work events like in the �K.
‘I never had to make my boss tea before, it’s a very British thing’
Jonathan Roach, personal trainer at Inner Wolf Fitness, moved
from Canada to Barton-under-Needwood, a village on the border of
Staffordshire and Derbyshire
The first thing I noticed about working in the �K was the level of
stress. British employees are put under pressure to deliver eceptional
work constantly. Many �K employees are often epected to work well
past their shift without much appreciation. It’s as if their jobs are meant
to become their lives. In Canada, your work ends at the end of your shift.
There’s a time and place for work in Canada, whereas the �K seems to
have a 24-hour-a-day work mentality. Workers in the �K also all seem to
be specialists. There’s someone to: clean your clothes, clean your house,
wash your windows, cut your grass, even someone to walk your dog. In
rural Canada, those jobs don’t eist and we do those things ourselves.
If I were to choose one thing I miss most about Canada, I’d have
to choose the nature. I miss working outside and being under the sun.
Many jobs I’ve held in my part of Canada involve some sort of outdoor
activity. Even the jobs that are predominantly indoors will recommend
taking short breaks throughout the day to eit the building and get some
fresh air. In the �K, I feel like most work shifts involve staying within
the same building or around a desk for the majority of the day. I feel far
more contained than I did in Canada. Also, I never had to make my boss
a cup of tea in Canada, it’s a very British thing.
‘There’s a lot of pressure to drink after work – it’s part of
British culture’
Hanisa North, a marketing manager at ClubApp, grew up in
Malaysia, worked in Singapore and moved to London in 2014
The biggest difference between working in the �K and Asia is the
after-work socialising. In Asia I found that most colleagues just saw
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work as work and would not be keen to socialise with colleagues outside
of the office. My colleagues worked very long hours and were hesitant
to take leave, whereas there is a much better work-life balance in the
�K – people aren’t afraid to take a holiday (and rightly so). But I do find
sometimes that admin systems are better equipped in Singapore – it is
more efficient whereas the �K has a very traditional system; they can’t
seem to get away from the paperwork.
After being overseas, I found it hard to re-adjust to the English
culture. I had been to London a couple times on holiday, but the city
is completely overwhelming and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to handle it,
especially having lived in a small city like Singapore for the past four
years. I felt London was far too big and unsafe. I was in such a sheltered
environment that coming to London really brought you back down to
the real world. However, it’s been nearly two years now and I love the
city, it’s fantastic and diverse.
In the �K your job is a huge part of your life, so I found colleagues
are keen to become friends and to get to know you as a person rather
than just someone at the company, which isn’t the case in Singapore.
The other aspect is the drinking culture – I’m not a big drinker at all so I
do find there is a lot of pressure to have a drink. It’s embedded in British
culture. But I like that colleagues want to meet up and have a chat and
a laugh after a day’s work, it brings the team closer.
‘The UK has an easy-going work environment’
Yohann Advikolanu, solution architect in software development for
Holovis, moved from India to Leicester in 2014
The �K has a very easy-going working environment; there is more
interaction and sharing between colleagues and across management levels.
In India, everything is based on a hierarchy and work is a much more
personal eperience with little social interaction, unless the task or project
requires it. The work hierarchy in India can often be restrictive, stopping
people from speaking out and suggesting ideas or better practice. That is a
hard mindset to break. As I didn’t work for long in India I would say I’m
more akin with the �K style of working. One element I do appreciate is
being able to ask questions and interact directly with my boss.
Here, people are also much more social – different levels of
management and employees all go out together. Different levels of
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employees would not interact freely in India, so things seem much more
fleible in the �K.
https://www.theguardian.com/careers/2016/sep/16/pub-lunches-and-too-
many-tea-breaks-what-its-like-to-work-in-the-uk
Text 5.
Will machine translation ever beat human translation?
Jenny Brindley
The idea of a future where people can communicate effortlessly
with each other in different languages, translated perfectly by machines,
is a seductive one. Wouldn’t it be so much easier if we didn’t have to go
to the trouble of learning other languages any more?
Although machine translation technology is evolving all the time,
it’s clear that we haven’t quite achieved this utopian vision yet. But will
it ever happen?
Machine translation simply means the use of software to translate
tet or speech into different languages. The idea has been around for a
long time. Researchers began working on machine translation projects
back in the 1950s. The first commercial system appeared in 1991, with
the first web applications following along a few years later.
Today machine translation technology ranges from massively used,
free online translation services such as Google Translate, to cheap, on-thego mobile phone apps such as Apple’s iTranslate, to rather more epensive,
customisable, professional software packages such as SDL Trados Studio.
The benefits of machine translation are obvious. It’s cheap –
machine translation is much cheaper than human translation, and can
even be done for free, depending on which service you use.
It’s quick – for on-the-spot translation needs, or time-critical web
content such as breaking news, it’s hard to beat machine translation. It’s
improving all the time – researchers are continually striving to make
machine translation technology better.
But the drawbacks are equally clear. Lack of localisation – machine
translation is just straightforward translation. There is little or no
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localisation process to put the content into an appropriate cultural
contet. Lack of nuance – machine translation struggles to deal with the
more subtle aspects of language such as humour and metaphor. Lack of
flow – machine translation often reads very awkwardly, producing badly
ordered sentences that are difficult to read. None of this might matter
very much if the quality of the content being translated is either not that
high to begin with, or ephemeral, such as discussions on a customer help
forum or instant messages.
But if you’ve spent a long time crafting high quality content – for
eample, a persuasive marketing video or detailed product instruction
booklet – then you really need human creative translation to do it justice
and ensure that your translated material meets all the objectives of your
original material.
https://www.voices.com/blog/will-machine-translation-ever-beat-human-
translation/
Text 6.
Why Google Translate is bad for business
by Jake Schild
In 2014, Brian Krebs made an interesting discovery.
The security writer and analyst found that when he keyed “lorem
ipsum” into Google Translate, he got a number of different translations
in Chinese. And they made no sense.
The machine translation (MT) system “auto-detected” the source
language as Latin and translated the tet, often used as a placeholder in design,
to “China.” When he capitalized the first letter of each word, the translation
became NATO, the acronym for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Krebs later found that changing capitalization and the arrangement
of the words would create even more bizarre translations. “lorem lorem,”
was deciphered as “China’s Internet.” “Ipsum ipsum” came out as “it is,”
while “ipsum ipsum” was translated to the word “eam.”
Some believed the odd translations were the work of a techie at
Google aiming to create a secret language only recognizable to a select
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few. Others simply saw the glitch as an entertaining way to kill free
time.
Mistakes like these underscore the fact that free, web-based MT
tools still aren’t quite at their full potential for professional users. In
the case of Google, this is definitely not the first time the company has
provided a faulty translation.
But beyond the risk of inaccurate translations lies the question
of where your data goes when you use Google Translate. Many costconscious businesses have played around with the idea of translating
documents via Google. And many don’t know what they risk if they
choose not to hire a translation company and rely on the search engine.
Where does your data go?
Google Translate is a fast way to decipher documents, but it can be
more than costly for anyone concerned with confidentiality and security
information, including HR departments, or those dealing with any type
of legally sensitive material.
�sing the service could violate non-disclosure agreements and
potentially result in heavy fines and a loss of trust among clients. In the
business world, confidentiality is everything; violating this privacy puts
both companies and clients at risk.
Translating with free, online MT systems over unsecured internet
connections can pose a security risk and potentially compromise data.
Another risk, which might not come to mind right away, is what
Google or other translation tools could do with your data. If you’ve
ever read over a site’s “terms of service,” you’ll likely find that once
you’ve submitted information to an entity, they have more leeway than
you think.
Take an ecerpt from Google’s, for instance:
“Some of our Services allow you to upload, submit, store, send or
receive content. You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights
that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours.
When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or
through our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a
worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative
works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other
changes we make so that your content works better with our Services),
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communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute
such content.”
In other words, Google has free range when it comes to your
information. This raises the question: Is your “confidential” information
still confidential when you use Google Translate? Based on what’s
described in the company’s terms and services, it doesn’t seem like it
is.
With that in mind, how could a scrupulous attorney use Google
for eDiscovery? How could a competent HR director enter employee-
sensitive information into the system?
Advancements still lagging
Last year Google announced it was overhauling its translation
system, using the up-and-coming neural machine translation (NMT)
to improve accuracy. The company said they saw a drastic increase in
translation accuracy with the new technology.
But the improvements aren’t all they’re made out to be. When the
news broke, many headlines included phrases that described Google’s
new system as “approaching human accuracy,” which is still far from
the truth.
Businesses need to realize that MT should only be used for getting
the “gist” of documents. A strong translation is made up of a number
of different components, including humans and machines working
together to ensure accuracy.
Just because “Becky down the hall” speaks Spanish, doesn’t mean
she’s in any position to interpret a stack of legal documents the firm
needs to analyze.
https://unitedlanguagegroup.com/blog/why-google-translate-is-bad-for-
business/
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Text 7.
IBM talks about world’s smallest computer
smaller than grain of salt
Nancy Owano, 2018
World’s best. World’s
fastest . World’s s martest .
Superlatives are the stuff of
which news headlines are made.
IBM, taking center stage at its
Think 2018 conference in Las
Vegas, scores big in superlatives
this week in unveiling the
world’s smallest computer.
How small? Paul Lilly in HotHardware said it was a computer so
small that you need a microscope to get a good look at it.
Measurement? 1mm by 1mm. Processing power? Joe Sommerlad
, The Independent, said it was the same as the 86 chip that ran early
IBM desktop computers.
IBM Research said “It packs several hundred thousand transistors
into a footprint barely visible to the human eye.” The key point being
made about its use is that it can be an anti-fraud device. Is fraud that
big a problem?
IBM presented its case. “Fraud costs the global economy more than
$600 billion a year. And in some countries, nearly 70 percent of certain lifesaving drugs are counterfeit. Comple supply chains–comprised of dozens
of suppliers in multiple countries–make it difficult to prevent bad actors from
tampering with everything from paper currency to consumer electronics.”
So how does this tiny computer help? IBM’s Arvind Krishna, the
head of IBM Research, wrote Monday: “Nobody likes knockoffs. Cryptoanchors and blockchain will unite against counterfeiters.”
Krishna brought blockchain technology and the grain of salt sized
computer into that perspective. “Within the net five years, cryptographic
anchors–such as ink dots or tiny computers smaller than a grain of salt–
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will be embedded in everyday objects and devices. They’ll be used in
tandem with blockchain’s distributed ledger technology to ensure an
object’s authenticity from its point of origin to when it reaches the hands
of the customer. These technologies pave the way for new solutions that
tackle food safety, authenticity of manufactured components, genetically
modified products, identification of counterfeit objects and provenance
of luury goods.”
Wait, what is with the use of the word “blockchain?” What’s a
corporate giant like IBM doing hanging out with blockchain? Paul Lilly
in HotHardware even called the computer a “blockchain system.” Lilly
said IBM sees its tiny PCs being used as a data source for blockchain
applications.
No need for surprise. Lilly noted that, “Beyond the ‘get-richquick’ (or slow) mentality of mining cryptocurrencies, the underlying
blockchain technology is really what’s useful.”
Ensuring the authenticity of physical goods, said IBM, further
involves crypto-anchors as tamper-proof digital fingerprints, embedded
into products, or parts of products, and linked to the blockchain. When
tied to a blockchain, they represent “a powerful means of proving a
product’s authenticity.”
Olga Kharif in Bloomberg in December said Blockchain is getting bigger
at Big Blue. “The blockchain enables companies doing business with each
other to record transactions securely,” said Kharif. “Its strength lies in its
trustworthiness: It is difficult to reverse or change what’s been recorded. The
blockchain can also hold many more documents and data than traditional
database storage, allowing for more nuanced insights and analysis.”
What’s net: According to IBM, “The first models could be made
available to clients in the net 18 months. And within the net five
years, advances in microfluidics, packaging platforms, cryptography,
non-volatile memory, and design will take all of these systems from the
lab to the marketplace.”
Pricing? The computer will cost less than ten cents to make–and
“packs several hundred thousand transistors into a footprint barely visible
to the human eye,” said IBM.
https://www.engadget.com/2018/03/19/ibm-blockchain-salt-sized-
computer/
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Text 8.
Cobol hits 50 and keeps counting
It is 50 years old, but Cobol is still a key player in behind-the-scenes
business software
When faced with “computer says no” moments in shops and banks,
Jan Stuart is occasionally tempted to leap over the counter and bash the
till in frustration. Just like the rest of us. But unlike the rest of us, some
thumps from Stuart’s fingers could do some good. Why? Because, as a
Cobol programmer, she may be able to fi the problem.
The “common business-oriented language” that has provided
59-year-old Stuart with a career through to retirement age marks its 50th
birthday this year. The day to celebrate is slippery – Cobol didn’t just
scroll on to a terminal one day and ask the user to hit “Compile” – but
1959 is the year that the language came into being.
And Cobol is still in business. According to David Stephenson, the
�K manager for the software provider Micro Focus, “some 70 % to 80 %
of �K plc business transactions are still based on Cobol”. Stephenson’s
company is an important player in the provision of tools to manage
eisting Cobol systems, not to mention building new applications, so an
optimistic stance is to be epected. But are companies really relying on a
half-century-old invention to handle large chunks of their dealings? Mike
Madden, development service manager with the catalogue-shopping
firm JD Williams, believes so.Better known for its online stores, such
as Simply Be and Fifty Plus, Madden says JD Williams remains highly
dependent on Cobol applications. “We have a huge commitment to
Cobol,” he says. “About 50 % of our mainframe systems use it.”
Why? “Simple – we haven’t found anything faster than Cobol for
batch-processing,” Madden says. “We use other languages, such as Java,
for customer-facing websites, but Cobol is for order processing. The
code matches business logic, unlike other languages.”
Matching underwear
So, knicker-buying Simply Be customers are greeted by a pretty-inpink Java interface, but when the order reaches the backroom, charcoalgrey Cobol code takes over the processing grunt work.
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