标题: Economist, Aug 31, 2013 (I) [打印本页] 作者: choi 时间: 9-1-2013 14:20 标题: Economist, Aug 31, 2013 (I) (1) The history of chemical weapons | The Shadow of Ypres; How a whole class of weaponry came to be seen as indecent. http://www.economist.com/news/br ... decent-shadow-ypres
Quote: "in the first world war[:] At least 90,000 soldiers were killed by them, and more than ten times that number wounded. * * * They [chemical weapons, specifically poison gas] continued to be used in the 1930s, in the invasions of Ethiopia by Italy and of China by Japan. * * * in [the second world war] they were used only by Japan.
"Though Ieper is the Dutch and only official name, the city's French name Ypres is most commonly used in English due to its role in World War I, when only French was in official use in Belgian documents, including on maps.
"Their [German] use of poison gas for the first time on 22 April 1915 marked the beginning of the Second Battle of Ypres, which continued until 25 May 1915. They captured high ground east of the town. The first gas attack occurred against Canadian, British, and French soldiers; including both metropolitan French soldiers as well as Senegalese and Algerian tirailleurs (light infantry) from French Africa. The gas used was chlorine. Mustard gas, also called Yperite from the name of this town, was also used for the first time near Ypres, in the autumn of 1917.
(ii) A History of Ypres (Ieper) to 1914. Great War 1914-1918, undated http://www.greatwar.co.uk/ypres-salient/town-ieper-history.htm
Quote: "The earliest record of the name of Ieper dates from 1066. * * * The name Ieper derives from the name of a stream * * * Along this small river there were numerous elm trees growing. The elm was a common native species in the region. It was called an 'Iep' in the language of the Belgae people, considered to be derived from the Germanic Frisian language. The river was known as the 'Ipre' or 'Iepere' after the elms that grew along it and the settlement on this river was subsequently named Ieper.
(b) “'CLEARLY,' wrote an exasperated Winston Churchill in the summer of 1944, 'I cannot make head against the parsons and the warriors at the same time.' * * * The joint chiefs [of UK armed forces] unanimously came down against the idea. Churchill grumpily acquiesced."
(i) "To make head, to make headway." Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) http://dictionary.die.net/make
(ii) parson (n; Middle English persone, from Anglo-French, from Medieval Latin persona, literally, person):
"CLERGYMAN; especially : a Protestant pastor" http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/parson
(c) For "Hague convention of 1899" and "Geneva protocol of 1925,"
see Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hague_Conventions_of_1899_and_1907
(section 3 Hague Convention of 1899: proposed in "1898 by Russian Tsar Nicholas II. Nicholas and Count Mikhail Nikolayevich Muravyov, his foreign minister, were instrumental in initiating the conference;" section 5 Geneva Protocol to Hague Conventions)
(d) Poison gas "continued to be used in the 1930s, in the invasions of Ethiopia by Italy and of China by Japan"
(i) Second Italo-Ethiopian War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Italo-Ethiopian_War
(October 1935-May 1936; section 3.2.3 Use of Poison gas)
(ii) chemical warfare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_warfare
(section 4.5.1 Use of blister agents in China by the Imperial Japanese Army since 1937)
(e) "Aerial bombardment and the ocean-going submarine, also introduced in the first world war"
(f) "Adolf Hitler too refrained from the use of chemical weapons in war, though not from the use of poison gases in concentration camps. This was in part because of a fear of reprisals in kind. It was probably also because Hitler, himself gassed in the first world war, had an active antipathy to the stuff. In their history of chemical weapons, 'A Higher Form of Killing,' two British journalists, Robert Harris and Jeremy Paxman, note that Raubkammer, where Germany tested its chemical weapons, was the only big military proving ground that Hitler never visited. Germany’s abnegation was triply welcome. A concerted chemical counterattack could, according to Omar Bradley, an American general, have made the difference between success and failure on the beaches of Normandy. Germany, though it did not know it, had a powerful edge over the allies in chemical weapons, having developed nerve gases far more lethal than any other chemical weapons then available."
(i) For Raubkammer, see
(A) Munster Training Area http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munster_Training_Area
(section 3.1 First World War: "in the Raubkammer Forest;" section 3.2 Inter-war period: "Raubkammer Army Testing Facility")
IS a military training area in Germany, which is located at
(B) Munster, Lower Saxony http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munster,_Lower_Saxony
(In 1935, the Third Reich reopened the site as an experimental research and production area as well as a bombing range for chemical ammunitions under the name Heeresnebelfüllstelle Raubkammer ("Army fog-filling plant, Raubkammer"), "fog" being used as a synonym for chemical agents)
(C) The German and Dutch names Munster/Münster are from "places called Munster or Münster, derived from Latin monasterium ‘monastery.’"
Dictionary of American Family Names, published by Oxford University Press.
(ii) Adolf Hitler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler
(section 1.4 World War I: On Oct 15, 1918, he was temporarily blinded by a mustard gas attack and was hospitalised in Pasewalk[, Germany]. While there, Hitler learnt of Germany's defeat)
(iii) Omar Bradley http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Bradley
(1893-1981; From the Normandy landings through the end of the war in Europe, Bradley had command of all US ground forces invading Germany from the west; the last of only nine people to hold five-star rank in the United States Armed Forces)
(iv) nerve agent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerve_agent
(section 4.1 The discovery of nerve agents)
(g)
(i) "United Nations Chemical Weapons Convention, which came into force in 1997, and limits not just the use but the production and sale of chemical weapons"
(b) "John Cribb, who runs a funeral business in the borough of Newham"
(i) London Borough of Newham http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Borough_of_Newham
(ii) The English surname Cribb is "from Old English crib(b) ‘manger’, (later) ‘ox stall’, hence a metonymic occupational name for a cowherd."
(c) "the traditional East End funeral, with horse-drawn carriages and black top hats, is in decline"
(i) East End of London http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_End_of_London
(east of the Roman and medieval walled City of London; "Use of the term East End in a pejorative sense began in the late 19th century * * * the East End became synonymous with poverty, overcrowding, disease and criminality")
"Greek-style yogurt’s share of America’s $6.1 billion market has risen from negligible when Chobani started to nearly half. * * * Chobani hopes to remain disruptive.
"Big packaged-food companies are timid innovators, fiddling with flavour or cautiously extending their existing product lines, says Thilo Wrede of Jefferies, an investment bank. That is costing them customers, some of whom are defecting to fresher foods. * * * As in other industries, large firms face an 'nnovation paradox,' says Rob Wengel of Nielsen, a market-research company. The skills required to run the existing business well can clash with the 'creativity and focus' needed for invention. * * * Giants often deal with the pesky innovators by buying them.
"Making Greek yogurt is complicated and expensive. It uses three times as much milk per cup of finished product than the conventional kind.
Note:
(a)
(i) Our Story. Chobani, undated http://chobani.com/who-we-are/
("How we got started")
(ii) Hamdi Ulukaya http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamdi_Ulukaya
(1972- ; "born to a Kurdish family in Erzincan, Turkey. His parents operated a dairy farm"
(iii) Chobani http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chobani
(derived from the Persian, meaning "shepherd" (literally he who carries a stick))
(iv) strained yogurt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strained_yogurt
(In the West, the term "Greek yogurt" has become synonymous with strained yogurt due to successful marketing by the Greek FAGE brand, though yogurt in Greece is typically not strained)
(v) Fage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fage
(Founded 1926; Headquarters Athens; its name in Greek "(pronounced fa-yeh) is a singular imperative verb meaning 'eat!'")
(b) "Danone, the world’s biggest, launched its Oikos brand in 2010."
(c) "Plum Organics helped pioneer baby-food pouches with spouts; a fifth of American baby food is now squirted rather than spoon-fed. "
(i) Plum Organics http://www.plumorganics.com/
(organic baby foods)
(ii) Plum Organics[:] Gigi Lee Chang, Founder. Behind the Brand, undated http://cargocollective.com/behin ... i-Lee-Chang-Founder
(Q: Where does the name Plum Organics come from?)
(A) "Using a food grinder, Gigi quickly ground some adult food and waalaa, he [her son] was happily eating again."
* How do you spell Waa Laa? http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_do_you_spell_Waa_Laa
(A: The word pronounced "wahlah" is the French term voila (voilà meaning see there))
* voilà http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/voila
(B) What Does the Name Gigi Mean? http://www.ask.com/question/what-does-the-name-gigi-mean
(A: The first name GiGi does not have a specific meaning. The name GiGi is a pet name for the names Virginia and Georgina which are both French in origin. As of December 2012 there are over 3,100 people with the first name of GiGi in the US)
(d) "Innocent, a British firm, gave smoothies a lift by showing them off in clear bottles."
Quote: "putting all those different state-funded technologies together into user-friendly iPads and iPhones required rare genius that deserves rare rewards.
Note:
(a) "Then it [Apple] disrupted itself, and the entire entertainment industry, by shifting its focus from computers to mobile devices."
Apple disrupted itself, by making computing devices (iPod, iPad) to the detriment of its old-line business (computer, laptop).
(b) The author is a chaired professor of economics in "Sussex University." Actually it is
University of Sussex http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Sussex
(in city of Brighton and Hove [formed by merging towns of Brighton and Hove in 1997], in the ceremonial county of East Sussex; Taking its name from the historic county [from Norman conquest to 1889] of Sussex; Established 1961)
(c) "Consider the technologies that put the smart into Apple’s smartphones. The armed forces pioneered the internet, GPS positioning and voice-activated 'virtual assistants.' They also provided much of the early funding for Silicon Valley. Academic scientists in publicly funded universities and labs developed the touchscreen and the HTML language. An obscure government body even lent Apple $500,000 before it went public."
(i)
(A) Internet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet
Quote: "The origins of the Internet reach back to research commissioned by the United States government in the 1960s to build robust, fault-tolerant communication via computer networks. While this work together with work in the United Kingdom and France lead to important precursor networks, they were not the Internet. There is no consensus on the exact date when the modern Internet came into being, but sometime in the early to mid-1980s is considered reasonable.
Quote: "1971 The first e-mail is sent. Ray Tomlinson of the research firm Bolt, Beranek and Newman sent the first e-mail when he was supposed to be working on a different project. Tomlinson, who is credited with being the one to decide on the '@' sign for use in e-mail, sent his message over a military network called ARPANET. When asked to describe the contents of the first email, Tomlinson said it was 'something like "QWERTYUIOP"'
Quote: "1965 EA Johnson Touch Screen[:] Believed by some to be the world's first screen,the screen developed by EA Johnson of England's Royal Radar Establishment uses touch technology similar to that found in today's tablets but can read only one touch at a time. Johnson's touch technology was used for air traffic control in the uK up until around 1995 and serves as a precursor to the screens found on today's ATM, ticketing machines and outdoor kiosks.
(iii) British physicist Tim Berners-Lee, a contractor of CERN at Geneva, developed HyperText Markup Language (HTML) in 1990, 1991. It does not appear to have anything to do with military.
(iv) William Lazonick, Mariana Mazzucato and Öner Tulum, Apple’s Changing Business
Model; What should the world’s richest company do with all those profits? Accounting Forum (name of a journal), _: 1-41 (2013; in press). http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2310608
Quote:
Apple Inc as the "four-year-old company that, on December 12, 1980, had raised the most money in an initial public offering since the Ford Motor Company, then 53
years old, had gone public in 1956
"In the summer of 1978, Continental Illinois Bank, a licensed Small Business Investment Corporation (SBIC) that benefited from guaranteed US government loans, invested $500,000 in Apple for a 5.5 percent stake.
* The second author of the paper writes the book at issue.
(d) "At its best the state is nothing less than the ultimate Schumpeterian innovator—generating the gales of creative destruction that provide strong tailwinds for private firms like Apple."
(i) The column of bussiness section in Economist is titled "Schumpeter."
(ii) Joseph Schumpeter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schumpeter
(1883-1950; born in Austria-Hungary and died as US citizen in US; popularized the term "creative destruction" in economics)
(iii) Schumpeterian growth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schumpeterian_growth
(Unlike other economic growth theories, his approach explains growth by innovation and entrepreneurial spirit)
(e) "It was once fashionable to praise Japan as an entrepreneurial state being guided to world-domination by the enlightened thinkers in its mighty industry ministry. Nowadays it is clearer that the ministry has been a dead hand holding back innovation and entrepreneurship."
(i) dead hand http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dead%20hand
is translated from "mortmain."
(ii) dead hand http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_hand
(may refer to Mortmain, a legal term which literally means "dead hand")
(iii) mortmain (n): "inalienable ownership," mid-15c., from Anglo-French morte mayn, Old French mortemain, literally "dead hand," from Medieval Latin mortua manus; see mortal (adj.) + manual (adj.). Probably a metaphorical expression."
Online Etymology Dictionary, undated. http://www.etymonline.com/index. ... ;allowed_in_frame=0