2024年4月29日 星期一

protégé, mentor, mentorship, mentee, megachurch, widow's walk, unchurched, smudge, congregant, Ash Wednesday, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Yet again, death compelled a fundamental change. She’d documented her elders and lived among them, staying up with the likes of the fiddler Luther Davis, then in his late 90s, to play until midnight. But then they started dying, a depressing reminder that this work wasn’t the only music with an expiration date. She had her own songs to share. “I needed to stop being the mentee,” she admitted.


"Joining our #IEEE community can provide you with mentorship, guidance and the support network needed to navigate career changes confidently. Find out how our community can support your next career move." - Tom Coughlin 2024 IEEE President & CEO https://bit.ly/4bgmwwB



mentee
/mɛnˈtiː/
noun
  1. a person who is advised, trained, or counselled by a mentor.



The Meaning of Lent to This Unchurched Christian


NASHVILLE — On Wednesday, in Catholic parishes across the world, a priest will dip his thumb into a pot of ashes — the burned remains of blessed palms from last year’s Palm Sunday Mass — and smudge the sign of the cross on each congregant’s forehead. Performing this ancient ritual, he will murmur, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Ash Wednesday :聖灰禮儀星期三;聖灰日:四旬(封齋)期的第一天,是日神父在教友額頭上塗以聖灰,並說:「人!你要記著,你原是土,將來仍要歸於土(創三 19 )。」或說:「你要悔改,信從福音。」此日應守大、小齋表示痛悔己罪。

Immigration Splits Senator From Mentor
By ASHLEY PARKER




Jim DeMint, a former Republican senator, who helped kill legislation to overhaul immigration, finds Marco Rubio, his onetime protégé, on the other side of the issue.
Lakewood Church is an evangelical non-denominational Christian megachurch located in Houston, Texas. It is one of the largest congregations in the United ...
Senior pastor(s): Joel and ‎Victoria Osteen
Capacity: 16,800
Pastor(s): Nick Nilson, John Gray, Dr. Paul Ost...
Location: Houston, Texas
Lakewood Church
Lakewood worship.jpg
Worship in 2013

 Mega-church pastor Rick Warren, who was mentored by Peter Drucker, was helpful in this regard, as he got all of the churches across the globe on board for ...


A megachurch is a church having around 2,000 or more attendants for a typical weekly service.[1][2] The Hartford Institute's database lists more than 1,300 such Protestant churches in the United States. According to these data, about 50 churches on the list have attendance ranging from 10,000 to 47,000.[3] Additionally, while some 3,000 individual Roman Catholic parishes (churches) have 2,000 or more attendants for a typical weekly service, these churches are not seen as part of the megachurch movement.[4]


widow's walk (WID-oz wok)

noun
A railed platform atop a roof, typically on a coastal house, that was used to look out for returning ships.

Etymology
In the 18th and 19th centuries sailors' wives used such platforms to look for signs of their husbands returning home

A painting of a widow's walk: www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=12486.
Other terms involving widows: widows cruse, widows peak.

Usage
"The second level of this home features a widow's walk that allows an open view to the great room and front foyer." — Colleen Toms; Magnificent Features in Custom Built Home; The Expositor (Brantford, Canada); Feb 1, 2008.

noncompete, sui generis. non-compete clause (often NCC), term (TIME), board report, custodian, caretaker. block the use of NCC


An illustration of a pair of hands shackled to a computer keyboard.


At least ten states in America have blocked the use of non-compete clauses, which bar workers from leaving a firm to join a rival, on low-wage positions. The FTC now wants to ban them more widely https://econ.trib.al/KRAQO3R



LINA M. KHAN

Why You Should Worry About Noncompete Clauses (Even if You Don’t Have One in Your Contract)





The Internet has proved remarkably resistant to state governance. Its use can certainly be shaped by expensive government initiatives such as China’s Great Firewall or the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). But multilateral attempts to control the Internet itself have so far failed, mainly because the deliberately impenetrable “global Internet community”—including Internet service providers and sui generis governance institutions such as the Internet Engineering Task Force and the Internet Society—is dedicated, in the best geek spirit, to avoiding state capture.


You probably have a noncompete agreement if you assemble sandwiches at a Jimmy John's sub sandwich chain for a living. Here’s why that’s a problem.
From Jimmy John’s comes another example of how employers are...
NYTIMES.COM|由 NEIL IRWIN 上傳

Kabuki fans are convinced the intensity of acting and carrying around centuries of tradition shortens the lives of the greatest performers. Kanzaburo, who first performed at just three, was 57 when he died of complications from cancer. (Danjuro died from pneumonia, aged 66.) Kanzaburo’s sons, Kankuro VI and Shichinosuke II, inherit the custodianship of a lineage that stretches back 18 generations.

  • Tomas Munita for The New York Times

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  • Tomas Munita for The New York Times

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Souvenir sellers waited for customers at the pyramids of Giza.

Egypt’s Tourism Suffers After Revolution

After the fall of a dictator, there is widespread gloom that Egypt is stagnating again, its economy heading toward a cliff, while the caretaker government fails to act.

Non-competition clauses, also known as non-compete agreements, set boundaries and conditions on a former employee's ability to work for a competitor upon ...


term
(TIME) 
noun
1 [C] the fixed period of time which something lasts for:
He received a prison term for drunk driving.
The Government's term of office (= The period in which they have power) expires at the end of the year.
See also terms.

2 [C] MAINLY UK (US USUALLY semester or quarter) one of the periods into which a year is divided at school, college or university:
In Britain, the spring term starts in January and ends just before Easter.
We're very busy in term-time (= during the term).

3 [C] FORMAL the period of time which a legal agreement lasts for:
The lease on our house is near the end of its term.

4 [U] SPECIALIZED the end of a pregnancy when a baby is expected to be born:
Her last pregnancy went to term (= The baby was born after the expected number of weeks).
a full-term pregnancy

-term
suffix
long/medium/short-term lasting a long/medium/short time:
The project will have long-term benefits. ━━ n. 期限, 期間; 任期; 学期; 【法】(裁判所の)開期; 支払い期日; 出産予定日; (pl.) (契約・支払い・値段などの)条件; (pl.) 約定; 要求額, 値段; (pl.) 間柄, 交際関係; 語, 用語 (a technical ~ 術語); (pl.) ことばづかい; 【論】名辞; 【数】項; (分数の)分子[分母].
bring … [come] to terms 降参させる[する] ((with)); 話をまとめる[がまとまる].
in terms of …のことばで; …によって; …の(観)点から(見ると).
make [come] terms with …と妥協する.
not on any terms / on no terms 決して…ない.
on equal terms 対等(の立場)で ((with)).
on good [bad] terms 仲がよく[悪く]て ((with)).
on one's own terms 望みどおりの条件で.
on speaking terms ことばをかわす程度の間柄で ((with)).
terms of reference 〔英〕 委託事項[権限].
━━ vt. 名づける, 呼ぶ.
term insurance 定期保険.
term・ly ━━ a. 学期[任期]ごとの.
term paper 学期末レポート.


Black Given Prison Term Over Fraud

Published: December 11, 2007

CHICAGO, Dec. 10 — In the months since his convictions in July on fraud and obstruction of justice charges, Conrad M. Black, the fallen press baron who once presided over the world’s third-largest newspaper empire, was not above poking fun at himself as he waited to see how long he would spend in prison.







Skip to next paragraph

Jerry Lai/Associated Press
Conrad M. Black after being sentenced Monday in Chicago on charges of fraud and obstructing justice.

He received his answer Monday as Judge Amy J. St. Eve of United States District Court sentenced Mr. Black to 6 1/2 years in prison on three fraud charges and one charge of obstruction of justice for removing 13 boxes of documents from the Toronto offices of his media company, Hollinger International, an infraction caught on videotape.
“Mr. Black, you have violated your duty to Hollinger International and its shareholders,” Judge St. Eve told Mr. Black. “I frankly cannot understand how someone of your stature could engage in the conduct you did.”
While the sentence means Mr. Black could be nearly 70 when he is released, the amount of time he received was much less than hoped for by prosecutors, who at one time sought a sentence of 24 to 30 years.
Mr. Black, who will most likely serve his sentence at a federal prison camp at Eglin Air Force Base about 500 miles from his home in Palm Beach, Fla., was allowed to remain free on bail until March 3.
On the sidewalk outside the courthouse, he told the throng of reporters, “I think the fact we’re appealing speaks for itself.”
In some ways, Mr. Black is just another in a long line of white-collar criminals sentenced for corporate fraud. In other ways, he was — as he himself might say in casual conversation — sui generis.
Instead of keeping a low profile after his conviction, Mr. Black became even more public, if possible, in the last few months. He managed to publish and publicize a 1,152-page biography, “Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full,” that contained at least one error: the brief author’s biography says that Mr. Black divides his time between London and Toronto. By the time the book was published, he had already turned over his passport and spent most of his time holed up his mansion in Palm Beach.
Still, that did not prevent Mr. Black from doing television interviews or from participating in a Toronto book signing, thanks to a high-tech device called the LongPen, which allowed him to sign books remotely. During the signing, one questioner even suggested a parallel between that video that sank Mr. Black and the recordings that doomed the Nixon presidency.
In a segment for the satirical Canadian television show “The Rick Mercer Report,” Mr. Black did his best Martha Stewart impression, teaching viewers how to properly wax a maple leaf for decorating. Pressing a maple leaf between two of the hefty biographies he has written, Mr. Black said, “Here we have a perfectly waxed maple leaf, a great solace to everyone and especially to those who, for complicated reasons, can’t at first hand observe the changing of the seasons this autumn in Canada.” (The segment has a second life on YouTube.)
But those fun and games are now largely over. It will now be almost seven years until Mr. Black, who was barred from leaving the United States after his conviction, can return to his native Canada.
In July, nearly four years after the case began, Mr. Black was convicted on four charges — three fraud charges stemming from taking improper noncompete fees and an obstruction of justice charge for removing boxes of documents from his Toronto office, an infraction that was caught on videotape. Mr. Black will have to pay a fine of $125,000.
Mr. Black’s downfall began in November 2003 when the board found that he and other executives had improperly taken about $32 million in payments. The jury, however, found that Black improperly gained $6.1 million, a figure he must now forfeit. Much of the case was centered on noncompete payments from selling newspapers that should have gone to shareholders but instead lined the pockets of Mr. Black and several other executives, who were to be sentenced later in the afternoon.
Mr. Black, who once declared he would “not re-enact the French Revolutionary renunciation of the rights of the nobility” when criticized for using shareholder money to pay for a vacation to Bora Bora, and charged a lavish birthday party for his wife at La Grenouille restaurant in New York to his company, was acquitted of charges stemming from those incidents.
The sentencing hearing lasted for more than two hours, as Mr. Black’s defense team cited letters testifying to Mr. Black’s character from friends like Elton John (whose AIDS foundation received a donation from Mr. Black), and the political columnist George F. Will, a longtime friend who wrote of Mr. Black, “He loves this country with a deeply informed passion.”
Mr. Black’s sentencing consultant, Jeffrey Steinbach, even mentioned a letter from a man, not famous, who was once drunk at a party and got a ride home from Mr. Black.
When Eric Sussman, the prosecutor, responded, he noted that the donation to Mr. John’s foundation came from the coffers of The Daily Telegraph.
“Does Elton John really know Conrad Black?” Mr. Sussman said. “The fact of the matter remains that when Mr. Black was asked to go in to his pocket he said no.”
Mr. Black, often described as a millionaire who lived like a billionaire, built a single newspaper in Sherbrooke, Quebec, which he bought in 1976, into what was at one time the third-largest newspaper company in the world. Its flagship properties were The Daily Telegraph and The Chicago Sun-Times.


Duties of Each Board:
THE BOARD OF PROPERTY is responsible for:

1. Supervising and Maintaining Church properties.
2. Evaluating the work of the custodian.
3. Supervise the acquisition of all real property and the disbursements of such property.


  1. non-compete clause (often NCC), or covenant not to compete(CNC), is a term used in contract law under which one party (usually an employee) agrees not to enter into or start a similar profession or trade in competition against another party (usually the employer).
custodian
n.
  1. One that has charge of something; a caretaker: the custodian of a minor child's estate; the custodian of an absentee landlord's property.
  2. A janitor: worked nights as custodian of a high school.
custodianship cus·to'di·an·ship' n.

 
su·i ge·ne·ris ('ī' jĕn'ər-ĭs, sū'ē) pronunciation自成一格
adj.
Being the only example of its kind; unique: "sui generis works like Mary Chesnut's Civil War diary" (Linda Orr).

[Latin suī generis : suī, of its own + generis, genitive of genus, kind.]


caretaker
[名]
1 ((米))世話人(親・教師・看護婦など).
2 (建物・地所などの)管理人;職務の一時代行人[者, 機関].
3 ((英))(学校など公共施設の)管理人, 門衛, 門番(((米・スコット))janitor).
━━[形]((限定))代理の, 暫定の
a caretaker Cabinet [government]
暫定内閣[政府].
cáre・tàking

crater, craterous, bespeckled, to table, on-set. The economy craters.

 

“Galileo was able to show that no, in fact, it’s a big rock.”
No longer was the moon a flawless form in the night sky, instead revealed as a bespeckled, craterous character, in many ways closer to Earth than heaven.


 But buckets of water cannot extinguish craters.

 

 

 Found! Patio Tiles (Sort Of) on Mars

By Jeffrey Kluger
A new discovery in a Martian crater yields clues to the planet's watery past




The world's leading independent film director, Pedro Almodóvar is renowned for the visual opulence, experimentation, and eroticism of his films. He has collaborated closely with TASCHEN and given complete access to his archives, allowing personal on-set photos and texts to be published for the first time as well as writing new texts for the book. This is the first time Pedro Almodóvar has written a book about all his films.





set


  • The properties, backdrops, and other objects arranged for a dramatic presentation: mise en scène, scene, scenery, setting. See performing arts.



  • Parks Chief Blocked Plan for Grand Canyon Bottle Ban

    By FELICITY BARRINGER
    Jon Jarvis, the top federal parks official, tabled the project after conversations with Coca-Cola, a major donor to the National Park Foundation.
    Goshikinuma, a crater lake in the Azuma mountain range in Fukushima Prefecture, on Nov. 8 (Takeo Kato)

    赫弗利領導着一支由16名操作員組成的團隊,他們是美國航空航天局(NASA)屬下的噴氣推進實驗室(Jet Propulsion Laboratory)的成員,共同負責操控“好奇號”(Curiosity)漫遊車穿過火星的蓋爾隕坑(Gale Crater)。“好奇號”共有六個車輪,以鈈燃料為動力,車上裝有激光等能夠燒熔岩石的超前設備。這個重達2000磅的遙控裝置於8月6日登陸火星。8 月22日,赫弗利開始掌控方向盤——實際上是電腦鍵盤。

    crater
    (krā'tər) pronunciation
    n.
    1. A bowl-shaped depression at the mouth of a volcano or geyser.
      1. A bowl-shaped depression in a surface made by an explosion or the impact of a body, such as a meteoroid.
      2. A pit; a hollow.
    2. Variant of krater.

    v., -tered, -ter·ing, -ters. v.tr.
    To make craters in: "The missiles did not . . . crater the airfield" (Tom Clancy).

    v.intr.
    1. To form a crater or craters.
    2. Slang.
      1. To fall and crash violently from a great height.
      2. To fail utterly: "talked about how tough times were in Texas since the oil business cratered" (Stephen Coonts).
    [Latin crātēr, from Greek krātēr, mixing vessel.]
    [名]
    1 (火山の)噴火口, 火口;(月・火星の)クレーター;隕石(いんせき)孔;わん状間欠噴泉口
    a crater lake
    火口湖.
    2 弾孔:爆弾などが破裂して地面にできた穴.
    ━━[動](他)…に弾孔をつける.
    ━━(自)穴があく, へこみができる.
    [ラテン語←ギリシャ語krātr (krā-混ぜる+-tērもの=混ぜるもの→噴火口)]


    Cra´ter`ous    (kr?´t?r-?s)

    a.1.Pertaining to, or resembling, a crater.


    bespeckle

    Line breaks: be|speckle
    Pronunciation: /bəˈspɛk(ə)l /



    VERB

    [WITH OBJECT]
    Mark or cover with a large number of small spots or patches of colour:the designer whose trademark is to bespeckle his dresses with diamonds

    advertiser, cratering, promoter, promos, Periodic Table. The economy cratered.










    New York Journal and Advertiser, December 12, 1897. McDougall.






    16 Election day promos and discounts


    Starbucks, Dairy Queen, Chili's and more – find out which restaurants are offering promos to voters









    RAPPLER · 12,417 次分享



    Daily Highlights Friday, March 6, 2009
    Spotlight
    Buy Poster at AllPosters.com
    Periodic Table
    View Poster
    On this date in 1869, Dmitri Mendeleev presented his periodic table to the Russian Chemical Society. Earlier, Mendeleev had developed his periodic law, stating that the property of an element is the periodic function of the elements' atomic mass. He referred to the tendency of those chemical elements with similar properties to recur at regular intervals as periodicity. Mendeleev's table arranged the elements in ascending order of their atomic mass, while leaving gaps for the elements that he predicted would be discovered at a later date.



    The Periodic Table (1975)

    Il Sistema Periodico



    cratering , promoter

    Japan's Downturn Is Bad News for the World
    Wall Street Journal - USA
    Japan's economy is contracting across the board: Exports have cratered, industrial production is on track to plummet 30% from a year ago, and the Japanese ...

    As critic, editor and promoter, Pound helped shape the careers of some of the 20th century's most influential writers including



    The fact that a concert promoter like Live Nation is set to land the deal rather than a traditional record label like Warner Music is a sign of how quickly the landscape is shifting in the cratering music industry. (wsj

    Madonna Heads for Virgin Territory

    Concert Promoter Lures Material Girl
    From Warner Music With $120 Million
    By ETHAN SMITH)



    promote (ENCOURAGE)
    verb [T]
    to encourage the popularity, sale, development or existence of something:
    Advertising companies are always having to think up new ways to promote products.
    The Institute is intended to promote an understanding of the politics and culture of the Arab world.
    Greenpeace works to promote awareness of the dangers that threaten our planet today.
    It has long been known that regular exercise promotes all-round good health.

    promoter 
    noun [C]
    1 someone who tries to encourage something to happen or develop:
    a promoter of peace/sexual equality

    2 a person who organizes and arranges finance for sports and musical events:
    a boxing/rock concert promoter

    promotion 
    noun
    1 [C or U] activities to advertise something:
    sales promotion
    There was a promotion in the supermarket and they were giving away free glasses of wine.
    Obviously as sales manager he'll be very involved in the promotion and marketing of the product.

    2 [U] when something is encouraged to happen or develop:
    the promotion of a healthy lifestyle

    promotional 
    adjective
    intended to advertise something:
    a promotional campaign/video
    The writer recently went on a promotional tour of his homeland.



    注意形容詞除 cratered之外 ,還可用 cratering。

    crater
     
    noun [C]
    the round hole at the top of a volcano, or a hole similar to this:
    the huge crater of Vesuvius
    a bomb crater
    With a good telescope, you can see craters on the moon.

    cratered
    adjective
    a cratered surface




    His best-known work, The Periodic Table (1975), is a collection of 21 meditations, each named for a chemical element. 週期表(CK0003)

    unpick, unpicking, pillage, spoil, spoilsman, spoils system, perishables, complexity, literary lion



    Join Dr Sean Irving of the School of Philosophical, Historical, and Interdisciplinary Studies as he reviews the highly anticipated film Challengers, using his expertise in the psychology of competition to unpick the dynamics of sport, love and lust.  

    https://brnw.ch/21wJhfe

    The Conversation UK

    The Economist

    Institutions are under pressure to return the spoils of empire, but doing so is far from simple



    ECONOMIST.COM
    Why are Western museums giving back their artefacts?
    Read our explainer

     The most comprehensive analysis yet has unpicked the genetics of what makes cancer tick and how hard it will be to tame

    While American presidential candidates talk of unpicking trade deals and Britain prepares to vote on whether to leave the European Union, at least Mexico continues to carry a torch for globalisation




    2016 marks the centenary of Henry James's death on February 28th 1916. He eschewed marriage and lovers in order to safeguard his art and the quiet he needed to be a writer





    Two novels unpick the life of a literary lion
    Author Henry James died on February 28th 1916

    ECON.ST

    NATO defence ministers today will unpick a taboo. In 1997 the alliance promised Russia not to place “substantial” forces in the new member states, once part of the Kremlin’s European empire. But, Western officials point out, that pledge was dependent on relations remaining friendly—and Russia’s behaviour in Ukraine and its menacing manoeuvres in the Baltics have rendered it void. Now NATO is mulling over American plans to position tanks and other heavy weaponry in the Baltics and elsewhere, plus the creation of a new rapid-response force http://econ.st/1LzUpXf




    From Espresso: Negotiators from the 12 countries working on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a deal to reduce tariffs on trade, meet in New York today. This is a meeting about a meeting: its purpose is to prepare the ground for ministers from the countries involved, who are expected to meet in March. There are stumbling blocks everywhere, as each country tries to gain as much as possible for its exporters while doing the minimum to reduce import tariffs. In America the politics are uncertain: to pull off TPP Barack Obama must first secure “trade-promotion authority”, which allows American negotiators to cut deals without worrying that Congress will unpick them later. In theory a Republican Congress is more likely to grant this authority than a Democratic one. But Republicans are not in the mood to give the president anything. Multiply such domestic political considerations by 12 and it becomes apparent why so many meetings are required http://econ.st/1z2ghFJ







    David Lentink, an engineer at Stanford University, applies insights from flying animals to the design of drones. Yet the methods used until now to unpick the particulars of powered flight are either crude (measuring the tug on a tether tied to a flying animal) or unduly complex (feeding supercomputers with data gained from dissections on the masses and densities of bird parts). Dr Lentink’s new paper shows how to measure the quickly changing forces of flight without even touching an animal http://econ.st/1we0xLi








    Cream-pillaging was one of the first recognised examples of animal culture, pioneered by enterprising tits and passed down through the generations. It was never followed up experimentally in the wild, until now: http://econ.st/1FTjKcA
    Red? Blue? I prefer gold IN THE days when milk was delivered each morning to the doorstep of almost every house in Britain, enterprising great tits sometimes learned...
    ECON.ST



    The economist Ricardo Hausmann and the network physicist César Hidalgo have been trying to measure this complexity, and I’ve written before about their work. They argue that economies are collections of “capabilities”, building blocks that can be put together like Lego to produce different products. A trustworthy post office is a building block; so is high-speed internet; so are functional bankruptcy courts; so is a literate workforce; so is a fast lane at customs for processing perishable foodstuffs. It’s not clear how one would go about measuring all of these capabilities. Instead, Hausmann and Hidalgo measure them indirectly, tracking the shadows that they cast upon a country’s trade statistics.

    經濟學家裏卡多豪斯曼(Ricardo Hausmann)和網路物理學家塞薩爾伊達爾戈(César Hidalgo)一直試圖衡量這種複雜性,以前我已撰文描述過他們的工作。他們認為,經濟是各種能力的集合體,這些能力就像樂高積木那樣,可以被組合 成不同的產物。一個值得信賴的郵局是一個模組;高速互聯網是一個模組,正常運轉的破產法庭是一個模組,受過教育的勞動大軍是一個模組,審驗易腐爛食品的海關快速通道也是一個模組。目前尚不清楚人們會如何著手衡量這種種能力。豪斯曼和伊達爾戈採取了間接方式來衡量它們,即追蹤它們在一國貿易統計資料中的體現。

    ( 這段的翻譯有點意思,雖然只有些小毛病,譬如說,英文的"一個模組"字眼用得少,並用分號;區分各模組,而中文用逗號,都加"一個模組"。
    "目前尚不清楚人們會如何著手衡量這種種能力" 缺譯all,所以"目前尚不清楚人們會如何著手衡量所有這種種能力"。
     measure them indirectly, tracking the shadows that they cast upon a country’s trade statistics.
    原譯:採取了間接方式來衡量它們,即追蹤它們在一國貿易統計資料中的體現。
    直譯:採取間接方式來衡量,即追蹤它們在一國貿易統計資料所投下的影子。
    上述之所以只能採直譯打迷糊仗,因為我們不知道真正的操作之內容,詳下面"簡介"。
    Wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_Hausmann
    The Product Space ties in with the idea of Growth Diagnostics, because it was developed with the purpose of identifying the coordination failures whose removal can further the economy of a developing country. The ultimate goal of the Product Space is to develop analytical tools that allow to study economic development, by looking at the de facto technological capacity of countries and not only at the traditional measures of governance used by agencies such as the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund. In a 2009 paper, then, the Economic Complexity Index is put forward as a more accurate predictive measure of growth than previous indicators. Research on the Product Space and economic complexity by Hausmann, Hidalgo and their team is summarized in the (2011) book, The Atlas of Economic Complexity.[22]


    Human dilemmas

    Spoiled by choice

    The perils and politics of prosperity

    Choice. By Renata Salecl. Profile; 224 pages; £10.99. Buy from Amazon.co.uk
    THE more money you have, it seems, the more choice you have. And the more choice you have the happier you are. Or at least that is the theory, and if that proves not to be the case, it is your fault for making the wrong choices. Renata Salecl unpicks these axioms of modern life in a short and thought-provoking book. She shows that in large chunks of life, the simplistic search for the perfect choice is not only impractical, but leads to misery.
    Marriage is one example. The search for the perfect partner is likely to leave you lonely in old age: tolerance and resilience are better bases for a happy relationship than trying to maximise your utility.
    Another is child-rearing. The “choice” about when to have children and how many is one thing. How they turn out is quite another. Parents who make their offspring’s choices for them create one set of problems; those who farm out choice to their children at an early age risk another.
    Even consumer choice is not all that it is cracked up to be. Ms Salecl highlights the anxiety felt by an ill-informed shopper faced with a bewildering range of options, and with the feeling of looming censure for the wrong one. Economists (a breed she regards with uniform disdain) would not necessarily disagree with that. Transaction and opportunity costs are well-researched topics. A speedy choice of cheese at a colossal supermarket display may not be the perfect one, but it does leave more time for enjoying it afterwards.
    Ms Salecl’s exotic intellectual pedigree bears the unmistakable stamp of her native Slovenia, mixing the obscurity of Lacanian psychoanalysis with the glibness of the new left. Her Marxist-tinged choice of words will leave some readers fuming. She refers to “late capitalism” when the simple “modern life” or “modern world” would have been less emotive. She lazily cites Margaret Thatcher’s remark about there being “no such thing as society”, but ignores the rest of the quote, which praises human co-operation.
    Yet her big point, that choice is not a goal in itself, is well-taken. Dominant ideas, including the welfare state, the classless society and the dictatorship of the proletariat, become so pervasive in their heyday that people often fail to ask what they really mean. Challenging the choices presented by life, and pondering why we make them, is more important than focusing just on what we are offered.



    unpick 

    VERB

    [WITH OBJECT]
    1Undo the sewing of:I unpicked the seams of his trousers
    1.1  Carefully analyse the different elements of (something), especially in order to find faults:
    Elisabeth did not want to unpick the past

    pillage


    Line breaks: pil|lage
    Pronunciation: /ˈpɪlɪdʒ /
    Definition of pillage in English:

    VERB

    [WITH OBJECT]
    1Rob a (place) using violence, especially in wartime:the abbey was plundered and pillaged
    1.1 Steal (something) using violence, especially inwartime:
    artworks pillaged from churches and museums
    NOUN
    [MASS NOUN]Back to top  
    The action of pillaging a place or property, especially in war:rebellious peasants intent on pillage
    Origin
    late Middle English (as a noun): from Old French, from piller 'to plunder'.

    Derivatives


    pillager

    1
    NOUN

    spoils system
    ((主に米))猟官制(度):政権をとった政党が意のままに公職の任免をすること.

    spoil
    spoiled, or spoilt (spoilt), spoil·ing, spoils. v.tr.
      1. To impair the value or quality of.
      2. To damage irreparably; ruin.
    1. To impair the completeness, perfection, or unity of; flaw grievously: spoiled the party.
    2. To do harm to the character, nature, or attitude of by oversolicitude, overindulgence, or excessive praise. See synonyms at pamper.
    3. Archaic.
      1. To plunder; despoil.
      2. To take by force.
    v.intr.
    1. To become unfit for use or consumption, as from decay. Used especially of perishables, such as food. See synonyms at decay.
    2. To pillage.
    n.
    1. spoils
      1. Goods or property seized from a victim after a conflict, especially after a military victory.
      2. Incidental benefits reaped by a winner, especially political patronage enjoyed by a successful party or candidate.
    2. An object of plunder; prey.
    3. Refuse material removed from an excavation.
    4. Archaic. The act of plundering; spoliation.
    phrasal verb:
    spoil for
    1. To be eager for: spoiling for a fight.
    [Middle English spoilen, to plunder, from Old French espoillier, from Latin spoliāre, from spolium, booty.]

    [動](〜ed or spoilt 〔spilt〕, 〜・ing)(他)
    1 〈物・事を〉だめにする, こわす, 台なしにする, 使えなくする, 腐らせる;〈興味・食欲などを〉そぐ
    spoil one's fun
    楽し いひとときを台なしにする
    spoil one's appetite
    食 欲をなくす
    She spoiled the steak by overcooking it.
    焼きすぎてステーキを台なしにしてしまった
    Their plans were spoiled by his interference.
    彼の口出しで彼らの計画は台なしになった.
    [類語]spoilよいものを悪くする, 台なしにする. damage, impairものを損なって機能や価値を低下させる. destroy, ruin, wreck完全に破壊する. ruinは徹底的な破壊, wreckは乱暴な破壊:damage [destroy, wreck] a car 車を損傷する[破壊する, めちゃめちゃに壊す]/impair one's hearing聴覚を損なう.
    2 〈人を〉(甘やかして)だめにする, 増長させる, 甘やかす;〈人を〉だいじにする;〈ホテルなどが〉〈客に〉非常にサービスする
    be spoiled rotten
    ひ どく甘やかされている
    be spoilt for choice
    ((英)) 選ぶのに迷ってしまう.
    3 ((俗))〈人を〉殺す, 始末する, 片づける(waste).
    4 ((古))…を奪う;〈人から〉(…を)奪う, 略奪する((of ...)).
    ━━(自)台なしになる, 悪くなる, だめになる, 〈食物が〉腐る.
    be spoiling for ...
    ((略式))〈特にけんか・議論を〉したくてうずうずしている.
    ━━[名]((形式))
    1 ((しばしば〜s))強奪[略奪, 戦利]品.
    2 ((通例〜s))((主に米))官職の役得, 利権.
    3 ((通例〜s))賞品;(努力の)成果((of ...));掘り出し物.
    4 [U](発掘の際の)廃物;[C]廃 棄された土[石].
    5 (略奪の)えじき, 目的物.
    6 [U]強奪, 略奪.
    [中フランス語←ラテン語spoliāre (spolium動物からはいだ皮+-āre不定詞語尾=皮を奪う→略奪する)]