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This is Vertere’s third cartridge, following the Mystic MC design that was launched last year. Designed with a view to being something that DG-1 Turntable (HFC 463) owners might consider as an update for the supplied Magneto cartridge as well as being an option for non Vertere users, the most unusual aspect of the Sabre is that it is a moving-magnet model, which at the £845 asking price is fairly rare. Vertere argues that having a cartridge that doesn’t require your phono stage to be changed makes the proportional upgrade cost lower. The stylus is a micro elliptical profile, bonded to an aluminium cantilever. Output is given as 4.0mV with frequency response quoted at an impressive 15Hz-25kHz. Vertere states that the Sabre is established engineering rather than a radical clean sheet, but…

AT A STEEL PLANT IN LULEA, SWEDEN, WORKERS MAKE the world’s most essential construction material the old-fashioned way: piling iron ore and coke, a kind of coal-derived fuel, in a huge blast furnace, heating the mixture to enormous temperatures, and then “tapping” the cauldron of molten metal, which sends a stream of white-hot pig iron—and showers of sparks—spilling out along a sluiceway. But less than a mile away, the plant’s owner, SSAB, is piloting a less dramatic steelmaking process at a new facility. “It doesn’t look that spectacular,” says Martin Pei, executive vice president and chief technology officer at the Swedish steelmaker. “You don’t see very much either, because it’s all automatically controlled.” It’s spectacular in a different way, though. Traditional blast furnaces emit huge amounts of CO₂. But SSAB’s HYBRIT pilot…

‘Welcome to panther country,’ Brian Kelly says when I meet him at a busy intersection in East Naples, Florida, a stone’s throw from a gas station and an urgent care center. Kelly, a state panther biologist, points east into the sprawling subdivision where he lives. A panther was caught on camera just a quarter mile away, he says, and another one made it across the six-lane road we’re standing beside. Yet another panther, an eight-year-old female named FP224, lives nearby. She’s been hit by a car twice, breaking a leg each time. She was treated by veterinarians and released after both accidents. To look for signs of her, we drive to Kelly’s house, next to a patch of forest where she recently denned and birthed at least three kittens. It’s the wet…

CES 2022 is typically the single most important media event for the PC laptop industry. This year proved no different despite the sudden and unexpected shift to a largely virtually show (the major chipmakers all stayed remote, as did most laptop manufacturers). In fact, 2022 is shaping up to be an excellent year for Windows laptops. New CPUs and GPUs from AMD, Nvidia, and Intel promise to send laptop performance to the moon—and that’s just the start. Here’s 5 top laptop trends from CES 2022 that simply can’t be ignored. Expect to see some of these notebooks cracking our list of the best laptops sooner than later. 1. LAPTOPS GROW IN POWER (AND POWER CONSUMPTION) The PC laptop world was focused on large, heavy, and expensive laptops at CES 2022. While AMD, Intel, and…

A phrase that crops up a fair bit in turntable reviews is ‘stretch’ (I myself am particularly guilty of it). The idea is that, as well as judging the performance a deck offers out of the box, it is also useful to discuss how much scope it has for improvement – its stretch. This is usually a tricky thing to express within a conventional review, but Pro-Ject has provided an opportunity thanks to the upgrades available for its Debut Series. Consequently, a Debut Carbon Evo (HFC 468) is procured along with the bulk of the available upgrades that can be attached to it. Some of these are universal fitment items, while others are specific to the Debut range. None of them alter the basics of how it operates. It remains a…

摘自 THE ATAVIST 麗塔．海恩斯大腹便便地踏上這間偏鄉醫院的木階梯。那天是1962年12月7日，她圓滾滾的肚子正隨著每一次的宮縮收緊。在醫院裡的她，感覺下腹的疼痛越來越劇烈，起初還能忍受，但到了夜裡就開始劇痛難耐。午夜時分剛過，新生兒來報到，哭聲響徹雲霄。是個男孩，她將孩子取名叫克萊倫斯．彼得．海恩斯。小克萊倫斯隨後就被安置在育嬰室的搖床中，而麗塔則是在女病房休息。 克萊倫斯小名是「克萊」，在加拿大一個叫聖伯納（St. Bernard’s ）的漁村長大。這個像靴子一般的半島，位於紐芬蘭島（New found land）南部，臨北大西洋側的財富灣（Fortune Bay）。克萊的父親切斯是漁夫，海恩斯一家在克萊之後，又陸續生了好幾個孩子。男孩子同睡一個房間，克萊睡在雙層床的上舖。弟弟們的皮膚都比克萊要白，克萊的皮膚則為淺棕色，頂著一頭濃密的深色頭髮。隨著年齡漸長，他那輪廓分明的面貌和肌肉結實的身材，讓他成了當地的萬人迷。他開著海軍藍雪佛蘭出現在鎮上時，聖伯納的妙齡少女無一不為之心動。…

Dressed in patriotic shades of red, white and blue, the great and good of British society and showbiz were out in full force to toast the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee at a sparkling soirée hosted by Dame Joan Collins and HELLO! editor in chief Rosie Nixon. Lavish private members’ club Upstairs at Langan’s Brasserie, in London’s Mayfair, was abuzz with love, laughter and glamour as guests including lords, ladies, legends and dames gathered last Tuesday – much to the delight of the evening’s hostesses. “We had a fabulous time,” Dame Joan tells us. “It was a marvellous party. “So many of my friends came, which was wonderful. Langan’s did a fantastic job of decorating everything and I was thrilled Rosie asked me to be co-host. “It was a very happy atmosphere – I didn’t want…

WHEN OUR TEAM GETS TOGETHER TO CHOOSE the TIME100, we have one barometer: influence. Who shaped the year? Who stood up? Who stood out? Influence, of course, may be for good or for ill—a dichotomy never more visible than in this year’s TIME100, which includes both Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky. They are the poles of this list, and of this moment. The Russian dictator behind a brutal war, and his foe, the Ukrainian President, whose leadership has made him a rare heroic figure in our divisive time. Indeed, while so many crises of recent years—from COVID-19 to climate change—have seemed like calls to collective action, it was in many ways Putin who finally, unwittingly, pulled it off. “The nations of the free world,” writes President Joe Biden in a tribute…

IN THIS SECTION Seed Bank Alarm The First Forest Take to the Trees Ghostly Redwoods ● VANCOUVER ISLAND, BRITISH COLUMBIA THE HOLLOWED-OUT TRUNK of the ancient yellow cedar felt like a cocoon with its soft floor of bark strips. A mother bear had molded this bed when she came each year to hibernate and to birth her cubs inside the 2,000-year-old tree. In the depth of winter, the shell of sapwood had protected them from the bone-chilling cold and blowing snow. A decade earlier, the mother likely had been born in this same den, near the headwaters of Fairy Creek on Vancouver Island, off the coast of British Columbia. She would have returned each fall, fattened on berries and salmon. I picked one of her hairs from the grain of the wood, the scent…

THE FOSSIL was heralded as the smallest dinosaur ever found. Named Oculudentavis and known from a skull encased in 99-million-year-old amber, the living animal would have been about the size of the smallest modern hummingbirds. Strange, then, that such a tiny fossil stirred the largest paleontological controversy of the year. From the time of the fossil’s March publication in Nature, outside experts were skeptical of the animal’s identity. The initial analysis by paleontologist Lida Xing and colleagues couldn’t pin down where Oculudentavis fit in relation to other dinosaurs; if anything, the fossil had characteristics that were both primitive and advanced for a dinosaur of its age. Rumors began to spread that there was a second specimen of the same animal that confirmed the creature’s identity as a lizard. Then, on July 22,…

The music of the Mountain Goats lives on stage. Fronted by John Darnielle, the North Carolina-based indie rockers have played more than 1,000 concerts over their multi-decade career. Live shows are “among the oldest things humans do,” notes the 54-year-old singer. “To gather is a communal, spiritual, and arguably religious experience.” For bands residing in the middle to outer tiers of fame, touring has another component that is just as vital as the communal, spiritual, and religious—it is also an economic essential. So when COVID-19 vaccines started rolling out earlier this year, accompanied by reschedulings of delayed concerts and announcements of new tours, many were relieved. Superstars such as Drake and Taylor Swift can survive a delayed show or 200, but most artists—and the crews working for them—depend on concerts as…

Cheater’s Mac and Cheese Replacing a traditional béchamel sauce with cream cheese, which melts almost instantly, makes this recipe ultraspeedy. Feel free to swap in other vegetables, such as fresh or frozen cauliflower florets or peas, for the broccoli. 4 ounces short pasta, such as penneKosher salt and freshly ground black pepper (optional)1½ cups fresh or frozen broccoli florets2½ ounces cream cheese (⅓ cup)1 tablespoon unsalted butter½ ounce Parmigiano-Reggiano, finely grated (⅓ cup), plus more for serving 1. Cook pasta in a pot of generously salted boiling water 2 minutes less than per package instructions. Reserve 1 cup pasta water and cover to keep warm. Add broccoli to pot; continue boiling until pasta is al dente and broccoli is bright green, 1 to 2 minutes more. Drain. Return pot to medium heat; add…

I’ll admit, I was pretty skeptical before unboxing the first smartwatch from OnePlus, aptly named the OnePlus Watch. At $159, it’s less than half the price of our Editors’ Choice winner, the Apple Watch Series 6 (which starts at $399). And while it doesn’t work with iPhones, it offers many of the same features as Apple’s market-leading wearable. So far, my skepticism appears to have been unfounded. The OnePlus Watch offers a large color touch screen, built-in GPS, 2GB of storage, a 402mAh battery that promises two weeks of power, and the ability to make and receive calls. It also has plenty of health and fitness features, including support for more than 110 workout types, automatic workout detection for jogging and running, rapid-heart-rate alerts, guided breathing exercises, stress detection, and the…

Windows 11 may be better known for its centered taskbar and rounded window borders, but the new Snap Layouts feature (sometimes also called Snap Assist) might be a more useful UI innovation. Windows, as its name implies, has long been excellent at managing and rearranging program windows, but Snap Layouts elevate the operating system (OS) to the next level. HOW DO SNAP LAYOUTS WORK? To get started with this new productivity tool, you simply hover the mouse over the Maximize icon in a program window’s upper-right corner. You’ll see a choice of layouts, like this: Note that not every application supports this feature. In my testing, the Firefox and Spotify programs showed only the old Maximize option. But you can still position them within a Snap Layout after starting the process with an…

THE WELSH VILLAGE of Llandudno went quiet in March as stay-at-home orders began. Then the goats descended from the mountain. A wild herd of Kashmiri goats has lived near Llandudno for almost two centuries, and they sometimes come down from the Great Orme Mountain during inclement weather. But this spring, while the human world hit pause, they settled into town for a few days, munching on hedges and trotting down the empty streets. The goats joined a host of animal celebrities flooding the internet after they supposedly reclaimed urban areas: dolphins frolicking in Venice’s clean canals, elephants drunk on corn wine in a tea garden in China’s Yunnan province. Tweets announcing these events proclaimed that nature was recovering from years of abuse by humans, thanks to COVID-19 shutdowns. While the goats really did…

Ford Coppola lives—as he has in one way or another since directing 1972’s The Godfather—in splendor. Loosely held splendor: In the ensuing five decades, Coppola has filed for bankruptcy at least once and has been expelled from Hollywood more than once. But splendor nonetheless. His primary residence is in the Napa Valley, on the grounds of a once-great vineyard, Inglenook, that Coppola has spent the past 47 years making great again. There is a grand old château here, where the wine used to be made, and a state-of-the-art facility where wine is made now. There is a carriage house that holds a film-editing suite and Coppola’s personal film archive—shooting scripts for The Cotton Club and Jack and The Outsiders; the written score for Bram Stoker’s Dracula; research material for The…

1 Elizabeth Stile, the condemned witch Elizabeth Stile was a witch - at least, in the minds of many of her contemporaries. She was 65 years old, widowed, and living in Windsor when she was accused of witchcraft. Together with her associates, she was accused of killing several people and bringing harm to many others, with the help of familiars including a rat, a black cat and a toad. All of the accused women were poor. Some of their alleged victims had been targeted, it was said, because they had refused to hand out charity, or had been responsible for some other small injustice against these already marginalised women. We might think that these alleged witches were just scapegoats, picked upon because they were already vulnerable, in an attempt to explain misfortunes…

JOHN FORD WANTED a whale’s-eye view. One summer day in 1978 a pod of killer whales raced toward a pebbled beach on British Columbia’s Vancouver Island. The young biologist was waiting in a wet suit and snorkel. The ghostly black-and-white procession steamed in like a team of U-boats, low and fast. Ford pressed on his face mask and slipped into the sea. In waters barely 10 feet deep, the creatures slowed and rolled to their sides. Bodies partially submerged, the fans at the end of their tails—their flukes—wagging, the whales began to twist and shimmy. One by one, each scuffed its side and belly on the stones, like grizzlies scratching against the pines. Ford, age 66, has now studied killer whales, the largest dolphin and from the branch of the Cetacean…

Located in Osaka, Japan, Leben is a small company whose range is valve based and focuses mainly on the precise execution of established design ideas. The noble exception to this is one of the smaller amplifiers it makes. The CS-300F is a compact integrated that produces 15W with distortion at 10W quoted at a creditably low 0.7 percent THD. How it produces this power is rather unusual. The CS-300F is built around four General Electric JAN-6197 power pentodes, which are rarely seen in audio applications. The 6197 was designed primarily for use in Fifties’ era computers. It was made for stability and robustness at full output (as befits a device being used either on or off). On the original Fifties’ datasheet, though, was a diagram for a proposed amplifier application. This…

KEVIN HOWELL, RYDE Q Forget cardio, Guru. I need to gain mass A Guru’s got you, reader. Bulk is one of his many unkind middle names. And before we dig in, know that GaGu was incredibly tempted to facetiously offer 300 words of baking advice here, so you’re lucky he’s in a good mood – though, as a second preface, you’re also a fool if choose you follow his advice. First, refocus your training to follow Guru’s Three Musts of Gettin’ Buffed: eat, drink, and eat again. Frankly even that short list could be trimmed. You want to eat good things every three hours or so, meaning clean protein, fruits and vegetables, healthy fats and so on. Don’t avoid carbs, but do save them for an after-gym feed up. If you need help…

My mother is getting married,” my 13-year-old daughter, Domino, told her teacher. “How lovely, who is she marrying?” the teacher asked. “My father,” came the reply. After a bewildering 18 months, I felt a longing for something anchoring. Not only for me, but for my children, who, like everyone else, had been shaken by the pandemic. “Let’s get married,” I suggested to David one evening after supper with the kids, at home on an island in the Bahamas where we live and where we had spent the lockdown as a family. David asked me to marry him 25 years ago when I was pregnant with our son, Felix. Being in my independent-woman phase, I never accepted, but I felt strongly that Felix and our four children who would follow should carry…

Dab your foot as the front tyre washes out in a loose turn, or simply miss that step on the way to the toilet after one too many post-ride beers and it’s all too easy to roll your ankle. And if you like getting airborne, bailing a jump or even coming up short and casing the landing are two surefire ways to bruise your heels or blow your ankles up like balloons. Stronger feet and ankles are essential for riding, and not just injury prevention, as the power generated in your legs is ultimately delivered to the pedals through your feet and ankles. So if you want to ride faster, jump higher or simply smash through rock gardens, strong, flexible ankles are essential. And while sprains and strains are common, by improving…

What’s the one item you always take on, or bring back from, an assignment? " My son, Oliver, was born in May of 2021. Since then I’ve kept one of the socks … he wore as a newborn. I have taken it everywhere with me.—SAUL MARTINEZI always bring tobacco to offer the land as a spiritual gesture of respect for nature and to ask for safety when traveling.—PAT KANEThere is a bobcat fetish that lives in my camera bag … [It] comes all over the world with me.—KARINE AIGNERAn FDA-approved device for motion sickness that looks like a watch but shocks like an electric eel … which is very handy when flying in bush planes or rocking around ocean swells on a boat.—KILIII YÜYANI like to get a shave from a…

FROM ITS INCEPTION, THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE Station (ISS) was an improbable machine. As big as a football field and made of 17 pressurized modules and a pair of massive solar wings, the $150 billion spacecraft has been an instrument of research, exploration, and politics, built and maintained by 15 nations, led by the U.S. and Russia. Even as the war in Ukraine rages, NASA and Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, continue to cooperate in space. But what politics cannot break, time and age can. The ISS is getting old. Its first component was launched nearly 24 years ago, and orbital hardware can last only so long before equipment breaks down, small air leaks appear, and the constant punishment both by micrometeorites and the continual thermal cycling the station goes through on…

台灣生育率跌破「超低」門檻，已整整18年。 這段期間，「少子化」成為許多問題的癥結，政府接連推出的催生政策，卻無明顯成效。 每個不生小孩的決定，背後都有複雜糾結的因素。但《今周刊》的獨家調查，提供了明確努力目標：若增加價格親民的公共托育名額、創造能安心請假育嬰的職場環境大部分年輕人，將更有生育意願。 這是急欲擺脫低生育陷阱的台灣，不容錯過的改變契機。 理財達人郭莉芳， 是四個孩子的媽。她十八年前生第一胎時，唯一能領的補助是勞保生育給付；到了現年七歲的小女兒誕生那年，生育給付才從一個月投保薪資增加到兩個月，她設籍的台北市，則額外發放每胎兩萬元生育獎勵與每月二五○○元育兒津貼，「後來還有很多我錯過的友善生育政策不斷上路，但我身邊不敢生的人，還是不太敢生。」 「不敢生，不是這幾年才開始的，我就有很多同學是『頂客族』，就算有生的，通常也只生一個。」四十八歲的郭莉芳觀察，「原因，大概是我們這一代的集體焦慮吧⋯⋯，每個人都想給子女最好的資源，偏偏又覺得自己手上的資源有限，到了該生育的年齡，就會有很多顧慮。」 不敢生養的集體焦慮 今年人口估「自然負成長」五萬人…

THIS MONTH ED SELLEY EXPERTISE: REVIEWER Active in the industry since 1999, Ed’s first record was Boss Drum by The Shamen. He splits his time between reviewing and protecting hi-fi kit from his son Will. NEVILLE ROBERTS EXPERTISE: ENGINEER Neville has an eclectic taste for classical baroque and jazz. His wife was forced to marry his transmission line speakers in the eighties and he collects BBC test card music. JASON KENNEDY EXPERTISE: REVIEWER Editor of HFC from 1998 to 2001, Jason’s first turntable was Rega’s Planar 3 and Elvis’ 40 Greatest Hits was his first vinyl, so don’t go stepping on his blue suede shoes. DAVID PRICE EXPERTISE: REVIEWER DP two-finger typed his first hi-fi review 25 years ago. Since then he’s edited Hi-Fi World and HFC. He describes himself as an “unreconstructed analogue addict”. CHRIS WARD EXPERTISE: REVIEWER Like his first kiss, Chris will…

Canon has announced the development of the EOS R3 – a camera aimed at professional sports and news photographers that boasts 30fps continuous shooting, a brand-new stacked backside illuminated (BSI) image sensor, “next generation Dual Pixel CMOS AF” and Eye Control Function autofocus. The R3 will sit between the flagship EOS-1D X Mark III DSLR and Canon’s current top-of-the-line mirrorless camera, the EOS R5. And its specs suggest it will take aim at the new Sony A1 – at least in the all-important speed stakes. Its headline feature, which matches the A1, is the 30fps burst shooting with full AF/AE tracking and minimal rolling shutter. This is made possible by the new stacked image sensor (the first ever in an EOS camera) that delivers blisteringly fast readout speeds while minimising distortion. The…

Brian Brown, curator of entomology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, photographed all the insects in this article using a camera-and-microscope setup that was originally developed to examine flaws in computer chips. On a balmy January morning in Manaus, a Brazilian port city surrounded by rainforest, a group of entomologists and I scattered into a supermarket to stock up for an expedition. Twenty minutes later, in the checkout line, it became clear that we had different ideas about what that meant. I had peanuts, raisins, and bug repellent; the entomologists, all of whom were dipterists, or fly specialists, had heaps of bruised produce, nearly expired trays of chicken, and bits of peacock bass wrapped in cellophane. “I asked for the worst tomatoes they have, the most rotten potatoes and onions—that’s…

Chloë Grace Moretz should be on the road. She stars in two major films being released this year, so there’s a lot to promote. But since the pandemic has halted regular life, she is stationed at her home in Los Angeles, which presents her with a couple of new realities: being at her abode (this is the longest stretch ever) and having loads of free time. From age 5, Chloë has spent most of her life traveling or on a set. Since she can remember, her days have run on a rigid schedule planned to the hour. Then, poof, her routine suddenly dismantled, and Chloë became unmoored. “In the beginning it felt nice to take a break. I thought it might last for a few weeks. Then it became very real…

Plant-based eating is experiencing a growth spurt. Almost one-third of Americans say they are actively trying to reduce their consumption of meat and dairy, according to the Plant Based Foods Association. Last year, 28 percent of people reported eating more protein from plant sources, 24 percent had more plant-based dairy, and 17 percent ate more plant-based meat alternatives than they did in 2019, a survey by the International Food Information Council found. Our desire for a more wellness-oriented lifestyle is fueling the trend. Health is the key reason 56 percent of people choose plant-based proteins, according to a 2020 report from the market research company Mintel, while environmental impact and animal welfare are the top concern for 26 percent, according to Mattson Consulting. “There’s been a lot of emerging science, as well…

On an unseasonably hot Wednesday at the end of May, a little voice in my head was telling me to run faster. “It’s time to get your heart rate up,” she told me. This wasn’t my inner masochist, like it usually is. On this particular run, it was the voice of Vi, a digital assistant baked inside a pair of prototype in-ear headphones. Vi is the first consumer product from wearable technology company LifeBeam, which has provided the tech backbone for products from Samsung, Under Armour, and JBL, among others. Now LifeBeam is partnering with Harman/Kardon for Vi, which debuted on Kickstarter (go.macworld.com/kickstartervi) recently. WHO IS VI? At first glance, LifeBeam’s wrap-around headset resembles the LG Tone, a pair of Bluetooth headphones with neck controls for volume. And while Vi can be used…

With the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine newly given emergency-use authorization for children 5 to 11, many parents are asking the question: Should we vaccinate our kids? Many of them may have already made up their mind. Some of those arguing against vaccinating kids make the case that COVID-19 typically does not cause severe illness among children with healthy immune systems. Thankfully, purely as a percentage of total cases, it does hold true. To date, around 6 million children in the U.S. have contracted this coronavirus, which has led to more than 65,000 hospitalizations and 897 deaths. These numbers pale in comparison to the over 3 million hospitalizations among U.S. adults, and a staggering 754,000 deaths. The low rates of complications and severe illness from COVID-19 in children are the exact data needed to…

We won’t try to keep you in suspense. When we reviewed last year’s model, we called the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon the best laptop in the world—though we later decided it shared that title with the Dell XPS 13 OLED—and it hasn’t done anything in its latest revision to change that state of affairs. The X1 Carbon Gen 9 catches up with the Dell and other elite ultraportables by moving to an 11th Generation Intel “Tiger Lake” Core processor and a slightly taller 16:10 rather than 16:9 screen aspect ratio. Its premium price and lack of an SD card slot still knock half a star off what would otherwise be a perfect five-star rating, but it effortlessly collects yet another Editors’ Choice award as the most desirable executive notebook on…

You can’t talk about gaming mice without talking about Razer. In 2019, we raved about the wireless Razer Viper Ultimate, a high-end spinoff of the light, fast, and ambidextrous Razer Viper. Complete with all the esports fixings you could ask for in a wireless gaming mouse, the Ultimate impressed us with its fabulous feature set, despite its high price. Three years later, the company has taken another step toward wireless gaming domination with the Viper V2 Pro, which upgrades the Viper Ultimate in almost every way. The new mouse is no cheaper than its predecessor, despite a simple USB-C cable replacing the latter’s charging dock, but it easily earns Editors’ Choice honors. PROS • Clean, minimalist design • Excellent sensor • Durable optical switches • Lightweight CONS • Expensive • No RGB lighting • Fewer buttons THE BOTTOM LINE Tons of…

If you’ve ever learned a new language — or tried to — you know how difficult it can be. Native languages seem almost built-in. We soak them up naturally when we’re very young. But learning a new language, especially after early childhood, can be a huge task, burdened by long vocabulary lists and genders to memorize, complex cases and troublesome tenses to master. Of course, it’s worth the effort. In today’s interconnected world, learning a new language can change your life. It will certainly change your brain. ALTERNATE ROUTES Learning anything changes your brain, at least a little bit. But learning a language does it in high gear. John Grundy, a neuroscientist at Iowa State University who specializes in bilingualism and the brain, explains that learning a new language causes extensive neuroplasticity in…

四月二十六日，星宇航空創辦人張國煒親自執飛，台北洛杉磯的首航。 這是重要性不亞於三年前開航的飛行任務。 飛向北美天空，意味著星宇從區域走向國際。猶如四十年前，張國煒的父親張榮發獨排眾議，大膽開出橫跨太平洋與大西洋的雙向環球航線，讓長榮海運由亞洲船公司變成世界第一。 「他們（父子）DNA是一樣的，都很有魄力、很有魅力，」長榮集團出身、前中菲行執行長林天送評論。 北美首航，轉動了星宇最關鍵的中轉客商模。這位台灣唯一、世界少數同時擁有機師和維修證照的航空公司董事長，要驗證自己「從王子變成King（國王）」，只能贏不能輸的不可能任務。 首航倒數前兩天，星宇航空的營運大腦，張國煒與執行長翟健華所在的內湖總部十六樓，透明辦公室一目了然，從主管房內到開放空間的討論區，沒有一張會議桌是空的，都處於作戰模式。就連秘書遞送文件也都急如風、甚至小跑步。 競爭對手不是兩位老大哥 當年， 看好亞洲成為世界工廠，張榮發大膽擴張海運版圖，捉住趨勢破浪。而張國煒眼中的航空市場，「台灣的地理位置這麼好，如果你善用它，台灣市場無限大，真的太大了，」張國煒左右手，翟健華提高音調分析。…

BULLETPR OF TRAINING Think suspension, and invariably it’s linkage systems, springs and damping that instantly come to mind. But as mountain bikers we know that our arms and legs have more “travel” than any frame or fork. There’s no CE testing or maintenance programme for our limbs and joints, however, even though the forces you experience when riding are extreme and repetitive. So it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that this combination can cause some funky issues in your joints. If you’ve been riding for some time, you’ve probably experienced an occasional niggle or soreness in your elbow joints. Not from impacts necessarily, but from the relentless bombardment of vibrations and muscular tension they undergo every ride. Compounded over time, without proper care, these small niggles can become larger…

“I don’t want to say, ‘The election is over,’” Donald Trump said on January 7, 2021. He’d been given a script for a video statement on the events of the previous day, when, at his prompting, a mob had assaulted the Capitol in an attempt to disrupt the electoral-vote tally. The video was meant to calm his supporters and to reassure the country that the election was, indeed, over. But, as indicated by outtakes from the filming which were shown last Thursday, at a hearing of the House Select Committee investigating the events of January 6th, Trump wasn’t ready to send that message. All he was willing to say was that “Congress has certified the results”; it had done so at close to four o’clock that morning, in a building…

二○一六年，Google旗下AlphaGo擊敗世界圍棋冠軍李世乭，激起AI巨浪不久後，兩家台灣電子大廠不約而同做了大膽決定。 鴻海集團創辦人郭台銘決定發展高速運算，打造第一台超級電腦，集團內的伺服器廠鴻佰科技接下任務。 一群鴻佰、輝達（Nvidia）和微軟的工程師、超級電腦專家，齊聚微軟西雅圖會議室，在白板上來回畫著設計圖。一七年，他們打造出第一款專為AI設計的全新架構超級電腦「HGX-1」，裝配有四顆及八顆體積龐大的GPU（圖形處理器），擁有比傳統CPU（中央處理器）伺服器快一百倍的深度學習效能，執行AI訓練和推論的成本卻僅是過去的五分之一。 場景轉到台北內湖瑞光路，光寶科技的總部大樓內，當時主管電源供應器部門的光寶總經理邱森彬，眼看著高階伺服器中，GPU的角色日益吃重，就派了一組人馬和輝達、系統代工廠對接，開發AI伺服器用的高階電源供應器。（見84頁） AI2.0時代》商機比行動網路大十倍 ChatGPT帶動需求，電子廠到新創都搶進 六年後，第二波AI巨浪掀起。…

1 IKEA FLOALT Sometimes you don’t want a bulb, you want a whole panel of light to control from your phone or through your smart speaker – and that’s exactly what you get with the Floalt, part of Ikea’s growing range of intelligent illumination products. Available in a variety of sizes, these panels really enable you to get creative with your lighting setup. From £65, ikea.com 2 PHILIPS HUE AMARANT One of the latest products from the smart lightning veterans at Philips Hue is the Amarant, an outdoor light bar that can blanket a wall or a particular part of your property with a white or coloured light. You can even connect several of them together, and they’re perfect for hedges, fences, and any other bit of outdoor furniture that you want to illuminate. £129.99,…

Most people view Microsoft’s Excel as a simple “spreadsheet program” that’s rapidly being eclipsed by free web-based apps that can run on any cheap laptop. Well, think again. Modern-day Excel is an advanced analytics tool that can push today’s fastest hardware to their limits, and it’s sexy enough that it rates its own esports coverage. No joke—thousands tuned in live to watch the Financial Modelling World Cup that was broadcast by ESPN. Intrigued by the interest of “gamers” and curious to see just how hard advanced Excel users are pushing the application, PCWorld decided to interview spreadsheet superstar Jason Moore. Moore is the head of analytics and data at an investment firm, and a semifinalist who won cold, hard cash in December’s Financial Modeling World Cup. Moore is also the same Excel…

摘自 LE FIGARO 清晨5點在冰島西南部的凱夫拉維克機場（Keflavík Airport），天色尚暗，空氣潮濕。一股強烈陣風，讓我們這架來自波士頓的航班，在降落時驚險萬狀。連我這種不信神的人，都開始祈求上蒼保佑。 不過完全沒有必要。冰島航空的機師泰然自若地應付著這個生死瞬間。在他們眼裡，這種強勁、狂暴的側風充其量只是返鄉時司空見慣的歡迎場面。 一個小時後，天還是沒亮，我慶幸自己抵抗誘惑，在機上的最後3小時滴酒未沾。冰島當地對酒駕的規定非常嚴格，而我正開著一輛租來的車，要到50公里外的雷克雅維克（Reykjavík）。我不免心想，在破曉前的一片漆黑中落地，又有「北歐黑色」風格電影一般的雨瀑相伴，這對2021年8月這趟遺世之旅，是再完美不過的開場了。 人在旅途往往充滿期待。冰島曾是丹麥的屬地，離冰島最近的陸塊是地圖上一片白色的格陵蘭。這個亞北極圈內的島國地廣人疏（居民數376,000人），堪稱人類最偏遠的居住地。因其地理位置，加上與歐盟的緊密關係，冰島有如歐洲的露台。我不知道自己會在這裡有什麼樣的發現。…

THERE’S AN OLD JOKE AMONG TWITTER EMPLOYEES THAT being on the platform is like playing a huge online multiplayer game where every day there’s a different main character—meaning a person who’s critiqued, harassed, or otherwise shoved into the spotlight. According to the joke, you have just one goal: never become that main character yourself. One day in 2018, Twitter’s main character was Vernon Unsworth, a British diver who’d spent days assisting the rescue of Thai boys trapped in a flooded cave. After billionaire Elon Musk offered a minuscule submarine to the rescue divers, Unsworth told the media that Musk’s idea was just a useless PR stunt. Musk then took to Twitter, where (in tweets that he later deleted) he baselessly accused the man of being a “pedo guy,” or pedophile. The…

九月十四日， 知名演員龍劭華猝逝，享壽六十八歲，相驗死因為「疾病因素」。龍劭華有逾十年糖尿病史，而糖尿病常見的併發症之一就是心血管疾病，他的猝逝是因病奪命的冰山一角，如一整座冰山般的慢性病風暴早已悄悄籠罩全台！ 台灣自五月爆發本土Covid-19疫情後，至九月二十一日累計死亡八四○例，死亡案例中，令人不安的現象就是高達九成有慢性病史，其中為數極少的三、四十歲年輕死亡個案，也有近七成是慢性病患者。 至今，台灣covid-19死亡率約五．二％，遠高於全球平均的二．○六％（九月二十一日數據）。雖然專家學者指出高死亡率的原因很複雜，但台灣如此「突出」的表現仍是一記警鐘，讓人意識到台灣慢性病問題之嚴重。 「台灣十大死因除了事故傷害外，大部分都是慢性病，像心血管、糖尿病、高血壓等。」台大醫院社區醫學科主任詹其峰解釋，只要是非傳染性疾病（NCD），而且需要持續一年以上的醫療照顧，或導致日常生活功能限制，就可稱為慢性病，也因此癌症也歸類在慢性病裡。 台慢性病早死率 高於韓日星 最後階段臥床長達8.5年…

IN response to the question “How do you make a 600-hp sports sedan?” BMW, Audi, and Mercedes have turned in answers so similar that if this were an exam, they’d be accused of cheating. The brands started with the bones of a buttoned-down sedan and crafted a version with a narrow-eyed performance-car glare, a dropped roofline, and a sloping tail. Each car has all-wheel drive, adaptive dampers, brake rotors the size of Saturn’s rings, and a twin-turbo V-8 of at least 4.0 liters making completely unbuttoned dyno numbers. Add up all three and you get 1838 horsepower. Presumably to enrage our readers, the marketing people advertise these things as four-door coupes. “Swoopy, saggy-assed sedans” could work, but that doesn’t quite capture the seriousness of this trio. The Audi RS7, the BMW M8 Competition…

ON A RURAL HIGHWAY in Northern California, a July traveler’s tire went flat. Metal rim scraped against pavement. The sparks ignited a fire that ripped through dry forest, whirled into flame tornadoes, and roared over tens of thousands of acres, making fuel of everything in its path. When it jumped the Sacramento River and headed for the city of Redding, Keith Bein prepped his new rig—a trailer holding two tiny electric cars, a lot of tubes and instrumentation, and a white contraption that looks like a miniature lighthouse. Bein works as an atmospheric scientist at the University of California, Davis campus, about 150 miles south of Redding. By the time he hooked the loaded trailer to his truck and began driving upstate, the 2018 Carr Fire—those sparks ignited near a power…

ALEXANDRA GRAY BENNETT and her husband were ready to nest. Finally back together in their native Minnesota—after they married, he had moved to Boston for business school—the couple were looking for an ideal home to start a family in. “We were basically Trulia regulars,” jokes Bennett. “But I remember the first moment I saw our house in 2017. I just had a feeling.” Set in the leafy Kenwood neighborhood of South Minneapolis, the 2,300-square-foot, two-and-a-half-story 1920s cedar-shingle dwelling had a traditional foursquare design, with a room in each corner and a central hall and stairway. It ticked all their boxes: It was simple and beautiful, close to lakes and trails for their Labrador, and—the kicker—walking distance from one of the city’s best playgrounds. Two years and one positive pregnancy test later,…

A long-time interest in the transition-era Denver & Rio Grande Western (D&RGW), in both standard gauge and narrow gauge flavors, plus a large (if somewhat inconveniently arranged) space set the stage for this multi-deck track plan. My client – I’m a professional layout designer – had already commissioned two excellent custom plans for somewhat different spaces, but little could be salvaged from either of those for the new space that, while ample, was festooned with doors, posts, and other obstacles. Moreover, it included a number of oddly angled walls. Based on my client’s personal interest and those earlier design efforts, the primary elements to include were Pueblo Junction wye and yard, the famous Hanging Bridge scene near Cañon City, the busy narrow gauge/standard gauge terminal at Salida, and as far north…

Breathing is not something that we have to think about, and indeed is controlled by muscle contractions in our body. Breathing is controlled by the diaphragm, which contracts and expands on a regular, constant basis. When it contracts, the diaphragm pulls air into the lungs by a vacuum-like effect. The lungs expand to fill the enlarged chest cavity and air is pulled right through the maze of tubes that make up the lungs to the alveoli at the ends, which are the final branching. The chest will be seen to rise because of this lung expansion. Alveoli are surrounded by blood vessels, and oxygen and carbon dioxide are then interchanged at this point between the lungs and the blood. Carbon dioxide removed from the blood stream and air that was…

QUILT Finished size: 68½ ×92½" Finished block: 12" square MATERIALS Yardages and cutting instructions are based on 42" of usable fabric width. ❑ 3—⅓-yard pieces assorted orange prints (blocks)❑ 1¼ yards cream tone-on-tone (blocks)❑ ⅛ yard brown print (blocks)❑ 4½ yards mottled navy blue (blocks, setting squares, binding)❑ 1¼ yards orange and-red print (border)❑ 5⅝ yards backing fabric❑ 77×101" batting CUT FABRICS Cut pieces in the following order. From each assorted orange print, cut: ◼ 18—2½ ×5½" rectangles From cream tone-on-tone, cut: ◼ 72—4" squares ◼ 36—1½ ×3" rectangles ◼ 72—2" squares From brown print, cut: ◼ 18—1½" squares From mottled navy blue, cut: ◼ 9—2½ ×42" binding strips ◼ 17—12½" setting squares ◼ 18—7⅜" squares ◼ 72—3½" squares From orange-and-red print, cut: ◼ 8—4½ ×42" strips for border ASSEMBLE BLOCKS Measurements include ¼" seam allowances. Sew with right sides together unless otherwise stated. Press seams in directions indicated by arrows on diagrams. If no…

WHAT IS THE ONE THING PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT HONG KONG WHEN THEY ARRIVE? Hong Kong is a city that never sleeps or never stops, it is filled with energy and there is always something to do, to see, to eat and to drink in this city. HONG KONG HAS ONE OF THE BEST FOOD SCENES IN THE WORLD; IF YOU HAD TO NARROW IT DOWN TO JUST A FEW RESTAURANTS, WHERE WOULD YOU SUGGEST PEOPLE EAT OUT WHEN VISITING? Hong Kong is a city that is filled with restaurants so it comes to choices of cuisine and food; there are so many to choose from. As a traveller to Hong Kong or to anywhere in the world, I will always recommend visitors to eat the local cuisine, so for Hong Kong, local…

The public beta of macOS Monterey, released by Apple in early July, doesn’t look surprisingly new. Exceptions include Safari, which gets a dynamically resizing tab bar and other conveniences, and FaceTime, which gets a background-blurring portrait mode and screen-sharing features. As you get more familiar with Monterey, however, you’ll find improvements and conveniences everywhere and may wonder how you managed without them. This is because Apple’s annual updates to the Mac operating system tend to have a regular rhythm. Massive updates arrive on even-numbered years: Big Sur, for example, the 2020 update to macOS that was also the first version that ran on Apple Silicon hardware. Updates in odd-numbered years, such as Monterey, look more or less like the previous version but come with under-the-hood improvements that may do more for…

As a six-core, 12-thread processor with great integrated graphics, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600G is the CPU that 2021 has been waiting for. A strong successor to older, budget-friendly, gaming-focused CPUs such as the AMD Ryzen 5 3400G, it puts up some of the fastest game frame rates to date from an integrated graphics processor (IGP). Cheaper than the IGP-less Ryzen 5 5600X ($299) and layered in with the highly capable Radeon RX Vega 7 graphics engine, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600G is a serious threat to Intel’s competing Intel Core i5-11600K on CPU grunt and really puts the hammer down once you factor in its gaming results and Radeon Software compatibility. Whether you’re an esports hopeful aiming to get a gaming PC built for cheap or just want a…

After releasing the relatively affordable Studio Buds ($149.99) earlier this year, Beats is back with a new pair of noise-cancelling true wireless earphones, the Beats Fit Pro. Aptly named, the focus here is on in-ear fit security, with built-in earfins made of a pliable material that truly helps create a more secure seal in your ear. They’re also armed with active noise cancellation (ANC), and since Beats is owned by Apple, you get the company’s H1 chip, which enables features including Spatial Audio with head tracking, Adaptive EQ, hands-free Siri, and one-touch iOS pairing. The sonic performance is classic Beats, with intense bass, boosted highs, and a scooped-out midrange. The ANC is better than average, with effective low-frequency noise elimination. For the price, there’s plenty to like, but the Beats…