1부
World News Overview
(content provided by NYT)
<1>
In Race to Build AI, Tech Plans a Big, Expensive Plumbing Upgrade
If 2023 was the tech industry’s year of the artificial intelligence chatbot, 2024 is turning out to be the year of AI plumbing. It may not sound as exciting, but tens of billions of dollars are quickly being spent on behind-the-scenes technology for the industry’s AI boom. Companies from Amazon to Meta are revamping their data centers to support AI. They are investing in huge new facilities, while even places like Saudi Arabia are racing to build supercomputers to handle AI. Nearly everyone with a foot in tech or giant piles of money, it seems, is jumping into a spending frenzy that some believe could last for years.
▶ behind-the-scenes : 막후에서
▶ revamping : (보통 더 보기 좋도록) 개조[수리]하다
▶ spending frenzy : 열광적인 지출/소비
<2>
Stowaway Cat Gets From Utah to California in Amazon Returns Package
When Carrie Clark got a phone call April 17 from a veterinarian in California informing her that her cat, which had vanished from her Utah home a week earlier, had been found some 500 miles away, her first reaction was disbelief. Galena, her 6-year-old shorthair, had sneaked inside a 3-by-3-foot cardboard Amazon returns package alongside five pairs of steel-toed boots. Then the cat was transported two states away to one of the company’s warehouses, where she was discovered by Amazon employees, who took her to the veterinarian. Galena survived the unexpected journey without any food or water, Clark said.
▶ informing : 통지하는; 유익한, 교육적인
▶ vanished : 없어지다, 사라지다
▶ sneaked inside : 몰래 안으로 살금살금 들어가다
<3>
A City Scarred by Terrorism Prepares an Olympic Opening Without Walls
The Summer Olympics are set to open in Paris in July with France at its highest level of terrorism alert, after the attack on the Moscow concert hall last month. Yet, for the first time, the opening ceremony will not be held inside the barricaded confines of a stadium. Instead, athletes will float in boats down the Seine River through the heart of the dense, ancient city before a half-million spectators packed into stands and leaning out of windows. Although some say that makes the ceremony an obvious target, many security experts have said they have faith in the preparations.
▶ barricaded : 바리케이드[방어벽]를 치다
▶ obvious target : 명백한 공격대상
▶ have faith in : …을 믿고 있다[신앙하다]
<4>
Maze of Tunnels Far Below London May Open to Tourists
There’s a locked door on the eastbound platform of the Chancery Lane station of the London Underground. Behind it is a wide set of stairs leading to a roughly milelong maze of tunnels built in the 1940s that were first intended to serve as a World War II shelter and later used for espionage, the storage of 400 tons of government documents and telecom services. Welcome to the Kingsway Exchange tunnels. Angus Murra, who bought the tunnels last summer, has applied for planning permission to local authorities together with architecture firm WilkinsonEyre to turn the tunnels into a tourist destination that could handle millions of people a year.
▶ serve as : …의 역할을 하다
▶ espionage : 스파이[간첩] 행위
▶ tourist destination : 관광지
<5>
A New Battery Warns Parents if Their Child Has Swallowed It
Almost two years after a report warned that children were swallowing batteries at an alarming rate, Energizer is releasing a new battery designed to alert parents if their child has swallowed one. The new coin lithium battery features more secure packaging, a nontoxic bitter coating and “color alert technology” that activates a blue dye when the battery comes into contact with moisture, like saliva, so parents and caregivers know that medical attention could be required. Ingested coin or button batteries result in thousands of emergency hospital visits each year, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.
▶ alarming rate : 급속도로
▶ activates : 작동시키다
▶ comes into contact : 접촉하다
2부
News Coverage
(content provided by NYT)
The International Date Line Is ‘Pretty Arbitrary.’ Here’s Why.
But time zones have physical dimensions. So where exactly on earth do days begin and end? The short answer is that Mondays become Tuesdays at the international date line, a boundary that runs through the Pacific Ocean.
The longer answer is that no international rules govern the location of the date line, and its exact coordinates depend on the shifting whims of governments. Maps that attempt to depict it are never quite right, and the line itself technically does not exist.
[Expressions]
(제목) arbitrary: 임의적인, 제멋대로인 (based on chance rather than being planned or based on reason)
▶coordinate = (주로 복수형으로) 위도와 경도(에서 본 위치); [수학] 좌표 (one of a pair of numbers and/or letters that show the exact position of a point on a map or graph)
▶whim = (일시적인) 기분, 변덕 (a sudden wish or idea, especially one that cannot be reasonably explained)
ex) She bought a lottery ticket on a whim and then won.
technically: 엄밀히 따지면[말하면]; 기술적으로
Mapmakers long chose their own east-west dividing lines, which are called meridians, a word derived from the Latin for “midday.” In the absence of an international standard for when days began or ended, navigators on long sailing voyages had to decide for themselves how to account for the time they were losing or gaining.
In 1884, 25 nations passed a resolution calling for a “prime” meridian that set zero degrees longitude at Greenwich — a town on London’s outskirts that had a royal observatory — in order to establish an international reference point for mapmakers, timekeepers and train schedulers. They also resolved to establish a “universal day.”
[Expressions]
▶meridian = 자오선 (an imaginary line between the North Pole and the South Pole, drawn on maps to help to show the position of a place)
▶longitude = 경도(지구 위의 위치를 나타내는 좌표축 중에서 세로로 된 것) (the distance of a place east or west of an imaginary line between the North Pole and the South Pole, measured in degrees)
※latitude: 위도(지구 위의 위치를 나타내는 좌표축 중에서 가로로 된 것)
universal day: 세계표준시 (과거에는 그리니치 평균시(GMT)였으나, 현재는 협정세계시(UTC)에 해당) (그리고 본초자오선상의 이 표준시와, 거기서 180도 선상에 있는 날짜 변경선, 이 두 선을 가지고 현재 날짜 계산을 하고 있는 것)
But it took decades for many countries to accept the prime meridian and to formalize Greenwich-linked time zones, according to the 2007 book “One Time Fits All” by Ian R. Bartky. And the physical location of that universal day — the international date line — was never formally settled.
In 1921, the British Admiralty, which managed the United Kingdom’s naval affairs, said that no date line had “ever been definitely laid down, either by any one power or by international agreement.” That is still true more than a century later.
[Expressions]
▶formalize = 공식화하다; 형식을 갖추다
Admiralty: (과거 영국의) 해군성
▶lay something down = (법칙·원칙을 지키도록) 정하다 (to officially establish a rule, or to officially say how something should be done)
ex) The new employees had the company policies laid down before them at the start of their orientation.
In the 1990s, Kiribati moved the line east across the 180-degree meridian to include its easternmost islands. In 2011, Samoa — which, at the urging of American traders, had hopped across the same meridian in 1892 by observing the same Monday twice — skipped back by cutting a Friday.
Emma Veve, an economist at the Asian Development Bank who has worked in the Pacific islands, said that Samoa’s switch made commercial sense because it put the country in the same business day as New Zealand. While the news media made a fuss, she said, people went on with their lives.
[Expressions]
180-degree meridian: 경도 180도(그리니치 천문대를 지나는 본초 자오선에서 동쪽 혹은 서쪽으로 180° 떨어진 경선으로, 날짜 변경선의 기초)
easternmost: 가장 동쪽의, 최동단의
observe: (축제·생일 등을) 축하[기념]하다, (의식·관습 등을) 지키다
▶skipped back by cutting a Friday = 금요일을 없앰으로써 다시 날짜변경선 서쪽으로 돌아갔다 (앞서 나온 hop across ~에 맞춘 표현)
business day: 영업일, 평일
▶make a fuss = 소란을 피우다, 공연한 법석을 떨다 (If you make a fuss or kick up a fuss about something, you become angry or excited about it and complain.)
ex) Kids often make a fuss about nothing when it comes to doing something for the first time.
▶went on with their lives = (별 말 없이) 살아갔다[생활했다]
- go on (with something): (특히 잠깐 중단하거나 휴식한 후에) (~을) 계속하다 (to continue)
ex) She appeared to freeze in front of the audience so I tried to encourage her to go on with her routine.
For map makers — and reporters — the international date line can be hard to pin down.
Cartographers typically map it by consulting other maps, including a time zone one published by the CIA. But making a more granular version is complicated, Montenyohl said. That is partly because countries change time zones; digital maps tend to reflect flaws of the predigital ones they were based upon; and a country’s territory extends 200 nautical miles from its land boundaries.
“It very quickly kind of, like, breaks your brain if you get too deep into the weeds,” he said.
[Expressions]
▶pin something down = ~을 정확히 밝히다[이해하다] (to discover exact details about something)
ex) They knew a terrorist attack was coming, but they couldn't pin down the exact location in time.
cartographer: 지도 제작자
granular: 자세한 (원래 뜻은 '알갱이의, 알갱이 같은') (including small details)
breaks your brain if you get too deep into the weeds: 너무 깊이 들어가면 머리가 고장이 나게 된다 → 세부 사항을 다 따지다 보면 (거기에 파묻혀) 판단이 곤란해진다
※(be) in the weeds: 세세한 부분에 골몰하다; (너무 많은 일이나 곤란한 상황 때문에) 감당이 안 되다, 어쩔 줄을 모르다, 어려운 상황에 처하다 (immersed or entangled in details or complexities)