Section B Five Modern Time-Savers That Really Aren't

Text B Five Modern Time-Savers That Really Aren't

Last year, Apple showed people its iPad 4. It is loaded with 128 gigabytes of memory and has a 9.7-inch touch screen, and I think pretty soon I won't be able to live without it. It will save me time because I'll never again have to carry my novels to the charity shop, move them from one home to the next, or even go to a bookshop. 

1. loaded：加载，装载

2.128 gigabytes of memory： 128 G内存（表示内存大小）

3.novels：小说

4. charity：慈善

However, not all so-called convenience items can really do us good to save time. I spent the last year juggling four computers while I worked on a book on how our lives became so heartlessly ruled by e-mail, and I've come to see that some modern time-savers don't really save time. The following are some examples.

1. convenience items：方便使用的物品，便利物件

2. juggling：同时使用的，兼顾的

The digital camera: That old 35-mm camera did save you time. Each roll of film had no more than 36 photos, which meant that when you ran out, you put the camera down and enjoyed yourself. You were living, not simply photographing living. Sure, it's great you can now take a picture and e-mail it to a friend. But don't you get bored by having to sort 2,132 photos or more after every trip?

1.digital camera：数码相机

2. sort ：处理

E-mail: We e-mail all day from our computers. The hard fact is: The more we e-mail, the more e-mails we get. And that leads to more time spent e-mailing. Studies show that those hours don't come from the workday or TV viewing; they come from time with our families.

1. lead to:导致，引起

The coffeemaker: You can buy one that makes your coffee every morning, but you still have to clean, prepare, and load the machine first, which can take five minutes if you do it right. Add that up and it's about one day per year spent making coffee.

1. per year:每年

The electric shaver: Eighty years after this new tool was invented, modern man is still in want of a clean shave. Here's what your guy has to put up with almost daily: After using an electric shaver, he has to go back over his chin with a regular razor to have a clean shave by shaving off what gets away from the electric shaver. Then he has to clean both tools. Then he has to wipe the little hairs off the bathroom sink. And as you know too well, he never gets every last one.

1. electric shaver:电动剃须刀

2. chin：下巴

3.regular razor ：手动剃须刀

4. wipe：擦洗

5. sink：洗涤槽，洗脸池

Computerized call centers: Call almost any customer-service number and you will be greeted by an automated attendant. That's when things get trying. You will repeat what you need as she requests to go back a step. 

1.customer-service：客户服务

2.automated attendant：自动话务员

3.greeted：打招呼，问候 

4.requests：要求

And in a few minutes, you may just start shouting: "Operator, operator, operator..." If Samuel Beckett were alive today, Waiting for Godot might have taken place in one of these call-center hells.

1. Operator：接线员

2. alive：活着的

Waiting for Godot 《等待戈多》
      Waiting for Godotis an absurdist play by Samuel Beckett, a world famous Irish writer. In the play two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for the arrival of someone named Godot. One interpretation of the name Godot is that it stands for God. In the play Godot never appears, so his absence, in the light of this interpretation, signifies the absence of God, that is, the death of God. And with God dead, men are thrown into a meaningless world, suffering.

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