星标🌟 / 置顶🔝TFT小组，
才不会错过有趣的灵魂和Dream School
本文大约2600字，阅读需要7分钟
PLANET MONEY

< #908: I Am Not A Robot

JACOB GOLDSTEIN, HOST:
In the year 2000, everybody was signing up for Yahoo email addresses. This was back before Gmail. And Yahoo Mail was great. It was free. You could check your email anywhere. But there was this one problem.
NOEL KING, HOST:
And a computer science grad student at Carnegie Mellon University became fixated on this problem. His name is Luis von Ahn.
LUIS VON AHN: The problem was that there were people who, in order to send spam from Yahoo accounts, they would obtain millions of email accounts.
GOLDSTEIN: Literally millions - not hundreds or thousands, but millions of fake email accounts.
VON AHN: Literally millions of fake email accounts.
KING: The spammers who were signing up for millions of spam accounts weren't going to the Yahoo Mail page and just signing up for these accounts one at a time.
GOLDSTEIN: Yeah. It wasn't like they were, like, [email protected], [email protected], [email protected].
KING: No, spammers were writing simple computer programs - little bots that just kept filling out the Yahoo email sign-up form again and again and again, day and night. And that would generate an army of email accounts that could be used to sell fake Viagra or steal your bank account information - whatever.
GOLDSTEIN: Yahoo didn't know what to do about this, but Luis von Ahn had an idea.
VON AHN: So the idea was can we make a test that can distinguish between humans and computers, but also a test that is graded by the computer.
GOLDSTEIN: If you've basically ever signed up for anything on the Internet, you probably know the idea that Luis von Ahn came up with - a picture of distorted letters and numbers, and then a little field below that picture where you type in the characters that you see.
VON AHN: And we actually showed it to the guy who was the chief scientist at Yahoo. He loved it. And within a few weeks, it was actually, you know, in the registration flow of email accounts at Yahoo. It was being used there, and we were super happy that they were just using it.
GOLDSTEIN: Luis gave his little test a name. It was a long, ridiculous name that made a short, genius acronym. The long name was...
VON AHN: Completely Automated Public Turing Test To Tell Computers And Humans Apart.
KING: A Turing test is a famous old idea in computer science. It's a test where you try to tell if you're chatting with a computer or with a human being. If a computer can consistently make you think it's a human being, that is artificial intelligence.
GOLDSTEIN: And this sort of Turing test that Luis came up with - it became huge. You may even know the acronym for this test.
VON AHN: CAPTCHA.
GOLDSTEIN: CAPTCHA. CAPTCHA is very compelling. CAPTCHA is a good name.
VON AHN: Yeah, because it's like capture them or gotcha or something like that. Yeah, it was a good name.
GOLDSTEIN: You know CAPTCHA. Maybe you do not like CAPTCHA. And yet, the 20-year history of CAPTCHA is this window into a lot - into artificial intelligence, into digitizing millions of books, also into a little cybercrime.
(SOUNDBITE OF LEIGH MCALLISTER GRACIE SONG, "LET'S START A MOVEMENT")
GOLDSTEIN: Hello, and welcome to PLANET MONEY. I'm Jacob Goldstein.
KING: And I'm Noel King, and I am not a robot.
GOLDSTEIN: I am not, not, not a robot.
KING: But if you were...
GOLDSTEIN: That's exactly what I would say.
KING: (Laughter).
GOLDSTEIN: Today on the show, a global, decades-long war.
KING: An Internet that people actually use versus a spammy wasteland.
GOLDSTEIN: It is computer versus computer. And in the end, the computers are only going to need us, the humans, to do a little light data entry.
GOLDSTEIN: That's exactly what I would say.
KING: (Laughter).
GOLDSTEIN: Today on the show, a global, decades-long war.
KING: An Internet that people actually use versus a spammy wasteland.
GOLDSTEIN: It is computer versus computer. And in the end, the computers are only going to need us, the humans, to do a little light data entry.
这段音频是某个英文播客的一个片段。
大致内容是：2000年，一个正在CMU读cs的小伙子为了防止不法分子利用电脑程序大规模注册虚假雅虎邮箱发送大量广告垃圾邮件，甚至盗取财产账户构成网络犯罪而发明了验证码。
小编将这段截取下来附上原稿，给大家感受一下播客这种音频媒介的风格形式。
在美国,播客 (podcast)已经是比较成熟的工业，有许多知名的五花八门的节目。如果你不知道播客，那你一定听说过喜马拉雅、荔枝FM、蜻蜓FM、网易电台这种播客平台。虽然起步较晚，但是国内的播客产业也在蓬勃发展。
相对于传统的广播，播客的每一期节目制作更加精良，信息密度更大一些。同时，播客深入浅出，通过口头表达出来不再显得晦涩难以理解。我们不仅可以学到地道的英语表达，还可以听到对当下时政的分析与观点。
播客是最好的学习英语和了解母语国家的社会语境的方法，不出国门也可以最大限度地感受地道的英语思维，无形之中锻炼你的英语听说能力。这无疑也会带给你一种完全不一样的体验和乐趣。
尤其当很多人平时没有那么多时间接触英文时候，有一个很有效的方法就是利用零碎时间听一些英文播客，坐地铁、跑步、思考人生、睡前的时候都可以戴上耳机听点什么是非常不错的选择。
有什么好的英文播客节目推荐呢？
今天小编就给你介绍几档值得长期订阅的节目。
（部分播客可能需要科学上网才能收听订阅）
Planet money: 「 Imagine you could call up a friend and say, "Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy." Now imagine that's actually a fun evening. That's what we're going for at Planet Money. 」
来看看这个节目对自己的描述：想象你此刻叫上你的好友，约在酒吧，夜色正好，聊聊经济；这就是我们在 Planet Money 里正在做的事儿。如此惬意，想必聊的都是有趣有料的内容吧。
文章开头那段播客正是出自4月24号，来自NPR（美国国家公共电台）的明星节目——「 Planet Money」。
每期20多分钟，讲一个和“钱”相关的故事。话题轻松有趣，把一些比较抽象的经济理论和政治决议与日常生活的种种现象相结合在一起，另外通过一个当下热点事例解释分析出里面暗含的经济学理论，几乎不需要任何经济学知识背景就可以听懂。如果你想跟上世界经济形势，又苦于「the economics」的难度，那么Planet money无疑是比较好的选择。此外，Planet money的主播语速比较慢，是一款非常适宜入门的听力材料。
想知道机器人跟经济学有什么关系吗？感兴趣的话你可以收听4月24日的这期节目「 I Am Not A Robot 」。
网站链接：
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/
This American Life：「I am Ira Grass. Stay with us.」
这是美国最热门、亲民，号称美国广播史上里程碑式的节目。众所周知，VOA一般是播给外国人听的，This American Life 才是美国人自己听的！
节目语言风格非常接地气，帮助你了解美国普通老百姓是怎么看待社会的方方面面。每周有一个主题，既有学术性的访谈，也有轻松愉快的爱情故事，有时一个主题下会有几个小故事。总之，可以看成是逼格极高的故事会。不过语速偏快，中间还可能涉及到很多与美国历史、政治、宗教相关的内容，因此这是一款难度比较高的听力材料。
网站链接：
https://www.thisamericanlife.org
Freakonomoics Radio: 这档节目的口号是要揭秘生活中隐藏任何有趣的事情，「think like a freak」（像魔鬼经济学家一样思考）每期用经济学理论请经济学专家解读具体的社会现象或时政要闻。有时会介绍一些理论界的新发现，需要一点经济学基础就能听懂。制作水平非常地高，主播芝加哥大学经济学教授Stephen Dubner的名气也是如雷贯耳。不过每一期时间有些稍长。
网站链接：
http://www.freakonomicsradio.com
Radio Lab: 以自然科学为主，同时还涉及文化，政治以及个人生活等，几乎涵盖了所有话题，主题非常丰富，也很有趣。Radio Lab篇幅时长时短，更新时间不是很稳定。Radio Lab 的剪辑堪称疯狂：一句话前半句可以被主持人说出来，后半句被采访者说出来，再辅以许多极具现场感的音效，收听体验很棒，绝对是名副其实的Radio Lab。
网站链接：
https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/radiolab
TED Radio Hour：TED RadioHour 相比单独的TED某一期节目，TED Radio Hour在对主题的挖掘更加深入；每一期节目都会有一个固定的主题，从以往的节目中精选若干与之相关的演讲，以及跟演讲人的访谈，在访谈过程中还会碰撞出很多对主题深刻的想法和解读。TED Radio Hour难度适中，节目中讨论的主题也与我们日常生活息息相关，是很好的写作和口语材料。
网站链接：
https://www.npr.org/programs/ted-radio-hour/?showDate=2019-04-19
World Cafe Words and Music from WXPN：喜欢音乐的朋友一定要来听听这个节目！它会讲很多类型的音乐，同样是以轻松对话的形式呈现，经常会请一些音乐人来访谈,聊他们的音乐风格，他们的作品中对当下社会，政治，宗教的看法，还有对各种音乐元素的讨论。同时有很多期节目音乐人会宣传新专辑并现场演唱未发行的新歌。边对话边听音乐的形式让人感到非常放松。
网站链接：
https://www.npr.org/sections/world-cafe
怎么收听这些播客呢？
IOS用户除了可以直接打开桌面的“播客”应用直接搜索播客节目名称订阅节目收听外还推荐下载Acast，安卓用户推荐下载Player FM或者BeyondPod(付费)来收听播客。
在选择以上播客的时候，也要结合自己的兴趣和现阶段的英文水平，选择最适合自己的听力素材；在刚入门的时候就听一些难度较高的播客，会让我们白白浪费大量时间的同时丧失继续练习的动力和信心。
问题来了，有的同学会问：这么棒的节目，可是我实在没有办法集中注意力听20-30分钟，甚至在托福考试里连一个4分钟的 conversation 我都没有办法get到所有内容，怎么办呢？
我们需要精听
现在 podcast 都有变速播放的功能，如果听不懂就调成0.5x倍速。而且现在的播客节目大多可以在官网找到原稿。在有些时常达到1个小时的节目里，每一期节目的原稿一般会在下一期节目更新的时候在官网贴出。为了方便读者查看和收听，会按照节目内容将音频和原稿分成若干几部分，读者可以快速地在零碎的访谈对话中找未到听懂的部分。
  以 This American Life  最新一期节目为例。

精听的步骤有哪些呢？
简单来说，练习的时候先听一遍听力，记下素材中说的重点内容。然后对照原稿，检查自己记下的内容与原稿有哪些出入。分析为什么会出现这些偏差，然后再进行有针对性的练习。
上面的过程同样也适用于练习托福听力真题。本质上来说都是在提升我们的听力能力。而听力水平的提升是一个漫长的过程，我们需要做好系统的规划并且一直坚持下去。
当然，寥寥数语道不尽其中秘诀。你还可以参加TFT 三天狂听课程，体验每天至少3小时沉浸式学习，假期时间与小伙伴一起集中精力突破听力瓶颈。全程至少15小时，丁爷精选听力素材，带你切实解决听力问题。
戳“阅读原文”5.1-5.3  三天狂听 等你开团！
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