Questões Militares Sobre vocabulário | vocabulary em inglês

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                                                 The Bookstore's Last Stand

*Barnes & Noble is the largest book retailer in the United States.

      (...) No one expects Barnes & Noble* to disappear overnight. The worry is that it might slowly wither as more readers embrace e-books. What if all those store shelves vanished, and Barnes & Noble became little more than a cafe and a digital connection point? Such fears came to the fore in eariy January, when the company projected that it would lose even more money this year than Wall Street had expected. Its share price promptly tumbled 17 percent that day.

      Lurking behind all of this is Amazon.com , the dominant force in books online and the company that sets teeth on edge in publishing. From their perches in Midtown Manhattan, many publishing executives, editors and publicists view Amazon as the enemy — an adversary that, if unchecked, could threaten their industry and their livelihoods.

      Like many struggling businesses, book publishers are cutting costs and trimming work forces. Yes, electronic books are booming, sometimes profitably, but not many publishers want e-books to dominate print books. Amazon's chief executive, Jeffrey P. Bezos, wants to cut out the middleman — that is, traditional publishers — by publishing e-books directly.

      Which is why Barnes & Noble, once viewed as the brutal capitalist of the book trade, now seems so crucial to that industry's future. Sure, you can buy bestsellers at Walmart and potboilers at the supermarket. But in many locales, Barnes & Noble is the only retailer offering a wide selection of books. If something were to happen to Barnes & Noble, if it were merely to scale back its ambitions, Amazon could become even more powerful and — well, the very thought makes publishers queasy. (...)

Disponível em:http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/business/barnes-noble-taking-on-amazon-in-the-fight-of-its-life.html?pagewanted=all> . Acesso em: 22 abr. 2012  

                                        ARE YOU A FACEBOOK ADDICT? 

Are you a social media enthusiast or simply a Facebook addict? Researchers from Norway have developed a new instrument to measure Facebook addiction, the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale.

"The use of Facebook has increased rapidly. We are dealing with a subdivision of Internet addiction connected to social media," Doctor of Psychology Cecilie Schou Andreassen says about the study, which is the first of its kind worldwide.

Andreassen heads the research project “Facebook Addiction” at the University of Bergen (UiB). An article about the results has just been published in the renowned journal Psychological Reports. She has clear views as to why some people develop Facebook dependency.

"It occurs more regularly among younger than older users. We have also found that people who are anxious and socially insecure use Facebook more than those with lower scores on those traits, probably because those who are anxious find it easier to communicate via social media than face-to face," Andreassen says.

People who are organised and more ambitious tend to be less at risk from Facebook addiction. They will often use social media as an integral part of work and networking.

"Our research also indicates that women are more at risk of developing Facebook addiction, probably due to the social nature of Facebook," Andreassen says.

Six warning signs

As Facebook has become as ubiquitous as television in our everyday lives, it is becoming increasingly difficult for many people to know if they are addicted to social media. Andreassen’s study shows that the symptoms of Facebook addiction resemble those of drug addic addiction, and chemical substance addiction.

The Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale is based on six basic criteria, where all items are scored on the following scale: (1) Very rarely, (2) Rarely, (3) Sometimes, (4) Often Always. 

• You spend a lot of time thinking about Facebook or planning to use of Facebook.

• You feel an urge to use Facebook more and more.

• You use Facebook in order to forget about personal problems.

• You have tried to cut down on the use of Facebook without success.

• You become restless or troubled if you are prohibited from using Facebook.

• You use Facebook so much that it has had a negative impact on your job/studies.

Andreassen’s study shows that scoring “often” or “very often” on at least four of the six items may suggest that you are addicted to Facebook.

Disponível em: <http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120507102054.htm> Acesso em: 3 jun. 2013 (Texto adaptado)  

Born on October 23, 1940, in Três Corações, Brazil, soccer legend Pelé became a superstar with his performance in the 1958 World Cup. Pelé played professionally in Brazil for two decades, (35)__________ three World Cups along the way, before joining the New York Cosmos late in his career. Named FIFA co-Player of the Century in 1999, he is a global ambassador for soccer and other (36)____________ causes.

The world was officially introduced to Pelé in the 1958 World Cup in Sweden. Displaying (37)_____________ speed, athleticism and field vision, the 17-year-old erupted to score three goals in a 5-2 semifinal win over France, then netted two more in the finals, a 5-2 win over the host country.

Retirement did little to diminish the public profile of Pelé, who (38)______________ a popular pitchman and active in many professional arenas.

In 1978, Pelé was awarded the International Peace Award for his work with UNICEF. He has also served (39) __________ Brazil's Extraordinary Minister for Sport and a United Nations ambassador for ecology and the environment.

Disponível em: <http://www.biography.com/people/pel%C3%A9-39221#more-world-cuptitles&awesm=~oCVdN6MwV2RG2S> . Acesso em 22 de abril 2014. 

                                                 Text 2  

                                          What’s in a name?

                                                                                        Henry Louis Gates Jr. (1989)

The question of color takes up much space in these pages, but the question of color, especially in this country, operates to hide the graver questions of the self.

                                                                                                    - James Baldwin, 1961

… blood, darky, Tar baby, Kaffir, shine… moor, blackamoor, Jim Crow, spook… quadroon, meriney, red bone, high yellow… Mammy, porch monkey, home, homeboy, George… spearchucker, Leroy, Smokey…mouli, buck, Ethiopian, brother, sistah…

                                                                                                              - Trey Ellis, 1989

      I had forgotten the incident completely, until I read Trey Elli’s essay, “Remember My Name,” in a recent issue of the Village Voice (June 13, 1989). But there, in the middle of an extended italicized list of the bynames of “the race” (“the race” or “our people” being the terms my parents used in polite or reverential discourse, “jigaboo” or “nigger” more commonly used in anger, jest, or pure disgust), it was: “George”. Now the events of that very brief exchange return to my mind so vividly that I wonder why I had forgotten it.

      My father and I were walking home at dusk from his second job. He “moonlighted” as a janitor in the evenings for the telephone company. Every day, but Saturday, he would come home at 3:30 from his regular job at the paper Mill, wash up, eat supper, then at 4:30 head downtown to his second job. He used to make jokes frequently about a union official who moonlighted. I never got the joke, but he and his friends thought it was hilarious. All I knew was that my family always ate well, that my brother and I had new clothes to wear, and that all of the white people in Piedmont, West Virginia, treated my parents with an odd mixture of resentment and respect that even we understood at the time had something directly to do with a small but certain measure of financial security.

      He had left a little early that evening because I was with him and I had to be in bed early. I could not have been more than five or six, and we had stopped off at the Cut-Rate Drug Store (where no black person in town but my father could sit down to eat, and eat off real plates with real silverware) so that I could buy some caramel ice cream, two scoops in a wafer cone, please, which I was busy licking when Mr. Wilson walked by.

      Mr. Wilson was a very quiet man, whose stony, brooding, silent manner seemed designed to scare off any overtures of friendship, even from white people. He was Irish as was one-third of our village (another third being Italian), the more affluent among whom sent their children to “Catholic School” across the bridge in Maryland. He had white straight hair, like my Uncle Joe, whom he uncannily resembled, and he carried a black worn metal lunch pail, the kind that Riley carried on the television show. My father always spoke to him, and for reasons that we never did understand, he always spoke to my father.

      “Hello, Mr. Wilson,” I heard my father say.

      “Hello, George.”  

I stopped licking my ice cream cone, and asked my Dad in a loud voice why Mr. Wilson had called him “George.”

      “Doesn’t he know your name, Daddy? Why don’t you tell him your name? Your name isn’t George.”

      For a moment I tried to think of who Mr. Wilson was mixing Pop up with. But we didn’t have any Georges among the colored people in Piedmont; nor were there colored Georges living in the neighboring towns and working at the Mill.

      “Tell him your name, Daddy.”

      “He knows my name, boy,” my father said after a long pause. “He calls all colored people George.”

      A long silence ensued. It was “one of those things”, as my Mom would put it. Even then, that early, I knew when I was in the presence of “one of those things”, one of those things that provided a glimpse, through a rent curtain, at another world that we could not affect but that affected us. There would be a painful moment of silence, and you would wait for it to give way to a discussion of a black superstar such as Sugar Ray or Jackie Robinson.

      “Nobody hits better in a clutch than Jackie Robinson.”

      “That’s right. Nobody.”

      I never again looked Mr. Wilson in the eye.  

                                                              Text 1

             Luis Suárez joins anti-racism calls after Dani Alves banana incident

      The Barcelona defender Dani Alves has sparked a social media campaign against racism in football as support flooded in from fellow professionals for his decision to eat a banana thrown at him by an opposition fan.

      Luis Suárez, Neymar, Hulk, Mario Balotelli and Sergio Agüero were among those who posted pictures of themselves taking bites out of bananas in tribute to Alves' actions in his side's La Liga match at Villarreal on Sunday.

      The Fifa president Joseph Blatter has branded the abuse directed at Alves an "outrage" and promised zero tolerance towards discrimination at the World Cup, while Villarreal took swift action by identifying the culprit and handing him a lifetime stadium ban.

      Alves' response to the banana being thrown on to the pitch in front of him as he prepared to take a corner was to nonchalantly pick it up, peel it and take a bite before continuing with the game. The 30-yearold, who has been the victim of racist abuse before during his time in La Liga, said: "You need to take these situations with a dose of humour."

      Players across Europe paid homage on Twitter and Instagram, including Suárez, who served an eight-match ban for racially abusing Patrice Evra.

      Alves's Barça and Brazil team-mate Neymar led the way after posting a picture on Instagram of himself holding a banana, while writing "We are all monkeys". Balotelli, Milan's former Manchester City striker, posted a picture of himself in a similar pose.

      Suárez posted a picture on Twitter of himself and Liverpool team-mate Philippe Coutinho taking bites out of bananas, along with the words: "#SayNoToRacism #WeAreAllMonkeys."

      (...)

      Barça gave their player their "complete support and solidarity" and thanked Villarreal for their "immediate condemnation" of the incident. Villarreal later revealed they had, with the help of fans, found out who the culprit was, had withdrawn his season ticket and banned him from the El Madrigal stadium for life.

Disponível em:<http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/apr/29/luis-suarez-anti-racism-dani-alvesbanana> . Acesso em 29 abr.2014 (texto adaptado)  

Billions of dollars spent on defeating improvised explosive devices (IED) are beginning to show what technology can and cannot do for the evolving struggle.

Two platoons of U.S. Army scouts are in a field deep in the notorious “Triangle of Death” south of Baghdad, a region of countless clashes between Sunni insurgents and Shia militias. The platoons are guided by a local man who’s warned them of pressure-plate improvised explosive devices, designed to explode when stepped on. He has assured them that he knows where the IED’s are, which means he is almost certainly a former Sunni insurgent.

The platoons come under harassing fire. It stops, but later the tension mounts again as they maneuver near an abandoned house known to shelter al-Qaeda fighters. A shot rings out; the scouts take cover. They don’t realize it’s just their local guide, with an itchy trigger finger, taking the potshot at the house. The lieutenant leading the patrol summons three riflemen to cover the abandoned house.

Then all hell breaks loose. One of the riflemen, a sergeant, steps on a pressure-plate IED. The blast badly injures him, the two other riflemen, and the lieutenant. A Navy explosives specialist along on the mission immediately springs into action, using classified gear to comb the area for more bombs. Until he gives the all clear, no one can move, not even to tend the bleeding men. Meanwhile, one of the frozen-inspace scouts notices another IED right next to him and gives a shout, provoking more combing in his area. Then a big area has to be cleared so that the medevac helicopter already on the way can land.

That incident, which took place on 7 November 2007, exhibits many of the hallmarks of the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan – a small patrol; a local man of dubious background; Navy specialists working with soldiers on dry land; and costly technologies pressed into service against cheap and crude weapons. And, most of all, death by IED.  

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Modern buildings incorporate exciting forms with glittering façades and compelling interior spaces. Surveying for these projects requires sophisticated computation, aggressive quality control and close interaction with construction teams.