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我們是美國，沒有什麼事情是我們無法一起做到的！」美國時間七月四日晚間，美國總統拜登在白宮南草坪舉辦的國慶日園遊會上，用這段話，為將近十五分鐘的致詞作結。 這場約千人出席的「派對」，相較於七月一日在北京天安門廣場舉行的中共建黨百年慶祝大典，規格顯得迷你；拜登著重美國如何逐漸擺脫疫情陰霾的談話，也明顯少了中共總書記習近平一番警告外來勢力恐將「頭破血流」的霸氣。 兩大強權，一周內的兩場慶典，東方巨龍的聲勢更為浩大，但華裔美籍的中國研究專家裴敏欣在中共建黨百年大典隔天撰文評論，對中國而言，「拜登，可能是更可怕的敵人。」理由是：「不同於川普以侮辱、威脅和關稅疏遠盟友，拜登修復了美國的聯盟，成功形塑一條相對團結的抗中戰線。」 六月，當台灣社會聚焦於新冠疫情，太平洋另一端的拜登政府則是連續出手，從最外顯的地緣政治，到5G戰、科技戰、金融戰，都像是在這一個月內完成了關鍵布陣，上任至今許多曖昧或決斷的背後意義，也似乎在此一個月間豁然開朗，攸關全球政經格局的「拜登規則」瞬間清晰──如同裴敏欣的解讀，這是一套「比川普更兇狠」的對中戰略。…

After a truly strange year, game-related or otherwise, the next generation of video game consoles is here. They’re no longer hypothetical concepts: You can actually buy a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X. Although I recommend you read our reviews before dropping $500 on either of these bad boys, console-launch reviews have only so much value. Consoles succeed or fail based on the strength of the game libraries, and those libraries grow with time. But there’s one thing about these boxes that not even the greatest game in the world can fix. With the exception of the humble Xbox Series S, next-gen consoles are super ugly. KEEP IT SIMPLE I’ve stewed on this take since the PS5’s full reveal, but I wanted to wait until I got my hands on some hardware before…

「老兵聽到炮彈飛過去的聲音，就知道事情不太對了……。」 台大急診室主治醫師石富元經歷過二○○三年SARS（嚴重急性呼吸道症候群）疫情的災難，十八年後，老兵竟然又遇到同樣嚴峻的狀況。五月十四日開始，台灣新冠肺炎（COVID-19）疫情猛爆惡化，從十五日的一八○個本土病例到十八日的二四○個本土病例，社區感染擴大，過去的太平好日子，忽然不見了。待過沙場的，嗅覺總是特別靈光，石富元苦笑，「兩、三周前，我就一直跟朋友說，能取消聚餐就盡量取消。」 疫情爆發後一年多的時間，「台灣馬照跑，舞照跳。」 但身處防疫第一線，石富元清楚知道病人不見得會一五一十交代自己的暴露史，再看到華航機師、諾富特飯店事件、宜蘭遊藝場病例，他已經嗅到，「風險明顯在堆高。」 風險積累著，而且現在它們凝結成巨大的壓力球，破空而來。 亞東醫院驚天96小時的啟示 台灣防疫進入新階段 亞東醫院五月十七日爆出九名院內感染個案，「院內感染」聽起來很不祥，也勾起人們對SARS疫情期間，和平醫院封院的恐怖回憶。人在火線上的亞東醫院副院長邱冠明，談起院內感染的始末，「疫情慢慢悶著，到了上週，所有狀況都變得有感……。」…

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. I know that Leonardo da Vinci (whose words those were) was a visionary, but even I was amazed that he had already imagined a product such as the Aurender A30 Music Server ‘way back in 1493. In the modern age where state-of-the-art high fidelity reproduction requires that you carefully choose and buy multiple components, work out how best you should connect them, and then work out how to operate everything, Aurender’s A30 is a breath of fresh air. It is just so simple to operate, despite its complexity and the fact that it’s the Swiss Army knife of music playback devices. The Aurender A30 will simplify your music playback experience. Put one in your system and you won’t need your CD player, you won’t need your computer,…

This was my lifelong dream,” says Deborra-lee Furness of building her family a home from scratch. “It’s like, bucket list, tick it off. I’ve done it, and I loved it.” A six-year endeavor, from start to finish, the East Hampton project had actually been a lifetime in the making. “I had this inspiration book,” explains Furness. “I’d always stick things in it, and everyone used to give me shit. And then when I finally did the house, all my girlfriends from Australia came back, and they go, ‘Oh, my God, the book has come to life.’” More than a ragtag collection of resources and tear sheets, Furness’s book had become a repository for evocative design and art moments, ones that had impressed upon her a strong mood or feeling. “I took influences…

Hey, Toyota—is everything, um, OK? Strapped into the new Toyota GR Corolla and sitting in pit lane awaiting our turn at a 2.1-mile section of Utah Motorsports Park’s wildly undulating road course, we felt slightly silly. Until now, we imagined, the only people who’d ever worn helmets inside a dealership-ready Corolla were unbalanced folks with visions of, well, something as absurd as a track-ready production Toyota Corolla. One such person is Toyota President Akio Toyoda. He’s been pushing the company’s Gazoo Racing (GR) subbrand, and he personally signed off on the final product. The result is the craziest showroom-spec Corolla hatchback ever built. Just how out of bounds is it? We can count on one hand the sporty Corollas sold here over the decades. It was long ago typecast as an anodyne, safe…

With a variety of free backup programs available, including those that ship with your operating system, R-Drive Image is a program I’d pay for. That’s about as great a compliment as I can offer to a piece of software. The reason is simple. In all the years I’ve been using the low-resource-consuming program (nearly 20), it’s never failed once at its primary task of creating images of partitions or disks. Nearly every other backup program I’ve used has hiccuped in one way or another. In fact, I use R-Drive Image for backing up my backups and failing hard drives, where you may not get more than one shot at it. With version 7, a revamped interface makes the program even friendlier; the addition of file and folder backup fills the last remaining…

For many, this icebox cake serves up an instant hit of summertime nostalgia. It’s cool, creamy, and filled with cookies. Plus, it’s incredibly quick to pull together. Although you can opt to dress it up, the original Famous Icebox Cake—also known as the Famous Refrigerator Roll—consisted of only wafer cookies layered with lightly sweetened vanilla whipped cream or whipped topping that was then left to set in the icebox, or what we now call the refrigerator. Kept in the icebox overnight, the moisture and fat from the cream would be absorbed by the cookies, which would then turn soft and cake-like. It was the ultimate summertime dessert for the busy housewife, requiring no time in the oven and designed to be made the night before. Although versions of icebox cake existed…

美少女戰士 黃筱雯 從啟蒙到摘銅 教練是守護她的「第二個爸爸」 黃筱雯總是讓人有點意外，左手臂滿滿的刺青，遠看以為是剽悍龍鳳，近看才驚覺是一個個小巧可愛的迪士尼人物，小美人魚、皮諾丘、䓫䓫與蒂蒂，在她臂膀上自成一個童話世界。 刺青如其人，若只從奧運拳擊賽的轉播上認識她，她是眼神肅殺的戰士，但如果再多靠近幾步，會發現她其實是個講話輕柔、搞笑開朗的二十三歲少女，話中自成一座幻想城堡，城堡裡，她沒有成為拳擊手，愛做菜的她，想去開一家早餐店當老闆娘。 站上擂台，身高一七六公分、體重只有五十一公斤的黃筱雯，比起對手的精壯身材，總顯得有些骨感，一個重擊落在身上，都教人擔心她不能承受，但她的眼神裡，從來沒有一絲恐懼。 戴上頭盔、咬緊護齒套，黃筱雯就變了個人，剛剛還笑著說想開早餐店的少女不再，她兩眼死盯對手，出拳、閃避，每個腳步都到位，就算真被一拳命中，她連眼睛都不眨一下，似乎也不知道痛，像一頭不肯低頭的獸。 有身高優勢的她，拳能勾得比對手長，退一步又能閃得比對手遠，她說這叫「長距離打法」。這次，她以四強之姿，在東京奧運替台灣拳擊奪下史上第一面獎牌。…

ONE MORNING IN JUNE, Daniel Roa and Max McLaughlin pull over near the dusty intersection of County Road 80C and Deadman Road in northern Colorado. Their white pickup truck, which their employer got on Craigslist, carries a few tanks of helium, a black trunk packed full of instruments, and a yellow barrel stuffed with a deflated balloon. They flip up a mast set in the vehicle’s bed, hook one side of the balloon to it, and clip the other to a carabiner near the cab. They stick a hose attached to a helium tank under the balloon’s skirt, and the gas inflates the material till it looks like a kid in a ghost costume, if that kid were the size of a Volkswagen Bus. Roa leads flight operations and McLaughlin heads payload…

1 Hannibal MEJBRI (TUNISIA) The19-year-old midfielder made eight times as many appearances for his national team Tunisia as he did for club side Manchester United last season, but he will be hoping Erik ten Hag’s faith in youth will improve his chances of regular football at Old Trafford and a spot in the Eagles of Carthage’s World Cup squad come the winter. With his flying mop of curly hair, Mejbri has been a conspicuous presence for the North Africans over the last ten months, making appearances in the FIFA Arab Cup, Africa Cup of Nations and the World Cup play-offs, plus the shock Kirin Cup win in Japan this summer, albeit mostly from the bench. A former French youth international at U16 and U17 level, there are high hopes that Mejbri will become…

When the Queen came to the throne, Prince Philip’s ambitious uncle boasted “the House of Mountbatten now reigned”. But Queen Mary, fearing the name of the Windsor dynasty created by her husband in 1917 was under threat, persuaded the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, to raise the issue with the Queen. The new monarch issued a proclamation that she and her descendants “shall be styled and known as the House of Windsor”, leaving the Duke to fume: “I am the only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his children. I’m nothing but a bloody amoeba.” Eight years later the Queen modified her decree to announce her descendants, if non-royal, could be called Mountbatten-Windsor. But while he might have had to settle for second best in their public…

AFTER THE MOST Januaryish January ever, finally there’s some joy on the horizon that doesn’t involve tequila or the expense of jetting off to far-flung sunny shores. All it requires is a trip to the cinema. Which is where I was when I saw the trailer for a romcom that ticks every box on my wish list. Aerial shot of a dramatic New York skyline? Tick. Thumping, just the right side of cheesy soundtrack? Tick. The bloke who played Samwell Tarly in Game Of Thrones? Tick. Completely implausible plot? Tick. Jennifer Lopez as the female lead? Giant tick, plus an extra gold star for campness. Everyone loves a wedding and everyone loves J-Lo. Put them together and you get Marry Me , a film whose starting premise seems inspired by J-Lo’s…

Since the launch of Apple Pay back in 2014, Apple has changed the way we shop and spend money, with subsequent refinements and additions like Face ID and Apple Card that have made shopping even more convenient. Now, the Cupertino company plans to add yet another string to its bow and make iPhone and Apple Pay truly invaluable for merchants. SHOPPING WITH APPLE In markets like the United Kingdom, Apple has a stronghold over contactless payments, with a reported six in ten shoppers in the UK using Apple Pay in-store. And although the United States is behind European markets when it comes to shopping via their smartphones thanks to consumers favoring credit cards and platforms like PayPal and Venmo, Apple Pay is now growing its dominance in the market. Indeed, over the…

It's highly likely that at some stage, you'll come face to face with a sheep eye-balling you through the floor-to-ceiling windows in this house. Led by Fiona Dunin of Melbourne's FMD Architects, the design of this rural dwelling on Tasmania's Bruny Island quite deliberately planned for that kind of calm ovine contemplation when responding to a brief for a low-maintenance home with a close connection to its immediate and wider surrounds — a contemporary interpretation of the Australian farmhouse. The homeowners — a couple who divide their days between this working sheep farm and city life in Melbourne — also sought a house that could accommodate just the two of them for most of the year, and 20 or more guests at other times. The resulting shed-like dwelling (named Coopworth after…

Third European club competition is a welcome restoration At Villa Park on May19, 1999, Christian Vieri and Pavel Nedved scored the goals that gave Lazio a 2-1 win over Mallorca and secured their place in football history as the last-ever winners of the European Cup Winners’ Cup. UEFA president Lennart Johansson and his executive committee had decided that the competition was an anachronism. Never mind that in its 39-year history, winners had included the likes of Ajax, Arsenal, Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Juventus, Manchester City and United, and Milan. However, the romance of the game had to bow to the bottom line. For Johansson’s UEFA, the lottery of a cup competition did not conform to the all-commanding cash-safe concept of mini leagues. Patronisingly, in an ominous pointer to the future, they decided…

“Factor in Sony’s plans to release ten live-service games by 2026 and the partnership makes sense.” As news broke that Sony had acquired Destiny developer Bungie, two new posts appeared on the studio’s website. One detailed how both companies shared “a dream of creating iconic franchises that unite” people, places, and platforms, and the view that games have “limitless potential”. The other really, really wanted us to know that the companies’ “shared vision” definitely didn’t include platform exclusivity. It’s a curious one, isn’t it? If Sony didn’t rock up to Bungie with a truck full of money – $3.6 billion dollars, to be precise – to make Destiny 2 (or 3) a PlayStation exclusive then what, exactly, is Sony buying Bungie for? Destiny spin-offs? The studio’s unannounced projects? The team’s extensive live…

Nvidia’s GeForce Now is a cloud streaming service that targets the current weak spot in the market: hardware availability and pricing. Essentially, you pay a subscription fee for the ability to use Nvidia’s Superpod computers to stream games from your library in lieu of having a physical GPU in your PC at home. The company recently announced an RTX 3080 tier, which claims lower latency and ray tracing–enabled performance. We will discuss how it works, potential drawbacks, and price. The technology is very exciting, but can it replace a real GPU during the great shortage? Let’s find out! HOW DOES IT WORK? By utilizing Superpod computers with 1,000 GPUs in each (if you opt for the top RTX 3080 tier), Nvidia leverages cloud streaming to allow you to access your game libraries…

Long before herd immunity became humanity’s shared obsession, the phrase referred to sick cows. More than a century ago, veterinarians observed that outbreaks of a highly contagious bacterial infection menacing cattle died down once they’d burned through a certain percentage of a herd, so long as new animals weren’t introduced. Soon the concept was extended to a variety of human outbreaks, where it became a staple of epidemiology. Since the beginning of the pandemic, exactly when the U.S. might reach herd immunity for Covid-19 has been furiously debated in congressional hearings, on TV shows, and among the many armchair epidemiologists on Twitter. In the popular imagination, the phrase has become shorthand for the end of the pandemic—a finish line that will suddenly cause the virus to subside and allow maskless normalcy…

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…

THERE’S MAGENTA PIPING ON THE dining chairs and marigold drapes framing the windows. In fact, little about this Atlanta home by Melanie Turner doesn’t make you smile. But there’s a deeper significance to the happy interiors: “It’s probably the most thoughtful project we’ve ever worked on,” the designer says. “A young family, a historic house, heirlooms, and playfulness all in one.” Built in 1950 by the influential Atlanta architect Lewis “Buck” Crook, Jr., in the city’s Buckhead neighborhood, the house offered a solid foundation to a family that was eager to honor its history while creating a comfortable home. “The main thing that was important, besides [making the design] practical and livable, was incorporating family heirlooms,” says Turner. To find the balance in it all, the designer turned to nontraditional colors and…

Curled up next to a fallen tree on the sunny African savanna, a napping baby giraffe opens its big brown eyes. Awakened by the sounds of an approaching animal, the five-week-old male straightens his coiled neck, scans the area, and freezes: Two lionesses are prowling nearby. Suddenly a 15-foot-tall female giraffe launches herself in between the baby and the lions. She places her Frisbee-size front hooves in front of the cats, and the pair slinks away. The adult gives the calf a nuzzle. This female is not the calf’s mother, though—she’s on babysitting duty, keeping an eye on the baby while its mom takes a break to eat. Giraffes have a stressful first year of life. “Half or more don’t survive because they can be preyed on by lions, hyenas, and leopards,” says…

AS INDIA DESCENDED INTO A COVID-19 tragedy that dwarfed anything the country had experienced in the pandemic so far, with hospitals inundated, oxygen supplies short and vaccines reportedly being stolen from warehouses, American politicians seven thousand miles away were clamoring to end pandemic restrictions. Representative Jim Jordan railed at Dr. Anthony Fauci in the House chambers, “You don’t think Americans’ liberties have been threatened the last year, Dr. Fauci? They’ve been assaulted!” Alabama Governor Kay Ivey told Fox News, “We have been at this for more than a year now, and we have simply got to move forward. Endless government mandates are not the answer.” Many Americans are looking forward to a summer of quasi-normal human interactions, where it’s okay to invite your friends for a barbeque, belly up to a crowded…

МУЗЕЙ ВАН ЛОН АМСТЕРДАМ Построенный еще в XVII веке, дом на канале Кайзерсграхт в XIX стал собственностью семьи Ван Лон, глава которой был одним из учредителей Ост‑Индской компании и богатейшим человеком своего времени. Поэтому здесь есть все, за что мы любим голландское искусство, но в великолепном, не свойственном для сдержанных голландцев изобилии. Со всех стен смотрят бесчисленные портреты, полки ломятся от китайского и европейского фарфора, а окна комнат обращены на канал и великолепный регулярный сад, один из лучших в Амстердаме. ДОМ-МУЗЕЙ ХЕМИНГУЭЯ ФЛОРИДА Особняк на острове Ки-Уэст, построенный еще в середине XIX века, в 1931 году стал домом Эрнеста Хемингуэя, его второй (и далеко не последней) жены Полины Пфайффер и сыновей, Патрика и Грегори. Здесь Хемингуэй прожил свои самые спокойные и респектабельные годы. Богатая наследница, журналистка и знаток моды, Полина взялась за обустройство подаренного ей…

FORMER MAGAZINE EDITOR MICHELLE ADAMS SPENT HER 20s IN NEW YORK CITY, SHARING STORIES OF ENVIABLE INTERIORS AND THE LATEST DESIGN TRENDS. But her own 475-square-foot apartment cramped her style and left little room for creativity. So Michelle packed up and returned to her Michigan roots, purchasing a 1920s Colonial in Ann Arbor. She hit the refresh button first on the home with an extensive renovation and then on her career by opening an online home decor and lifestyle editorial destination called The Maryn. 01 color correction Michelle Adams (pictured here with her goldendoodle, Rufus) modernized bland beige siding by repainting it a deep charcoal blue. Inside she combines budget-friendly home-store buys with vintage finds to create a space that feels like home. 02 clean finish The floor’s yellowing wood finish was stripped and…

In the end, Trabzonspor capturing their seventh Super Lig title was a question of when not if. Having been top virtually all season, the tangible reward was made mathematically certain after a 2-2 draw with mid-table Antalyaspor on April 30. The record books will mark this date as when Trabzonspor ended their 38-year wait for a league championship. It is only the second time in nearly four decades that the title has left Istanbul but, as with pretty much everything in Turkey, it is not that simple. In 2010-11 Trabzonspor missed out on the title to Fenerbahce by virtue of goal difference. Their opponents were later withdrawn from Europe by the Turkish Football Federation amid an investigation into match fixing. Trabzonspor took their place in the Champions League group stage, securing a…

Dépaysement—the French term for a disorienting but refreshing change of scenery. Usually, it’s drastic, like the feeling of waking up in a foreign country after a full day and night of travel. But sometimes it can describe something closer to home. St.-Tropez, it turns out, today gives new meaning to dépaysement. As a Parisienne who regularly travels around France, I had for years observed how all of those champagne parties and late nights on the beach had taken their toll on the landscape. Change was long overdue. The application of the Loi Littoral, a coastal-protection law introduced in 2019 to prevent increased erosion, forced surf-side restaurants, beach clubs, and boutiques to reapply for their permits and rebuild their structures using sustainable materials. Businesses closest to the water now have to be…

America’s sway over the world economy is being eroded by self-inflicted policy wounds, with a dangerous standoff over the debt ceiling putting renewed scrutiny on the dollar’s preeminent status in global trade and finance. A behind-the-curve Federal Reserve struggling to corral inflation, a string of bank failures and now a political deadlock over the government’s ability to borrow are chipping away at US authority. At the same time, geopolitical fault lines are hardening, with the US assisting Ukraine in its war against Russia and locked in competition with China, two adversaries poised to exploit any misstep by policymakers in Washington—such as a first-ever US debt default. Warnings about the decline of American prestige are everywhere. “Anything that moves us away from being viewed as the world’s reserve currency, of being the safest,…

Of the getaway, Bosco Sodi says, “It’s a place for recharging energy with family and friends.” the Mexican artist Bosco Sodi and his wife, Lucia Corredor, first stepped foot on Folegandros, a quiet Cycladic island known for its windy climate and mountainous terrain, during a family sailing trip in 2017. Taken with the tough beauty of the isle (some believe its name is derived from a Phoenician word meaning “rock-strewn land”), they decided to dock the boat for an extra night. In the port the next morning, Sodi skimmed the real estate listings. “At the very end of the island there was a small bay with a beautiful church—nothing else,” he says, recalling the parcel of land that caught his eye. After a quick look, he didn’t hesitate. “I said I…

AMD and Intel are locked in an ongoing battle that ends only when one company shutters. Fortunately for us in the stands, neither has any intention of ceding much ground to the other. The result is a never-ending succession of top-notch, affordable CPUs. The release of AMD’s Ryzen 6000 mobile processors continues this saga, with the Ryzen 9 6900HS firing a shot directly across Intel’s bow. You’ll find this chip in thin, lightweight laptops, with far less sacrifice in performance than you might expect when compared to Intel’s beefier flagship mobile CPU. Our comprehensive review of the 6900HS gives the complete lowdown, but if you don’t have time for every last detail, here are five key takeaways. 1. LOTS OF POWER IN A SMALL PACKAGE At first glance, the benchmarks for the Ryzen…

ON A COLLISION COURSE (“Is the Universe Infinite?”, Dec 2020) In the article is this statement: “Soon they learned the universe was expanding, too, with galaxies retreating from each other at ever-accelerating speeds.” If this is correct, there can be no collisions between galaxies. But then how does one explain spiral galaxies, the origins of which are explained by the collision of two or more galaxies? James AdieEnterprise, Ala. Author Eric Betz responds: For brevity’s sake, we omitted a detail pertinent to your question. Galaxies in general are retreating from each other, or red-shifted. This was first established observationally by Vesto Slipher and Edwin Hubble, and it’s been confirmed by repeated observations over the past century. However, from our local perspective, a handful of galaxies, like Andromeda, are actually blue-shifted, or moving closer to us.…

落地窗內，多位身著綠色制服的華為門市人員，正忙著回應顧客對購置手機的需求；落地窗外，餐廳與手搖飲料店滿溢著排隊的人流。離開落地窗，沿著這條中國知名的步行街往東走，一路上，熙來攘往的當地行人與觀光客摩肩接踵，搭配歡鬧喧譁的交談聲，一切乍看明朗而美好……。過去三年，因為疫情導致的經濟陰影似乎已快速淡去，眼前，是一片欣欣向榮的消費復甦景象。 時間，四月中，地點，是上海的指標商圈南京路。 據上海復旦大學消費市場大數據實驗室統計顯示，今年二月，上海全市線下消費總額年增率○．八％，全市餐飲業和住宿業消費達到二○一九年一月統計以來的最高水準。 另一方面，衡量服務業表現的中國非製造業採購經理人指數（PMI），在三月分來到五十八．二，創下一一年五月以來新高；至於服務業PMI分項指標，則達到五十六．九，亦寫下一二年三月以來紀錄。 「大家，都被關太久了。」談及這股由「報復性消費」帶起的中國復甦動能，在上海擔任汽車業務銷售的雲芳（化名）向《今周刊》表示。…

The Momentum M400 MxV Mono amplifier ($79,500/pair)1 is the latest iteration of Dan D’Agostino Master Audio Systems’ debut amplifier of 2011, the Momentum Mono amplifier. Weighing 95lb, it is smaller and lighter than its entry-level sibling, the more powerful, 125lb Progression M550 Mono amplifier ($47,500/pair), and is veritably dwarfed by some other monoblocks, including the flagship D’Agostino Relentless Epic 1600 (570lb) and the Karan Acoustics POWERa mono (231lb), which I reviewed last month. But if the M400 MxV’s rock-solid look and feel and its exquisite aesthetics—a sleek amalgam of silver and copper fronted by a power meter that glows green and radiates Rolex quality—are any indication, a helluva lot is going on beneath its showy exterior. Once I took a listen, I discovered sound so smooth and satisfying that the refrain…

Five months after Prince William and Kate Middleton announced their engagement, the most exciting wedding of the century so far was upon us. And, as befitted the nuptials of a young man who had served with all three of his country’s armed forces, every minute of this momentous day had been planned with military precision. At 10.18am – almost 45 nail-biting minutes ahead of his bride – the groom arrived at Westminster Abbey with his best man and brother, Prince Harry. The pair had made the short journey from Clarence House to tremendous cheers, and both Princes looked resplendent in their respective military uniforms. The groom had opted to wear the red uniform jacket of Colonel of the Irish Guards, his first senior honorary appointment in the army. This was completed with…

An unapologetically self-identified maximalist, Justina Blakeney founded trendsetting design blog Jungalow back in 2009 to bring her personal vision of beauty into the world and help others tap into their creativity by better expressing themselves inside their homes. Since then, she’s continued building the Jungalow empire, launching its namesake design brand in 2014 and cultivating a passionately engaged digital community that follows her every move. While the pandemic slowed the world down, Blakeney was busier than ever, publishing her third book, Jungalow: Decorate Wild, and expanding the Opalhouse designed with Jungalow collection for Target. On top of all that, she and her husband, Jason Rosencrantz, and their now nine-year-old daughter, Ida, were also creating a new home. The multihyphenate entrepreneur vividly recalls the first apartment she lived on her own at…

Celtic Kyogo Furuhashi hit the ground running in August at his new club Celtic, with a hat-trick in his home debut against Dundee and the goals have kept on coming. As of late August, he was also still top scorer in this season’s J.League, which kicked off in February, with15 goals in 21 appearances for Vissel Kobe. Arriving as he does from the star-studded Vissel team, where he has played alongside the likes of Andres Iniesta, David Villa and Lukas Podolski, he might easily be taken for a golden child ofJapanese football, marked out for success from an early age. In fact, few fans even in Japan had heard of him in his early years. He did not represent Japan through the youth levels, went to university, and failed to find a…

Apple released a new iPad Pro in 2020—a year and a half after the prior update—but it wasn’t much of a change. A new camera module that included LiDAR and an Ultra Wide lens were fine features, but the iPad isn’t really the thing people reach for when they want to take great photos. The processor was updated to the A12Z, which was just the same as the A12X but with a single GPU core, disabled on the A12X, reenabled. The iPad had more storage, but that’s just a function of the inevitable march of time. So the iPad Pro was overdue for a more significant update, and with the new 5th-generation iPad Pro, we finally have it. Here are the highlights that make this year’s iPad Pro special. THE M1 PROCESSOR…

四月底，全台灣商用不動產最聚焦的話題，就是高鐵台中站正對面的超級大案──總開發面積十五．八三公頃，未來將規畫打造的「超級娛樂購物城」，於四月二十八日開標。這塊地上權七十年的商業用地，預計投資金額超過一五○億元，市場傳出包括國泰人壽、富邦人壽、南山人壽、新光三越、微風廣場等全台A咖聚集，都已磨刀霍霍準備投標。 「台中消費力太旺盛了，商用不動產熱到燙手，我上周曾在一天內，接到五個台中案子的委託，其中有商場評估、設計、市場調查等。過去一個月，我們有超過一半的時間都待在台中，這是從業以來沒有見過的情景。」房市專家瑞普萊坊市場研究暨顧問部總監黃舒衛表示。 商用不動產交易火熱 娛樂商場拔地而起A咖搶標高鐵購物城…

It happens every time, in every city, with every book tour. I’ll do a reading, and talk about my new book—where I got the inspiration, how I decided on a setting, which characters were my favorites, what messages I hope readers take away. I’ll answer questions from the audience; then, when there’s no global pandemic, I’ll sit and sign books and pose for pictures. Readers wait in line patiently. They wrap their arms around me, and press their cheeks close to mine as we smile for the camera. And every time, at least one woman touches my arm, and says, “I feel like we could be best friends!” I smile back, and say something polite. And every time, my heart breaks a little bit. Because, every time, a voice inside of me…

It’s been more than a year since Apple discontinued its HomePod speaker, and though its mini successor has helped the Cupertino company increase its smart home market share, there’s still a long way to go. Apple is now planning to reinvigorate the space by launching an all-new HomePod with advanced capabilities - and rumors suggest could arrive this year. ALL-NEW HOMEPOD According to reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has correctly predicted a number of recent Apple launches, like the Mac Studio and AirPods 3, Apple is planning to launch a new version of its HomePod later this year. The company made the unusual decision of discontinuing the original model back in 2021, presumably due to low sales, and instead launched a more affordable $99 HomePod mini, which offered many of the…

The small group of economists who’ve been maintaining that the US can dodge a recession, despite the most aggressive Federal Reserve tightening in decades, is starting to breathe easier. Many of their peers had expected surging interest rates—up 5 percentage points in just over a year—would have put a more material dent in hiring and personal consumption by now. Instead, the unemployment rate is hovering at a more-than-five-decade low, consumers are still spending, and the housing market is beginning to stabilize. At the same time, inflation has slowed appreciably. That combination is reviving hopes among the true believers, including Fed Chair Jerome Powell, for a “soft landing” scenario in which price pressures dissipate without massive job losses or an economic downturn. It’s still an out-of-consensus call. Of the 27 forecasters surveyed by Bloomberg…

Changing the aperture of your lens is one of the fundamentals of photography, allowing you to alter both the exposure of a picture and how much of it appears sharply focused. The aperture itself requires little explanation: it’s a physical hole in the lens that light passes through to reach your camera’s imaging sensor. In most lenses, this hole is formed by overlapping blades that create a diaphragm, the size of which regulates how much light is let into the camera. Large apertures let more light into the camera, while small apertures reduce the amount of light; that bit is easy to understand. What can be more confusing is the set of numbers that represent the size of the aperture. The first thing to understand is that f-numbers aren’t a physical measurement of…

Many enthusiasts consider OLED the best display quality. You’ll find OLED in LG TVs, Apple’s new iPhones, and a long list of smartphones and tablets from Samsung. If you want to enjoy OLED on a PC, however, your options are limited. A small handful of laptops, like the Dell XPS 13 and Samsung Galaxy Book, offer an OLED display. A few OLED monitors exist, but most are massive screens designed for use in a living room, not on a desk. Why is this true? And will it change anytime soon? OLED DESKTOP MONITORS DON’T EXIST BECAUSE (ALMOST) NO ONE CAN MAKE THEM Desktop monitors are popular among PC enthusiasts but, compared to other markets for displays, they’re a small market with small margins. As a result, companies that produce OLED panels place a focus…

PROS Useful all-electric driving potential • Spacious, versatile, and functional • Excellent driver assist features CONS Disadvantageous powertrain strategy • Hesitant accelerator responses • Six-seat configuration is mandatory VEHICLE LAYOUT Front-engine/motor, AWD, 6-pass, 4-door SUV ENGINE/MOTOR, TRANSMISSION 1.6L turbo direct-injected DOHC 16-valve I-4 plus permanent-magnet elec, 6-speed automatic CURB WEIGHT (F/R DIST) 4,615 lb (55/45%) WHEELBASE 110.8 in LENGTH x WIDTH x HEIGHT 189.4 x 74.8 x 66.7 in ON SALE Now We’re Sorento fans over here. The gas-powered version of this crossover enabled fun adventures during its stay in our long-term review fleet and was a surprise finalist at our 2022 SUV of the Year competition. Much has changed since then. Gas prices now hover in the realm of absurdity, making this a great time for the Sorento plug-in hybrid, a late addition to the lineup, to…

David and Victoria Beckham led the charge as celebrities jetted to sunnier climes over the new year. They took David’s new £5m superyacht, named Seven – his shirt number for former club Manchester United and England, as well as daughter Harper’s middle name – out on the water in Miami. With their home country never far from their thoughts, David and Victoria posed next to their red ensign (left) as they entertained guests including Victoria’s parents. Also enjoying life on the waves was supermodel Winnie Harlow – sharing a striking image of herself soaking up the sun on a boat in Dubai (far right) with her 9.2 million followers. Meanwhile actress Priyanka Chopra listed her location only as “Heaven” during her romantic New Year getaway with musician Nick Jonas, whom she married…

Our “Builder Basics” ship series uses Trumpeter’s 1/350 scale USS Independence littoral combat ship to demonstrate all the techniques you’ll need to complete a ship model. Earlier, in Part 1 you learned to assemble the tri-maran hull and other major components. Part 2 focused on adding details, both plastic and photo-etched metal. In this segment we’re off to the paint shop where we’ll have fun airbrushing various grays and using a lot of masking tape.…

CHAMBER • Bartók Piano Quintet Veress String Trio Vilde Frang; Barnabás Kelemen; Lawrence Power; Nicolas Altstaedt; Alexander Lonquich Alpha • Beethoven Violin Sonatas James Ehnes; Andrew Armstrong Onyx • Dohnányi Piano Quintets. String Quartet No 2 Marc-André Hamelin; Takács Qt Hyperion CONCERTO • Beethoven Piano Concertos Nos 2 & 5 Martin Helmchen; Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin / Andrew Manze Alpha • Chopin Piano Concertos Nos 1 & 2 Benjamin Grosvenor; Royal Scottish National Orchestra / Elim Chan Decca • Mozart Piano Concertos Nos 20 & 21 Jean-E›lam Bavouzet; Manchester Camerata / Gábor Takács-Nágy Chandos EARLY MUSIC • Gesualdo Madrigali – Libri primo & secondo Les Arts Florissants / Paul Agnew Harmonia Mundi • Peñalosa Lamentationes New York Polyphony BIS • ‘Leonardo da Vinci: La musique secrète’ Doulce Mémoire / Denis Raisin Dadre Alpha CHORAL • Bach St Matthew Passion Soloists; Bach Collegium Japan /…

When a big stock dives, as Meta Platforms Inc. did on Oct. 27, dropping almost 25%, investors are often urged to take the long view of its performance. In this case, it hardly helps. If you bought Meta five years ago—back when the company was still known as Facebook—you’d be down about 49%, in a period when the S&P 500 climbed 45%. Meta has not only erased its gains from the pandemic, which turned social media into an essential technology, but also fallen back to where it was in 2015. Meta isn’t just another stock—it was a constituent of the FAANG group, investors’ shorthand for a set of seemingly invincible technology companies. Along with the former Facebook, there were Amazon.com, Apple, Netflix and Google parent Alphabet. Despite their high valuations, many…

FROM ONE ZERO MEDIUM Several years ago, I watched as my old classmate, Cynthia Smith, was publicly dying on Facebook. Her wisecracking, self-deprecating tone had suddenly given way to a sombre announcement, in 2014, that she had been secretly battling chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP), a little-known neurological disorder with wide-ranging symptoms, though not typically fatal. Smith had always been a chronic over-sharer. She made jokes about her struggles with weight loss and her inability to nail down a boyfriend, and she invited all of her Facebook friends to her upcoming wedding, where she planned to marry a bag of jalapeño and cheddar Doritos. But after the CIDP announcement, she disappeared from her own Facebook feed as close advocates took over and started posting on her behalf. They also added a new group…

Q PETER DUNNE, TIVERTON Guru, what’s the secret to perfect steak? A Give it 12 minutes in the microwave at full power, reader, and don’t forget to add plenty of ketchup. Please send Chef Guru his Michelin stars to the usual address. Seriously, though, it’s not rocket science. You need a good steak, enough heat to form a good sear (but not so much that you’ll burn it), and a good pan to cook it in. For the steak, you have options. If your local butcher hasn’t shut down and been resurrected as a confusingly branded vape shop (get your suspicious pink juice at ‘Meaty Clouds’), that’s a top option; the supermarket will probably do, but you may also wish to consider a mail-order butcher. GaGu has ordered some quality cuts from thedorsetmeatcompany.co.uk,…

Part of the great wave of immigrants to Los Angeles before World War II, the Hungarian-born, Viennese-trained architect and interior designer Paul László had a softer take on midcentury modernism that incorporated unexpected color choices, luxurious textures, and a European savoir faire. Working in Beverly Hills from the 1930s to 1960s, he had a wide-ranging career designing homes for Elizabeth Taylor, Barbara Hutton, and Cary Grant, alongside stores for Bullocks Wilshire and Robinson’s, hotels and casinos for Howard Hughes, and furniture for Herman Miller. For Pamela Shamshiri, who cofounded her eponymous L.A.-based studio alongside her brother, Ramin, in 2016, the restoration of a 1957 László beach house in Pacific Palisades presented the opportunity to have an imagined dialogue with one of her 20th-century design heroes. “He had a sense of humor…

Cathy Poshusta has a thing for old houses. During the first decade of their marriage, she and her husband, Garrett, bought, lived in, and renovated five homes in Seattle, lovingly transforming them with their own hands. But in the summer of 2016, when she walked up the crumbling path of a worn-down farmhouse in the countryside outside Ellensburg, WA—a ranch town where she and Garrett both grew up—she experienced property lust on a different level. “I thought, I don’t just want to live in this house; I want to die in this house,” she says. “I fall in love with houses all the time, but with this one I had this great feeling I had never had before.” Looking at the place today, it’s not hard to see the appeal. With…

HOW UPSET WOULD you be? One lovely May afternoon you are cruising along, doing no-one any harm, in your Ferrari 275 GTB/4, resplendent in Rosso Rubino. Your pride and joy, paid for over many years by the sweat of your brow. As you slow carefully behind a truck for some traffic lights, the idiot in the white van behind you is texting on his mobile. He fails to notice the red light, and suddenly SCREECH, BANG, CRUNCH! Your most-prized asset has become the red meat in the sandwich. That gorgeous Kamm tail has been shortened by at least six inches and the petrol tank is ruptured, fuel everywhere. The shapely grille, nose and those delicate bumperettes are squashed horribly into the truck in front. Not only a broken radiator and both…

“EACH CHARACTER HAS THEIR WEAPON OF CHOICE, ALTERING HOW THEY PLAY.” FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 2022 / PUB CYGAMES DEV CYGAMES / PLAYERS 1-4 The road between this high-fantasy action RPG first being announced and its release later this year is a winding one. For one thing, it began with a different developer on board in 2016, and is now being developed solely by Cygames. But before we dig into all that, let’s begin with ‘Once upon a time…’ Granblue Fantasy debuted as a mobile-and browser-based game in 2014. Boasting the talents of both longtime Final Fantasy tunesmith Nobuo Uematsu and art director Hideo Minaba, the game quickly found success to the tune of millions of downloads. Released exclusively in Japan, the app features a fully localised English-language script despite not officially…

Before the global pandemic grounded the world’s aircraft, almost 40 million people passed through Qatar’s Hamad International Airport in 2019 (complete with Paris Saint-Germain gift shop), one of the increasingly important hubs of the aviation world. The overwhelming majority of non-Qataris were catching connecting flights to other destinations. Only around two million or so tourists actually followed the signs pointing to the immigration hall and then jumped on the newly-built metro to head to downtown Doha. That is all going to change in November, as Qatar becomes the destination for football fans from every continent when they descend on the country for the 2022 World Cup. Nobody knows what is going to happen on the pitch when the 32 teams start to play, but there are plans that can be made…

IN THE SPRING OF 1999, a 20-year-old hacker named Eva Galperin and her boyfriend walked into a screening of The Matrix at a theater in San Francisco, and walked out with a sense that they had just seen themselves—or, at least, who they could be. Galperin, at the time a Unix-focused systems administrator with black and blue dreadlocks, promptly bought herself a long, black, flared coat. Her boyfriend purchased a pair of Oakleys. But it wasn’t just the movie’s fashion sense that spoke to them. Galperin felt it represented the experience of hacking in a way she’d never seen before. Neo seemed chosen to undertake his super-heroic journey because he understood that “by interfacing with this black screen with glowing green writing on it, he could change the world in ways…

PHOTOS: ALEX BRAMALL/PA PHOTOS. ALEXI LUBOMIRSKI/PA PHOTOS. ALPHA. ANWAR HUSSAIN COLLECTION. CHRIS ALLERTON/SUSSEX ROYAL. GETTY IMAGES. HUGO BURNAND/CLARENCE HOUSE/PA PHOTOS.JASON BELL/CAMERA PRESS. MATT HOLYOAK/CAMERA PRESS. MARIO TESTINO/PA PHOTOS. PRINCESS EUGENIE & JACK BROOKSBANK. REX FEATURES. STEWART DONALD/SIPA. YOUSUF KARSH/CAMERA PRESS…

I have had many clients like the Roy family. Their money is discreet; they don’t want it out there for all to see. So when I was first contacted by Succession director and executive producer Mark Mylod, who was looking for locations for two big scenes in the third season, my head was full of ideas. There was a large celebration in central Italy and a visit to the villa of a new character up north. I channeled the types of people involved in the show. Lady Caroline is an English aristocrat. She’d accept shabby chic. She’d accept a bad bathroom in a beautiful estate. But the Roy kids are American. They wouldn’t. They would want everything to be more sleek, more buttoned-up. Within a month, we were zipping around Northern…

The MotorTrend Car of the Year award stretches back some 70 years, and we’ve taken flak for a few winners, such as the 1974 Ford Mustang II (which we still say was the right car for its time) and the 1991 Chevrolet Caprice (Chevy sent us an LTZ with the police suspension, so it aced the ride-and-handling route). However, few of our winners have drawn as much scorn as our 1983 Car of the Year, the Renault-AMC Alliance. Honestly, we can’t help but wince when people bring up the Alliance, as one auto exec did recently. Still, going back and reviewing the history, we think our early-’80s forebears made the right choice. Step into the MT time machine, and let’s take a dive into the circumstances behind the Alliance’s 1983 COTY…

When you buy and install an HP printer, the setup routine may ask you to make some choices depending on the printer model. The most notable are whether to sign up for the HP Instant Ink plan and—for printers that support HP Plus—whether to install it as an HP Plus device. After the installation, you may also have to contend with multiple choices of productivity tools and drivers, most of which aren’t self-explanatory. It’s easy to get confused, especially since (as an HP rep told me) the company is in the middle of a large-scale transition period as it rolls out and scales HP Plus. Some details are still changing, and some rough spots are almost inevitable, as we’ve found when testing some HP Plus printers recently. We’ll explain what…

The fact that you and everyone you know will receive spam and scam emails (and texts) for as long as they live should be added to the famous Ben Franklin quote, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Spam is constant and ever present, and you likely have a few hundred messages sitting in your spam folder as you read this. The very fact that we even need to have a spam folder tells us there’s a problem. However, you are a savvy inbox navigator and a seasoned connoisseur of Nigerian missives. The problem is, someone in your family is decidedly not. Maybe it’s your mother or father, an uncle, or even a step-relative. Here’s some advice to keep them safe. ALWAYS KNOW (AND…

It was a crisp night in June, the sky bright from the light of the full moon. I stopped at a gas station to fuel up before heading to the hospital to see my father. Three months after heart surgery, his newly replaced valve had begun driving bacteria into his brain, causing multiple strokes. He was dying. Standing at the pump, I thought about how he would never visit our new home. How we would never dance together again. I paid for my gas, got back in the car and drove out of the gas station — with the nozzle still lodged in my tank. When I stopped the car, an onlooker who had watched the nozzle fly out of my car’s gas tank said smugly, “You’re lucky it snapped off.” I was…

A half-dozen companies are potentially ready to spend $80 billion for C-Band, a new set of airwaves that promise to fix the perilous state of American 5G, at an FCC auction. That’s a vast amount of money, and it shows how important C-Band is. But what is C-Band, and what does it mean for 5G? Do you need a C-Band phone? Is C-Band a new frequency? Should you be scared of C-Band? I can explain. RECOVERING THE SATELLITES According to wireless testing firm Rohde and Schwarz, the C-band is all frequencies between 4GHz and 8GHz. When US wireless geeks talk about C-Band, though, they’re talking about 3.7GHz to 4.2GHz—and specifically, in this case, the range from 3.7GHz to 3.98GHz. This frequency had been used for satellite TV since the 1970s, but as C-Band…