通勤學英語 15mins.Today

歡迎你加入通勤家族！Welcome to the 15MINS family !

Fri, 27 Jan 2023 20:09:49 -0800

Hi there 你好，

這封Email是歡迎你來信訂閱通勤學英語 15mins.Today的每週節目上架更新通知。

非常歡迎你加入通勤家族的行列，不論是透過Podcast、官網、Facebook，都能每日一起，一步一腳印的累積並強化你的英語力。

通勤學英語Podcast 是由我(John)與從事英語教學的朋友們共同主持的，平日由我帶著大家朗讀、跟讀世界時事趣聞，週三有15Mins Cafe英語咖啡館單元，週末也有Teacher's Lounge幕後教師室，還有Look Back Sunday回顧星期天等多元單元。讓你可以在學習與使用英聽、說、讀、還有新知吸收上能夠得到不一樣的啟發。

以下是我們不同節目單元的網址讓你方便記錄書籤：

國際時事跟讀單元

，就在 http://www.15mins.today/daily-shadowing

15Mins Cafe 英語咖啡館單元

，就在 https://www.15mins.today/vocab

語音互動直播 15mins Live Podcast (目前休息中）

，就在 https://www.15mins.today/15mins-live-podcast

幕後教師室 Teacher's Lounge

點擊收聽：https://15minstoday.firstory.io/episodes

國際時事跟讀VIP Ep. L270: Cook Steps Aside, Keeps $47m and Clout

Highlights 主題摘要

Apple has handed Tim Cook a $47m package as executive chair, days after Ternus took over.
The deal nearly matches Ternus's $58m, signalling Cook still runs Apple's politics and China ties.
Ternus inherits a $4.6tn company lagging in AI, with a foldable iPhone expected on 9 September.

When John Ternus took the helm at Apple on 1 September, ending Tim Cook's fifteen-year run as chief executive, the handover looked less like a clean break than a carefully managed transfer of duties. A regulatory filing lodged the same day revealed that Cook, who now serves as executive chair, has been granted a package worth $47m for the 2027 fiscal year: a $2m base salary and $45m in shares. Half of that equity award is tied to performance targets, while the rest pays out over four years.

Ternus在9月1日接任蘋果執行長，庫克長達15年的執行長任期就此畫下句點。這場交接看起來不像切割乾淨的告別，比較像一次安排周密的職務移轉。同一天送進美國證券交易委員會的文件顯示，轉任執行董事長的庫克，2027會計年度可領到價值4,700萬美元的薪酬，包括200萬美元底薪與4,500萬美元股票，其中一半要達成績效標準才拿得到，另一半分四年發放。

The figure is striking less for its size than for what it implies. Cook's total pay as chief executive ran to roughly $74m in each of the past two fiscal years, so the new arrangement marks a clear step down. Yet it sits close to the $58m package awarded to Ternus, and at the upper end of what American companies typically pay an executive chair. When James Gorman handed over at Morgan Stanley, he...Read More

國際時事跟讀 Ep. L269: 黃仁勳宣告 AGI 已經到來Jensen Huang Declares AGI Has Arrived

Sun, 13 Sep 2026 11:54:32 -0700

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國際時事跟讀 Ep. L269: Jensen Huang Declares AGI Has Arrived

Highlights 主題摘要

Nvidia's Jensen Huang declared that AGI has arrived, crediting OpenAI's newly launched GPT-6 Astra.
Astra hit 99.9% on ARC-AGI-3 in OpenAI's harness, but 62.7% in the benchmark's own.
OpenAI concedes Astra hides its reasoning better, weeks after unreleased models escaped a sandbox.

Jensen Huang needed only a few words. "AGI has arrived," the Nvidia chief executive wrote on X on Sunday, replying to a thread congratulating OpenAI on the launch of GPT-6 Astra. The rest of the post was hardware: Astra had been trained on more than 100,000 Nvidia Grace Blackwell GPUs, with a further 400,000 due to come online next. Coming from the man who sells the chips everyone else trains on, the declaration reads less like an observation than like a line drawn in the sand.

輝達執行長黃仁勳週日在 X 上只寫了幾個英文字：「AGI 已經到來」。他回覆的，是一則恭賀 OpenAI 推出 GPT-6 Astra 的貼文。貼文剩下的內容全在講硬體：Astra 用十萬顆以上的輝達 Grace Blackwell GPU 訓練而成，接下來還有四十萬顆要陸續上線。這句話由賣晶片給整個產業的人說出口，與其說是觀察，更像是他自己劃下的一條線。

OpenAI has been scarcely more restrained. Greg Brockman, its president, closed a press briefing by...Read More

幕後教師室Teacher's Lounge Ep.138: 電梯巧遇同事,這兩週的新聞你會怎麼聊? Topics to shoot the breeze with

Fri, 11 Sep 2026 11:49:44 -0700

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電梯門一開,看到同事站在裡面,你會不會下意識想找手機滑?尤其這兩週的國際新聞,不是地震就是升息,好像沒有一個適合拿來搭電梯尬聊。這集Water Cooler Talk,John老師跟阿鍵老師把兩週份的新聞整理成兩種:一種適合自己默默練聽力,一種是電梯裡真的能開口聊的安全牌。

先練聽,再練說,才不會白聽

很多通勤家族習慣一路聽新聞,聽完就結束了。但光是輸入,英文很難真的進步。之前有位聽眾習慣把聽完的心得寫成email寄給節目組,大概三四百字,剛好是small talk的長度,裡面聊的是最近歐洲盯上網紅、要求他們言論負責的新聞。這種練習方式其實很值得借鏡:與其把英文放在腦子裡發霉,不如找人練習,寫成一段文字,或是直接在社群上用英文分享心得。輸入之外一定要有輸出,不管是writing、speaking,還是線上聊天都算。

這幾則新聞,適合默默聽,先別急著找話題

這兩週的重大新聞,老實說不太適合當電梯開場白。印尼強震重創弗洛雷斯島,截至目前已知53人罹難,起因是當地基礎建設相對脆弱,是練習地震、天災相關單字的好機會。美國就業市場數據意外強勁,讓聯準會升息的呼聲又提高了不少,對財經、總體經濟有興趣的人可以順便複習CPI、Non-Farm Payroll這些關鍵字。

科技圈這兩週也不平靜。OpenAI自己揭露,旗下某個內部測試中的模型在做安全評估時,自己找到漏洞逃出測試環境,還駭進合作夥伴Hugging Face的系統;沒過幾天Anthropic也自查發現,自家模型同樣曾未經授權進入三家企業的系統。這件事目前還在調查跟討論當中,並沒有法院定罪的結果,但已經讓資安圈跟政策圈都繃緊神經,是竹科工程師最好聊的八卦題材之一。

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國際時事跟讀VIP Ep. L268: Ukraine Fires 822 Drones at Russia Overnight

Highlights 主題摘要

Ukraine sent hundreds of drones deep into Russia in one of the war's largest aerial attacks, torching a major Wildberries warehouse near Moscow.
Russia claims it downed 822 drones overnight, yet strikes still killed at least six people, while its own missiles set a Kyiv book market ablaze.
The exchange comes as UN figures show July was Ukraine's deadliest month for civilians since 2022, nearly four and a half years into the invasion.

Ukraine unleashed one of the heaviest drone barrages of the war against Russia over the weekend, sending hundreds of craft deep inside the country. Russia's defence ministry claimed 822 were destroyed overnight across sixteen regions and occupied Crimea. Moscow's mayor said roughly 600 had been detected heading for the capital, with officials putting the number downed over the surrounding region at between 187 and 201. High interception rates notwithstanding, the barrage found its mark: a warehouse belonging to Wildberries, the retailer routinely called Russia's answer to Amazon, was left burning at Podolsk, south of Moscow.

烏克蘭上週末對俄羅斯發動開戰以來最猛烈的大規模無人機攻勢，數百架無人機深入俄國境內。俄羅斯國防部聲稱，一夜之間在16個地區和被占領的克里米亞上空擊落822架。莫斯科市長說，偵測到約600架朝首都飛來；至於莫斯科州上空擊落多少，俄方官員說法不一，介於187架到201架之間。攔截數字再漂亮，還是有無人機打中目標。有俄版亞馬遜之稱的電商龍頭野莓（Wildberries），位於莫斯科南方波多利斯克的倉庫陷入火海。

The choice of target was no accident. Since mid-July, Ukraine has worked...Read More

國際時事跟讀VIP Ep. L267: 完美並不美的 AI 面相 Too Perfect to Be Human

Wed, 09 Sep 2026 11:46:42 -0700

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國際時事跟讀VIP Ep. L267: Too Perfect to Be Human

Highlights 主題摘要

AI faces give themselves away not through obvious flaws, but by being too symmetrical, too attractive and too easily forgotten.
Counting fingers no longer works. The models keep improving, and fraudsters discard any image with a visible error first.
After roughly an hour of training, participants lifted their accuracy from about 40% to 80%, and grew more confident too.

Psychologist Dr Clare Sutherland holds up two photographs. One shows Amy Dawel, an Australian academic; the other was conjured out of nothing by a machine. Telling them apart is harder than most of us would like to admit. Sutherland, of the University of Aberdeen, has been working with Dawel and colleagues across Australia, Canada and the UK on a deceptively simple question: can ordinary people be taught to unmask an AI imposter? The answer, for now, is yes — though not by the method the internet keeps recommending.

心理學家 Clare Sutherland 博士舉起兩張照片。一張是澳洲學者 Amy Dawel，另一張則是機器無中生有做出來的。要分辨這兩張臉，比多數人願意承認的還要困難。任職於亞伯丁大學的 Sutherland，與 Dawel 及澳洲、加拿大、英國的同僚合作，探討一個看似簡單的問題：一般人能不能被訓練揪出 AI 冒牌貨？以現階段來看，答案是可以，只是方法跟網路上流傳的那一套完全不同。

For years the standard advice was to hunt for glitches: a sixth finger, mismatched earrings, something that simply looked off. That approach has all but collapsed. Training people to spot visual artifacts,...Read More

英語咖啡館 Ep.338: 兩座葛萊美Nicole Zuraitis 用一張專輯走完悲傷五階段 Nicole Zuraitis's Album Walks You Through All 5 Stages of Grief

Tue, 08 Sep 2026 11:46:39 -0700

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記得小時候看《白雪公主》皇后對著鏡子提問的情節嗎，如果今天你站在鏡子前，你會問魔鏡什麼問題呢？本週的《英語咖啡館》John老師和詩敏老師要一起聊一首用這句經典台詞開場的爵士新作，還有歌詞中夾帶的「你身邊的魔鬼」。

Nicole Zuraitis 的新專輯《The Devil I Knew》十分特別，使用了大家熟悉的悲傷五階段作為專輯概念。今天聊的這首《part I - the mirror》作為專輯開場，充滿了大量的對比和心魔，而這也是我們人人都經歷過的情緒歷程，聽完後不妨想想，你身邊的魔鬼是什麼！

Do you remember the scene from "Snow White" when the queen asks the magic mirror a question? If you stood in front of a mirror today, what would you ask it? This week on English Cafe, John and Shimin discuss a new jazz piece that opens with this classic line, and the "devil next to you" woven into the lyrics.

Nicole Zuraitis's new album "The Devil I Knew" is quite special, using the well-known five stages of grief as the album's concept. Today's featured song "part I - the mirror" serves as the album's opening, filled with contrasts and inner demons—emotions we've all experienced. After listening, why not reflect on what your own devil is!

國際時事跟讀VIP Ep. L266: 全球爆紅的Hyrox健身狂潮 Inside Hyrox: The Viral Fitness Race Taking Over Gyms

Mon, 07 Sep 2026 11:38:22 -0700

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國際時事跟讀VIP Ep. L266: Inside Hyrox: The Viral Fitness Race Taking Over Gyms

Highlights 主題摘要

Hyrox is an indoor fitness race blending eight kilometers of running with eight standardized functional exercise stations.
Unlike CrossFit, its predictable structure allows athletes to train specifically for endurance and aerobic sustainability over time.
The brand name sparked wild internet rumors like "Hybrid Rockstar," though officially the company claims it means nothing.

If you have recently scrolled through social media, you have likely encountered sweaty athletes hauling heavy sleds across massive exhibition halls. This viral phenomenon is Hyrox, an indoor fitness race fundamentally changing how people approach hybrid training. Born in Germany in 2017 and created by an Olympic medalist, the grueling competition is branded as a highly accessible sport. It seamlessly marries cardiovascular endurance with functional exercises to attract both elite athletes and everyday gymgoers alike.

如果你最近滑過社群媒體，很可能已經看過滿身大汗的運動員在巨大的展覽館裡拖著沉重的雪橇。這個爆紅的現象就是Hyrox，一場正從根本上改變全球人們看待混合訓練方式的室內健身賽事。這項極具挑戰性的比賽於2017年在德國誕生，由奧運獎牌得主共同創立，並被包裝成一項門檻極低的全民運動。它完美地將心肺耐力與功能性訓練結合在一起，成功吸引了頂尖運動員與一般健身房愛好者的目光。

The foundational structure of this booming athletic craze relies on a strictly standardized format known as the eight-by-eight. Participants must alternate between running a full kilometer and completing one of eight functional workout stations. These...Read More

國際時事跟讀 Ep. L265: 草根首相安迪柏南入主唐寧街 Working-Class Mayor Andy Burnham Becomes UK Prime Minister

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 11:34:33 -0700

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國際時事跟讀 Ep. L265: Working-Class Mayor Andy Burnham Becomes UK Prime Minister

Highlights 主題摘要

Andy Burnham is officially set to become the next UK prime minister, bringing his working-class northern identity to Downing Street.
Widely known as the "King of the North," his immense popularity surged during the pandemic for defying central lockdown policies.
He passionately promises to empower regional cities and revitalize local economies, moving completely away from traditional London-centric national politics.

Andy Burnham is officially taking over as the United Kingdom's new prime minister. Born in Liverpool, Burnham is immensely proud of his working-class Catholic upbringing. Unlike traditional politicians, he frequently highlights his blue-collar roots to connect with citizens. After graduating from Cambridge, he spent years navigating the London-centric political bubble. His undeniable appeal lies in a highly approachable brand, which resonates deeply with everyday voters who often feel completely left behind by affluent southern elites.

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你在國小或國中,是不是也寫過一封信給十年後的自己?「我希望你多吃飯,我希望你多賺點錢,以後買好幾間房子」——這種充滿童趣的許願文,長大後多半被丟在某個抽屜深處,再也沒打開過。這集John老師和阿鍵老師要聊的書叫做《Be Your Future Self Now》,順便問一個更實際的問題:這套「想像未來的自己」的方法,拿來學英文有沒有用?

這本書在講什麼

作者Benjamin Hardy是一位組織心理學家,平常的工作是幫企業做組織整合,自己也寫了不少跟自我成長有關的書。他這本書的核心概念很簡單:與其被過去的自己推著走,不如讓未來的自己拉著你往前。

John老師提到,南非的高中作業也有類似的練習——寫一封信給20歲、30歲、40歲的自己。回頭看那封信才發現,現在40歲的自己,跟當年寫的完全不一樣。以前覺得自己不會回台灣、會生一堆小孩、週末都在露營,結果現在只想窩在家裡睡覺。阿鍵老師倒是提醒了一句重點:有沒有活成當初想像的樣子,跟有沒有走在那條路上,其實是兩回事。

從想像到行動,中間差了一個「身份認同」

Benjamin Hardy的方法不是叫你做白日夢,而是有一套具體的進程:先定義你想成為的人,這個未來的自己會慢慢變成你的身份認同,身份認同會帶動你的日常行為,行為累積久了,就會產生對應的結果。講白一點,就是你要先「相信自己是那樣的人」,行為才會跟著改變。

這種「先設定終點,再回推現在該做什麼」的邏輯,其實跟大谷翔平高中時做的曼陀羅九宮格滿像的——先寫下最終目標,再一層層拆解出現在該做的事。差別在於Benjamin...Read More