part 20

190 Here is a night watchman in a motion picture studio (plant) keeping it safe from danger of fire at night. He has his time clock with him. He walks all night long through the plant from one station to another. At each station he pushes his time clock against a key which is fixed in the wall. This key prints a number on a long narrow roll of paper which is moving all the time through the lock of the time clock. In this way the time clock makes a full record of whether and when the watchman went to each station in the studio in turn. The time at which he was at each one of them is recorded. If a number is not recorded, that is proof that the watchman did not go to that station.

这是一个电影制片厂（工厂）的守夜人，他在夜间保护工厂不受火灾的危险。 他带着他的时钟。 他整个晚上都在工厂里从一个工位走到另一个工位。 每到一站，他就把时钟按在墙上固定的钥匙上。 这把钥匙在一张长而窄的纸卷上打印一个数字，这张纸卷一直在通过时钟的锁移动。 这样，报时钟就会完整地记录下守夜人是否以及何时依次去了演播室的每一个站。 他在每一个地方的时间都被记录了下来。 如果没有记录号码，那就证明看守人没有去过那个车站。

191 This record is necessary before the insurance company will pay for damage done to the plant by fire. The insurance company needs to know where the watchman was all through the night. The motion picture company pays insurance money every year to the insurance company. In exchange the insurance company will pay for any damage to the building done by fire. But the motion picture company is responsible for keeping the studio as safe as possible from fire. The night watchman with his time clock is part of the system of keeping the studio safe from fire.

在保险公司赔偿火灾对工厂造成的损失之前，必须有这份记录。 保险公司需要知道守夜人整晚都在哪里。 电影公司每年向保险公司支付保险金。 作为交换，保险公司将赔偿建筑物因火灾造成的任何损失。 但是电影公司有责任保证工作室的安全，尽可能远离火灾。 带着时钟的守夜人是保护工作室不受火灾影响的系统的一部分。

192 Here is a more fully automatic part of a system of controls against fire. Some metals melt at low temperatures for metals. Thin lengths of such metal are placed at many points in the plant. A fire starting near one of these points will quickly melt the metal. This starts an electric system working. It opens outlets through which water comes down from the ceiling to put out the fire. The price of such a system may be high, but it is much lower than the price of a new building. Such insurance is cheap at the price.

这是防火控制系统中比较全自动的部分。 有些金属在低温下熔化。 这种薄长度的金属被放置在工厂的许多地方。 如果在这些点附近起火，金属就会迅速熔化。 这就启动了一个电力系统。 它打开了水从天花板流下来灭火的出口。 这样一个系统的价格可能很高，但它比新建筑的价格要低得多。 这种保险在价格上是便宜的。

193 Much of the work in present-day factories has to be automatically controlled. The much-talked-of Assembly Line was a first step in this direction. It lets us make automobiles and many other things much more cheaply than they could be made before. An Assembly Line is a moving line of parts of whatever is being made. Each worker (human or machine) does one thing (adds or changes some part) to each automobile (or whatever is being put together) as it goes by. The work of each is dependent on what has been done before. They are parts in an over-all design with an over-all purpose. If you make workers into machines for short working hours you can free the rest of their time. What for? To what purpose? What are we designed to do? This new free time has been given us by the workers and thinkers of the past. We have to think about what we will do with it, and about the best possible use of it.

现代工厂的许多工作必须由自动化控制。 人们津津乐道的装配线就是朝这个方向迈出的第一步。 它使我们制造汽车和许多其他东西比以前便宜得多。 装配线是一条移动的生产线，由正在生产的任何部件组成。 每个工人（人或机器）在每辆汽车（或任何正在组装的东西）经过时做一件事（增加或改变某些部件）。 每个人的工作都依赖于之前所做的工作。 它们是具有总体目的的总体设计中的一部分。 如果你把工人变成机器，只工作很短的时间，你就可以解放他们其余的时间。 对什么?目的何在？ 我们被设计来做什么？ 这种新的自由时间是过去的工人和思想家给我们的。 我们必须考虑我们将如何利用它，以及如何最好地利用它。

194 It seems sometimes as if we want very much to put an end to waiting on one another. There are many ways, for example, of making the serving of food in restaurants more or less automatic. One of the causes of the high price of food in restaurants is the use of waiters and waitresses. One waitress can serve only a small number of people, if she has to go to and from the tables with trays. And fewer people than before are interested in doing this sort of work even when the hours are short, the pay is good and the work not too hard. In present-day living more people than ever before eat at restaurants. Many families who used to have servants now do all their own housework.

有时候，我们似乎很想结束彼此等待的状态。 有许多方法，例如，使餐馆的食物供应或多或少是自动的。 饭店食品价格高的原因之一是对男女服务员的使用。 如果一名女服务员必须拿着托盘来回走动，那么她只能为一小部分人服务。 现在越来越少的人对这种工作感兴趣，即使工作时间短，收入高，工作也不太辛苦。 在现代生活中，比以往任何时候都有更多的人在餐馆吃饭。 许多过去有仆人的家庭现在自己做所有的家务。

195 There are ways of making restaurants self-serving, that is, of getting the public to do more of the work so that fewer waitresses are needed and less time is wasted in waiting to be served. The nearest thing to complete self-serving is the AUTOMAT. Food and drink are put into boxes with glass doors in front. You look at the food. If you want what you see, you put in the right amount of money and the door is unlocked so that you can open it. You take the food out and shut the door again. Fresh supplies of food are put in the boxes as they are emptied.

有许多方法可以使餐馆实现自助服务，即让顾客多做一些工作，这样就不需要女服务员，也就不需要浪费在等待服务上的时间了。 最接近自助服务的是自动售货机。 食物和饮料被放进前面有玻璃门的盒子里。 你看看食物。如果你想要你所看到的，你投入适量的钱，门就会解锁，这样你就可以打开它。 你把食物拿出来，再把门关上。 新鲜的食物在清空的时候被放进盒子里。