Apple may well be the only technical company on the planet that would dare compare itself to Picasso.

苹果公司可能是世界上一家敢拿自己和毕加索比较的科技公司。

In a class at the company’s internal university, the instructor likened the 11 lithographs that make up Picasso’s “The Bull” to the way Apple builds its smartphones and other devices. The idea: Apple designers strive for simplicity just as Picasso eliminated details to create a great work of art.

在苹果公司内部大学的一门课上，导师把毕加索用 11幅石版画创作名画《公牛》的过程，比作苹果打造智能手机和其他设备的过程。他的意思是说：苹果的设计师力求简洁，就像毕加索摈弃细节，追求卓越一样。

Steven P. Jobs established the Apple University as a way to inculcate employees into Apple's business culture and educate them about its history, particularly as the company grew and the technical business changed. Courses are not required, only recommended, but getting new employees to enroll is rarely a problem.

史蒂夫.保罗.乔布斯创立苹果大学，是为了向员工灌输苹果公司的企业文化、讲述苹果公司的发展历史，尤其在公司不断壮大、技术业务变动时期，更是如此。课程并非必修，只是学习，但新员工几乎都去上课。

Randy Nelson, who came from the animation studio Pixar, co-founded by Mr. Jobs, is one of the teachers of "Communicating at Apple." This course, open to various levels of employees, focuses on clear communication, not just for making products intuitive, but also for sharing ideas with peers and marketing products.

兰迪·尼尔森来自乔布斯合作创办的皮克斯动画工作室, 是《苹果公司的沟通》课程组的一名教师。这门课程向所有员工开放，主要讲授如何清晰地沟通，这不仅使产品简洁直观，同时对同事间分享思想、推广产品也有帮助。

In a version of the class taught last year, Mr. Nelson showed a slide of The Bull, a series of 11 lithographs of a bull that Picasso created over about a month, starting in late 1945. In the early stages, the bull has a snout, shoulder shanks and hooves, but over the iterations, those details vanish. The last image is a curvy stick figure that is still unmistakably a bull.

去年的沟通课上，尼尔森播放了一组有关名画《公牛》的幻灯片，里面包括毕加索从 1945 年末起，一个多月内绘制的11幅石版公牛图。创作初期，公牛还有口、鼻、前腿和蹄子，随着一次次再创作，这些细节渐渐消失了，到最后，画面只剩一个曲线图形，但仍能看出是一头公牛。

"You go through more iterations until you can simply deliver your message in a very concise way, and that is true to the Apple brand and everything we do," recalled one person who took the course.

上过这门课的人回忆说：“只有经过一次次再创作，才能把信息用简洁的方式表达出来，苹果品牌以及我们所做的一切都是如此。”

In "What Makes Apple, Apple," another course that Mr. Nelson occasionally teaches, he showed a slide of the remote control for the Google TV, said an employee who took the class last year. The remote control has 78 buttons. Then, the employee said, Mr. Nelson displayed a photo of the Apple TV remote control, a thin piece of metal with just three buttons.

《苹果何以成为苹果》是尼尔森偶尔会讲的另一门课程。去年上过这门课的雇员说，他在课上播放了一张有关谷歌电视遥控器的幻灯片，上面有78个按钮。随后，尼尔森又展示了一张苹果电视遥控器的照片，薄薄的一张金属片上只有三个按钮。

How did Apple's designers decide on three buttons? They started out with an idea. Mr. Nelson explained, and debated until they had just what was needed — a button to play and pause a video, a button to select something to watch, and another to go to the main menu.

苹果的设计师们是怎么决定只设三个按钮的呢？尼尔森解释说，他们一开始先有一个想法，然后不断讨论，直到需要的那个想法出现为止——一个视频播放/暂停按钮，一个视频选择按钮，一个回到主菜单按钮。

The Google TV remote control serves as a counterexample. It had so many buttons, Mr. Nelson said, because the individual engineers and designers who worked on the project all got what they wanted.

尼尔森说，谷歌电视的遥控器相反，它的按钮太多了，因为每个参与项目的工程师和设计师们都把自己想要的东西设计进去了。

【相关视频】毕加索与公牛

http://www.tudou.com/albumplay/a_tbfUtdh28/YW2wvLmzIqs.html#frp=v.baidu.com%2Fcomic_intro%2F

Equipped with the camera extender known as a selfie stick, occasionally referred to as "the wand of narcissism," tourists can now reach for flattering selfies wherever they go.

现在，游客配备了一种叫作杆(又称自恋神杖)的相机延长器，不管走到哪里，都能拍到自己喜爱的照。

Art museums have watched this development nervously, fearing damage to their collections or to visitors, as users swing their slicks with abandon. Now they are taking action. One by one, museums across the United States have been imposing bans on using selfie sticks for photographs inside galleries (adding them to existing rules on umbrellas, backpacks and tripods), yet another example of how controlling crowding has become part of the museum mission.

对此，各大艺术博物馆忧心重重，担心使用者肆意挥舞杆时，会对藏品或其他游客造成伤害。现在他们开始采取行动。美国的各大博物馆陆续发布禁令，禁止在博物馆内使用杆（之前已遭禁止的物品有伞、背包、和三脚架），这再次表明，控制拥挤已经成为博物馆的任务之一。

The Hirshhom Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington prohibited the sticks this month, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston plans to impose a ban. In New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has been studying the matter for some time, has just decided that it will forbid selfie slicks, too. New signs will be posted soon.

本月，华盛顿的赫什霍姆博物馆和雕塑公园开始禁止使用杆，休斯顿的美术馆也计划发布禁令。纽约的大都会艺术博物馆对此事已经研究了一段时间，近日决定，也要禁止使用杆。新告示不久将会贴出。

"From now on ,you will be asked quietly to put it away," said Sree Sreenivasan, the chief digital officer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. "It's one thing to take a picture at arm's length, but when it is three times arm's length, you are invading someone else's personal space."

大都会艺术博物馆的席数据官斯里·斯里尼瓦桑(Sree Sreenivasan)说，“从现在起，我们将消消地请你把它收起来。你伸出胳膊去拍照可以，倘若伸出的东西是胳膊的三倍，那么就侵犯了他人的私人空间。”

The personal space of other visitors is just one problem. The artwork is another. "We do not want to have to put all the art under glass," said Deborah Ziska, the chief of public information at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, which has been quietly enforcing a ban on selfie sticks, but is in the process of adding it formally to its printed guidelines for visitors.

侵犯其他游客的私人空间只是一个问题。侵犯艺术品则是另一个问题。华盛顿艺术馆的席公共信息官德博拉·齐什卡说：“我们不想把所有艺术品都放进玻璃罩”。该馆对杆的禁令已悄然实施，《游客指南》也正在加印此项禁令。

Last but not least is the threat to the camera operator, intent on capturing the perfect shot and oblivious to the surroundings. "If people are not paying attention in the Temple of Dendur, they can end up in the water with the crocodile sculpture," Mr. Sreenivasan said. "We have so many balconies you could fall from, and stairs you can trip on."

最后一个问题同样不容忽视，杆对使用者本人也存在威胁——他们专心捕捉完美镜头，往往会忽视周围环境。斯里尼瓦桑说:“在丹铎神庙，游客稍不留神，就可能掉进水里，与鳄鱼雕塑同归于尽。神庙里的露台和台阶很多，游客很可能会掉下露台，或绊到台阶。”

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Thursday, Jasmine Adaos, a selfie-stick user from Chile, expressed dismay. "It's just another product," she said. "When you have a regular camera, it's the same thing. I don't see the problem if you’re careful.” But Hai Lin student from Shandong, China, conceded that the museum might have a point. "You can hit people when they're passing by," she said

杆使用者贾丝明·亚多丝来自智利，周四，她在参观大都会博物馆时说，“杆只是一个产品，跟使用普通相机没有区别。我觉得，只要小心，就不会出问题。”来自中国山东的学生林海却认为，博物馆的做法可能也有道理。她说：“有人经过时，你可能会碰到别人。”

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