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Children play on the Olympic rings at the rowing venue in Eton Dorney, near Windsor, England.
L.A.'s chief technology officer sends email imploring city workers to stop watching the Olympics online, fearing it could trigger a massive computer crash.
Olympics coverage is certainly winning gold medals at L.A. City Hall, where so many employees are watching online that the city's chief technology officer begged them to stop for fear of a municipal computer meltdown.
"We are experiencing a high volume of traffic due to people watching the Olympics online. I respectfully request that you discontinue this as it is impacting city operations," city tech guru Randi Levin wrote in an email sent to thousands of workers Tuesday morning.
The email came on a day when the US women's gymnastics team was competing, as well as the women's soccer team.
Some council members expressed alarm at the prospect that city employees were watching the Olympics instead of doing their jobs.
"City employees aren't paid to watch the Olympics on their computers or TV. That is not what the taxpayers are paying them to do," said Councilman Dennis Zine, who saw the email. "The question is where are the supervisors when this is going on?"
Councilwoman Jan Perry said she's outraged and wants the city to block Olympic streaming from City Hall computers.
Mark Wolf, executive officer for information technology for the city, said he had not discussed the email with Levin but said any time employees watch streaming material, it takes up a tremendous amount of bandwidth. NBC is streaming the games live online, which taxes highly valuable bandwidth.
Asked about the city's struggling computer systems, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's press office referred calls to Levin, who did not return calls seeking comment.
(Read by Rosie Tuck. Rosie Tuck is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)
洛杉矶首席技术官给该市的公务员们发邮件，请求他们不要在上班期间在线观看奥运比赛，担心这会引发大规模电脑死机。
奥运报道的收视率显然正在洛杉矶市政厅拿着金牌，在这里众多职员们都在网上观看比赛，而该市的首席技术官却恳求他们不要再在线看比赛，害怕会造成市政厅计算机系统瘫痪。
该市技术专家兰迪?莱文在他周二上午给数千公务员发出的邮件中写道：“由于大量工作人员在线观看奥运会，我们的网络流量非常大。我恳求你们停止这一行为，因为这影响到市政运作。”
邮件发出的当天，美国女子体操队和女子足球队都要参加比赛。
一些市议员对市公务员工作期间看比赛而非从事本职工作的情况表示担忧。
市议员丹尼斯?金看到邮件后说：“纳税人缴税可不是为了让公务员在电脑或电视上看奥运会的。问题在于，这种情况发生时，监督者在哪里。”
市议员简?佩里说，她对此感到非常愤怒，希望政府拦截市政厅计算机系统的奥运网络资源。
洛杉矶市信息技术首席执行官马克?沃尔夫表示他并没有就该邮件与莱文讨论过，但是他指出，职员只要观看流媒体音频和视频就会占用大量的带宽。美国全国广播公司在网络上直播奥运比赛，占用了宝贵的宽带带宽。
被问到该市几近瘫痪的计算机系统时，安东尼奥?维拉戈沙市长的新闻办公室让记者把采访电话打给莱文。当记者致电莱文请他做出评论后，莱文也没有回电。
Vocabulary:
meltdown: （某个体系的）崩溃
tax: 使负重担，使受压力
refer calls to: 让记者把采访电话打给…… |
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