(Translated from the Chinese version with the help of Claude.)

Today was a special day. I had arranged for a group of my middle school classmates to visit me at school, and there was also a lecture by Hofstadter that I wanted to attend.

I arrived at the school gate at the agreed time, welcomed my classmates into the school, and then went to the lecture. The lecture was fascinating; Hofstadter used various Goldberg-style strange and complex mechanical devices to demonstrate his concept of “strange loops.” An hour flew by quickly. After the intermission, Hofstadter was late returning, and the audience began to speculate about what might have happened. Someone said there was a protest demonstration outside, and for Hofstadter’s safety, he had left early, bringing the lecture to a premature end. While everyone was expressing disappointment, I said, “Don’t worry, isn’t this lecture about ‘strange loops’? Hofstadter must just be taking a loop around campus and will surely return.”

(Translated from the Chinese version with the help of Claude.)

On Monday morning while commuting on the train, I took out my e-reader and continued reading Hofstadter’s “I Am a Strange Loop” (setting a flag here - I should write a review later). In Chapter 18, the author uses the relationship between regions and ethnicities as an analogy for each person’s body and mind. He mentioned that Poland’s territory has been partitioned multiple times throughout history¹, but the Polish people still exist. The first line of the Polish national anthem is “As long as we live, Poland will not perish!”

(Translated from the Chinese version with the help of Claude.)

(It’s been a long time since I’ve dealt with academic materials. This article attempts to revisit the academic paper format.)

Abstract

Google’s latest experimental AI product can generate discussion audio from academic papers. The author used their own paper as input to try the product and found that the generated audio provides a fairly accurate summary of the paper. While the product currently has some limitations, it shows promise for the future.

(Translated from the Chinese version with the help of Claude.)

Continuing from the previous post, my son had spring break in early April, so I booked a trip to Philadelphia well in advance. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate - it rained heavily for several days straight, and both the Wild Safari and Diggerland that we planned to visit were temporarily closed. (The business owners who were hoping to make a fortune during spring break must have been even more heartbroken! Could they buy insurance to hedge against such risks?) Fortunately, several backup attractions that became our main destinations turned out to be surprisingly amazing and worth documenting.

(Translated from the Chinese version with the help of Claude. This article talks about translation from English to Chinese, therefore this English version might not make a lot of sense comparing to the original Chinese version.)

A while ago, I happened to stumble upon Yi Zhongtian’s “Philadelphia Storm” that I had previously bookmarked, which recounts the process of the 1787 Philadelphia Constitutional Convention. Since I was planning to visit Philadelphia, I decided to read up and learn about it to enhance my upcoming sightseeing experience (though I later failed to secure tickets to Independence Hall, which is another sad story).

(Translated from the Chinese version with the help of Claude.)

In the second half of last year, I visited several nearby ruins. I had planned to write about these trips, but due to my chronic procrastination, I kept putting it off until I almost gave up. Recently, I discovered a treasure of a content creator, An Zhengming. An article on Zhihu describes her as belonging to the “ruins painting school.” She wrote Non-Mainstream Art History, which includes several sections specifically about ruins. So, I thought I’d strike while the iron is hot and finally write about my visits to these ruins. Although the stories behind these ruins may not compare to those of ancient Greece or Rome, they have their own unique charm.