On April 20, Apple announced that Tim Cook will step down as CEO on August 31 and, effective September 1, become Executive Chair of the Board of Directors. John Ternus, currently Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering, will succeed Cook as CEO and join the board. Arthur Levinson, who has been Apple’s chairman since November 2011, will become Lead Independent Director. 
 Cook’s departure…
I know this might sound a bit odd. Let me explain: (1) Obsidian Sync is, for now, the most stable, lowest-latency cross-platform (including desktop and mobile) service I’ve found for syncing plain text notes, and it works better than various cloud storage options; but (2) I mainly use Obsidian on mobile, while on desktop I prefer VS Code (see my setup in “ VS Code as A Scratchpad ”). Previously,…
Books and essays that have impressed me in 2025, with notes and resources. Previously: Bibliography of 2024 . 
 
 
 >>
 
 Books
 
 
 Arendt, Hannah. What Remains: The Collected Poems of Hannah Arendt . Edited and translated by Samantha Rose Hill. Liveright, 2024. [ See listings on Goodreads and Douban ; my excerpts ; and the review on LARB .] 
 Drawn to the…
A version of this article appears on Feb. 5, 2026 on SSPAI as a part of a weekly column. 
 我上次用 Kindle 还是十多年前的 Paperwhite 2 和 Voyage。当时,墨水屏还是一个小众市场,而 Kindle 几乎是唯一在国内使用体验比较完善的选择。后来的故事大家也都知道了:国产厂商越来越多地接管了 Kindle 的份额,而 Kindle 也在 2022 年正式 退出了中国市场 。我之后的墨水屏设备也大多是国产品牌的。 
 诚然,我乐见国产厂商带动的竞争局面:如今墨水屏市场一个季度出现的新品就多过以前一年,性价比也不断提高。但另一方面,用过不下十台各种国产墨水屏设备后,我也很确定目前主推的彩屏和 Android 系统并不是我想要的。 
 就彩屏而言,目前主流的…
By this time, it’s almost impossible not to have heard of Clawdbot , now called OpenClaw after two renames . You’ve probably also been flooded with endless tutorials about it. 
 In a nutshell: Clawdbot is a personal AI assistant that runs directly on your desktop operating system. You talk to it through chat apps like Telegram and WhatsApp, and it can get work done by exposing local files,…
A less romantic truth is that aesthetic standards rarely travel alone; power tends to follow in their wake. An episode at the U.S. State Department this month makes exactly this point. 
 On December 9, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a memo titled “Return to Tradition” that requires all State Department documents to switch back to 14-point Times New Roman, overturning a Biden-era…

 
 >>
 
 A Cure for The Eternal September
 
 In early 1994, a group of frustrated users on Usenet, a precursor to modern forums, inadvertently coined a term: Eternal September . 
 The problem wasn’t the month of September itself, but the people who arrived with it. In its early days, Usenet had a relatively high barrier to entry, which helped maintain user quality and…
Note: H/t Lawrence Li a , 
 b , 
 c , 
 d , 
 e , 
 f , 
 g and
Mivansaka a , 
 b , 
 c , 
 d , 
 e , 
 f , 
 g for their prior works. 
 All copywriting referenced herein is Apple property and subject to Apple’s terms of use . No claim to third-party copyright. 
 仅供参考,欢迎批评。 
 
 
 >>
 
 General
 
 
	…
A while ago, the official blog of LibreOffice published a provocative article : “An artificially complex XML schema as a lock-in tool.” Its target is Microsoft’s XML-based file formats — the Office Open XML (OOXML). 
 The article alleges that, although Microsoft put its Office formats through standardization, the spec is engineered to be so complex that it obstructs interoperability with…
本戏仿条例旨在就夏日拥挤时段公众游泳池内的水上交通规管、泳道及相关设施的使用,以及为其他相关的目的而订定条文。
 
A parody Ordinance to provide for the regulation of aquatic traffic in public swimming pools during the summer peak hours, the use of lanes and associated facilities, and for other purposes connected therewith. 
 
	 
			 
					 zh 
					 en…
I recently wanted to collect and peruse the transcripts of some older podcast episodes. While Pocket Casts, my go-to podcatcher, supports bulk downloading of audio, exporting the files for further processing is an extra, cumbersome step. This led me to look for a command-line workflow to automate the task. 
 After evaluating a few open-source projects, I settled on poddl . It’s been…
For those who still maintain a local music collection, choosing an audio format is an important decision. While lossless formats offer the best quality, they can be demanding on storage and data usage. For mobile listening, converting your music to a lossy format is often the more practical choice. 
 Which format should you choose, then? 
 Those who lived through the iPod era might…
按:本文原标题为 “The Self That Never Was”,作者为心理治疗师、摄影师 Robert Saltzman,最初于 6 月 17 日 发表 在 The Hedgehog Review 上,得作者惠允翻译并发布。原文无脚注,以下脚注均为译者所加,仅供参考。 
 翻译本文的动机并不是赞同它的具体观点。实际上,相比于文章将自我和自由近乎消解的决定论和后结构主义视角,个人更倾向于存在主义的解读:人通过行动来创造将要成为的自我;被迫自由,并且要对(即使是非自主施加的约束下的)选择负责。尽管如此,我认同本文提示的思考角度:在与日益人格化的 AI 互动时,不能只满足于问题解决或情感满足——尽管出于这些需求的用例是完全正当的——必须保持高度的警觉和审视;当机器学会说「我」时,人可以做的不只是惊叹或者恐慌,也可以借此反问「我」的所指,而具体答案则并不重要。 
 
…
Note: The following policy statement regarding our standards for user-contributed, generative AI content was written on behalf of the editors at SSPAI, where I am a staff editor. It was first published by SSPAI on June 2, 2025. 
 少数派是以写作为根基的社区。AI 的普及改变了很多人写作的方式,也创造了无数讨论话题,这些影响都快速而直接地体现在我们收到的文章上。这也给编辑部提出了新的问题:能否接纳用
AI 辅助写作的文章?如何筛选层出不穷的 AI 工具介绍? 
 在生成式 AI 刚进入大众视野不久的…
I. 
 Attending a Joey Yung concert wasn’t something I had anticipated. Since my baptism into Cantopop after overhearing a roommate listening to Miriam Yeung in my sophomore year, it was Yeung’s work that had defined the genre for me. Yung, by contrast, has a mainstream influence that extends beyond Cantopop; I knew about her through her Mandarin releases. Thus, when I began exploring Cantopop…
Note: This is the undergraduate dissertation I wrote in 2018 as a requirement for graduation. Yesterday, a past Weibo post reminded me that I had submitted the printed copy exactly seven years ago. So, I salvaged the PDF from a dusty hard drive and am republishing it here for archival purposes. Looking back, I see a lot of awkward or overwrought phrasing in an attempt to sound more academically…
When I got my first domain name, cyhsu.xyz , about ten years ago, .xyz was the new, cool kid on the block, known for hosting Alphabet’s corporate domain, abc.xyz . I also liked that it contains two of the three letters in my pinyin initials. 
 Over time, though, .xyz became overrun by spammers and crypto/NFT scammers, drawn to the perceived “coolness” and low cost. Its reputation tanked so…
按: 本文作者为 nikic (Nikita Popov),是 Red Hat 高级软件工程师,参与 LLVM、Clang 和 Rust 等项目。原文题为 “The true power of regular expressions”,于 2012 年 发表 在其博客上。我第一次看到这篇文章是好几年前,虽然有点晦涩,但硬着头皮看下来,还是对理解正则表达式的本质有很大启发。最近回顾旧书签,又重新想起、复习了一遍,并得作者惠允翻译后发布。 
 根据个人阅读体验和理解,对于原文中一些较生僻的术语和较跳跃的推理,通过译注加以补充,仅供参考。请注意本文并非正则表达式教程,其中讨论假定读者对正则表达式语法(PCRE…
A faint pain in my molars reminded me how tightly I must have clenched them the day before. It was only then that I realized my stress level while driving in actual traffic for the first time — three years after receiving my driver’s license. 
 Driving had always felt irrelevant, even alienating, to me. My bodily agility is not as naturally developed as mental faculties, necessitating greater…
I’ve long resisted writing “best of,” “annual review,” or similar posts. Besides my distaste for listicles, I also question my credibility in recommending artistic works, given my limited exposure to and understanding of such material. 
 This year, however, has seen some significant changes in my preferences and priorities — much more fiction and much less tech, among others — the cause of…
A version of this article appears on Nov. 28, 2024 on SSPAI as a part of a weekly column. 
 如今的智能穿戴设备有什么通病?过于智能。 
 ——过于智能,以至于将采集自用户身体的数据心安理得地锁在自家平台;过于智能,以至于收不到订阅费就拒绝开放一些基本功能;过于智能,以至于在软件支持结束之后就相当于自动退休。这些聪明玩意对自己的本源和使命有清晰的认知:副业是服务于用户的生活健康,主业是服务于厂商的财务健康。 
 而当机关算尽成为常态,「傻」就被衬托成了一种新的美德。R02 就是这样一个傻得有点可爱的产品。 
 
 

 我不是故意要省略 R02 的品牌名的。它在国外玩家的 视频 和 文章 中姓…
A version of this article appears on Nov. 14, 2024 on SSPAI as a part of a weekly column. 
 (Full disclosure: 这段话发出来的时候,设备已经被我退回去了。尽管不符合预期,但我觉得它还是有做得很好的地方,值得一写,故有下面这段表扬和挖苦都很用力的矛盾评论。) 
 坦白讲,我之所以会关注到 Smart 5C,最初只是因为一个非常庸俗的理由:它的 8GB 内存实在是有点……大方?此前,10 英寸国产 Android 阅读器内存一般在 3—4GB,只有少数能达到 6GB;直接加到 8GB 确实是用劲挤了挤牙膏的。 
 
 诚然,如果需求只是看书,内存少点也是一样用。但我主要是想用墨水屏阅读器当一个「护眼平板」,使用最频繁的应用是浏览器;按如今 web…
I was on a short trip last month when I somehow thought of “ The Case Against Travel ,” a polemic essay by the philosopher Agnes Callard. Ranked tenth in the New Yorker ’s top stories of 2023, it has drawn numerous responses after publication, mostly of anger. As I have traveled more this year than in the past, revisiting the piece evoked more nuanced and personal perspectives than a simple…
As agreed by many reviewers, the iPhone 16 series launched this year in a curiously “hollow” state: the heavily touted Apple Intelligence won’t be enabled until iOS 18.1 in October, and even then, it won’t be available to users in mainland China and the European Union. Indeed, this is just the latest example of iPhone features being fragmented by region. Against the increasingly complex landscape…

 
 >>
 
 Using The Service
 
 Last month, I got interested in a textbook recommended by an online open course I happened to find. However, it’s quite old and not easily available for international shipping. Plus, since it’s in the “reader” format meant to be read non-sequentially and piecemeal, carrying it in its 600-page physical form seems to defeat the purpose. 
…
Note: H/t Lawrence Li a , 
 b , 
 c , 
 d , 
 e , 
 f , 
 g and
Mivansaka a , 
 b , 
 c , 
 d , 
 e , 
 f , 
 g for their prior works. An earlier draft was posted to SSPAI Member Community (paywalled). 
 往年苹果文案的翻译经常有一些「语出惊人」的地方,这两年似乎收敛了不少,但还是保留了每次看新品文案对比几版翻译的习惯。这里摘录美国官网原版和中、港、台版本翻译对比(方法见结尾),并就自己注意到、觉得值得一提的若干译法作出评论。观点仅供参考,欢迎批评。 
 
…
God knows how I ended up spending a weekend devouring Seven Gothic Tales by Isak Dinesen , or Baroness Karen Blixen, who, according to Hemingway, deserved the Nobel Prize in Literature more than he did. I regrettably knew nothing about the author until last week, when I read a quip in response to Henrik Karlsson’s essay “ Swimming in July ” (you should read his writings , by the way): 
 
…
A version of this article appears on Aug. 1, 2024 on SSPAI as a part of a weekly column. 
 有一些数学知识可以让人受益终生。比如说,可以用来给国际大品牌设计手机。 已知三星某系列手机的前三代已经用过了 (1) 磨砂边框、亮面后盖 ,(2) 亮面边框、磨砂后盖 ,以及 (3) 亮面边框、亮面后盖 。请问这个系列的最新一代会长什么样? 
 靠着对排列组合残留的记忆,你知道真相只有一个:磨砂边框、磨砂后盖。 
 恭喜你设计出了 Z Flip6。 
 
 

 玩笑归玩笑,Z…
The New Essential Guide to Electronics in Shenzhen is a short guide designed for foreign electronic shoppers to navigate Shenzhen’s mesmerizing Huaqiangbei district, and an update to Andrew “bunnie” Huang’s original edition. It turns out the book, full of humorous yet insightful tips, is also an interesting read for Chinese readers.* 
 The guide itself is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA, but the…
I was recently introduced to Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels and spent about three weeks to read through the quartet. These notes are an unorganized collection of what I have learned or thought of — or “ frantumaglia ” in Ferrante’s lingo — during and after reading the series. They are not intended to be a formal and complete review. I also intentionally left out some of the most prominent…
It’s seven in the morning. For many, it may be the time to struggle with the snooze button. Others may be taking the first dose of the day’s coffee supply. But for me, on more than half the days in a year, it’s time to take a plunge into the pool. 
 Hearing about my swimming schedule, people often commend my “willpower” while appearing reserved about the sleep deprivation it implies. However,…
I created two experimental pages, links and now , for this site. 
 The links page contains links to online locations I frequent and tools I find handy. Think of a curated and annotated copy of the bookmark menu of my browser. I created it primarily for my own convenience, allowing me to access these links on shared and new devices without needing to set up syncs. Hopefully some of the links…
DISCLOSURE: A version of this article appears on Apr. 3, 2024 on SSPAI, where I am a staff editor. SSPAI received early access to the feature discussed below at no cost and before it was made available to the general public. However, the article was written independently and there were no other conflict of interest. 
 
 
 >>
 
 引言
 
…
I enjoy reading the “about” page whenever I visit a personal blog for the first time. A well-crafted about page serves as a mini wiki for the site owner, offering biographical and contextual information that aids in understanding their writings and guides the visitor to other aspects of their life. Its quality is also a good proxy of the level of care invested in maintaining the site. 
 The…
This was the email I wrote as my feedback for a reading-themed podcast miniseries in celebration of the lunar new year of the dragon. The original was slightly edited to address issues of typos, punctuation, and style. 
 Previously: 2021 | 2022 
 From: Platy Hsu <me@cyhsu.net>
Subject: 给迟早过年(2024)的反馈
Date: February 25, 2024 at 11:51 AM
To: embrace@weareones.com
 迟早更新的两位主播好,…
I’ve recently spent four days in Thailand, the venue for our first team retreat since the back-to-normal time. There were twenty-five of us. Our itinerary included visits to Bangkok and Pattaya , with a short spin on Ko Samui . I appreciated and enjoyed the trip and think it’s worth a few words to mark it, hence this post. As the title suggests, this is not intended to be a serious account, but…
A version of this article appears on Dec. 31, 2023 on SSPAI as a member-only post. Learn more or subscribe 
 The article is permitted to be self-archived in the version as originally submitted for publication on the author’s personal website under CC BY-NC 4.0 pursuant to § 5.2(b) of the SSPAI Fellowship Contributor Agreement . 
 TL;DR 
 
…
A version of this article appears on Nov. 16, 2023 on SSPAI as a member-only post. Learn more or subscribe 
 The article is permitted to be self-archived in the version as originally submitted for publication on the author’s personal website under CC BY-NC 4.0 pursuant to § 5.2(b) of the SSPAI Fellowship Contributor Agreement . 
 在上周的 OpenAI 首届开发者会议(DevDay)上,除了最吸引眼球的新模型和 ChatGPT 新能力,还有一项被…
A version of this article appears on Oct. 3, 2023 on SSPAI as a member-only post. Learn more or subscribe 
 The article is permitted to be self-archived in the version as originally submitted for publication on the author’s personal website under CC BY-NC 4.0 pursuant to § 5.2(b) of the SSPAI Fellowship Contributor Agreement . 
 有大量研究检索需求的用户,大概都会收藏一批搜索引擎链接。这不仅包括 Google、Bing 等主流通用搜索引擎,也包括…