A few days ago, I wrote an article about my experience with high-speed tidal flow lanes. My intention was simply to document a personal commuting experience, not to make grand statements. Unexpectedly, the article sparked considerable discussion and some misunderstandings. Later, the Qingyuan traffic police officially responded, explaining the background and considerations behind implementing high-speed tidal flow lanes. At that moment, I felt a sense of warmth. After all, such a “trial” of high-speed tidal flow lanes is a first in China and represents an exploration in governance. Compared to institutional-level attempts, the smoothness of one individual’s commuting experience is actually insignificant.

On the morning of the sixth day of the Lunar New Year, I set off from Hunan back to Guangdong. Covering 650 kilometers took 18 hours, setting a personal record for both the longest single drive and the longest traffic jam. To avoid a hundred-kilometer stretch of congestion between Changning and Linwu on the Xuguang Expressway after merging from the Huachang Expressway, I spent 8 hours navigating provincial, county, and township roads, covering a total of 250 kilometers.

It was this rural journey that gave me a new perspective on Hengyang and the southern Hunan region.

On the morning of the sixth day of the Lunar New Year, I set off from Hunan to Guangdong. What used to be a 650-kilometer journey taking seven to eight hours ended up setting a record of 18 hours this time. Previously, my longest record for this route was only 14 hours.

Recently, a paper from the University of Chicago Law School has caused a stir in legal circles. Authors Eric A. Posner and Shivam Saran published a paper titled “Silicon Formalism: Rules, Standards, and Judge AI”. The paper centers on a case where a friend offering a ride causes personal injury to the passenger due to a traffic accident. By switching variables such as rules versus standards, the level of sympathy for the parties, and the location of the accident, the study compares the legal judgments of GPT-5 with those of 61 U.S. federal judges. Ultimately, GPT-5 achieved a 100% accuracy rate in the experiment, while the overall accuracy rate of the 61 judges was only 52%.

In recent years, Hunan’s official circles have been rocked by continuous scandals, especially the recent investigation of Yi Lianhong for serious disciplinary violations, which has once again drawn widespread public attention. At the same time, rumors about the so-called “Seven Princes of Hunan” have begun circulating online, referring to the children of some high-ranking Hunan officials who leverage their parents’ authority or influence to amass enormous profits in engineering, capital, and resource allocation, forming an invisible yet efficient network of power and interests.

Regardless of whether this term is exaggerated, the phenomenon it points to is all too familiar: in many Hunan official families, “losing control and failing to educate” their children has become a frequent issue. Many officials are not lacking in personal cultivation, work ability, or even their advocacy of family ethos, yet they repeatedly fail when it comes to their children.

This weekend marks the New Year, and as in previous years, I must still make a timely appearance at my mother-in-law’s home.

Lately, I’ve often found myself captivated by old photographs. I’ve been particularly drawn to the “Historical Photographs of China” project by the University of Bristol, which mostly features black-and-white images of Chinese streets, docks, teahouses, and farmhouses from the late Qing Dynasty to the early Republic of China. The people in these photos are dressed in simple clothes, the hillsides are bare, and the streets are dusty. By today’s standards, there’s almost no semblance of “quality of life.” Yet, the more I look, the more I sense an indescribable feeling of stability in these images.

Recently, I came across a rather straightforward article on HN titled “We were wrong about convergence.” It was quite interesting, discussing a foundational theory (the Solow–Swan growth model) that was once questioned by the economics community, later widely accepted, but is now being overturned by reality: Do poor countries truly grow faster than rich ones?

I recently read a short blog post by Terry Godier titled “Phantom Obligation.” On the surface, the article discusses the interface design and psychological implications of modern applications—a topic that isn’t particularly grand, and its length is restrained. Yet, in an almost understated manner, it points to a psychological state we experience almost daily but rarely take the time to name. Often, what truly exhausts us and fills us with guilt isn’t real responsibilities but rather those unconfirmed “shoulds.”

At the end of last year, during a training program at a police academy, I wrote an article titled “What It’s Like to Study at a Police Academy”. During that same training period, I happened to reconnect with a former classmate who works at an arbitration commission and arranged for some of the trainees to visit her workplace. This was my first hands-on exposure to an arbitration institution.