Wisdom I Pondered This Week

• “My silence sings; my emptiness is full. You cannot know my world until you are there.” — Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
• “A great artist is a great man in a great child.” — Victor Hugo
• “Swim, crawl, stagger, walk, bend, stagger and gone — that’s life in simple terms, and all that matters here is how well we fought.” — Merlin Franco, A Dowryless Wedding
• “Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.” — Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories
• “Saruman believes it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keeps the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.” — Gandalf

Things I Learned This Week

• 「Cartwheel（側手翻）」是一種常見於體操、舞蹈、武術和雜技中的動作，特點是身體從站立姿勢開始，雙手交替著地，身體側向翻轉如車輪般旋轉，最後雙腳依序落地並恢復站立。此名稱源自動作過程中四肢像車輪般依序接觸地面。側手翻需要良好的身體協調性、核心肌群力量與柔軟度，初學者通常會從弓步開始學習，以提升穩定性與安全性。
• A triangular number is a number that can be arranged in the shape of a triangle using dots. Each row of the triangle contains one more dot than the previous row. For example, the first row has 1 dot, the second has 2, the third has 3, and so on. The total number of dots used to form the triangle is a triangular number. These numbers are found by adding up the first n natural numbers. The formula to calculate the nth triangular number is n times (n + 1) divided by 2. For instance, the first few triangular numbers are 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, and 21.
• VHS (Video Home System) tapes [卡式錄影帶], developed by JVC and introduced in 1976, were a widely used analog video cassette format from the late 1970s to the early 2000s. Encased in plastic shells containing magnetic tape, they allowed users to record and play back video content at home, revolutionizing how people watched movies and TV shows by offering on-demand viewing. VHS became the standard for consumer video recording due to its convenience but was eventually replaced by digital formats like DVDs, Blu-rays, and streaming services. Despite their obsolescence, VHS tapes hold nostalgic value and remain a significant part of home entertainment history.
• Chindogu (珍道具) is a quirky Japanese concept that refers to the invention of “unuseless” objects—gadgets that technically work and solve a problem, but are often so absurd or impractical that you’d never actually use them in real life. The concept was popularized by Kenji Kawakami, a Japanese inventor who created hundreds of Chindogu as a form of playful rebellion against consumerism.
• WQXR-FM is an American non-commercial classical music radio station broadcasting on 105.9 FM in the New York City metropolitan area. Now a listener-supported public radio station, it is best known as “the radio station of The New York Times.”