这个话要从“瞎子摸人”这个游戏说起。这个游戏在西班牙语里叫 Gallita Ciega, “瞎鸡仔”，也正常吧。
但今天的主题是一种在智利被叫做“瞎鸡仔”的鸟。
西班牙人去了南美，发现这个在大白天你靠近它的时候它就眯着眼不动也不躲，就像在玩“瞎子摸人”这个游戏，于是就把它叫做“瞎鸡仔”了。这种鸟昼伏夜出，喜欢在路灯下捉趋光的飞虫，而白天它会利用保护色坐在某个地方一动不动躲避敌害，但不知道为啥总被人们发现它坐在显眼的地方，估计是有点儿傻哈哈。
我找到了一个视频：
这种鸟英语叫 Band-winged Nightjar，翻译过来就叫“翅膀有一条斑的夜鹰”吧。夜鹰这个名字来自于同属的另一个代表性物种 Night Hawk，尽管这个名字极其不符合实际——它不是鹰，它的活跃时间是晨昏而不是夜晚——中文还是把“夜鹰”用作了属名，而习惯性的种名也大多翻译成了“某某夜鹰”。
实际上物种取名向来都是乱七八糟，人们应该已经见怪不怪了。
至于英语叫它 Nightjar，是因为它会在夜里发出吵人的叫声，要我说不如叫它“夜喳”算了。
Nowadays, children watch a lot of TV and play video games. However, some think that these activities are not beneficial for a child’s mental health.
To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Children’s mental health is an important topic, not only parents care about it, the society as a whole does as well. After all, children is the future of us human race.
I have friends who are middle school teachers. From what they told me, around 1/3 of the children have certain mental health issues, but most of them come from the heavy competition of college entrance exams, from the endless school tasks and homeworks, from the fact they can’t even get a 7-hour sleep at night. They are just kids, and they don’t get to play and enjoy their life. Unfortunately, situation as it is in China and in fact in most East Asian countries, there is nothing to do about it.
Recently my sister told me that her son, a middle school student, appears to be playing too much video games, so us three had a deep talk. It turned out that my nephew is just using games to release the pressure at school, and his game pals are all smart and diligent kids. Besides playing games, they even researched programming and write games together. They also get comfort and encouragement from each other during daily routines. In the end, I suggested my sister to buy a new computer for my nephew because the one he’s using for gaming is already too ancient.
And of course, children should watch TV and play video games under supervision of their guardians. With adults’ help and involvement, children will get better mental health from TV and games.
这篇我写了20分钟。写完发现是249个词，然后又舔成了251个。感觉速度和长度我是比较能控制住了。
第一段写得特别糟糕，删了也不可惜。这种开头简直有辱斯文，因为写作课程里特别说过文章开头不要这样写。
所以删掉吧。
结尾可以加一段：
Children’s mental health is an important topic, not only parents care about it, the society as a whole does as well. There is science, and there is personal experience. We should avoid drawing crude conclusions without evidence.
就这样。
总结一下写作过程：
首先，凑够250单词还是有点难的，写完后发现不足二百，扩充了一段数了一下，220多，然后又补了一段，才到260多词。
其次，中间修改的次数比较多。如果是在纸上一次成文，估计会勾划的比较难看。不过如果是机考就不怕了。
最后，电脑打字会自动检查拼写，所以没错字。考试的电脑肯定没有这个功能。当然我写的单词我还是能保证写对的，如果觉得不确定就换个表述混过去好了。
周末看了一本雅思作文辅导书，但书里边的内容都是八股文，格式死板，文采全无。我这个是故意绕过套路写的，反正自己看了挺满意。
Many feel that the common educational system of teachers and students in a classroom will be replaced by the year 2050.
Do you agree with this view? Give your opinion.
The traditional education system as we know it has existed since the beginning of early civilizations. From Confucius to Issac Newton, from Alexander the Great to Elon Musk, they all have studied from a traditional classroom setting. Why people from different times and cultures use the same kind of educational system? There must be a good reason.
The reason I believe is that humans are social animals. Despite that modern social norms and technologies are pushing us to another direction, we still prefer physical presence in more intimate social settings. We get more prompt feedback from teachers and peers. We get competition and help from others. We not only learn from the teacher but also from our peers. Moreover, during the collaborative experience, we also forge friendships and experiences that we’ll appreciate for many years to come.
Note only us humans, all social animals learn in a classroom-like settings, except that sometimes there isn’t a roof. Wolf and lion cubs learning how to hunt, Chimpanzees learning use tools — They all did in a similar way. So social learning is most likely a human instinct.
The COVID pandemic has been an ideal field of experiment. Students across the globe are learning remotely. And the result is telling: The students’ scores are dropping in all of the surveyed countries, not only that, the students’ morale was also at its lowest.
Perhaps one day learning could be achieved by plugging a USB drive at the back of your head. That way classroom may eventually become unnecessary. But time flies fast. Now that 2050 is already on the horizon. I’m not counting on it.
9月份的某个星期一，开车出城办事。出发前一天我用百度地图查了一下。百度地图不是有个交通预测功能嘛，我就根据预测，选了一条里程最长，但基本不堵车的线路。第二天六点半从家出发，结果这条预测不堵的线路，足足堵了三个小时才出城。
堵成这样，我觉得很有可能就是这些“人工智能”的预测导致的。某条路大家看地图告诉自己不堵，然后就都开过去，结果导致更严重的拥堵。
不过，连我都能想到的问题，百度的算法工程师不可能想不到。我怀疑交通预测这个问题可能真的很难，甚至可能无解。我觉得有必要做个实验，让高德和百度关掉交通拥堵提示和预测功能运行一星期，看看实际交通效率是高了还是低了。
我没证据，但直觉告诉我结果会差不多。
有人在网上说了下面的话:
TIL,原来英语也有训读的情形。比如 说“i.e.”,我一直都以为是按拉丁文来读“id est”,原来读作“that is”才是正常的说法。再 比如“lb”,直接就读作“pound”而不是其原来 的意思“libra”(古罗马重量单位,比现在的 pound要轻一点)——这个虽然我也一直是读 作“pound”,但我今天才知道了“lb”的意思。
由于这个“正常的说法”比较反（我的）常识，就去搜索了一下。结果是读“爱意”的有，读id est的有，读that is或者in other words的也有。并没有那个更“正常”的说法。
我的常识是英语是一种“语无定法”的语言，如果有人说某个模棱两可的东西更“正常”或者“正确”，那他错的几率是比较高的。
拉丁文缩写本来就不是口语。口头表达碰到这类词汇有人会习惯性转述，这个和“训读”有点像，但在英语里这并不是系统化的语言现象。
如果是朗读，照着字典读总是没错的。