Preface

I planned a summer trip, but I had already visited nearby cities like New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington. Where to go next? Looking at the map, I decided on Niagara Falls near the US-Canada border! Along the way, I could visit Cornell University. After consulting Claude, I also discovered the Women’s Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls was on the route. Let’s go!

Cornell University

Years ago, when I applied to US PhD programs, I received some offers and some rejections. I clearly remember Cornell was the last to respond - unfortunately also with a rejection, probably from the waiting list. Fifteen years later, times have changed, and I finally set foot on their campus.

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

Today I saw laike9m recommending the latest episode of “The Python Hunter,” featuring a conversation with Hawstein, the author of Five Years of an Indie Hacker. After reading the transcript and some related materials, I felt inspired to share some thoughts. This is a bit scattered and unsystematic, so please bear with me.

The Randomness of Life

In the transcript, at 13:49, the article by Professor Chen Jiaying should be “Is Saving Black Bears Important?” Life is often random, not the optimal solution after precise rational calculation—whether I should go save black bears, donate to Project Hope, or personally teach in rural areas, these decisions are often determined by things that happen by chance. Looking back, everyone has several such moments when they were completely unaware that their life trajectory would change completely afterward. For me, one such moment was winning first place in the city chemistry competition in middle school. At the time I thought, “Hey, am I the chosen one? Should I study this?” The next steps seemed to follow naturally—continuing chemistry competitions in high school, getting recommended to Peking University for chemistry, coming to the University of Chicago for my PhD. I felt I was doing quite well with effort plus talent, but reality slapped me hard—it’s difficult to find a job! Going through it all, meeting brilliant classmates and friends, I realized I was definitely not the chosen chemistry person. There was no need to persist stubbornly, so I switched to coding.

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

At the end of June, I visited the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum located at Pier 86 on Manhattan’s west side. After procrastinating for a month and a half, I’m finally writing this travel blog combining my memories, photos, and the guided tour from Bloomberg Connects.

Although the museum is named after the Intrepid aircraft carrier, the main exhibits also include the USS Growler submarine, Concorde supersonic jet, and Space Shuttle Enterprise. Below I’ll describe them in the order they arrived at the museum.

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

Last weekend, I took a half-day tour of the renowned West Point Military Academy. Combined with the short film and exhibitions at the visitor center, plus the tour guide’s explanations, I’ll summarize and record what I learned. Following chronological order, this can be divided into three parts: the Revolutionary War period, the academy’s glorious history after its establishment, and an introduction to modern West Point education.

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

Last weekend I took a half-day trip to Hartford, the capital of Connecticut. Here’s a stream-of-consciousness record with photos.

The Insurance Capital of the World

There really are quite a few insurance companies here, such as United Healthcare, Aetna, Travelers, and others. When I was working at Oracle and applied for paternity leave, the company said I needed to contact “The Hartford” - this insurance company is (obviously) headquartered in Hartford.

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

(Like the previous blog post, this one is also nostalgic.)

What Happened

On May 22, 2025, Mozilla announced that Pocket would be shut down on July 8th. I learned of this terrible news on May 26th, and my heart was shattered:

Woc, 天塌了！

— David Feng (@davidfeng88) May 26, 2025

Around 2010, when I first encountered read-later apps, I found them interesting on one hand, but confusing on the other: wouldn’t it be enough to just bookmark articles to read later in the browser? But after trying them out, I found features like cleaning up webpage formatting quite useful. Initially, I was torn between the free Instapaper and ReadItLater. Later, it seemed like Instapaper started charging, so I wholeheartedly embraced ReadItLater. In the early days, saving articles on iPhone seemed to require setting up a bookmarklet in Safari, which was quite complex. Later, perhaps when iOS opened up permissions and native apps became available, the user experience improved dramatically.