Where the Sidewalk Ends is a book full of fascinating poems written     1     Shel Silverstein. It contains more than 100 of all kinds of poems-some are happy, some are funny and some are     2     (excite). Each poem comes with a nice drawing by the author     3     (he). Some of the pictures are very silly.

My favourite poem     4     (call) Snowman. It is about     5     happy snowman, which always wants to see July. Other animals say that he will melt (融化) by then. But the snowman wants to see July so     6     (bad) that no matter what other people say, it does not bother the snowman one bit. This poem never says if he actually sees July. So you can only guess.

Another poem I really like is Santa and the reindeer. This poem is about Christmas. Santa has to give     7     (variety) presents to the children while one of his reindeer is always asking what’s for him. I guess Santa gets really annoyed because he puts a flea (虱子) in the reindeer’s ear. And the next thing you know, they fly away and are ready     8     (continue) their journey through the world handing out presents to all the children     9     have behaved well.

This book is fun to read because of all those unique poems. The     10     (character) of this book do many unusual things such as selling sisters, talking to fish and a lot more.

3 . It is no secret that building a large language model (LLM) requires huge amounts of data. In conventional training, an LLM is fed mountains of texts and encouraged to guess each word before it appears. With each prediction, the LLM makes small adjustments to improve its chances of guessing right. The end result is something that has a certain statistical "understanding" of what is proper language and what isn't.

But an LLM that has only undergone this so-called "pretraining" is not yet particularly useful. When asked for a joke to cheer you up, for instance, the pretrained model GPT-2 just repeated the question back three times. Clearly, improved training methods have to be found.

Here comes the so-called Reinforcement Learning From Human Feedback (RLHF), which normally involves three steps. First, human volunteers are asked to choose which of potential LLM responses might better fit a given situation. This process is repeated many thousands of times over. Then the final data set is used to train a reward model. Finally, the well-trained reward model is employed to train the original LLM. But this way of doing RLHF is quite complex and using two separate LLMs takes time and money.

It now turns out that the same result can be achieved with much less effort. Dr Rafailov and his colleagues, including Archit Sharma and Eric Mitchell, presented this alternative in December 2023 at an AI conference. Their method, Direct Preference Optimisation (DPO), relies on a satisfying mathematical trick.

According to the authors, removing the middleman makes DPO between three and six times more efficient than RLHF, and capable of better performance at tasks such as text summarisation. Its ease of use is already allowing smaller companies to train their own models. "A year ago, only a few world-leading models, such as Google's Gemini and OpenAI's GPT-4, could afford to use RLHF, "says Dr Rafailov. "But as of March 12, eight out of the ten LLMs used DPO."

6 . Studies have shown that gardening and garden-based activities have positive impacts on childhood development, including better eating habits and stress relief.     1     . Here are some tips on how to create a great garden with your kids.

Involve them from the very beginning

Take your kids to the store and give them options to pick from. This will allow them to select plants that they can handle and are appropriate for your home conditions. Then give them tasks suitable to their age. For example, younger kids can be assigned to water plants or just cut yellow and brown leaves.     2     . Although you might want to step in when you see your children feeding a plant with too much water, some of the most lasting lessons come from just trying things out.

Pick the perfect plant

To make sure your garden is a success, assess both your home environment and your kids’ attention span.     3     .

Instead, think about your goal: Growing something tasty? Filling your home with flowers? Then ask your kids to choose plants in their favorite colors.

    4    

Another way to get kids excited about gardening—and to raise lifelong nature lovers in the process—is to adopt eco-friendly methods. Seeds from ripe peppers or tomatoes can be saved and planted. Potato “eyes” can be planted and grow into potato plants.

Reuse household items as planting vessels (容器). Almost anything can be used as planters, from old food containers to kids’ toys.     5     . For example, a plastic bottle in front of a hot window could be damaged by the heat soon.

7 . Some civilizations record their pasts with art or books. Others pass on history through folk songs and dances. In Singapore, the story of how a ramshackle fishing village in Southeast Asia developed into a wealthy and modern country often comes in spoonfuls of peppery pork rib soup or bites of fried egg noodles at its hawker centers (小贩中心).

For visitors, hawker centers might just seem like food courts: Follow your nose or the longest line, then pay a few Singapore dollars for a plate of food to enjoy at a shared table. For Singaporeans, hawker culture is about more than just a good meal. These food centers are symbols of the country’s diversified culture. Hawker centers are so central to Singapore that the country recently led a successful campaign to have the practice listed as the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

To accommodate (容纳) Singapore’s diversified population, the government made sure the hawker centers included Malay, Indian, and Chinese store owners. “Hawker centers are likely the first places where people will try another ethnic group’s food,” says Chee Kien Lai, author of Early Hawkers in Singa pore. “They’re open to everyone. You can get Chinese food or try Indian cuisine and get connected to different cultures and religions.”

After Singapore’s rapid development in the 1970s and 80s, there was a sudden stop in the construction of hawker centers. Everybody was concentrating on becoming a knowledge-based society. By the time the government returned to building new hawker centers in 2011, many people wondered if there were enough people to carry on the tradition.

“Even though locals love eating at hawker centers, few are interested in running a small food shop themselves,” says Chee. “The cost of labor has gone up, with the younger, better-educated generation put off by the long hours and physical work the job requires. As aging hawkers retire, their recipes risk extinction.”

That’s one of the reasons that, in 2019, Singapore’s National Heritage Board put the hawkers forward for UNESCO recognition. “We need to make them our local cultural heroes,” says Tay.

8 . It's a sunny March afternoon at Winchester Village Elementary School in Indianapolis, and teacher Natasha Cummings surprises her second graders when she declares the day's activity: They'll be demonstrating a total solar eclipse (日食) using the real sun, a globe and a moon made out of a plastic ball fixed on a stick.

In a grassy area outside the school, Cummings' eclipse experiment begins: Students take turns holding the globes and casting a shadow with their plastic balls. Cummings directs them to aim the shadow over the spot on the globe where Indianapolis would be. It's a little disorganized at first, but the students quickly figure out how to properly position the moon's shadow over their hometown.

On April 8, 2024, part of America will experience a total solar eclipse, in which the moon entirely covers the sun, darkening the sky so that only an amazing white ring of the sun will be visible. Indianapolis is one of several cities in the path of totality.

"For most of my students, this event is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity since the next one won't happen until 2153," Cummings says. "I hope learning about and witnessing the eclipse will get them excited about science. Above all, I want to show that science is not done by old, gray-haired people in lab coats, necessarily. Instead, it's all around us."

Thomas Hockey, a professor of astronomy at the University of Northern Iowa, says the fact that elementary school teachers like Cummings are now teaching about the eclipse is an indication that science education has improved since he was a child.

"I didn't learn about solar eclipses when I was in grade school, but I still remember my first eclipse experience outside my home in Angola, Indiana. It was on March 7, 1970, nearly a year after the Apollo program had put the first person on the moon, "Hockey recalls. "My interest in space was already developing. But the partial eclipse was one of the reasons I chose to study astronomy."

9 . From the gardens of Iceland to the mountains of Nepal, here are four places to celebrate abundance and beauty in the natural world.

Keukenhof Gardens, the Netherlands

The Netherlands produces nearly 90% of the world's tulips, making it the unique destination for a wonderful spring experience. Cycle along the 25-mile Flower Route, where flower fields paint the countryside in bright colors. Travelers can also visit Keukenhof Gardens 16 miles southwest of Amsterdam. Considered the world's largest flower garden, Keukenhof features seven million flowering tulips from March to May.

Umm Qais, Jordan

Despite being 75% desert, Jordan's northern highlands burst with brightly colored flowers from March to May. Take a self-guided hike on one of the several ancient trails starting from the ruins of Umm Qais or hire a local guide who can offer cultural and historical context and help you identify wildflowers along the way, including Jordan's endangered national flower, the black iris.

Blue Ridge Mountains, North Carolina

Travelers can find a wealth of plant species in North Carolina's mountains—the most in any similarly sized area in North America. The best known may be the pink and purple rhododendrons that blanket the Blue Ridge Mountains in summer.

Numerous hiking trails leading to the amazing sights are just 30 miles from downtown Asheville. In June, travelers can take the hour-long drive from Asheville to Bakersville to enjoy the North Carolina Rhododendron Festival.

Ghorepani Poon Hill, Nepal

Travelling along the Ghorepani Poon Hill trek in spring offers breathtaking views of the country's iconic rhododendrons. March or April gives travelers the rhododendrons in full bloom, but November gives drier weather. Go with local Sherpa guides and cooks—it's part of the experience.