Yay! I finished the first half of the first book in the series. The Iliad! As mentioned in the previous post, as I read The Iliad, I picked a quote/passage, crafted a prompt to tie it to some contemporary issue, and submitted the prompt to ChatGPT and Bard. They definitely gave me interesting answers, which made me think further.

I recently started reading ‘The Great Books of the Western Civilization’1 after buying the complete set from someone on Craigslist. The seller was a doctor who had purchased the books from a library sale many years ago and had even read some of the classics in Latin when he was younger.

“Like Einstein’s universe, most networks are finite but unbounded. There’s only a certain number of computers attached, yet you never quite reach the edge of the network. There’s always another computer down the line. Eventually, you’ll make a complete circuit and wind up back where you started. Most networks are so complicated and interwoven that no one knows where all their connections lead.

“Among us we represent islands of time as well as separate oceans of perspective. Or perhaps more aptly put, each of us may hold a piece to a puzzle no one else has been able to solve since humankind first landed on Hyperion.” ~ Sol Weintraub in Hyperion1 Short Summary Hyperion, the novel, starts in the future (2900 AD) at a time when humans have become inter-planetary species, and the worlds are connected via the WorldWeb.

Six calculated guesses to figure out a five-letter word. Wow! Wordle1 the game, is simple, yet super fulfilling once you crack the word of the day. As per wikipedia2, the emoji-style display of the result that could be shared with friends is what made this game a viral phenomenon on social media (Twitter especially).

Thoughts I got to know about this book through Gates Notes1 and a few times on Youtube feed. I’m glad that I finally got a chance to read the book. Of course, almost everyone instinctively knows about the importance of sleep. Most people might have had a first hand experience of the ill effects of lack of sleep after going through a sleepless night and struggling through the next day.

“When you are visited by chaos and swallowed up; when nature curses you or someone you love with illness; or when tyranny rends asunder something of value that you have built, it is salutary to know the rest of the story. All of that misfortune is only the bitter half of the tale of existence, without taking note of the heroic element of redemption or the nobility of the human spirit requiring a certain responsibility to shoulder.

People did not understand his words any more, although they seemed clear enough to him, clearer than previously .." ~ The Metamorphosis from Franz Kafka1 Metamorphosis is a short novel that you can finish reading in a few hours. But those few hours can truly set you thinking for several days.

“I would have to learn to live in a different way, seeing death as an imposing itinerant visitor but knowing that even if I’m dying, until I actually die, I am still living.” ~ Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air 1 I first read about this book through Gates Notes2, where Bill Gates mentions that the book left him in tears.

“Any fool can tell a crisis when it arrives. The real service to the state is to detect it in embryo.” ~ Foundation by Isaac Asimov 1 This is the second time I’m reading this book, that too after a gap of around 20 years. I had forgotten so much of the book that it felt like I was reading a new book.