A hallucinatory look in the mirror with ChatGPT and Bard — “I don’t like that man. I must get to know him.” — Abraham Lincoln. “So remember, when you’re feeling very small and insecure, How amazingly unlikely is your birth; And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere out in space, ’Cause there’s bugger all down here on Earth!” — The Galaxy Song. Monty Python…

A story of sorts about ChatGPT “Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.” — Picasso. “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” — Arthur C. Clarke. Write, my friend, write before we disappear From memory, from history, from the universe Write your story just as I’m writing mine Before our…

How to make one of the most important decisions of your life — “You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work…

Donald Knuth, Stravinsky, and a Rabbi walk into a bar! — “Progress condemns idleness. The work needed to deliver humanity is vast. Indeed it is limitless, since as one plateau of achievement is reached another looms up. Of course this is only a mirage; but the worst of progress is not that it is an illusion. It is that it is…

“The Babel Fish is a small, leech-like, yellow fish, and by putting this into one’s ear one can instantly understand anything said in any language… The Babel fish has led to significant and profound consequences for the Universe… The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a…

An Ode to Yoga — “The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what…

Of global human consciousness — “A human being is a part of the whole called by us “universe”, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us…

The modern diet and its discontents — “Sometimes you have to change the way you understand everything to properly understand a single something.” — Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. “Each year the US population spends more money on diets than the amount needed to feed all the hungry people in the…

Let a thousand nations bloom — “Democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms we’ve ever tried.” — Winston Churchill. “Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.” — Henry David Thereau. Civil Disobedience. “Much of history…