>I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.>so that all may know, from where the sun rises to where it sets, that there is none but Me; I am the LORD, and there is no other. I form the light and create the darkness; I bring prosperity and create calamity. I, the LORD, do all these things.
I'll start with an obvious one. Great read.
Rousseau was known as a great musician first by the general public after Le Devin du Village.It's too bad very few of his compositions have recordings nowadays
>>24851844My dad might know who he is
About as comprehensive as you could hope for a single volume biography to be. Swafford is trying to sit between two stools, by his own admission, in writing a book for the general reader and also for learned musicians. His musical analysis is surface level and quite uninteresting. By far the worst parts of the book are the opera chapters, in which he recounts, sometimes for upwards of 40 pages, the minute plot details of the libretti, with almost no real commentary or insight. These should have been cut. Nonetheless, as a biography it is highly recommended.
>>24845551post a link to the book and program here when they're finished.
>>24845551What is there still to do in set theory?
For reading in general, what's the best to retain information?Should I get a journal and note stuff after reading? What methods do you guys use?
Explain the contents of the chapter you just read to an imaginary friend
>>24850747I have a google doc with notes from about 40 books, anything from expert literature to poetry. I go through it all every couple years to see if I can connect some new dots and let me tell you ... it's kinda not working. Whenever I need to refresh core points a book makes or I need to look up a particularly quote I know I noted, the google doc proves extremely useful. But apart from that it's a bunch of notes that don't do anything. They definitely don't form a cross-referencing base of knowledge that I hoped it would become.For books that cover a lot of ground in great detail I usually make a separate doc and then try to organize the points and go through them a couple times to figure out the best way to implement some of the implications in my life. Because that's the best way to retain information - to live it, to make it part of your life, part of your automatic perspective that doesn't have to be propositionally recalled.
This is relevant to my interests
>>24850747Bumping your trash
>>24850747>journalmake sure its something electronic so that it's searchable
so now that philosophy has been going for a couple thousand years, what is their conclusion? have they've even gotten anywhere? i suspect it's all a meme.
>>24854501Many people don’t believe in or respect truth, they get a kick out of lying, duper’s delightI think that’s what’s going on a lot of the time when people go on about Flat Earth or Ancient Aliens, there is actually a good reason to shun them as friends as they aren’t just idiots, they do not value honesty
>>24854501>Take Theucydides, fro example. Any nation that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools. QUite poerful of a statement, and obviously so true and concise.Thucydides never said that, but I guess that bare fact still makes your point about 90% of people being morons.
>>24852239But what is provided is a more explorable gestalt of these unseen things which affect our lives nonetheless. Absorbing some philosophy, enough for conversation, remains important. Does it not?
>>24852237You are comfortably shitposting instead of being chained up like an animal and enslaved, so you have definitely benefited from advancing philosophy.
>>24852237The only two disciplines that matter are aesthetics and ethics, and those have been concluded before or with Schopenhauer.
How many planets are in the universe?If you take every single grain of sand on earth and imagine that every single grain of sand on earth is 1 billion planets, thats how many.Any books with some philosophy to address this? I'm finding it very hard to imagine humans are important against such numbers as these. Like how could you possibly argue we matter at all vs that?
>>24854652And yet you are alive at the infinitesimally small moment of time in which a single one of those planets births a cosmic civilization or imperial empire, depending on how this century plays out and if we don’t exterminate ourselves or get exterminated.
>>24854707I don't think that's true
>>24854652>>24854690>>24854692>>24854707All of this is made up to make you feel insignificant. Be a solipsist, not an easily impressed retard.
>>24854652>I'm finding it very hard to imagine humans are important against such numbers as these. Like how could you possibly argue we matter at all vs that?Categorical mistake: you're confusing scale for significance. The quantity of planets or stars tells you nothing about the question of meaning, value or importance. Those belong to a different order of thought entirely. Besides, you could just as easily argue that God created all of it so you could marvel at it.
>>24854764>meaning, value or importance>Abstract conceptsThese only make the metaphysical materialist more confused.
Give me one good reason why he isn't the greatest writer to have ever lived
>>24852211Je pensais que je pouvais le lire en Francais avec mon niveau B2, c'est-tu fini pour moi?
>>24852199>great literature (like In Search of Lost Time) is essentially philosophyYikes
>>24852144>nothingDoes your life amount to nothing? Yes, Proust writes lengthy about common day ocurrences and almost nothing trascendental ever happens in his work. Yet he manages to capture something ineffable about life. Time is relentless and it looks like everything we ever held dear, will be swept away and forgotten. But when Proust starts to ruminate about light and colors, fragrances, feelings, what a thing or a persone evoked in him, etc, all those things are brought to life again. They are eternal in a sense, so far as we live and keep them alive.In Search of Lost Time is essentially, a Schopenhauerian work as this anon pointed out: >>24851995
>>24854068Avec B2 ca va aller je crois mais je dirai que je suis plutot sur un niveau de B1 et c'est pourquoi je crois que j'aurais des difficultés le lisant. J'ai lu quelques pages en Français quelle j'ai deja lu en Anglais et j'ai compris 85%-90% mais meme si on comprends pas que 10% c'est chiant a lire.
>>24854161Good, now continue reading the thought in its entirety...
Anything I need to know before I read?
>>24854603It's good and it's important and you should definitely read it but it's definitely not going to be as good as everyone has told you it's going to be and are thinking it's going to be in your head.
reading all these replies... what happened to this board?
It's a slow read, don't expect it to be constant tilting at windmills and whatever.
>>24854603>Anything I need to knowJust fucking read the book you monumental retard. Good christ. Why can't you people just actually engage with something without a primer first.
Grossman translation has fluid and engaging prose.
Which AI do you use, /lit/?>inb4 *scoff* "HURR DURR I DON'T USE..."Shut up, faggot. Yes you do. Stop lying. Just answer the fucking question.
>>24854570GPT-5 is okay at creative writing, it just needs complex prompting to sound like anything other than OAIslop. Claude Opus is the only model that can do creative writing without prompt autism.
>>24854555GPT as a research assistant/google on steroids and sometimes idea discussion
>>24854555I genuinely don't. I think you have to have a sub-100 IQ to even think AI is worth your time. So, you know, if you do, then go ahead and distract yourself cause it doesn't matter what you do anyway.
ChatGPT sucks. I asked it to generate a table of a sample of Ancient Greek words in one column and their transliterations in the second column but to only include Ancient Greek words that have 4-letter transliterations no more and no less, but it couldn't do that simple thing and included 5-letter transliterations, and no matter how many times I corrected it it still screwed up.
I use Gemini as a superior search engine sometimes because normal Google search sucks now.I never "discuss" my ideas with it, though. It's not alive, it can't have a discussion.
I'm 60 pages in, when does it get good? So far it's a book about a woman being a woman. Please tell me it changes, I hate women.
>>24853540Achimboldi > Amalfitano >>>> Crimes > Critics > Fate
>>24853432Once you get to the part about the crimes though that particular section can get a little repetitive.
>>24854426>The prose, maybe, but what's the intrigue? I don't see what's intriguing by a group of 4 academic friends glazing a german author until he's soggy.You're not curious about the identity of Archimboldi?There's also the mystery surrounding the part about the crimes, which comes later. Honestly, the crescendo of horniness and cucking exploding into violence at the cab driver in the Critics was masterful IMO. Some people just hate that chapter though.
>>24853494>commieAhh so its a waste of time.
>>24853540I read till Fate and have started Crimes 3 times now, but stopped 40 pages in. Critics was a masterpiece for me, Amalfitano was very great, Fate was great but slightly less (except the ending, which was very intriguing). I see many people love Archimboldi (to be expected), but what would you say about the crimes, I read somewhere that it's purposefully tedious.
two sentence horror
"I want cheese pizza," I said to my girlfriend, "Can you find some on the way home?"He brought the wrong kind of pizza.
No sir, you can't eat batteries to relieve tiredness and alas...I couldn't understand the rest and should try duracell next time
I fell in love with a woman.She was from the Philippines.
>>24851278Why is my fantasy world worse than the one i'm being raped in?
>>24853675kek
The breakdown happened a lot sooner than I thought it would, I'll admit.
>>24852434>(Useful Output/Total Input)Yeah, that' the question - what are the input and output in question? What process is being evaluated? >Efficiency of what? Of everything. That's not an answer. >The one best way of doing things Doing what things?
>>24854682Anything that can be quantifiedROI, Fuel Efficiency, Net Profit, GDP/capita, Glasses of Lemonade/Lemon, tax rate possible before productivity falls, cost of compute for AI, how fast you learn, # of children passing graduation exams, # of miles before a tire explodes, most fuel efficient fuel to use on trips to mars, # of Teslas that pop off the line per week, most effective SSRI, speed reading, faster gas pumps. better timed traffic lights, most efficient sorting algorithm for loading amazon shipments, optimal amount of exercise and diet to live the longest, most deadly nuclear weapon, "power saving" mode on your laptop, quick charge cell phones, Google fibre internet, more aerodynamic airplanes, most ergonomic standing desk, most potent cocaine, nutrient timing, the 4 hr work week, atomic habits, optimal delivery method for advertisements, cost per click, inventory turnover ratios, carbon neutral products, highest power to weight ratio, need I go on?I have to believe at this point you're either very naive and young or playing dumb.
>>24854700>Anything that can be quantifiedOpposite processes can be quantifies, which would mean that you are talking about efficiency of processes which end up in net zero outcome due to cancelling each other out. >Net Profit, GDP/capita, tax rateThose specific things cannot have efficiency btw. >I have to believe at this point you're either very naive and young or playing dumb.I have to believe that you have no coherent ideas and are just waving your hands about regarding industrial aesthetics or something.
>>24854705You're reaching very hard>Net Profit, GDP/capita, tax rateObviously they can, there are efficient business and inefficient ones, efficient countries who max out GDP/capita and inefficient ones, and efficient uses of tax rates and inefficient ones.>I have to believe that you have no coherent ideas and are just waving your hands about regarding industrial aesthetics or something.You need to shut the fuck up and read the Technological Society by Jacques Ellul because you sound like a goddamn peasant and I'm not going to spoonfeed you anymore in here. That book will get you started, IF you can understand it (not many can)
>>24854714>You're reaching very hardNo. If you are an employee, then the most efficient output per input for you is getting paid a lot for not doing shit. If you're an employer, then the most efficient output per input for you is your employees doing a ton and not getting paid shit. They diametrically opposed. You cannot optimize one without de-optimizing the other. And these oppositions are quite widespread, so we cannot "increase the efficiency of everything" or be subject to this increase, because it is fundamentally impossible. >Obviously they can, there are efficient business and inefficient onesYou don't know what "Net Profit", "GDP/capita" and "tax rate" are.What is possible is prioritization of some efficiency at the cost of inefficiency in other things. Like, for example, the modern intensive agriculture obtains extremely high yields per acre (high efficiency), but also has extremely poor utilization of labor and involved costs (low efficiency), hence it can only survive on subsidies. Renewable energy sources like wind and solar are extremely inefficient per labor hour, per unit of area or per dollar of costs, compared to fossil fuels. The contemporary lifestyle of an average developed country citizen is extremely efficient at utilizing his disposable resources (to the point of credit saturation), but simultaneously extremely inefficient at consumption - to he point where this average citizen fails to even partially consume most of the valuables he acquires, leading to this average citizen producing more refuse than any other typical human in history, including 40%+ of the produce of the above-mentioned intensive agriculture ending up in a trash bin. Etc etc etcSo no, we cannot describe technological society as a process of subjecting humans to increased efficiency dictated by technology, since technology is not a magical genie that just spawns efficiency out of nowhere, as anyone with a modicum of technical education can attest. It is merely a set of means for turning inefficiency in one aspect into higher efficiency in another aspect. There is no such thing as an inherent, universal efficiency to direct the course of technological development. If there is only sacrifice of one efficiency for another, then it would mean that there must be someone somewhere deciding which efficiency is desirable and which is expendable. The newer and more dehumanizing technological solutions are taken and implemented because they are efficient for somebody, at the cost of being inefficient in every other way and this making everyone else miserable. Which is why Ellul ultimately ended up in the gutter of philosophy - all he did is just reiterate the same old moldy marxist historical materialism, but in a toothless interpretation that refused to even say "J'accuse!" and recognize people involved in the society on any level as responsible for anything whatsoever.
I need an electornic word processor that>cannot EVER connect to the internet>can manage, import, and export text files via usb>has little to no other functionThere's too much shit on my laptop to distract me from writing. I realize there's pen and paper but I don't want to have to rewrite everything I've already written. Any recommendations?
>>24852738we know
>>24852155>yeah, just that simpleserendipity begins when you find out it really is that simple.
>>24844869Based
>>24841594Veiled Freewrite advertisement
>>24848403I made this mistake, a Chromebook can’t use any software but there google docs trash and every single thing you ever do on a chrome book is fed into google ai.Don’t buy a chromebook
Any of you doing NaNoWriMo this month? We're only three days in, plenty of time to start still. I haven't, but maybe if enough people call me a fag I will.
>>24853966I quite literally said I was doing it in my post. >>2485386150k a month continuously is tough if you have a job, family, etc. if I were a rich hermit I could do more than that though.
>>24853764>>24853784>>24853966I remember part of their stated reason was "community vitriol." I can see now why their community became so vitriolic
>>24853808>Knausgård>goodHah! Good one one anon
How do you figure out what to write? Do you come up with an idea or plan beforehand or do you just make it up as you go along through the month?
>>24854701Ah, that's one of the great questions
"There can be only one!" editionPrevious: >>24848643/wg/ AUTHORS & FLASH FICTION: https://pastebin.com/ruwQj7xQRESOURCES & RECOMMENDATIONS: https://pastebin.com/nFxdiQvCPlease limit excerpts to one post.Give advice as much as you receive it to the best of your ability.Follow prompts made below and discuss written works for practice; contribute and you shall receive.If you have not performed a cursory proofread, do not expect to be treated kindly. Edit your work for spelling and grammar before posting.Violent shills, relentless shill-spammers, and grounds keeping prose, should be ignored and reported.(And maybe double-space your WIPs to allow edits if you want 'em.)Simple guides on writing:Comment too long. Click here to view the full text.
>>24854704>my story doesn't get interesting until this far into it>but I'm still gonna keep the parts that aren't worth reading because lol i dunno The editor in me will never understand this mentality
>>24854719it takes under a minute to reach those points in the writing. and they are literally setting the context.
>>24854725if u think im coping then w/e i can look at the leadup to those points
>>24854727You're definitely coping and your defensiveness tells me you have no intention of improving so I'll stop here.
>>24854680>chaptersThis is some screenplay? I don't read that crap
Did he write anything worth reading ? Post some recs
Answered Prayers is great fun.
>>24849884That makes it a readable sentance, genius mofo.
>>24849678why are faggot writers always so based?
>>24849609Honestly, this is his best story. >>24849884Other Voices, Other Rooms is underrated. Read this early this year as part of a Southern Gothic binge. Great read.
>>24849527I like the part where he said Mishima was looking for BWC while in America
