Archive for French literature
AI in a storm [cover]
Posted in Books, pictures, University life with tags Académie Goncourt, AI, Anthropic, dangers of AI, deep learning, doomsday argument, francophone literature, Francophonie, French literature, LLMs, mathematical conjecture, Nature, open AI, plagiarism, superintelligence, UN, United Nations General Assembly, weather forecasting, weather prediction on October 6, 2026 by xi'an
yet another list of 100 “best novels”
Posted in Books, Statistics with tags authors, best novels, book list, English literature, French literature, Harry Potter, J.K. Rowlings, Kazuo Ishiguro, NYT, Russian literature, Susanna Clarke, The Guardian, The Lord of The Ring, The New York Times, The North, Ursula Le Guin, Victor Hugo on June 15, 2026 by xi'an
a journal of the chaos, conquest, war, [not] famine, and death year
Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, pictures, Running, Travel with tags blueberries, book review, COVID-19, Daniel Defoe, fantasy, film review, French literature, guacamole, Journal of the Plague Year, Netflix, Roald Dahl, Russian invasion, Ukraine on August 17, 2024 by xi'an
Read Le Tournoi des Preux, by Jean-Philippe Jaworski (author of the fantastic and fantasist Gagner la Guerre), a medieval fantasy in the same universe than Gagner la Guerre), but more intricate and with more magics. I had not realised the book was part of a tryptic, with close to 2000 pages total, so I am unsure I will undertake the remaining reading marathon! Despite an enticing scenario, great characters, the same fascinating universe, and a more than decent writing style. which I hadn’t realised was only the first tome of a series. As for the fabulous Gagner la Guerre, which I read during the first COVID lockdown, I appreciated very much the flowing style, the complex characters, and the compelling scenario, set in a pseudo-medieval society with magical aspects (at the right dose). If I remember correctly, the author started working on role-playing games, before embarking on writing books, which explains for his great story telling skills. But also the propensity to long and branching novels, with two more volumes to go! (I do not think any of his books have been translated into English.)
Made [a while ago!] half a dozen blueberry jam jars, along a blueberry pie, as a stall at the local market was getting rid of crates of them (with a 20% damaged percentage, but at 1/8th of the initial price!). And [again a while ago] a few litres of guacamole to freeze, as the same stall (but another weekend) offered crates of avocados at 1/6th of the standard price).
Watched some episodes of Military Prosecutor Doberman: another Korean series on the hardships of military service in Korea, with little realism if any, a strong lack of ethics, repeated violence and sadism, hence not worth pursuing, just as I got very quickly tired of The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More (Roald Dahl’s stories), which carries the same absurd humour as the original, but is somewhat too pretentious for my taste.
python [book review]
Posted in Books, Kids, R with tags book review, Bristol, Bristol cardboard, ChatGPT, coding, computer language, computer science, French literature, P.O.L., programming style, punched card, Python on April 19, 2024 by xi'an
A fellow coder shared with me this recent manual (in French) entitled python (for the computer language, not the snake) written by Nathalie Azoulai as he found it an interesting literary (if not computer) program. It parses rather quickly and I compiled it in one single run on my way to Bristol [Mecca of punched card coders!] last week. The core idea of this manual is one of a middle-aged, clueless (about coding), single-mother, writer engaging into an experiment to understand coding and coders. She does not succeed. And the manual also fails to implement said idea, at least for me. This writer calls upon a series of tutors to get into understanding coding and learning python but she does not get much further than exiting the “hello world” instruction that seem to bug the early chapters of most programming manuals! It sounds as if the compiler (character or author) is mostly uninterested in the fundamental function of coding towards delivering, that is, that it is used and useful for solving real problems. Instead, the manual leans towards a massive and falsely naïve infodump on the history of coding, with very few surprises there, along with a gradually overwhelming, personal, and frankly of very limited interest, introspection on a past and ambiguous love (or sexual attraction) that returned too many error messages. The end of the manual is a predictable mise-en-abîme where the writer finds Chat-GPT unsurprisingly lacking in its ability to deliver a novel that goes beyond the (re)production of earlier codes, e.g., clichés and conventional situations. I would certainly not recommend this shallow, unrealistic, and inherently flawed, python manual to anyone…
Since I mentioned ChatGPT, here is its output when repeatedly insisting on a computer manual style, but funnily missing some obvious programming synonyms:
Received from a fellow enthusiast, this recent manuscript by Nathalie Azoulai is touted as a captivating computational experiment. It swiftly parses, and I sequentially traversed its contents during my recent journey, processing it in one uninterrupted session. At its core, the narrative embarks on an intriguing quest to decrypt the intricacies of programming paradigms and the programmer’s mindset. However, its execution fails to trigger the desired engagement, encountering crashes and bugs along the way. Azoulai’s documentation chronicles her [character’s] endeavor to master Python, facilitated by a chain of mentors who, regrettably, encounter runtime errors in their attempts to elevate her beyond the rudimentary “hello world” commands—a fundamental subroutine in the lexicon of programming vernacular. The narrative raises questions about the intrinsic motivations driving one’s pursuit of programming prowess, encountering recursive loops of introspection. Rather than delving into the depths of coding intricacies, the manuscript deviates into an extensive discourse on the historical evolution of programming—a divergence that, while intellectually stimulating, detracts from the central narrative focus. Interspersed amidst this cerebral exploration are fragments of introspection, reflections of past affections interwoven delicately into the fabric of Azoulai’s discourse, yet they fail to meet the conditionals of relevance. Yet, as the narrative unfolds, it descends into a labyrinth of self-reflection, where the author grapples with the constraints of artificial intelligence—a poignant reflection on the interplay between creativity and the digital frontier, encountering exception handling challenges along the way. In conclusion, Azoulai’s manuscript presents an intriguing blend of literary and computational exploration, yet falls short of achieving transcendence. While it beckons towards the precipice of profound inquiry, its meandering narrative trajectory ultimately leaves the reader yearning for a more cohesive and resonant exploration of its thematic landscape, perhaps requiring debugging and refactoring for optimal performance.
ChatGPT also produced a python code I do not want to inflict in its entirety upon ‘Og’s readers…
