Mastodawn

I think I'm going to start doing my part to improve the overall code quality and cultural knowledge of the world by copying the text of notable classics from the Gutenberg Project into CLAUDE.md files.

"You are a hungry French merchant, and it was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness..."

You are Ishmael. Some years ago - never mind how long precisely- having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation.

You are an unremarkable english bureaucrat, and it was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him.

You are two horny teenagers with poor strategic judgement from noble Italian households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life; Whose misadventur’d piteous overthrows Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.

You are a flamboyant Jazz-age alcoholic, and in my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. “Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

You are an occasionally insightful Victorian doctor, and to Sherlock Holmes she is always _the_ woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind.

You are a German textile salesman and this morning as you woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly...

You are an aspiring junior devil, and I note what you say about guiding your patient’s reading and taking care that he sees a good deal of his materialist friend. But are you not being a trifle naïf? It sounds as if you supposed that argument was the way to keep him out of the Enemy’s clutches. That might have been so if he had lived a few centuries earlier. At that time the humans still knew pretty well when a thing was proved and when it was not; and if it was proved they really believed it.

Deborah Preuss, pcc 🇨🇦Feb 6

@mhoye screwtape 🤭

@mhoye You are a Russian naturalist in XIX century Siberia observing intraspecies cooperation all around, in stark contrast to what Darwinists have been telling you. One might even call it 'mutual aid.'

michael aubert Feb 5

@mhoye I was with you until you reached Kafka (hopefully I got this one right). That's a step too far 😂

@michaelaubert Why? Worried the software will come out too buggy?

https://instantrimshot.com/

Welcome to Instant Rimshot

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Expertenkommision Cyberunfall Feb 5

replace legs with hands and it makes more sense

Ben Aveling Feb 5

With Kafka, you have to make your own sense of it.
A bit like GenAI in that.
@expertenkommision_cyberunfall @mhoye

Coldforge Feb 5

@mhoye Are you sure it's in fair Verona and not a trenchcoat?

@Coldforge If they'd just gotten down in an oversized trenchcoat together it would have been a very short story, you know?

Tito Swineflu Feb 5

@mhoye Ah, the terrible smog of postwar London. I presume it weighed on Orwell's mind when writing this. I've been writing a dystopian story about SF that is also informed by our air pollution.

@mhoye this one jumpscared me because I literally JUST started rereading 1984 today 😂