Excursions #01 for February 11th
New Discoveries | The Ethics of Beauty | How I Use Google's AI | Your Diet Impacts Your Mental Health
Weekend Excursions is a test featurette of Zigzag Along. If you love reading and want access to The Pilgrim Chronicles and other extra essays consider becoming a paid subscriber. If you just want to support us but commitment gives you hives, you can make a one-time donation here.
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🔬Zigzag Laboratories presents Weekend Excursions
I am testing different ideas for the newsletter this month. Many readers report they enjoy my recommendations so I thought I’d expand it into a semi-regular issue. Click the like button or leave a comment if you want to see more like this.
🧑💻 Google Bard is now Gemini
I asked a high school student how long they thought ChatGPT has been available.
“Three years?”
Nope. Generative AI has been on the public scene for little over a year.
I tested Google’s Bard a few months ago, and immediately transferred all my work there. The interface is cleaner than ChatGPT. Interaction more natural. And I rarely get “I’m sorry, Jeff. I’m afraid I can’t do that” errors. I periodically double-check Bard results against ChatGPT, and Google consistently wins.
This week, Google changed its AI product name to Gemini, and also made it available to our friends in Canada. You can read about it here.
Bonus: If you lack experience with generative AI and would like to see how it works, here’s a sample chat I had with Gemini, where I asked it to help me create a list of novels to teach that include both universal appeal and global influences. I then exported the table Gemini created into this spreadsheet.
🧠 Keto diets help some people with their mental illness. Science is racing to understand why
I changed in multiple ways during my year in Europe. Some visible, like losing 50 pounds! Others less visible. For starters, I used to take a sleep aid before bed, and still had a fitful night. Today, I get a full 7+ hours every night, with no help.
In future newsletters, I will outline the lifestyle habits that brought about these internal and external changes.
A big one is diet. We eat a Mediterranean-influenced diet that when combined with intermittent fasting leads to many of the same health benefits as a keto diet.
While it’s difficult to measure how my diet impacts my sleep and mood, this NPR article describes some of the potential scientific reasons.
I know for certain, though, I am healthier from the inside out.
🎧 The Ethics of Beauty - A conversation with Dr. Timothy Patitsas
In a recent conversation with our spiritual father on education, he recommended the book The Ethics of Beauty by his friend Dr. Timothy Patitsas. I went searching for an interview to familiarize myself with his thoughts before ordering the book. I was blown away!
From the book description:
Covering topics ranging from creation to political theory to the Jesus Prayer, including war, psychology, trauma, chastity, healthy shame, gender, marriage, hospitality, art, architecture, theology, economics, urban planning, and complexity theory, The Ethics of Beauty lays out a worldview in which Beauty, Goodness, and Truth are each embraced as indispensable elements of the best possible human life.
I highly recommend this podcast episode. You will not be disappointed.
That’s it for this weekend. I hope you enjoyed the inaugural issue of my Weekend Excursions!