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Comment by uqual | Hacker News Reader

In the 1970s I made the mistake of satisfying one of my general ed requirements by taking a one quarter class which covered _only_ Ulysses. The professor had done his PhD thesis on Ulysses and knew the page numbers (both in the edition he was using and the paperback version the students bought) of random passages even when a student came up with a question that was tangential to the immediate expected discussion.

It was quite a challenge writing the term paper (which was most of the grade) knowing it would be evaluated by this professor. My attempts were mediocre and in exchange I received a well deserved mediocre grade (some sort of "B") in the class (sort of a "Ain't that cute that uqual tried so hard and wrote so many pages of related but nonsensical BS but at least he came to class" grade).

It's safe to say that I will NEVER again read Ulysses!

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So you wont read it again because you had a professor that dedicated his career to the book and it made you feel insecure? That seems unfair. Give a shot, free of pretension.

Dude has a mildly traumatic experience in a high pressure environment at which he pushed through, and you respond with toxicity and name calling? This is not OK behavior for an adult. Do better.

What name did I call? That just was a fair description of how he said he felt. But seriously, we're calling getting a "B" a mildly traumatic experience? I'm bowing out of this conversation. Thanks!

Your comment read as accusing the og poster as being too insecure to deal with someone else's expertise, and of being pretentious. Probably not how you meant it to read, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who read it that way.

I don't think those observations are huge judgments. No less so at such a young age. All the more reason to give up the previous misgivings and try it again. No need to reach so hard to find offense. It's not there.

FWIW, i see nothing wrong, whatsoever, with your comments. The white knight, however...

Right at this moment people are sitting in the trenches and are getting torn apart by artillery and drone attacks in several places of this world of ours. You really should go out more if getting a B grade from a stuck up professor constitutes a traumatic experience for you.

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What are some of the books that had the biggest impact in changing or developing your mind?

The Odyssey, Moby Dick, Fire Upon the Deep.

I'm interested in the why for each, if you've got the time to write it out.

The odyssey because it's the basis function for most of western thought (wily male human outsmarts gods, witches, and suitors on a long journey home). The best implementation of the monomyth, imho.

Moby Dick because it's not just a book about whaling, it's a book about world philosophy with crazy tangents.

Fire Upon the Deep because it is the best representation of post-singularity technological implications. Was a big inspiration for me going into machine learning and biology.

I read Erich von Däniken's Chariot of the God when I was 8 or 9 and eventually became incandescently angry when I eventually realised it was all made up...

On a more positive note I read Catch 22 when I was about 13 or so and I think that gave me some inkling that the world wasn't really going to make much sense!

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