- Children of Dune
Children of Dune is the third installment in the Dune series and a sequel to Dune Messiah. It’s a fun book to read—I liked the direction it took, especially the final confrontation where all the characters meet up. Though I read the book a bit hastily, I think reading it more carefully would have given the dialogue and poetry much more meaning. Certain chapters were a bit boring, but that’s the nature of novels with multiple character points of view. Sometimes, you end up reading about a character in a situation you like less and just keep thinking, “When are we going back to the interesting points of view?”
Besides that, I loved what they did with the Preacher figure. I wonder if the author drew inspiration from Jesus for that character? - Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)
This movie is a prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road, which seamlessly connects to it. I watched it after Fury Road, which was kinda lame because you already knew how it ended. Just like Fury Road, it is a batshit crazy action movie with great VFX. Though I think the ending hammered the theme “revenge bad” a bit too hard—it could have been compressed more. 7/10.
- Dune Messiah
Dune Messiah is the second installment in the Dune series and a sequel to Dune. Many people dislike the book because Paul Atreides goes from being a hero in the first book to more of a villain, though I like that shift. The book’s theme—that it’s dangerous to trust a single messianic leader who promises salvation—is a timeless message, just as important today as it was in ancient times.
Besides that, the novel itself is fun to read—many moving parts, people scheming against one another, complex dialogue, the occasional interesting poem or song, and great worldbuilding and lore. - A Mathematician's Lament
It’s a short story that critiques how the current schooling system teaches math—robotic and algorithmic—which leads to few people being interested in math, many people hating it, and in the end, not much being learned. The author instead proposes teaching math more like a creative art form, where techniques and problems are set in a historical context, and problems are explored more playfully. This approach encourages students to come up with their own solutions, rather than simply using a prepared proof structure or applying a shown method. - Indulgence in Food
Have you anything worth waiting for? Your very pleasures, which cause you to tarry and hold you back, have already been exhausted by you. None of them is a novelty to you, and there is none that has not already become hateful because you are cloyed with it. You know the taste of wine and cordials. It makes no difference whether a hundred or a thousand measures pass through your bladder; you are nothing but a wine-strainer. You are a connoisseur in the flavour of the oyster and of the mullet; your luxury has not left you anything untasted for the years that are to come; and yet these are the things from which you are torn away unwillingly.
What else is there which you would regret to have taken from you? Friends? But who can be a friend to you? Country? What? Do you think enough of your country to be late to dinner? The light of the sun? You would extinguish it, if you could; for what have you ever done that was fit to be seen in the light? Confess the truth; it is not because you long for the senate chamber or the forum, or even for the world of nature, that you would fain put off dying; it is because you are loth to leave the fish-market, though you have exhausted its stores.~ Seneca, Letter 77