My Current Research POWER-TOOLS GPT Lineup

This is Not a Substitute for Reading Primary Sources

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I am slowly moving content over from my Buy-me-a-coffee page, and this is part of that effort.

Here's my latest GPT rundown and what I'm using today:

• Chat-GPT 4o w/ Summarizer - My go-to is Chat-GPT 4o (OpenAI/Microsoft) paid, with the Summarizer GPT. You can upload up to 4 books in one chat, run some prompts and suck the juice out in a few minutes. IT IS NOT THE SAME AS READING A BOOK, but if you're trying to get an overview or specific information that you are trying to get out of a book, it's a BIG TIME SAVER. Summarizer likes PDF books. This is not perfect, but it's very helpful if a) you're already familiar with the book or b) you are looking for specific information in a book. For example, I asked for a list of the most important people in America's Secret Establishment - Order of the Skull and Bones, and it left out Wilhelm Wundt. Because I read the book, it was easy for me to ask it again to include Wundt, but if you never read the book, you might miss Wundt and his generational connection to the Illuminati, so check yourself before you wreck yourself.

• Calibre (free) - Personally, I try to get as many books as possible as ePubs, so if I don't have a PDF version, I will use Calibre (my favorite book processing software) to convert another file type to PDF.

• Anna's Archive (freemium) - I try to buy as many books as possible, but many are just not available at sites like Amazon, so I will search on the Internet Archive or the "Napster" of books Anna's Archive (bookmark it). Anna's is really just a search engine that pulls from these Pirate sites: Library Genesis RS, Library Genesis GS, Z-Library, and Sci-Hub.

• YouTube to Text (free)- I use the YouTube to Text Chrome/Brave browser extension to grab transcripts from YouTube videos. If you don't want to install an extension, you can use services like Free YouTube Transcript Generator or YouTube to Transcript (there are many).

• Superpower ChatGPT (freemium)- Another tool I find incredibly useful is the Superpower ChatGPT Chrome/Brave Extension. It's user-friendly, allowing you to manage your conversations in folders and search your chats. You can upgrade to the pro version or show your appreciation by buying Saeed (the developer) a pizza 🍕. You can create "prompt chains" in SuperPower, but I find that it times out sometimes if you're running prompts against a book, so I put the most GPT-intensive prompts last. Experiment. My prompts are included (FREE) below.

• Obsidian (freemium)—Obsidian is a Markdown Editor that allows you to do a bunch of cool stuff that is too much to cover here. I like to take my summaries from Summarizer and drop them into Obsidian, so I can build a local database of research materials. Markdown is SUPER LIGHT-WEIGHT, meaning that the files are small and fast. Learn more here.

• Readwise (paid) - I was a big fan of ReadWise, but the Summarizer GPT is so powerful that I've found myself using it less and less. Don't get me wrong—if you have a few things you're trying to manage, it's great, but I'm a power researcher, and I'm maxing out its use cases.

Here are my go-to prompts that I use in Summarizer:

Book

• [F]: Write FAQs (include citations as page numbers, not links)

• [Q]: Extract quotes (include citations as page numbers, not links)

• Referencing the book, List all important dated events and put them in a comprehensive timeline. (include citations as page numbers, not links)

• Make a comprehensive list of all the key people in the book and their roles.  (include citations as page numbers, not links)

• List Bibliography

• [E]: Expand summary. Only reference the book. Don't editorialize. (include citations as page numbers, not links) Do not use cliches like "delve." Include Summaries, quotes, and key points.  Include lots of DETAILS. Headers with emojis!

Video Transcript

• [F]: Write FAQs (Include Timestamps)

• [Q]: Extract quotes (include Timestamps)

• Referencing the video, List all important dated events and put them in a comprehensive timeline. (Include Timestamps)

• Make a comprehensive list of all the key people in the video and their roles.  (Include timestamps)

• List bibliography (Include Timestamps)

• [E]: Expand summary. Only reference the transcript. Don't editorialize. Include Timestamps, not links. Do not use cliches like "delve." Include Summaries, quotes, and key points.  Include lots of DETAILS. Headers with emojis!

More Prompts:

I find that ad-hoc use of prompts like these is helpful:

• Detail

• Clarify

• Explain

• Expand

• ...within the scope of the book/video (if it goes outside the source material for answers).

Warning: Remember that any AI will hallucinate answers when it does not have them, so you need to check what it outputs. e.g., "page numbers" will be the page numbers of the document you give it, not necessarily the printed book's page numbers. It's still helpful for referring to your research documents, but you must check your work before publishing anything.