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The Daily Triptych011 / 365

11 JAN 2026

Day 11

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.

Arthur Schopenhauer · Studies in Pessimism
A reconstructed wooden lyre with a gold-covered soundbox fronted by a bull's head in gold and lapis lazuli, and a rectangular inlay panel below showing animals in human postures.

I · THE OBJECT · BRITISH MUSEUM

The Queen's Lyre

Sumerian · 2550–2450 BC · Wood, gold, lapis lazuli, shell

Ten women were buried in a tomb at Ur, one with her hand on the strings. The wood rotted, the gold survived, and the instrument was poured out in plaster.

Enter lesson 6 MIN

II · THE IDEA · ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Self-Supervised Learning

Foundations · 2018, BERT paper · Prediction as supervision

No one labelled the internet. Self-supervised learning removed the bottleneck by turning prediction into the task itself — hide a word, guess the word, adjust.

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Interior of a barrel-vaulted chapel with frescoes covering the walls in three horizontal tiers, depicting scenes from the lives of the Virgin and Christ, culminating in a Last Judgement on the entrance wall.

III · THE WORK · ART HISTORY

Giotto's Scrovegni Chapel Frescoes

Giotto di Bondone · completed c. 1305 · Padua

Giotto turned backs toward the viewer, bent bodies over a corpse, and let drapery fall as cloth falls on solid forms. What had been flat became sculptural.

Enter lesson 7 MIN