21 JUN 2026

Day 172

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

George Santayana · The Life of Reason

No image details are supplied. The available record identifies a sculpture held and located at the British Museum, with Ostia listed as its discovery location.

I · THE OBJECT · BRITISH MUSEUM

Townley Venus

British Museum · British Museum · sculpture

Known as the Townley Venus, this sculpture is held by the British Museum and linked to Ostia, leaving its making and discovery story unresolved here.

Enter lesson 4 MIN

II · THE IDEA · ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Gradient Surgery for Multi-Task Learning

training · multi-task learning · gradient projection

When two tasks pull a shared model in opposite directions, one gradient can cancel the other. Gradient surgery alters those updates before they meet, so multi-task training need not mean multi-task compromise.

Enter lesson 6 MIN

A very wide horizontal painting of figures of different ages in a shallow outdoor landscape, with broad flat colour, a blue idol set farther back among trees, and smaller forms along the ground.

III · THE WORK · ART HISTORY

Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?

Paul Gauguin · 1897 · Oil on canvas

Three questions run across nearly four metres of canvas. Gauguin set human figures in a frieze so wide the eye must travel to finish it.

Enter lesson 6 MIN