19 JAN 2026

Day 19

The meaning of a word is its use in the language.

Ludwig Wittgenstein · Philosophical Investigations

A stone head of a man with heavy-lidded eyes, deep lines running from nose to mouth, and large ears projecting from the sides of the head, carved with a serious, weary expression.

I · THE OBJECT · BRITISH MUSEUM

Head of Senwosret III

Middle Kingdom Egypt · Twelfth Dynasty · c. 1870–1831 BC

Egyptian kings were carved ageless and serene for two thousand years. Then Senwosret III had himself shown tired, middle-aged, and human — and the choice was political.

Enter lesson 6 MIN

II · THE IDEA · ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

What Tokenisation Breaks

Language and tokens · 18 of 100 · How tokenisation works

A tokeniser trained mostly on English encodes common English words efficiently and fractures everything else. The cost is not just money — accuracy falls when the unit of processing is wrong.

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Nine figures in a grove of orange trees. At the right, a blue-skinned wind god seizes a nymph; beside her a woman in a flowered gown scatters roses. Three women in pale drapery dance in the centre. A woman in red stands slightly back, hand raised. At the left, a young man in red reaches toward fruit overhead.

III · THE WORK · ART HISTORY

Botticelli's Primavera

Sandro Botticelli · 1480 · Tempera on panel

Botticelli painted spring with botanical precision — roses, cornflowers, periwinkles identified by species — but arranged nine figures in a way no surviving story accounts for.

Enter lesson 7 MIN