9 JUL 2026

Day 190

What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.

Werner Heisenberg · Physics and Philosophy

A large circular copper-alloy shield, wholly flat, with a dark aged metal surface, seen face-on as a wide thin disc.

I · THE OBJECT · BRITISH MUSEUM

Rhyd-y-gors Shield

Yetholm-type shield · 12th–10th century BC · Copper alloy

Found at Rhyd-y-gors in Wales, this large flat copper-alloy disc belongs to the Yetholm type and now sits in the British Museum under inventory 1873,0210.2.

Enter lesson 5 MIN

II · THE IDEA · ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Multi-Task Learning with Task Balancing

training · 1705.07115 · geometry and semantics

When several objectives share one network, a single loss can drown the others. Weighting each task by its own learned uncertainty keeps every gradient in play.

Enter lesson 6 MIN

A woman reclines across a wide canvas with her back to the viewer, lying on pale drapery. A winged boy holds up a dark-framed mirror in which a face appears, turned outward.

III · THE WORK · ART HISTORY

Rokeby Venus

Diego Velázquez · 1644 · Oil on canvas

Venus lies with her back to us; Cupid holds a mirror that seems to return her face. Velázquez’s only surviving female nude keeps looking and desire in careful tension.

Enter lesson 6 MIN