3 AUG 2026

Day 215

There are no facts, only interpretations.

Friedrich Nietzsche · Notebooks

Broken, browning papyrus fragments densely written in dark ink, their edges irregular, laid out as small separate pieces rather than intact pages.

I · THE OBJECT · BRITISH MUSEUM

Oxyrhynchus Papyri

Greco-Roman Egypt · Papyrus, parchment, paper · Oxyrhynchus, Minya Governorate

Fragments pulled from a city dump at Oxyrhynchus filled hundreds of boxes. Most are ordinary paperwork; a thin seam is literature. Most of the hoard is still unread.

Enter lesson 6 MIN

II · THE IDEA · ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

State Space Models for Long Sequences

architectures · arXiv 2111.00396 · structured state spaces (S4)

Structured state-space models cast a classical dynamical system as a sequence layer that runs as a recurrence or as a convolution, with cost linear in length.

Enter lesson 7 MIN

A large ancient marble sarcophagus densely carved in high relief with crowded figures of warriors, horses and attendant scenes along its long side, the stone still showing faint traces of old colour in places.

III · THE WORK · ART HISTORY

Alexander Sarcophagus

4th century BC · Marble · Istanbul Archaeology Museums

Carved in high relief from marble, and still holding traces of its original paint, this fourth-century sarcophagus from Sidon keeps Alexander in view while naming no one.

Enter lesson 6 MIN