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The Daily Triptych231 / 365

19 AUG 2026

Day 231

The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything.

Ada Lovelace · Notes on the Analytical Engine
Roman silver vessels and ornaments displayed together: shallow dishes and serving pieces with tarnished, greyish surfaces, shown alongside smaller items of silver jewellery.

I · THE OBJECT · BRITISH MUSEUM

Carthage Treasure

Roman · Silver · Carthage, Tunis, Tunisia

Silver dishes and jewellery, dug from the ground of modern Tunis where ancient Carthage stood, and now mostly in London. What the group cannot tell us is nearly as instructive.

Enter lesson 5 MIN

II · THE IDEA · ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

World Models: Planning Inside a Learned Simulator

model-based reinforcement learning · arXiv 1803.10122; arXiv 1909.12255 · CarRacing-v0, VizDoom Take Cover

An agent watched a game through a lens that squeezed each frame to thirty-two numbers, learned to predict what came next, then trained its whole policy inside that prediction.

Enter lesson 7 MIN
A naked boy with large dark wings strides forward out of deep shadow, smiling and looking straight out, arrows in one hand. Beneath his feet lie musical instruments, a sheet of music, drawing instruments, a laurel wreath and pieces of armour. Hard light falls from the upper left; there is no visible room behind him.

III · THE WORK · ART HISTORY

Amor Vincit Omnia

Caravaggio · 1601 · Oil on canvas

A naked, grinning boy with dark wings steps forward out of shadow, treading on a violin, a laurel crown and a piece of armour. Everything under his feet is somebody's achievement.

Enter lesson 6 MIN