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The Daily Triptych252 / 365

9 SEP 2026

Day 252

We never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves.

John Berger · Ways of Seeing
Oil-on-canvas panels from a religious polyptych: the Virgin of the Assumption with attendant saints, including Jerome, Mark, Catherine and Clare, now divided among separate collections.

I · THE OBJECT · BRITISH MUSEUM

Polyptych of Assumption

Moretto da Brescia · 1529 · Oil on canvas

Moretto da Brescia’s 1529 Assumption polyptych once stood as a single altarpiece. Its panels now hang in Milan, Paris and private hands — a religious work scattered by politics.

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II · THE IDEA · ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Preference Optimization with DPO

alignment/safety · Direct Preference Optimization · arXiv 2305.18290

A preference pair and a classification loss replace the reward model and the RL loop. The same model that generates text turns out to carry an implicit reward inside it.

Enter lesson 7 MIN
A young woman in profile stands beside an open window, head bent over a letter held in her hands. On the wall behind her hangs a painting of Cupid.

III · THE WORK · ART HISTORY

Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window

Johannes Vermeer · 1658 · Oil on canvas

A woman stands at a window with a letter. For centuries a blank wall stood behind her. Restoration has returned the Cupid Vermeer painted there — and changed what the scene may mean.

Enter lesson 6 MIN