27 JAN 2026

Day 27

My experience is what I agree to attend to.

William James · The Principles of Psychology

Horizontal bronze bands with hammered relief scenes showing soldiers, chariots, fortified cities under siege, rows of prisoners, and tribute being presented to a larger central figure, all rendered in shallow repoussé with fine linear detail.

I · THE OBJECT · BRITISH MUSEUM

The Balawat Gates

Neo-Assyrian · 9th century BC · Bronze and wood (wood lost)

The wooden doors rotted away twenty-six centuries ago. What survived were narrow bronze strips, each one a hammered chronicle of campaigns, sieges, and tribute brought back to the king.

Enter lesson 6 MIN

II · THE IDEA · ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Queries, Keys and Values

Attention Is All You Need, 2017 · Vaswani et al. · Three learned linear projections per attention head

Every attention operation begins by projecting the same input through three learned matrices. One determines what you are looking for, one what you offer, and one what you return when matched.

Enter lesson 6 MIN

A man with long brown hair and a beard, facing directly forward against a dark background, his right hand resting at his chest. He wears a dark fur-trimmed robe.

III · THE WORK · ART HISTORY

Dürer's Self-Portrait at Twenty-Eight

Albrecht Dürer · 1500 · Oil on limewood panel

Dürer painted himself as if he were painting the Saviour: frontal, symmetrical, gazing straight out. The claim was either breathtaking or blasphemous, depending on whom you asked.

Enter lesson 6 MIN