2 MAR 2026

Day 61

History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.

James Joyce · Ulysses

An array of small brass goldweights in varied forms: geometric shapes, human figures, animals, tools, and stylised objects, each no larger than a few centimetres, displayed alongside gold rings and ornamental discs.

I · THE OBJECT · BRITISH MUSEUM

Asante Goldwork

Asante Empire · 17th–19th century · Gold, brass

Gold discs, rings, ornaments and hundreds of tiny brass weights shaped like seeds, tools and proverbs — the working instruments of an empire built on trade.

Enter lesson 7 MIN

II · THE IDEA · ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Fine-Tune, Prompt, or Retrieve

Training and alignment · Knowledge integration · Zero to tens of thousands of dollars

Most people fine-tune when they should prompt, and prompt when they should retrieve. Each method has different costs, different latencies, and different failure modes that matter more than the marketing suggests.

Enter lesson 7 MIN

A pale limestone mountain ridge rising against a blue sky, with green and ochre fields and dark pines in the foreground, all rendered in distinct patches of colour without blended edges.

III · THE WORK · ART HISTORY

Cézanne's Mont Sainte-Victoire

Paul Cézanne · 1882–1906 · Oil on canvas

Cézanne returned to the same limestone ridge year after year, breaking it down into planes that describe volume without drawing a single edge. The hinge between Impressionism and Cubism.

Enter lesson 7 MIN