Skip to content
The Daily Triptych172 / 365

21 JUN 2026

Day 172

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

George Santayana · The Life of Reason
No image details are supplied. The available record identifies a sculpture held and located at the British Museum, with Ostia listed as its discovery location.

I · THE OBJECT · BRITISH MUSEUM

Townley Venus

British Museum · British Museum · sculpture

Known as the Townley Venus, this sculpture is held by the British Museum and linked to Ostia, leaving its making and discovery story unresolved here.

Enter lesson 4 MIN

II · THE IDEA · ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Gradient Surgery for Multi-Task Learning

training · multi-task learning · gradient projection

When two tasks pull a shared model in opposite directions, one gradient can cancel the other. Gradient surgery alters those updates before they meet, so multi-task training need not mean multi-task compromise.

Enter lesson 6 MIN

Written before source checking was enforced · facts in this lesson are unverified

A very wide horizontal painting of figures of different ages in a shallow outdoor landscape, with broad flat colour, a blue idol set farther back among trees, and smaller forms along the ground.

III · THE WORK · ART HISTORY

Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?

Paul Gauguin · 1897 · Oil on canvas

Three questions run across nearly four metres of canvas. Gauguin set human figures in a frieze so wide the eye must travel to finish it.

Enter lesson 6 MIN

The daily email

Four lessons in your inbox, every morning at seven.

One object, one idea, one masterpiece, one game. Deep links to that day’s pages. Unsubscribe with one click, any time.