Skip to content
The Daily Triptych177 / 365

26 JUN 2026

Day 177

A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

Douglas Adams · Mostly Harmless
A large, dark dirk with a broad blade and heavy section, far wider and thicker than an everyday thrusting weapon, shown as a prehistoric museum object.

I · THE OBJECT · BRITISH MUSEUM

Oxborough Dirk

Middle Bronze Age · Oxborough, 1988 · 1994,1003.1

Found at Oxborough in 1988, this oversized dirk is one of only six known across Europe — a weapon whose scale still puzzles specialists.

Enter lesson 5 MIN

II · THE IDEA · ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Soft Actor-Critic with Maximum Entropy

RL · Maximum entropy RL · Off-policy actor-critic

Soft Actor-Critic trains a stochastic policy to maximise both return and entropy. That dual objective produces sample-efficient continuous control that is unusually stable across hyperparameter settings.

Enter lesson 7 MIN

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

A small, pale, stylised astronaut figure lying on dusty ground among boot prints, simplified to helmet and suited limbs without facial detail.

III · THE WORK · ART HISTORY

Fallen Astronaut

Paul Van Hoeydonck · 1971 · Aluminium

In 1971 an 8.5-centimetre aluminium figure was placed at Mons Hadley beside a plaque of names, kept secret until the crew returned home.

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.