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The Daily Triptych043 / 365

12 FEB 2026

Day 43

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.

Cicero · De Oratore
Small carved ivory plaques, some fragmentary, decorated with figures, animals, and floral motifs in low relief, displayed against a neutral background.

I · THE OBJECT · BRITISH MUSEUM

The Nimrud Ivories

Phoenician / Assyrian · 9th–7th century BC · Ivory

Delicate carvings from the Levant, stripped of their gold and dumped in wells or stored unused — fifteen hundred kilometres from where they were made.

Enter lesson 7 MIN

II · THE IDEA · ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Temperature

Inference · After logits, before sampling · Typically 0.0 to 2.0

Before the model picks a token, it divides every logit by one number. That number — temperature — controls whether the output clusters around the most likely choice or spreads across hundreds of alternatives.

Enter lesson 6 MIN

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

Three young men in tunics reach their right arms towards an older bearded man who holds three swords. Three women and two children sit collapsed together on the right. Three arches divide the background.

III · THE WORK · ART HISTORY

David's Oath of the Horatii

Jacques-Louis David · 1784–1785 · Oil on canvas

Three brothers reach for the same swords. Three women collapse in a different rhythm. David arranged a Roman oath into a grid of verticals and horizontals five years before the Revolution.

Enter lesson 6 MIN

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