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The Daily Triptych067 / 365

8 MAR 2026

Day 67

The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.

Hannah Arendt · Crises of the Republic
A bulbous glass vessel with a flared neck, decorated with bands of Arabic calligraphy in blue and gold enamel, with small loops projecting from the sides for suspension chains.

I · THE OBJECT · BRITISH MUSEUM

A Mamluk Mosque Lamp

Mamluk Egyptian · Medieval · Enamelled and gilded glass

Text about light, painted onto glass that held light, hung where light was needed. The metaphor was not literary but architectural: the lamp enacted the verse it carried.

Enter lesson 6 MIN

II · THE IDEA · ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Reasoning Models

Reasoning and architecture · Reinforcement learning with outcome rewards · OpenAI o1, DeepSeek-R1

A new generation of models produces thousands of tokens of internal thought before replying. The training method is surprisingly simple, but what actually happens inside those long chains remains mostly opaque.

Enter lesson 7 MIN

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

A room seen from above with no roof, walls and mats at diagonals. Figures in layered robes sit on the floor, their faces drawn with single lines for eyes and small hooks for noses.

III · THE WORK · ART HISTORY

The Tale of Genji Handscroll

Fujiwara no Takayoshi · 12th century · Ink and colour on paper

Faces drawn with two brushstrokes, rooms seen from above with their ceilings lifted away, and a technique for painting emotion without painting expressions.

Enter lesson 6 MIN

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