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The Daily Triptych078 / 365

19 MAR 2026

Day 78

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Arthur C. Clarke · Profiles of the Future
A dark blue glass vase with two handles, its surface carved with white figures in relief: seven human figures, a snake, and bearded heads beneath the handles, arranged in a continuous scene around the body.

I · THE OBJECT · BRITISH MUSEUM

The Portland Vase

Roman · 1st century AD · Cameo glass

Blue glass cased in white, carved through to make figures stand out in relief — then broken into two hundred pieces by a visitor, and put back together across three restorations.

Enter lesson 7 MIN

II · THE IDEA · ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Quantisation

Hardware and local inference · LLM.int8() (2022), GPTQ (2023) · 4-bit quantisation

A 70-billion-parameter model stored in 16-bit floats needs 140 gigabytes of memory. Store the same weights in 4 bits and it fits in 35. The question is what breaks first.

Enter lesson 7 MIN

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

A small limestone figure with large breasts, rounded belly and wide hips. The head is covered in horizontal carved bands. No face is visible. The arms are thin lines. The legs taper to points.

III · THE WORK · ART HISTORY

The Venus of Willendorf

Gravettian · c. 30,000 years ago · Oolitic limestone with red ochre

Called a fertility goddess for over a century, the figure displays breasts, belly, and intricately carved hair or headdress — but no face, no feet, and arms that trail into nothing.

Enter lesson 6 MIN

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