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The Daily Triptych079 / 365

20 MAR 2026

Day 79

The medium is the message.

Marshall McLuhan · Understanding Media
A ceremonial costume assembled from pearl shell breastplate, feather cape, and barkcloth elements, with coconut fibre cordage visible throughout the construction.

I · THE OBJECT · BRITISH MUSEUM

The Tahitian Mourner's Costume

Tahitian · collected 1775 · pearl shell, feathers, barkcloth, coconut fibre

The wearer moved through weeks of mourning ritual wrapped in pearl shell and feathers, dangerous to approach. Very few of these costumes survive today.

Enter lesson 6 MIN

II · THE IDEA · ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

GPTQ, AWQ and K-Quants

Hardware and local inference · GPTQ (2022), AWQ (2023), K-quants (llama.cpp) · 4-bit weights, 8-bit activations

A 70-billion-parameter model can fit in 40 gigabytes of consumer RAM if you quantise the weights to four bits, but the method you choose determines which parts of the model degrade and which stay sharp.

Enter lesson 7 MIN

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

A long rectangular carpet with a central gold and blue medallion surrounded by ornate floral and geometric patterns in red, blue, green, and cream, with two hanging lamps woven into the design at either end.

III · THE WORK · ART HISTORY

The Ardabil Carpet

Iran · 1540 · Wool pile on silk

Twenty-six million knots in wool and silk, a central medallion designed to mirror the ceiling fixture, and a signature woven into the border naming the maker and the year.

Enter lesson 6 MIN

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