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The Daily Triptych080 / 365

21 MAR 2026

Day 80

We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us.

John Culkin · A Schoolman's Guide to Marshall McLuhan
A bronze figure of a four-armed deity dancing on one leg within a ring of flames, trampling a small dwarf figure beneath the raised foot.

I · THE OBJECT · BRITISH MUSEUM

Chola Bronze of Shiva Nataraja

Chola Indian · Medieval · Hindu deity

Cast in one piece using lost wax, a bronze deity balances on one foot inside a flame halo. Each hand holds a different object, and together they spell out a cosmology.

Enter lesson 6 MIN

II · THE IDEA · ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Model Formats: GGUF, Safetensors, MLX

Hardware and local inference · GGUF, Safetensors, MLX · Several gigabytes to hundreds of gigabytes

A model is not one large number but millions of them, arranged in tensors. The file format determines whether you can trust what you downloaded, how fast it loads, and which hardware can run it.

Enter lesson 7 MIN

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

A standing bronze figure of a young man in a long pleated tunic and headband, right arm extended, head turned slightly left, with inlaid eyes and detailed facial features.

III · THE WORK · ART HISTORY

The Charioteer of Delphi

Ancient Greece · 478 BC · Bronze with glass, copper and silver inlay

An earthquake in 373 BC buried this statue beneath the sanctuary floor at Delphi. When it emerged in 1896, the glass eyes were still in place and the copper lips had not corroded away.

Enter lesson 6 MIN

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