Chapter 12 from “Origins, Imitation, Conventions: Representation in the Visual Arts” (MIT Press, 2002). Ackerman explores how architectural conventions—plans, elevations, perspectives—are arbitrary inventions that work only when they mean the same thing to observer and maker. He traces the evolution of drawing instruments from quill pens to graphite, and how the rectangular format of paper itself shapes architectural representation.
Oh. How I love you.
“Technology is just a tool. AI can replicate, but can it yearn? Can an algorithm understand the weight of a glance between two people who can’t express their feelings? Can code capture the way memory distorts and reshapes our past? These are the questions that interest me, and I don’t think machines have the answers yet.”
This is beautiful.
The system prompt in A5 is interesting
Oh this is such a fun book.
Oh wow.
This is so funny.
Woah, wow.
Claude recommended me a website that pointed to this website. It is kind of trippy because I feel like stepping into someone’s brain, whilst having no idea what they are talking about at all…
There are four legends concerning Prometheus:
According to the first, he was clamped to a rock in the Caucasus for betraying the secrets of the gods to men, and the gods sent eagles to feed on his liver, which was perpetually renewed.
According to the second, Prometheus, goaded by the pain of the tearing beaks, pressed himself deeper and deeper into the rock until he became one with it.
According to the third, his treachery was forgotten in the course of thousands of years, the gods forgotten, the eagles, he himself forgotten.
According to the fourth, every one grew weary of the meaningless affair. The gods grew weary, the eagles grew weary, the wound closed wearily.
There remained the inexplicable mass of rock.—The legend tried to explain the inexplicable. As it came out of a substratum of truth it had in turn to end in the inexplicable.
One of the best things that I have encountered.
The light.
I like Architecture and Kant lol.
Might be one of the most striking books I’ve read.
This is amazing. I didn’t know something this amazing could come out of Harvard.
Borges, Borges, Borges… The first time you read it it feels trivial. The second time, interesting. The third time, profound.
Wow. This is so helpful. Better than language models. Much Better than man pages.
Incredibly fascinating video.
What a delightful little tool.
“One of the realizations we had about computers in the 60s was that they give rise to new and more powerful forms of arguments about many important issues via dynamic simulation. That is, instead of making the fairly dry claims that can be stated in prose and mathematical equations, the computer could carry out the implications of the claims to provide a better sense of whether the claims constituted a worthwhile model of reality.””
From very young, I’ve always wanted to be older rather than stay young. Of course, being older is scary in its own way.