justins

Computers, machines of steel With the power to better express how we feel Knowledge and errors at their command Created by many intelligent hands Programming languages the experts know Often make them grow and glow: Simple fixes, complex tasks attempts at many requests we ask. But how do these computers help us learn? And when we use them, what do we earn?

The 50 best free museums in Washington DC (w(https://wanderlog.com/list/geoCategory/132413/best-free-museums-in-washington-dc)anderlog.com)(http://wanderlog.com)(https://wanderlog.com/list/geoCategory/132413/best-free-museums-in-washington-dc) The last time I was at the National Gallery of Art was about six years ago. I saw a bunch of Madonna-and-Child artwork, and I was thrilled the first time I saw a fly painted onto a Cardinal's robe, because I thought of it as free speech - the freedom to say something less than reverent about a figure with a religous office. This was from a 1516 painting by Italian artist Sebastiano del Piombo. Cardinal Bandinello Sauli, His Secretary, and Two Geographers (n(https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.46136.html)ga.gov)(http://nga.gov)(https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.46136.html) Then, last night, I learned that there's a National Gallery, not in the US but in the UK, which features a fly on a woman's headress - the artist is unknown, but it's dated a bit earlier, 1470. It's identified as "Swabian," which refers to an ethno-linguistic group in Germany. Swabian | Portrait of a Woman of the Hofer Family | NG722 | National Gallery, London(https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/swabian-portrait-of-a-woman-of-the-hofer-family) Finally, after some research, I realized that flies in paintings were common in the 15th and 16th centuries - there even is a specialized Latin term referring to paintings with flies in them: Musca depicta: Musca depicta - Wikipedia(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musca_depicta) Apparently, the way English majors argue over literature, Fine Arts majors argue over art, with various theories of why the flies exist. The consensus seems to be that they exist in different paintings for different reasons, ranging from characterizing lust or decay, to just being a joke, to emphasizing particular skill on the part of the painter. But as an appreciator of art, not an artist myself, all I can do is acknowledge that I was genuinely thrilled to discover the fly on the Cardinal's robe here in the Washington D.C. National Gallery of Art. It was one of the highlights of my visit to the gallery, which is free. I didn't have to travel very far to see the geology exhibits in the National Museum of Natural History, (https://naturalhistory.si.edu/)where you can touch a piece of Mars, learn about earthquakes, view a meteorite that crashed through the cieling of a doctor's office in 2011, and much more. Narrated Virtual Tour: Hall of Geology, Gems, and Minerals – Moon, Meteorites, and Solar System - YouTube(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_Brhejw0zw) I don't remember everything I see when I visit places like this, but some of what I see changes how I see the world. I didn't know, prior to visiting the National Gallery, that artists painting 500 years ago had enough freedom of expression to paint flies on important artworks - my history classes taught me about things like the Salem witch trials, the persecution of the French Huegonots,(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Bartholomew%27s_Day_massacre) and pograms against(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogrom) Jewish people.