Good Morning,
Two kinds of archaeology today. One uncovers what’s real and was buried; the other exposes what was always artificial.
In the first category: a forgotten manuscript in Rome turns out to have been hiding the oldest English poem ever found — three centuries earlier than the previous record (Seattle Times). Then, an Egyptian mummy was buried with a copy of the Iliad, apparently a “cheat code” to the afterlife for Roman-era royals (The New York Times). Cy Twombly’s granddaughter has surfaced a trove of unseen portraits her grandmother took of the artist (The New York Times). And a documentary about the Harlem Renaissance, shot at Duke Ellington’s townhouse in 1972, is finally getting its debut (The Guardian).
In the second: a viral marketing executive estimates 90% of what we see online is advertising — and the machinery has started to show (Vulture). Seth Rogen, asked about AI screenwriting, says anyone who wants to use it “should simply stop working as a writer” (Variety). And ArXiv will now ban researchers for a year if their submissions contain unedited AI slop (The Verge). Edited, is apparently still okay.
The signal, it turns out, is in the archives. The noise is in the feed. All of our stories below.
See you tomorrow.
Doug
