Plutonic Rainbows

It was damp, wet, and dreary outside, so I decided to wear Frederic Malle’s Dries Van Noten. I had plenty of reading lined up and prepared baked salmon, asparagus, and rice for dinner. In the evening, I played a few quizzes, updated the festive lighting, and took some photos. I ended the day by watching Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut.

The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic, crafted by Steve and Alan Moore, is a whimsical and enlightening grimoire offering a modern take on the ancient art of sorcery. This beautifully illustrated tome, enriched by artists such as Kevin O’Neill and Rick Veitch, serves as both a practical guide and an immersive journey into the occult. With instructional essays like “Adventures in Thinking,” readers are introduced to the principles of magic, while engaging activity pages offer hands-on practices such as divination and spirit conjuring. The book further captivates with a visual history of magic, tracing its roots from the Palaeolithic era to modern-day marvels, alongside humorous tales like the exploits of Alexander the False Prophet.

Beyond its instructional value, the book presents travel guides to mystical dimensions and profiles of their eccentric inhabitants, paired with serialized pulp tales of occult adventure. It culminates in a profound thesis unraveling the symbolic essence of the Moon and Serpent, connecting magic to happiness, creativity, and universal truths. Spanning 352 pages, this vibrant and ambitious compendium promises to transform its readers’ lives, blending humor, knowledge, and enchantment in a lavishly produced volume that redefines educational literature with a magical twist.

I’m wrapping up the year with three new reads. First is Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco, originally published in 1988. In it, three editors — jaded from reviewing too many outlandish manuscripts about mystics and the occult — hear a wild conspiracy theory from a peculiar colonel and decide to create their own elaborate plot by feeding random bits of information into a powerful computer. What starts as a lighthearted prank quickly spirals out of control: people begin dying, and the trio scrambles for answers.

Next is The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers, first published in 1895. It’s a collection of short stories centered on a cryptic play that supposedly drives its readers insane — a seminal work in both occult and weird fiction circles.

Lastly, there’s The Great and Secret Show, which debuted in 1989. I’m not typically a fan of Clive Barker’s novels, but on a friend’s recommendation, I’ve decided to give this one a try.

Chinese startup DeepSeek has released DeepSeek-V3. According to the benchmarks they shared, this is now the most capable open-source large language model currently available. It even achieves performance comparable to leading closed-source models even though it was trained on a budget of just $5.6 million — a fraction of what major tech companies typically spend.

• DeepSeek-V3 was trained using just 2.8 million GPU hours, costing approximately $5.6 million — significantly less than competitors.

• The model achieves performance comparable to GPT-4 and Claude 3.5 on various benchmarks, particularly excelling in mathematics and coding tasks.

• The model's efficiency comes from innovative architecture and training techniques, including a novel approach to training called auxiliary-loss-free load balancing.