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Aug 2-12, 2026 · 12 links

Culture, craft, and the contested edges of creativity make up this issue. The music industry stakes out AI principles via IFPI while the Paramount–Warner Bros. trial previews the legal battles ahead; a piece on cultural evolution asks how the arts change over time, and another draws the line between making and consuming. Deeper into the issue: the obsessive manufacturing of Blackwing pencils, Peter Saville's color systems, a star atlas of acknowledged unknowns, a composer's meditation on infinity, and a report on the slow collapse of New Zealand's music media. Habit formation, paternalism, and autonomy supply the philosophical undertow.

Unraveling the mysteries of habit formation

kyoto-u.ac.jp

The team discovered that two distinct neural circuits manage completely different aspects of habits. The first circuit, with neurons projecting from the anterior cingulate cortex to the retrosplenial cortex, determines whether a behavior becomes a habit, with its connections weakening during the transition. Crucially, the second circuit, from the lateral orbitofrontal cortex to the central striatum, controls how much the habit is executed, explaining individual differences.

IFPI Rolls Out Global Principles for the Eligibility of Recordings Developed Using AI in Official Music Charts Worldwide

ifpi.org

IFPI, the organisation representing the recording industry worldwide, today announced the roll out of a new set of principles to govern the eligibility of recordings developed with generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) services for inclusion in official music charts. The framework will establish a clear boundary between human-led creativity and works that are purely synthetic, or generated by unauthorized AI models. It will also help to ensure that any tracks with a fraudulently boosted stream count are not recognised and celebrated in the charts.

Cultural evolution – of the arts

cambridge.org

In this paper, we chart an emerging academic terrain: cultural evolution of the arts, which is a theory-driven exploration of artistic dynamics, often done with large datasets of music, literature, movies, paintings, or games. This field has grown at the intersection of cultural evolution theory and several academic fields: computational humanities, anthropology, network science, and others, and poses interesting challenges for each of them.

Paramount-Warner Bros. Trial to Start in March 2027 in Blow to David Ellison's Team

hollywoodreporter.com

The judge overseeing a lawsuit from a coalition of 12 states looking to block Paramount's $111 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery has scheduled a trial to start in March. The decision marks a blow for the studio, which pushed to start the trial in November. Starting on Oct. 1, Paramount will have to pay a ticking fee of roughly $7 million per day to Warners shareholders until the deal closes.

The Brutalist Report

brutalist.report

Do you feel it too? There's something wrong with the web. The Brutalist Network is a response to that feeling. It's for people who want a simple, reliable, and performant online experience.

Terra Incognita: a star atlas of what we do not know

jonnymiller.co

225 questions that nobody on Earth can answer, drawn as a night sky. Each constellation is a discipline. Each star is a problem that has survived every attempt on it, some for decades, some for millennia. Brightness tracks fame rather than importance: several of the dimmest stars may matter most.

Creativity vs. Consumption

danielmiessler.com

If you feel completely empty and like nothing matters, ask yourself how much time you have spent watching what other people are doing or watching shortform video or YouTube or TV. And compare that to how much time you have spent building something, or improving the life of someone else. It's not the only metric that matters, but I would argue it's the biggest one.

Debate: Paternalism and Autonomy

politicalphilosophyjournal.org

The conflict between libertarian paternalism and autonomy often disappears on reflection and after engagement with particulars. So long as coercion is avoided, it is reasonable to insist that educative and architectural nudges preserve autonomy.

How Blackwing Pencils Are Made | Behind the Process

youtube.com

How Blackwing Pencils Are Made | Behind the Process

How Does It Feel? Peter Saville's Color Code

greg.org

The outer two rows of the color wheel on the back of Power, Corruption & Lies is the key to deciphering the one- or tw0-color blocks that represent both the numbers 1-9 and the alphabet. It's clearer, perhaps, in the cover for the 12″ release of Blue Monday, that the design is based on a 5 1/4-inch floppy disk, but this reference is already lost in some design discussions.

A Taste of Infinity — Dylan Mattingly

nybooks.com

He has summoned into being a region of musical experience that's all his own, a welcoming, abundant, sun-drenched landscape that teems with tinkling, deliriously retuned pianos and raucous grooves that last long enough to offer a taste of infinity. A new album called The Wild Heart offers a slice—though admittedly only a small, frustratingly incomplete sampling—of this Whitmanic artist's fertile, dazzling world within the world.

The Sound Went Quiet: How New Zealand Lost Its Music Media

propelmusic.co.nz

There is no one left whose job is to tell you what happened at the show last night, which local producer just signed to an overseas label, or why a 34-year-old venue went under owing $692,000. When nobody documents a scene, the scene becomes invisible. Invisible artists do not get streamed, booked, or paid.

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