Psy of the times
When it comes to announcing policies that will be effective immediately or by a certain date, Trump has stuck the landing only a third of the time in his second term. / Wake Up to Politics
The White House wants to oversee new AI models, and xAI, Google, and Microsoft have already agreed to give the government early access to their systems. / Reuters, Engadget
Companies relying on AI for cybersecurity are about to find out the hard way how AI has also suddenly supercharged legions of low-skill hackers. / The Verge [$]
On prediction markets, casual users are chum for sophisticated traders and firms, which number fewer than 2,000 yet are taking home 67% of the platforms’ winnings. / The Wall Street Journal [$]
Related: How Spotify and other streaming platforms operate like a prediction market, where all the profits go to a select few artists. / Dada Drummer Almanach
AI-generated music is flooding streaming platforms, and people hate it. Now that nearly half of all new podcasts are AI, expect a similar reception. / NPR, Futurism
See also: AI has replaced nearly every aspect of China’s short-form microdrama industry, and audiences—for now, at least—don’t mind. / The New York Times [$]
Is your favorite band a psyop? No one really knows—neither the music industry nor the marketing agency hired to blow them up on TikTok. / The Guardian
Why we can’t seem to get away from prices that end in “.99”: Few shoppers are immune to the manipulative power of charm pricing. / The Hustle
“Many times, we have to fight nostalgia in order to pursue justice.” America is giving dying mall vibes. / The Golden Hour by Karen Attiah
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Tracing the history of the Houston Blacklight & Poster Company, an artist collective that began in 1969 and lasted just four years, but left an indelible mark on counterculture art. / Chron
“The art world runs on informality until informality stops serving the institution.” What artists might be giving up when they sign a contract. / Hyperallergic
An extraordinary thread of illustrations by Ida Libby Dengrove, a courtroom sketch reporter who worked in New York City in the 1970s and ’80s—here’s the full archive. / Bluesky, UVA Law
“At a sleep conference, she discussed the dangers of trying to ‘colonize’ sleep with what she called ‘wake-centric values.’” Lucid dreamers can learn while asleep, but it’s probably a bad idea. / The New Yorker
In the US, there are around 7.2 million “zombie homes” that sit empty because maintaining them is cheaper than paying the taxes from a sale. / The New York Times [$]
Green clay tennis courts produce lower construction emissions—and then remove CO2 from the atmosphere as they react with the environment, potentially reaching net-negative. / Defector