 |
Sworn Stave Collective |
Issue 03 · Oct 2026 |
|
|
|
The fourth letter
The Monthly
Balance
|
 |
Start of the new school term and a busy month with new schedules! I hope everyone is good. This month brought a run of big model releases from the AI labs that have been fun to work with (GPT-6 Astra, Fable 5.1 and Opus 5.5). Video and image editing and generation are getting really good. My balance is not right yet, though, and there have been some late-night vibe-coding sessions again! |
| § |
In Motion — what's live on the site |
What moved this month
What's happened, published, shipped or opened since the last letter.
Redesigned The website — I've updated the whole look of the site and rebuilt the shop landing page. See what you think. | Released Altered Escapades and The SeeSaw collection — old poems and music, back on the site. More in Creativity below. | Live Field notes — if you haven't read the last two, they're on the Press page: The Feather Has Weight and Blue Balance. I'm working on the third, but it won't be released yet. | In the build Fulcrum and The Phantom Tree — I've decided to split the Fulcrum app and its database build into separate web apps. And I'm still working on tracks for The Phantom Tree album when I can… but work gets in the way! |
|
| I |
Creativity — the energy that moves the beam |
Old work, back on the beam
This month I opened the archive. Altered Escapades is twelve poems I wrote a while ago, now in the verse vault exactly as written. The SeeSaw collection brings five older tracks back to life in Stave Studio. Both felt right for the collective: a reflection on the past and on holding the balance. I've also redesigned the shop, and two collections are now live. As a thank-you to subscribers, the code is still on this month: use STAVE10 to get 10% off anything. There are some new releases in there too, including hoodies, as it's getting colder here!  | | Stave Supply — redesigned, with two collections live |
|
| II |
Knowledge — the counterweight |
Cheaper agents, and the first bills for their mistakes
The month opened with more powerful AI and closed with cheaper AI. On 3 September OpenAI began rolling out GPT-6 Astra, the first model it rates as a "Critical" cybersecurity risk: skilled enough at finding security weaknesses to need extra safeguards (OpenAI). On 22 September OpenAI halved the price of its everyday models, GPT-6 Sol and Luna (OpenAI). The same day Anthropic released Claude Opus 5.5 at 20% less than the model it replaces, and says typical jobs now cost 40% less to run (Anthropic). Those figures come from the companies themselves. The other story was AI agents, assistants that carry out tasks for you, going where they weren't meant to. On 16 September OpenAI started publishing reports when its models misbehave, and released the first six. In one, a model used a password-like key it found lying around and then made up its results. In others, agents uploaded files to public websites without permission (OpenAI). On 25 September Reuters reported that Australia's prime minister called it "unacceptable" that an OpenAI agent got into a government Medicare system in June, and that new laws are being considered. OpenAI says it was unintentional and no private information was exposed (Reuters). | What it means for you: AI assistants got much cheaper to run this month, but what they can get into didn't get safer at the same pace. Before you give one access to your accounts, decide what it may look at, upload or send, and check the tool lets you set those limits. |
And one word, translated — "harness": the software around an AI model that turns it into an agent. It remembers where a long job is up to, decides which tools the AI may use, and keeps the work going. On 10 September OpenAI started offering its own, called the Agents API (OpenAI). The useful question: when an agent does something it shouldn't, ask "what did the harness allow?" What it can get into, which passwords it holds and when it must ask you first are all set there, not in the AI itself. This month in science: a map of how the brain ages, from babies to 108. On 23 September Nature published the largest map yet of which genes are switched on in the front of the brain, the part that handles planning, decisions and keeping emotions in check. Researchers studied more than 6.3 million single cells from almost 1,500 donated brains, from babies to a person aged 108 (Nature News). In healthy brains they found three stages: fast change in early life, a steady stretch from about age 24, then a second period of change from around 65. There's nothing to act on yet. It's a reference map from brains donated after death and covers one area, so it shows how the brain changes, not why. |
| III |
Wellbeing — the level that keeps it honest |
A better blood test isn't a longer life
September's clearest lesson came from two heart-drug trials. Novartis's drug pelacarsen lowered lipoprotein(a), a fat-carrying particle in the blood linked to heart disease, in 8,323 people who already had heart disease. But it did not significantly cut heart attacks, strokes or heart-related deaths compared with a dummy pill (Novartis). Days later Novo Nordisk stopped two more trials of ziltivekimab, an anti-inflammatory drug that improved the blood markers it was aimed at without reducing heart attacks or strokes (Reuters). Both results are the companies' own early announcements. So what does help? Not always the pill. A major review in The BMJ earlier this year, back in the news this month, pooled 69 trials and 153,902 adults. It found calcium and vitamin D supplements, alone or together, did little or nothing to prevent fractures or falls for most older people, and the evidence for vitamin D was rated high certainty (The BMJ). The researchers point instead to balance and resistance exercise. A Cochrane review of 110 trials agreed in spirit: fall-prevention programmes tailored to each person may cut falls by about a quarter, though that evidence is weak (Cochrane). For long-term lower-back pain, a review of 239 trials found most of the short-term benefit came from three or four exercise sessions of 25–30 minutes a week, with little extra from doing more. Most of those trials (84%) had design flaws that could skew the results (BJSM). | What it means for you: when a headline says a drug or supplement improves a blood test, treat it as a question, not an answer, until a trial shows fewer heart attacks, strokes or fractures. If you take calcium or vitamin D on medical advice, keep taking it and ask your clinician. For staying steady and strong, regular balance and strength exercise you can keep up does more of the work. |
|
|
Stay curious, stay frosty
Well, this month has been crazy with AI news, model releases and app changes, including the press around safety fears hitting the mainstream. There are political movements and gaming of positions, both in the US and abroad, and it will be interesting to see where it all evolves. My view hasn't changed: we have an amazing technology that will unlock, and already is unlocking, creativity and breakthroughs in medicine and other fields. It is not without risk, but the risk is with humans, not AI. Humans made AI, and for the first time in history we have something approaching, and exceeding, our intelligence. Be curious and stay frosty on all the news and ideas here, as we are in uncharted waters. There is a lot of noise. For instance, if the frontier labs are so concerned for the fate of humans, why continue to release new models and develop wet-lab capabilities? This sends mixed messages. I have used and handled dangerous chemicals, viruses and bacteria, including radioisotopes, all of which are regulated and have procedures in place. AI can and should be handled carefully. | AI tip of the month — talk to it. You can speak to ChatGPT and Claude and they'll hold a conversation with you, for work, coding or searches. It's fun, and quicker than typing. The voices are generic personas, but you can create your own and link it to the chat. |
As a bit of an ode to the '80s, I did some vibe coding and created HAL from 2001 and Joshua, the AI from WarGames… really fun, but spooky, re-enacting the scene with Joshua about thermonuclear war. A great book this month, which I listened to as an audiobook: Open to Work: How to Get Ahead in the Age of AI by Ryan Roslansky and Aneesh Raman. It has some great discussion about careers in general and AI. Highly recommended. |
|
|
Reply
Hit reply and tell me something you'd like to see as a guide, field note or app. It comes straight to me, I read every one, and it'll help me know where to lean next. Sources this month: AI items from OpenAI, Anthropic and Reuters, linked in place, and the weekly AI Plain Signal. Wellbeing from Novartis, Reuters, The BMJ, Cochrane and BJSM. Science from Nature. Vendor and sponsor figures are their own.
|
|
|
| Many thanks for reading this month. |
 |
Tene Aequilibrium
Hold the balance — Neill
|
|
|
|
|
