I vibed a small app called Trump Truth Social Archive that takes existing work on making the Truth social archive json into something more readible and with filters. Thanks to some AI working on making this happen, as it’s for some research.
- Truth Social ArchivePosted
-
Here’s the top few items that I wanted to share from this past week’s finds.
-
OpenClaw, OpenAI and the future
- Peter Steinberger, creator of OpenClaw, joined OpenAI. See the tweet.
-
OpenCode | The open source AI coding agent
- I’m finally trying this out this week. I’ll report back if I like it.
-
An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – The Shamblog
- I knew I read this one recently. Absolutely fascinating that it happened, and absolutely terrifying of where we’re going next.
-
Steve Yegge talking about The AI Vampire. The Agentic Anxiety is real.
-
Radix UI vs Base UI - Detailed Guide
- Also something for me to explore. Headless UI components are all the rave.
-
Why Designers Can No Longer Trust the Design Process - YouTube
- A re-watch for me where Jenny Wen talks about breaking away from the common knowledge design process.
-
Extract Value From the “Process” Layer of Your Notes
- I’ve got more to say about this one. I’m currently working through making my own process layer.
-
Why Is My Smart Home So Fucking Dumb? - Gizmodo
- An oldie, but still a goodie.
Obits:
-
- Gradual AI AdoptionPosted
I reviewed through Mitchell Hashimoto’s article, My AI Adoption Journey, and here are my takeaways.
My AI Adoption Journey · mitchellh.comMitchell Hashimoto's gradual AI adoption. Don't skip the steps for AI to handle the automation.
Chatbots don’t work well with coding workflow
The chatbot is a jarring experience with a coding workflow. You have to copy in code from brownfield projects, the output might miss context, and requires much editing back and forth.
To find value, you must use an agent. An agent is the industry-adopted term for an LLM that can chat and invoke external behavior in a loop1 At a bare minimum, the agent must have the ability to: read files, execute programs, and make HTTP requests.
Understanding effective agents require human attention first
The thing that resonated with me the most is the ==Automation Loop==. In any automation, you need a clear understanding of how a task can be repetitive. Hashimoto talks about this in his step 2, where you have to have a clear output. It doesn’t make sense to automate something you have no understanding of. If you’re using AI this way, this is called a one-off, not an automation. Agents aren’t great at vague activity because that needs more hand holding.
I forced myself to reproduce all my manual commits with agentic ones.
Step 4 further extends this idea by giving agents the work you know it can handle. Let them kick off, turn off the notifications, and come back later to their PRs. For Hashimoto, this means still working on coding tasks you know the agent isn’t good at, or doesn’t have clear answers for. This helps counteract Anthropic’s paper on How AI assistance impacts the formation of coding skills.
Step 5 is about taking all of the bad mistakes, and re-writing prompts in the
AGENTS.mdfile to stop the agent from doing that again. Then have a way to validate itself, like unit tests, screenshots, etc., to make sure that it’s able to find its own mistakes.
How AI assistance impacts the formation of coding skills · www.anthropic.comEnd-of-day Agent Kick-offs
Another thing that took by surprise is this habit.
block out the last 30 minutes of every day to kick off one or more agents
This is a huge revelation, because it tells me agents actually have utility when you don’t have to babysit it for. This is what Hashimoto does:
- Deep research sessions where I’d ask agents to survey some field, such as finding all libraries in a specific language with a specific license type and producing multi-page summaries for each on their pros, cons, development activity, social sentiment, etc.
- Parallel agents attempting different vague ideas I had but didn’t have time to get started on. I didn’t expect them to produce something I’d ever ship here, but perhaps could illuminate some unknown unknowns when I got to the task the next day.
- Issue and PR triage/review. Agents are good at using gh (GitHub CLI), so I manually scripted a quick way to spin up a bunch in parallel to triage issues. I would NOT allow agents to respond, I just wanted reports the next day to try to guide me towards high value or low effort tasks.
I think this is actually worth keeping a runbook for in that last 30 minute block to kick off the agent to do other things for me.
Step 6 also talks about running agents when you can.
I don’t want to run agents for the sake of running agents. I only want to run them when there is a task I think would be truly helpful to me. Part of the challenge of this goal is improving my own workflows and tools so that I can have a constant stream of high quality work to do that I can delegate. Which, even without AI, is important!
This is the hard part of delegation. We can try our best to keep the orchestration going, but like in Gas Town’s Agent Patterns, Design Bottlenecks, and Vibecoding at Scale, you would need another layer for this. Instead, work at the pace that makes sense with understanding the previous section first.
-
I’ve changed my weekly workflow. I’ve set it up personally for the past few weeks, and now is a great time to try this out. I haven’t made the “weekly note” for almost a year now, because it got overwhelming. Instead, AI tools help organize this much better than what I can do. So let’s try this out for a few weeks. Introducing: Weekly Browsing.
AI & Development
- My AI Adoption Journey – Mitchell Hashimoto — engineering approach to automating tasks with LLMs.
- Building a C compiler with a team of parallel Claudes (Anthropic).
- How AI assistance impacts the formation of coding skills (Anthropic).
- The Anthropic Hive Mind — Steve Yegge on collective intelligence.
- Stop generating, start thinking (localghost).
- OpenClaw is What Apple Intelligence Should Have Been — Jake Quist.
- Claude Code is suddenly everywhere inside Microsoft (The Verge).
- AddyOsmani.com - Agentic Engineering.
- Overview - Agent Skills.
- Why Elixir is the best language for AI (Dashbit).
- Build Your Own Apps with AI.
- Vouch for an open source web of trust (Changelog News).
- mitchellh/vouch — community trust management.
- gavrielc/nanoclaw — lightweight Claw alternative in Apple containers.
- AI fears spark sell-off in shipping, freight stocks (Yahoo Finance).
- Something Big Is Happening — matt shumer.
Tools for Thought & Productivity
- This Week in Obsidian #07.
- Podcast: Our 2026 Tech Resolutions — review recent notes to develop ideas; Patreon post on Casey Newton’s system.
- Obsidian CLI (Obsidian Help).Tried Obsidian CLI; Cursor/Claude Code can send commands.
- What would a Readwise replacement need to get right (r/readwise).
- Exploring Computational Media as a Possible Future of Software (PDF).
- Branch Writing for Obsidian — write in small rearrangeable blocks.
- Gingko Writer.
- obsidian-lineage — Gingko-like interface in Obsidian.
- Introducing Papers on Opennote (YouTube).
Development & Design Tools
- Comfy Cloud | Run ComfyUI online (beta).
- March Mad CSS.
- antirez/tgterm — control macOS terminals via Telegram.
- health.md — Apple Health → Markdown.
- CSS Zen Garden: All Designs.
- Quality Smashing eBooks on Front-End, Design, UX, Accessibility (Smashing Magazine).
Engineering & Infrastructure
- GitHub Actions Is Slowly Killing Your Engineering Team — Ian Duncan.
- How to Scale a System from 0 to 10 million+ Users.
- Data centers in space makes no sense (CivAI).
- Company as Code — Daniel Rothmann.
- Software Estimation - Building Takes Longer Than You Think.
Bay Area & Local News
- Students, Stanford, and grifters.
- Super Bowl 60: San Francisco’s image surprises visitors.
- Super Bowl Visitors Find San Francisco Better Than Its Apocalyptic Image (NYT).
- 70 Black-owned Bay Area restaurants, bakeries, and more.
- Tri-Valley Restaurant Week.
- Goldbean Cafe on Instagram — opened recently in San Leandro.
- Former San Leandro City Council Member Pleads Guilty in Federal Bribery Case (KQED).
Politics & Society
- Kennedy Center to Close for 2-Year Construction Project (NYT).
- Increasing Surveillance of Professors (NYT).
- Probe pileup (Morning Brew).
- Jeffrey Epstein client list news.
- Jeffrey Epstein files shake political careers in Europe (AP).
- The Epstein scandal is taking down Europe’s political class. In the US, they’re getting a pass. (Politico).
- One Generation Runs the Country. The Next Cashed In on Crypto. (WSJ).
- Trump admin. live updates: EPA revokes key climate change finding.
- Poll: Trump’s ratings on immigration tumble (NBC).
- What Happened to Pam Bondi? (The Atlantic).
- Pam Bondi Epstein Testimony Roundup (BuzzFeed).
- Kash Patel’s FBI Is Making America Less Safe (NYT).
- Jmail: Website lets you browse Jeffrey Epstein’s emails (The Standard).
- Video of RFK Jr. Telling Theo Von He ‘Sniffed Cocaine Off Toilet Seats’ Takes Off Online (Newsweek).
- 2 Israelis accused of security offenses for allegedly betting using secret military information (AP).
- House GOP join Democrats to slap back Trump’s tariffs on Canada (AP).
- A pilot fired over Kristi Noem’s missing blanket and the constant chaos inside DHS.
- Inside the FBI’s investigation of Jeffrey Epstein (AP).
Privacy & Surveillance
- Local police aid ICE by tapping school cameras (The Guardian).
- With Ring, American Consumers Built a Surveillance Dragnet (404 Media).
- Russia says it has blocked WhatsApp (CNN).
Economy & Labor
- Europe’s $24 Trillion Breakup With Visa and Mastercard.
- The Big Money in Today’s Economy Is Going to Capital, Not Labor (WSJ).
- America Isn’t Ready for What AI Will Do to Jobs (The Atlantic).
Health & Longevity
- Dr. Peter Attia apologizes for “indefensible” emails to Jeffrey Epstein (CBS).
- At 82, he’s as fit as a 20-year-old.
- The Longevity Bros Are Fighting (GQ).
- Protocol Cards — Evidence-backed Nervous System Regulation.
Meta & VR Fitness
- Supernatural VR Fitness on Meta Quest.
- Meta is shutting down Supernatural VR fitness app (Lifehacker).
Entertainment & Sports
- The complete list of 2026 Grammy winners (NPR).
- Lindsey Vonn’s father says her Olympic crash marks ‘the end of her career’ (AP).
- Bad Bunny’s halftime show featured a real wedding (AP).
- The Undeniable Fun of Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl Halftime Show (The Atlantic).
- USA’s Chock and Bates win Olympic ice dance silver (NPR).
- Breezy Johnson and boyfriend are engaged after her super-G run at Winter Olympics (NBC).
- Canadian ice master makes Olympic history with 1st indoor temporary speedskating rink (AP).
- Team Event - Pair Skating - Free Skating Results (Milano Cortina 2026).
- Winter Escape (Hallmark).
Obituaries
- Virginia Oliver, Maine’s ‘Lobster Lady’ and Folk Hero, Dies at 105 (NYT).
- James Van Der Beek, ‘Dawson’s Creek’ star, dies at 48 (AP).
- Cult film star Bud Cort of ‘Harold and Maude’ dies at 77 (LA Times).
Creative Practice & Writing
- Swipe File Examples From Top Copywriters & Marketers (SwipeFile).
- How to Humanize Your AI Writing in 10 Steps.
Shopping, Real Estate & Misc
- Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad and How Great Companies Stay Great — Eric Ries (Amazon).
- Anonymous Creative Futures 2026.
- The Tangled Plot Bookshop.
- 83. We’re Back! 2025 Recap & What Comes Next (podcast).
- Surfer Diary.
- OpenCiv3.
- Saying “No” In an Age of Abundance — Jim Nielsen.
- Neato Calendar.
- Massively parallel multiplex DNA sequencing for specimen identification (PubMed).
- Gas TownPosted
Steve Yegge’s Gas Town post is absolutely bonkers in terms of AI token spend. It tries to keep a perpetual flywheel going in terms of generating applications.
And who can blame him? The tool itself was vibe coded in Python, then Go. It’s likely never to run on my machine because I can’t think that fast in terms of the number of agents I want to work.
It also reminds me, the simpler explanation of how things work is much better. Maggie Appleton’s post is a lot easier to understand from someone who has a visual expertise in breaking down how something complicated could work using the correct metaphors. It also helps that the images produced aren’t AI generated from Google’s Nano Banana.
The Track Star PodcastGas Town's Agent Patterns, Design Bottlenecks, and Vibecoding at Scale · maggieappleton.comOn agent orchestration patterns, why design and critical thinking are the new bottlenecks, and whether we should let go of looking at code
Some notable takeaways:
-
Design and planning becomes the bottleneck when agents write all the code
-
It turns out to be slightly difficult to make happen because of the way current models are trained. They’re designed as helpful assistants who wait politely for human instructions. They’re not used to checking a task queue and independently getting on with things.
-
Stakes matter. If an agent breaks some images on your personal blog, you’ll recover. But if you’re running a healthcare system where a bug could miscalculate drug dosages, or a banking app moving actual money around, you can’t just wave an agent at it and hope. Consequences scale up fast.
Honestly, the past few months has been another whirlwind of AI tools that makes it hard to keep up. Vibe coding was so last February of 2025, and we’ve moved on to agent orchestration, vibe engineering, and a slew of other things I’ve missed. I know I’m not the only one feeling this way at all, and it reminds me that I do, indeed, need to continue blogging my own thoughts.
-
-
Quick website news. I’ve added callouts for some areas of the website, including the newsletter at the bottom. I removed a bunch of social links that no longer are representative of where I’m at online. I’ve removed the two-layout style for a single one since the content I’m usually here to bring is not worth the width.
I’ve created link previews! For select (and recent) links, I’m now using a
LinkPreviewAstro component. It’s using the metadata from websites to create these nice link previews. There’s a manual override in case the parsing did not reach my standards of link previews.As an example, the new Track Star Podcast is awesome, and here’s the latest episode I watched.
The Track Star Podcast · podcasts.apple.comListen to Jack Coyne's The Track Star Podcast podcast on Apple Podcasts.
The Great American Songbook EXPLAINED | The Track Star Podcast with Jack Coyne · www.youtube.comThe Track Star Podcast continues with a deep dive into the Great American Songbook, the tradition that shaped American popular music as we know it. Guided by...
There’s many other small updates to make the website feel more user friendly, including updated pagination and updating tags. Also, the line breaks in essay content is longer now, so you can figure out if you want to choose to read more.
- How Dems Lost the FuturePosted
I’ve been thinking how much politics I’ve been paying attention to since the inauguration. I think the expectation things would be different and the enthusiasm felt about how some tech folks thought we could built government better was at best a shortfall. I didn’t have those personal feelings as I felt much the opposite, on how to prepare for authoritarianism and tyranny.
That’s why I think this podcast conversation between Jasmine Sun and Kelsey Piper was an eye opener to understand and keep tabs on the tech community sentiment on current US politics.
how dems lost the future (ft. kelsey piper) · jasmi.newstech vs. trump, authoritarian envy, the case for argument
This pairs very nicely with understanding extremist views from Nadia Asparouhova’s book release this year, Antimemetics: Why Some Ideas Resist Spreading.
Antimemetics: Why Some Ideas Resist Spreading · darkforest.metalabel.comWhy do some ideas spread like wildfire, while others resist being seen — despite their importance? A new book by Nadia Asparouhova explores the emerging phenomenon of antimemetics. Published by the Dark Forest Collective.
I have a lot to say about this book, but I’ll do a write-up later. Back to the conversation, I think my previous post about how the vibes are off is a much better metric of how Democrats lost the 2024 election in a huge way because they were not assessing what public sentiment was anymore. We need more acknowledgement of real-world struggles, not the stats of GDP numbers.
- Little ManPosted
Back in the day, I used to get the SF Chronicle newspaper delivered. They had this iconic “Little Man” where I remember seeing them in movie reviews. I was never the biggest fan of the star rating system. The thumbs up system that Siskel and Ebert had was a little better as two critics giving their opinions. The little man had visuals that explain how I would recommend a movie to someone. As not even worth your time, something to sit through, and standing ovation (or in the little man’s case, jumping out of your seat clapping).
Illustrated adventures of Little Man, The Chronicle's toughest critic · projects.sfchronicle.comSince the early 1940s, the small bald guy in the bowler hat has been the Bay Area's arbiter of good taste. Used by Chronicle critics as a rating icon, he really gets around — to movies, live theater, concerts and football games. Here's an illustrated guide to some of the places The Chronicle dispatched him this year.
-
📍 Location: At home in San Leandro, CA
Current Media
Currently reading: The Origins of Efficiency by Brian Porter
I’ve been reading his blog for the past year, and I was super excited to pick up his book this week. If you’re going to buy it for digial, I recommend the Kobo edition since it’s DRM-free (unlike Amazon).
We watched Sinners yesterday, and it’s really incredible. I’m looking to overhaul my media log soonish. Given no updates on this website since the spring, it’s hard to put any hard deadlines on this website. I still do weekly reviews, although incredibly personal. And I’m inspired by some other websites to do more short form, like Tumblr-esque, with new web paradigms.
For example, there’s this blog roll viewer from Jason Kottke’s website called “kdo rolodex” that I really love and I want to create a widget like that. And I think having links with a card view with open graph data (especially images) will be more helpful.
-
I started using Arc March 2023 and thought I’d never have to look back. It was a really exciting browser to use with so much potential. I loved watching videos they made about potential features that could be extremely useful.
Now that the Browser Company (BCNY) has gone all in with Dia Browser, the support for Arc has been just the essential, i.e. Chromium updates. I had a custom Chrome extension break a few weeks back, and I could see the writing on the wall. If this company doesn’t want to fix their browser, then it’s time to migrate. But where?
The Alternatives
Really, there are a few browsers I thought are worth migrating to.
Dia Browser
For the same reason I don’t want to use Comet (Perplexity’s browser), I don’t like these AI-forward web browsers. At least yet. There’s the privacy concerns that get to me, especially around memory. And I just don’t think they are ready for prime-time yet. Plus, I feel really slighted by BCNY pulling the rug from under us with Arc, and I don’t know if I’m ready to migrate to a beta product from a well-established one.
Brave
I’ve used it extensively before around 2017. I think their Crypto play is strange, and I usually converted my BAT into BTC or ETH at the end of the day. But those Ads were really annoying. I eventually went back to Chrome.
Safari
I already use it as a mobile browser, and I’ve thought about doing it. They have the sidebar, but it doesn’t feel as snappy and feature-tich as it should be.
Zen Browser
To be honest, I tried it last year, and couldn’t bite the bullet to switch over. It felt like an incomplete product at the time, with alot of the things I loved about Arc just not there. That fear has since been squashed now that I’ve used it fresh again, and most things are there. The folders aren’t there, but honestly, they aren’t a priority for me as much as having access to my custom extensions. I made the push last week and have battle tested it. It’s ready to go, and really snappy too.
Migrating to Zen Browser
I’ll walkthrough the different steps that I had to go through when migrating from Arc to Zen.
[!Note] This section was AI assisted. How? I wrote an initial outline and checklist of all the things I had to do the migration. After checking off the essentials, I wrote up a bunch of gotchas and saved the links. After that, I shoved my note into Gemini 2.5 Pro and asked it to summarize this. After the initial generation, I edited the piece and made it sound more in my tone and language.
1. Import Bookmarks
The first step was a standard bookmark import from my previous browser. I used this tool to do the export from Arc since there’s no native way to do it.
2. Create Spaces
I recreated my Arc-style workflow by setting up the following Spaces:
- Work Planning
- Work Focus (a programming space)
- Work Design
- Personal
- House Management
- Financial
3. Install Essential Extensions
I installed my core extensions:
- 1Password
- My personal “Markdown Copy Tool” that I have customized for specific sites
- uBlock Origin (this one is huge. Screw Chrome and the manifest v3 changes that cut-off a really good ad-blocker)
- Obsidian Webclipper (I also imported my existing settings for this)
4. Configure Browser Settings
- Search Engine: Switched the default to DuckDuckGo. (Maybe Kagi in the future)
- Auto-Tab-Closing: Actually never set this up, so reach out if you know how to do it.
- UI/UX: Tweaked various settings to make the experience feel more familiar to Arc.
5. Update Keyboard Shortcuts
- Mapped a shortcut to Toggle Compact Mode.
- Removed the default shortcut for “save page” to avoid conflicts.
6. Set Up Pinned Tabs
I pinned my frequently used sites:
- YouTube
- Spotify
- Calendar
- Readwise
7. Add Custom Search Completions
I added several custom search engines to the command palette for quick access:
- Perplexity
- Kagi
- ChatGPT
- Twitter/X
- Brave Search
- WikiVoyage
8. Join the Community
I subscribed to the r/zen_browser subreddit to stay updated.
Key Differences & Gotchas
Here are some of the notable differences and things to be aware of when moving from Arc.
- Workspaces & Profiles (A Major Plus): Spaces can be tied to a profile, which functions as a Mozilla Multi-Account Container. This means you can be logged into different accounts (e.g., personal vs. work Google accounts) in different Spaces without conflict. Pinned tabs are also tied to the profile, allowing for different sets of pinned tabs per workspace.
- Glance vs. Little Arc: Zen’s equivalent of Arc’s “Little Arc” for previewing links is called “Glance”.
- Tab Management: Dragging a tab to a different space does not work. You must use the context menu option to move it. On the plus side, Tab Folders are expected in the next release.
- Command Palette Limitations: The command palette is not as powerful as Arc’s yet.
- You cannot activate extensions from it.
- It lacks actions like “Open Dev Tools” or “Take Screenshot”.
- Screenshot Tool: Zen has a native screenshot tool (
Cmd+Shift+S), but it currently lacks annotation features like drawing arrows or adding text. - No DRM Support: Zen Browser does not have a Widevine license. This means DRM-protected content from services like Netflix or Hulu will not play. From the FAQ:
Zen Browser currently lacks DRM support… This means DRM-protected media cannot be played in Zen Browser for the foreseeable future.
- No “Boosts”: There is no equivalent to Arc’s “Boosts” feature for injecting custom CSS and JavaScript into websites.
- Local Development:
localhostpages don’t trigger a special “developer mode” UI with easy-access shortcuts, unlike Arc.
Helpful Resources
- 2025 Week 10 - Weekly NotesPosted
Summary
We went to go to see Chicago, the musical, this Saturday. I’ve been re-working Obsidian to work better for me and created some new workflows.
My parents traveled to Istanbul and Italy.
Notes
Depressing of the week: One of the Grimmest Days in American Diplomacy - The Atlantic
Algorithmic Complacency explained
PragmaticMachineLearning/probly - AI Spreadsheet
How to build a village - by Rosie Spinks
18F: We are dedicated to the American public and we’re not done yet
Watching Opera on a Jumbotron - The Atlantic
There’s a idea by Elle from doing postcards about making a note in her app about these themed ideas that then she puts like different media into to see how they fit well with those and I think that if we make a collection like that that would be perfect
- Population and Disease Prevalence Around Cedars-Sinai Urgent Care - Manus - will show you replays
Crossing the uncanny valley of conversational voice
Do We Age Steadily, or in Bursts? What Scientists Know So Far. - The New York Times
AX, DX, UX - Jim Nielsen’s Blog
It’s probably time to stop recommending Redux - Nathanael Bennett
How I Code With LLMs These Days | Honeycomb
Recommendations
- Podcast: Not for Everyone Podcast - YouTube
- Course:
Obits
- 2025 Week 09 - Weekly NotesPosted
Summary
It’s only mid-week, and I’m surprised by the end of the month closing in on us. Two months into 2025, and I feel exhausted. Both physically because of sleep, and mentally as I’ve been behind on my weekly updates.
Notes
A Million Little Secrets • Josh W. Comeau
Speaking of birding
Old, but still good. PBS - John Gardner - Education And Excellence
Before Atomic Habits: The Case for High-Impact, Time-Bound Change
Half of the articles offers a critique, but then the other feels delusional
- Discourse | The Mercatus Center | Substack
- A critique of Peterson Academy Where Aristotle Meets Big Bird part 1 – The OpenSource Temple
- I’ll give them this. It’s amazing to see how bad Jordan Peterson is doing
Released this week
How to listen to Ulysses | Derek Sivers - wow, this one is powerful by Derek Sivers
Record (write or voice memo) all of your questions and observations. When done, ask everything to an expert or top-tier AI. Save the answers to re-read later.
-
Interesting use of AI
-
The Death Of The Follower - The Next Era Of Content Creation
Who Is in DOGE? Tracking Its Staffers and Allies in the Federal Government - The New York Times
- The people in Elon Musk’s DOGE universe | TechCrunch
- The Young, Inexperienced Engineers Aiding Elon Musk’s Government Takeover | WIRED
- The engineers are mostly young men (I found one woman - Alexandra Beynon). If you’re a woman, you’re the secretary, hiring manager, communications, or other non-technical roles
The terrible berating at the white house is the butt of all jokes.
If it is worth keeping, save it in Markdown
- Interesting about using Perma to save links
21 Civil Servants Resign From DOGE, Refusing to Implement Elon Musk’s Changes - The New York Times - Really the fall of US Digital Services, not DOGE, since they got folded in.
Trend: Watching podcasts on YouTube
My 12-Month Immersive Course in Humanities—The Final Installment!
From OpenAI’s new operator, here’s Open Operator
- Open Operator, Serverless Browsers and the Future of Computer-Using Agents
- This interview is interesting to listen to
- Open Operator is a reference of how tool chaining could work for brower tools
- Wherever there are agents, there’s a tool needed for that. The more we start building those tools, the more startups there are. It’s a race
- Stagehand - The AI Web Browsing Framework
- Interview is with BrowserBase’s Paul Klein
The Liberating Effect of Uncertainty - Ness Labs
No Zero Days | How To Crush Your Goals - Unfinished Success
Recommendations
Books: Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia,from Revolution to Autocracy
Book: by Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor: AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference
Obits
Actor Gene Hackman and wife Betsy Arakawa found dead as authorities investigate cause of death | CNN
Michelle Trachtenberg Dead At 39: Investigation Ongoing into Cause of Death - Newsweek
- Discourse | The Mercatus Center | Substack
- The Vibes Are OffPosted
“The vibes are off” is a colloquial expression used to describe a situation where something feels wrong or uncomfortable, even if it cannot be precisely explained. It suggests that the atmosphere or emotional tone of a place, interaction, or event is not as expected or desired. This phrase often implies a sense of unease or discomfort that is sensed intuitively rather than being based on specific, tangible evidence. The term “vibes” refers to a distinctive feeling or quality that can be sensed, often involving shared emotional states or atmospheres.
Gary’s economics explains more of how the public commons perceives the economy vs economists
Why Labour and Trump will both fail · www.youtube.comThey have the same problem - and don't have a solution.
And it applies to all sorts of scenarios.
The vibes are off. · www.theverge.comThe vibes are off. Some advertisers see Meta pulling back from moderation as a signal they should stop pushing social media outlets to keep hate speech in check, according to The Wall Street Journal. Some have reportedly already stepped back: …the Association of National Advertisers, [which] represents major advertisers such as Procter & Gamble, AT&T and General Motors, quietly ended a brand-safety effort called “Engage Responsibly,” partly to avoid scrutiny or litigation…
And then there’s this.
Maybe when we say the vibes are off, what we really mean is that every person you pass on the street now feels like a glimpse of another dimension behind a glass. — Whizy Kim, The Vibes Are Off: COVID & Losing Shared Reality
The Vibes Are Off: What Happens When We Lose Our Shared Reality · www.refinery29.comDuring the pandemic, we've felt our sense of shared reality slip.
- 2025 Week 08 - Weekly NotesPosted
Summary
This has been a catch-up week. We cancelled the dinner with Adriel, which I feel bad about. But in that, it’s been trying to rest up. Morgan and I are more seriously talking about kids, so I need to start my research. The world feels more and more ablaze.
Notes
It’s sad the complete carelessness and wreckage this administration.
Given developments at the Kennedy Center, effective today
I am resigning as artistic advisor to the NSO.
Not for me.
It’s been a wonderful 8 years working with Kennedy Center President Deb Rutter, fellow artistic advisor Renee Fleming, and the entire NSO staff, encouraging thousands of fresh new audiences to appreciate symphonic music. Mostly, and above all, I will miss the musicians of our nation’s symphony orchestra - just the best!
Notes
Ben Folds Quits the Kennedy Center, as well as Issa Rae. Hamilton pulled out, Rhiannon Giddens did too.
Google Calendar Deletes Black History Month, Pride and Other Cultural Events - The New York Times
- I made an alternative calendar to remind ourselves what is still important
- Also see: Google Calendar removed events like Pride and BHM because its holiday list wasn’t ‘sustainable’ | The Verge
- And this: History of black history month and how it has changed over the years
The Tariff Wars have begun
I love the idea of increasing my network surface area
Lawsuit Tracker
I’m always confused by misleading posts like this. We want a human touch, but are okay with algorithmic complacency.
I want to be cool like Michael Shannon.
You’re Not Creating Enough Prototypes - Blog - zeroheight
calculator-app - Chad Nauseam Home
AI is Stifling Tech Adoption | Vale.Rocks
Developer creates endless Wikipedia feed to fight algorithm addiction - Ars Technica
I have this folder in my notes app called “hyperspecific media collections”, where I find a specific mood or topic I love and compile a media collection. They consist of book quotes, song lyrics, paintings, and scenes from movies or television shows. I love the idea that all forms of art and creativity are intricately connected, and seeing these parallels and similarities allows me to truly appreciate art.
Using AI to deconstruct the english language to its roots (e.g. latin, french, etc.)
A student educational tool
The Death of Government Expertise - The Atlantic
The Right’s War on Wikipedia is Just a Repackaging of its War on Journalism
- Video: Become a Wikipedian in 30 minutes
- Wikipedia: Why Project 2025’s creators want to dox Wikipedia’s volunteer editors.
Issue 77 – Whenever presidents get involved, if they become angry, you don’t want to be there
- Transcript of leaked call with Meteora’s Ben Chow
- This is probably the best transcript I’ve read in a very long time. Holy shit
My Life in Weeks by Gina Trapani
What You're Missing: A Notebook System for Your Life - YouTube - To be honest, the bullet journal doesn’t appeal to me. Systems do. And personally made ones that take inspiration from these
Tech’s Dumbest Mistake: Why Firing Programmers for AI Will Destroy Everything
Recommendations
- Podcast: 99% Invisible - Valley So Low. I know about the inception of the TVA, but not about it’s work since.
- Book: Non-things: Upheaval in the Lifeworld by Byung-Chul Han
- Conference: AI Engineer Summit Day 1
-
Colin and Samir interview Johnny and Izzy Harris about their careers and the creation of their media company, NewPress. (Also, see NewPress network’s other shows like Search Party and Tunnel Vision).
The Future of YouTube Explainers Is Here · news.thepublishpress.comFormer Vox journalist Christophe Haubursin partners with Johnny and Iz Harris
Observations
Key Principles for Building a Creative Organization
- Bias towards action - Make decisions quickly, do things fast, and solve problems without overthinking.
- Treat others with kindness and respect, both within and outside the team.
- Templates - Find where structure works and leaves room for creativity.
- They specifically mentioned templates in the context of creating a reliable system that supports creativity. Templates refer to establishing repeatable formats that streamline the creative process and improve team collaboration.
- Johnny Harris mentioned that script templates were a very large document with tables, color coding, and other elements that enable a team to work together with communication and structure. Izzy Harris added that these are structures that still allow for creativity. The aim is to systemize repetitive creative tasks without constraining creative output, enabling consistent execution and scalability.
- In my own way, templates have allowed me to stay focused, also had to grow organically because I need to understand the underlying structure first
- Care more about getting it right than being right. That lends itself to feedback and being open to it.
The odd thing about Voice Notes
- Johnny and Izzy Harris use voice notes as a method of communication to increase efficiency and maintain a personal touch. Johnny uses voice notes, looms, and Marco Polos to communicate with his team, as he can convey what needs to be said in minutes. Izzy noted she is delighted by 6 second voice notes.
- Voice notes are useful for asynchronous communication. Team members do not need to be available at the same time in order to communicate effectively
- Voice notes allow for more detailed explanations and can convey nuance and tone more effectively than text-based communication
NewPress
New Press is envisioned as a new news media entity that will function as an umbrella company overseeing five to eight Creator-led, independent journalism channels.
Here’s a breakdown of what New Press is, what to expect from its offerings, and how it aims to differentiate itself from entities like Vox, according to the sources:
- Structure and Mission:
- Creator-Led Channels: New Press will consist of multiple channels, each led by independent creators.
- Operational Support: While creators will manage their channels creatively, New Press will handle operational and project management aspects. This includes brand deals, agency relations, syndication, publishing, upload timelines, and providing a project management team and thumbnail designers.
- Shared Resources and Collaboration: Creators will have the opportunity to collaborate, brainstorm, and support each other.
- Offerings to Creators:
- Financial Security: Creators will receive a salary, benefits, and a share of the channel’s revenue as it grows.
- Creative Freedom: Creators can focus on content creation without the burden of business operations.
- Operational Support: New Press provides a full operations team to handle tasks such as project management.
- Content and Accessibility:
- Accessibility: New Press aims to make videos accessible to a wide audience by using plain language and avoiding jargon.
- Rigorous Journalism: Content will be deeply researched and fact-checked.
- Visual Storytelling: Emphasis is placed on visual elements in their videos.
- Differences from Vox:
- Creator Focus: New Press prioritizes individual creators and their brands over the New Press brand itself.
- Talent Retention: New Press aims to retain talent by offering fair compensation and creative freedom.
- Revenue and Creative Separation: New Press intends to keep creative and operational departments separate, preventing revenue pressures from negatively impacting content creation.
- Maintaining Scrappiness: New Press aims to avoid excessive overhead and bureaucracy.
- Key Principles to Guide New Press:
- Bias Toward Action: Make decisions quickly and act decisively.
- Kindness: Treat everyone with kindness and respect.
- Structure: Balance structure with creative freedom.
- Focus on Getting it Right: Prioritize accuracy and learning over being right.
An Honest Conversation with Johnny Harris · www.youtube.comJohnny and Iz Harris are redefining what news looks like on YouTube with their explainers and media company New Press
- 2025 Week 07 - Weekly NotesPosted
Summary
It feels like it’s been a long week as Susan asked me to help her with Money, and over the weekend we are having a dinner w/ Adriel. Morgan has been on campus 4 days this week, and it feels like far too much for her.
Notes
Interesting to look at
Interesting Internet Takes
- The Unsung Inventors of ‘Meg Ryan Fall’ - by Erin Carlson
- My Toddler Son Likes to Wear Dresses. Can He Wear One to My Sister’s Wedding? - The New York Times
Started my own note that’s similar to this.
The Erza Klein and Kara Swisher interview
- Opinion | What Elon Musk Wants - The New York Times
- And also: Americans Are Trapped in an Algorithmic Cage - The Atlantic
A case for prepping
It’s me. Hi. I’m the problem it’s me
Henrik Karlsson - Advice for a friend who wants to start a blog
Pradyumna Prasad - How to have a career even when OpenAI’s o3 drops
- Yes, yes you do
Deep Dive into LLMs like ChatGPT - YouTube How To Read A Novel - by Steven Johnson - Adjacent Possible
The Art of Calling Out Room Dynamics (I wrote about this one a while ago)
The Attention Crisis Is Just a Distraction | The New Yorker
- Seems to be attention grabbing, if you know what I mean
The Best Book I’ve Ever Read About Financial Freedom - YouTube - I’ve read half of this book. There are some goodies, but I also hate Eric Jorgenson highlighted Balaji. Be careful
Sounds like they want to do the right thing and find out if they are doing an economic good.
Fuck them
- Google Calendar no longer includes start of Black History Month, Pride Month – NBC Chicago
- I made my own calendar, just because of this
Yeah, I think I missed this last time - Introducing ChatGPT Gov | OpenAI
How Oil Propaganda Sneaks Into TV Shows | Climate Town - YouTube Chat With Your Readwise Highlights - Readwise Docs
Idiot in Chief
It’s interesting HuggingFace is using the 671B model to create a distilled model that’s more accessible. I’m curious when I can run one of these small models on my laptop
I’m interested in testing out a UI that I can build with Go and WASM. This is peaking my curiosity
I’m compiling a list of why AI isn’t replacing the workforce and those other lies. It doesn’t happen as easy as this, and it’s not a 1-to-1 replacement (like the issues that we have without DBAs)
Film: Turn Every Page – The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb | Sony Pictures Classics
8 years to arrive, 10 years to build a deflector. Dear god.
- It might be too late to stop ‘city killer’ asteroid headed toward Earth: scientist
- Yes, the odds of an asteroid striking Earth have doubled. No, you don’t need to worry
The Plot Against America - by Mike Brock
How I use LLMs as a staff engineer | sean goedecke
The all new le Chat: Your AI assistant for life and work | Mistral AI
Recommendations
- Talk to go to: Kiera Wright-Ruiz Author Talk • My (Half) Latinx Kitchen: My (Half) La | Omnivore Books on Food - March 1st
- Book: Banchan: 60 Korean American Recipes for Delicious, Shareable Sides by Caroline Choe, Ghazalle Badiozamani
- Book: Sahil Bloom: The 5 Types of Wealth: A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life
- I started reading and got through the first section. Timeless advice
- A wonderful podcast from Ed Zitron: betteroffline - Listen on Spotify - Linktree
- Book: Superagency - What Could Possibly Go Right with Our AI Future by Reid Hoffman
- Steven Levy has a newsletter. - Plaintext Newsletter by Steven Levy | WIRED
- Book: Let’s Talk About It Links
