Week in Review - Jan 26, 2025
Not a great week. On Monday, Trump took office, and it was the expected living nightmare. Yet I’m getting through it, as is anyone with a shred of empathy. Here I share photos, perspectives on recent events, videos, music selections, and my simple plan to brighten the path forward.
L.A. Photos
Signs of the times. Shots of Los Angeles streets, looking so 2025.
News
The events that occupied my mind the most:
Elon doing the nazi salute. (nazis don’t deserve capital letters.)
Trump, the president who mismanaged the pandemic, exiting the WHO
Leaving the Paris Climate Agreement, along with other planet-dooming promises
The Secret Service after elementary school children in Chicago
The polarity of punishment for American vs. Korean insurrection
As an American, I’m incredibly embarrassed of my country at the moment. We’re in a dark age where greed overrules ethics, and those in power only want to use it for themselves. Awful things will continue, and I will continue to pay attention. That is the price of responsible citizenship. Damn if it isn’t experiencing inflation.
Videos
Including a potentially culture-shifting AI tool announcement, development tips for coding with AI, and a sobering POV on the Democratic Party’s action plan.
Introduction to Operator & Agents
OpenAI announced and launched Operator this week, its web-browsing AI agent tool. This video demonstrates how the tool can perform basic web-browsing tasks like placing grocery orders, buying basketball tickets, hiring cleaners (Oh, San Francisco), and many other possibilities.
This will be a huge year for AI agents. Once this goes live for more members, many people will likely start using the web in a remarkably different way. They will have a digital assistant ready to perform parallel tasks that require unsatisfying time and energy. Google, Microsoft, and Anthropic are also working on computer-use AI agent tools, with some already accessible. Once the technology gets good enough, it will change how we use computers. We will mostly expect them to drive themselves, with us as navigators. Shit’s crazy. :)
Getting started with GitHub Copilot
This tutorial gives a glipse at modern programming. It covers essential information on how Copilot works in VS Code, a highly popular development environment.
From this, you can see that AI is now fully integrated into how programmers code. These features help developers create better programs faster, accelerating the pace and quality of software production. It’s a good time to learn how to code, because you don’t really have to anymore. Hyperbole!
Charlemagne on the Democratic Party
This segment of The Daily Show features Charlemagne presenting a striking contrast in civility among our policymakers. It shows modern Democratic representatives optimistic about collaboration, compared with Republicans choosing not to cooperate from day one of Biden’s presidency. It really shows you how much our representatives care about accomplishing something.
For me, the key point in the video is at 3:00:
“And maybe you’re thinking, “What’s wrong with being civil to your opposition.” That’s just political norms. Politics haven’t been normal since Trump came down that ugly-ass escalator, and eight years later, it seems like Republicans are the only ones who realize that.”
It illustrates that not everyone knows the rules of the sport, even though they’re the refs. The modern rulebook requires loopholes for each turn. It is more brutal than boxing, and we will be left unconscious on the canvas if we don’t know how to go up against dirty fighters.
Music
Standout tracks of the week. Dubbing this “Screenshot Radio”.
Tracks, for Reference
Looking Ahead
I have no confidence that things will get better. I expect them to get much worse.
It’s easy to feel powerless, but I’m not hopeless. There’s potency in the mundane.
This quote attributed to the Civil Rights Era titan summarizes it best:
“If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.”
There is power in the simple act of being good to others, of standing up for them, of passing a smile, or sharing a laugh. Countries begin with communities, and we’ve allowed internal conflict to poison us at a cellular level.
If we want a better society, we have to treat each other better. It’s the only way back to health.
