Week 5 of 2025. And what is this, the second week of Trump? It’s all too much already, but here we are. Still “free,” still alive, for the time being at least.

I sent out two Second Breakfast newsletters: “AI Foreclosure,” a response to Reid Hoffman’s op-ed on the promise of AI; and “Cold War Creativity and Sputnik Moments,” on -- as the title suggests -- on how Sputnik moments are always “AI Sputnik moments.”

I think the latter is the first piece I’ve written that feels solidly like something I can turn into a chapter in a book.

I have a busy week ahead of me -- or, rather, I have a presentation tomorrow that’s taking up a lot of my mental energy -- but then I really do need to sit down and hammer out a book proposal.

I recorded three podcasts last week: two with Helen Beetham (she released one this morning) and one with Jim Groom. In the latter, we chatted about writing online; the in former, we talked about AI and fascism and education.

It was a week of delivery fuck-ups: no flour and no brown sugar in the grocery delivery; nothing in the paper bag that I was handed Monday evening by the food delivery guy. I reordered -- banh mi from Saiguette.

On Thursday, we went out for Tasty Hand Pulled Noodles, with dessert at Huascar & Co Bake Shop. On Saturday, I picked up breakfast sandwiches and donuts from Rex.

I was finally able to run outside this past week, just in time for the Manhattan 10K on Sunday. I’m a little disappointed in my performance, and I’m not quite sure what went wrong. It was very very very cold. And I didn’t set any alarms on my watch to monitor my pace. That’s because my watch is in the process of dying, it seems. I’m mad that I’m mad about not having “accurate data” there.

I’m mad about everything, I reckon.