This Week I Learned - Week #29 2025

This Week I Learned - 

* After OpenAI’s $3 billion Windsurf deal collapsed, Google invested $2.4 billion while also hiring its CEO Varun Mohan and key staff. Cognition, the AI startup behind the viral AI coding agent Devin, has officially acquired Windsurf in a deal that will include the coding company's IP and user base.

* AI Agent School - An interactive educational platform for understanding AI agents

* S Anand created an Amar Chitra Katha-style comic story based on his Vipassana experience and also shared how he prompted ChatGPT to generate it.

* Agents (LLMs running tools in a loop) can think only for ~6 min

* Nvidia controls more than 80% of the market for the chips used for building AI systems

* Adrien Friggeri has been running every day for the past 15 years & making beautiful charts from the data he collects.

* Micronations, sometimes also referred to as model countries and new country projects, are small, self-proclaimed entities that assert their sovereignty as independent states but which are not acknowledged as such by any of the recognised sovereign states, or by any supranational organization. Motivations for the creation of micronations include theoretical experimentation, political protest, artistic expression, personal entertainment and the conduct of criminal activity. Liberland, Zaqistan, Seborga are examples of micronations.

* Microstates are recognised independent states of a small size.

 * Socrates was born in 470 or 469 BC to Sophroniscus and Phaenarete, a stoneworker and a midwife, respectively, in Athens. The Greek philosopher is credited as the founder of Western philosophy. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no texts and is known mainly through the posthumous accounts of classical writers, particularly his students Plato and Xenophon. These accounts are written as dialogues, in which Socrates and his interlocutors examine a subject in the style of question and answer; they gave rise to the Socratic dialogue literary genre.  He was a polarizing figure in Athenian society. In 399 BC, he was accused of impiety and corrupting the youth. After a trial that lasted a day, he was sentenced to death. He spent his last day in prison, refusing offers to help him escape.