Finished reading: 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari 📚
Finished reading: On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder 📚
Finished reading: Facts and Fears by James R. Clapper 📚
Experiences Using Micro.blog so Far in 2025
It’s been a few months now since I started using Micro.blog as my main website and posting service, so I thought I would take some time to reflect upon it.
To start, I was looking for a replacement for WordPress given all of the drama over at Automatic, the owners, but it wasn’t only that. I was writing less and just paying for hosting, so it no longer was fit for my needs. I was able to seamlessly transfer existing posts to Micro.blog and also save some money in the process. I signed up for the Micro.one service, which only cost $10 a year, not counting my domain which I pay for through Hover. This alone saved a little money and accurately reflecting how infrequently I was using it.
I like how easy the UI is just to type and post. I can choose to make my posts as easily as a quick 300 limit post, or as long as I want to fulfill the purposes of my articles. I will eventually learn Markdown so I can really start organizing my posts and keep them uniform, but that will come later.
There’s one last feature I appreciate and that’s called, “Bookshelves”. It’s analogous to Goodreads and allows you to keep track of what you’re reading, want to read, and have completed. What I like is it gives you the option to make a post around it as sort of posting your thoughts around the book or making it easier to write a book review if you wish. While I only post which books I finish and use it to keep track, it’s had one more benefit – I’ve read the most this year, so far, that I have at any time since college.
When I made my goals for the beginning of the year, reading more was not on my “to-do” list, but it happened, and I’m grateful for the feature for inspiring me to do so. I made a goal of 12 books, which I’ve already blown past. I will l likely create a post later this year about what stood out to me so far about what I’ve read.
To make a long story short, I’m loving this service and its features. I’m able to utilize the easy UI/UX so I just write and post. As a result, I find myself posting a bit more than I did over at WordPress. It might not be as full featured, but if you just want to start writing and cross posting to other services, Micro.blog gives you everything you need – well, at least what my needs have become.
Finished reading: America’s New Map by Thomas P.M. Barnett 📚
Finished reading: Beneath a Surface by Brad Sams 📚
Finished reading: Playing to the Edge by Michael V. Hayden 📚
Finished reading: Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams 📚
Finished reading: The Sirens' Call by Chris Hayes 📚
A Quick Conversation about Apple's AI & Siri Problem
In the technology sector, if you aren’t innovating, you’re falling behind. This is no different for Apple, who is not used to being behind on features. Generally, Apple waits until they’ve perfected a technology before introducing it to the public. Recently, this isn’t the case when we consider the cutbacks of the Apple Vision Pro, and this past week, AI features.
Famous Apple watcher, Mark Gurman, who is usually correct on Apple predictions published a scathing blog post about Apple falling behind with respect to LLMs and AI as a whole in his Daring Fireball post entitled, “Something is Rotten in the State of Cupertino”.
In his post, Gurman discusses how the promises that Apple announced has hurt the company’s credibility with customers. Siri has always been flawed without much innovation in the past few years, but with Google, OpenAI, and others surging ahead – Apple is left with what he calls Siri’s capabilities as “vaporware”.
In previous iOS updates, Apple had to deprecate and continually delay features because of bugs, AI hallucinations, and parlor tricks with non-differentiating features than that of say Gemini for Google or Claude for Anthropic. Voice assistants are as complex and innovative as ever, and now we’re witnessing the unfolding of what agentic browsers can accomplish.
In a recent blog post, venture capitalist, Om Malik, a legend in his own right, postulates that, “Apple has its own golden handcuffs. It’s a company weighted down by its own market capitalization and what stock market expects from it.”
This reminds me of the best-selling book by Clayton Christensen called, “The Innovator’s Dilemma”. The theory holds that current dominant companies fail to adapt to newer disruptive technologies (AI and LLMs in this case) and failing to pivot from their own strengths and ultimately fail. We see such a case with Intel, missing the mobile generation and ultimately at a crossroads of failure or being broken up and sold for pieces.
As we know, Apple has successfully broken the innovator’s dilemma before with deprecating its successful iPod for the iPhone, eventually releasing the iPad, and creating an ecosystem around which make the company increasingly successful with each pivot. It’s too soon to tell if Apple has reached its peak with major setbacks with Siri and Apple Intelligence, but it is alarming to shareholders and Apple stakeholders alike. It’s certainly a development to watch.
Finished reading: The Gutenberg Parenthesis by Jeff Jarvis 📚
Finished reading: From Cold War to Hot Peace by Michael McFaul 📚
Interview with Stephen Wolfram on AI and Machine Learning
I don’t normally share clips from podcasts I listen to, but in this case, it’s well worth it. On Intelligent Machines, Episode 808, the creator of Mathematica and founder of Wolfram Alpha, Stephen Wolfram, shares his views on how he sees AI progressing from here.
He brilliantly discusses how AI will augment humans, not completely replace them in the workforce (something I’ve been advocating for a while); including why AGI is not what we think of it today. Wolfram Alpha is approaching machine learning differently than most LLMs do at this point in time, and the emergence of an “AI Civilization” where it will operate indecently of human authority.
The interview is around 40-minutes, but is well worth your attention.
Finished reading: Hit Refresh by Satya Nadella 📚
Finished reading: The Genesis Machine by Amy Webb 📚
Finished reading: Autocracy, Inc. by Anne Applebaum 📚
The Strategic Shift: Why UPS is Rethinking its Amazon Partnership and What it Means for Last-Mile Delivery
We’re well in the middle of earnings season, but something stood out to me regarding a firm in particular. UPS revealed a significant shift in its strategy: a reduction in its delivery volume for Amazon by 50% by the end of next year. This move, while surprising to some, is a calculated step aimed at improving UPS’s profitability and streamlining its operations. Let’s delve into the reasons behind this decision and what it means for the future of last-mile delivery.
While Amazon is UPS’s largest customer, accounting for almost 12% of its revenue in 2024, the company believes that reducing its reliance on the e-commerce giant will ultimately benefit its bottom line. UPS is aiming to shift toward more profitable endeavors. This strategic pivot is crucial for enhancing UPS’s margins, which refers to the profit margin, the percentage of revenue a company keeps after subtracting its costs.
About the Change
UPS’s decision also comes amid a larger company-wide transformation The company is reconfiguring its U.S. network and launching multi-year “efficiency reimagined” initiatives to save approximately $1.0 billion through an end-to-end process redesign. This includes an initiative to insource 100% of its UPS SurePost product. These initiatives are designed to make UPS a more profitable, agile, and differentiated company.
It’s All About Last Mile
The term “last mile” refers to the final leg of a shipment’s journey from a transportation hub to the end-user’s final destination. It’s often the most complex, time-consuming, and expensive part of the shipping process. Last-mile logistics costs can be substantial – sometimes more than 50 percent of total shipping costs. Several factors contribute to these costs, including labor costs, route optimization, fleet costs, warehousing, proximity of the delivery points to the warehouse, itself, the locations, and the number of deliveries along a route.
UPS’s move to reduce Amazon deliveries is likely connected to a desire to optimize its last-mile operations and cut costs. By reducing its reliance on one large customer, UPS can gain more control over its delivery network and potentially improve its efficiency and profitability.
UPS’s Financial Performance
UPS’s fourth-quarter 2024 results show a consolidated revenue of $25.3 billion, a 1.5% increase compared to the same period last year. The company’s diluted earnings per share were $2.01, with non-GAAP adjusted diluted earnings per share at $2.75, an 11.3% increase from the previous year. These results indicate a strong financial position. UPS expects 2025 revenue to be approximately $89 billion, with an operating margin of about 10.8%.
The Future
UPS’s decision to reduce its Amazon delivery volume is a strategic move to focus on more profitable projects and enhance its operational efficiency. By optimizing its network and streamlining its last-mile deliveries, UPS is positioning itself for sustainable growth and increased profitability. This shift underscores the importance of managing last-mile logistics effectively in today’s competitive market, where efficiency and customer satisfaction are paramount.
UPS' Q4 earnings report and press release can be found here.
Finished reading: The Big Nine by Amy Webb 📚
A Quick Comment on the history of American Xenophobia -- From Japan to Russia to Latinos
I’ve been very concerned about the hatred and negative rhetoric I’ve seen towards the Russian people on social media. We must not demonize citizens of a country for actions of their government. They, too, are victims of the Putin regime.
Russians have been subject to disinformation and coercion, not of their own making. For decades, activists have been murdered, disappeared, imprisoned, and banished from their own society. To be an ally of Russia is to plan and support for a post-Putin society.
We, of course, don’t know what that will look like, but one thing is for certain – hating Russians for the sake of being Russian is not the solution. We can and we must support those who wish to live in a free, democratic society. To demonize Russians makes us no better than Putin himself. As the invasion of Ukraine increased in 2021, this negative sentiment only grew against Russian citizens.
Of course, xenophobia is nothing new in the West. Post 9/11, attacks against Muslims were on the rise and tolerance for Islam was on the decline. The US DOJ Civil Rights Division site has a collection of some incidents of note.
Dating back further was the act of interning Japanese Americans during World War II, for the fact that they “might be” involved with the Japanese Imperial Air Force’s attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which resulted in the interrogation and forced relocation of over 120,000 Japanese Americans to these ‘centers’. Many of these American citizens were second-generation Americans who had never set foot in their parents or grandparents' homeland of Japan, but fear of the Japanese resulted in the subjugation of their freedoms.
I would be remised if I did not include the most recent second and third order impacts of the American Latino population in the Age of Donald Trump. Forced relocation of those Americans of Latino decent who are perceived to be MS-13, a label often used by the American right, to blanket the ‘other’ who do not conform to the ‘standards’ of white, Anglo-Saxon, Christian citizens. Latinos are being uprooted from their lives and homes and forced relocated with force, as we’ve seen so many times before throughout United States history to El Salvador – a nation whose President is being compensated by the US government to hold these citizens without due-process.
History always repeats itself, albeit with different explanations. Thus, the American and the West’s historical context of internment, discrimination, and hate crimes have always been there, it seems to be a fever that we must but cannot break. Cultural integration has always been a crucial part of the United States, but our recent backward slide from democracy into authoritarianism is a backlash to the white populations becoming a minority.
Throughout all these incidents, America has always continued to somehow integrate and with any luck, our assimilation of cultures will continue should the citizens of the United States decide that this too - is an injustice to all that must be corrected.