Matisyahu's Blog

I woke up this morning, more rain outside but I had a coffee to wake me up along with some free weights while watching some news on television. I’m following along with the the election but the one thing I can help but get the feeling that the media are like kids you knew at school that would spread rumours, stir up trouble then sit back and watch the drama unfold thanks to their handy work. I’m not saying that the media shouldn’t hold politicians accountable but equally I think it is important that voters see a fair representation of parties and their positions so then the voters can make an informed decision.

The cost of petrol and diesel is going crazy at the moment with unleaded 95 getting up to NZ$4.14 per litre which translates to US$8.88 per US gallon. It is always funny when I hear people talk about how the market is rational and yet can be easily swayed by promises being made by people you wouldn’t trust even if they said the sky was blue. I think things are going to get a whole lot worse before they get better and even if Democrats get into power then I don’t expect much to change because they don’t have the ability to impeach and remove the US president. I expect some performative politics but don’t expect any substance until 2028 but even then I fear that we’ll see a repeat of Obama’s presidency of “we need to looking forward, not backwards” resulting in the Republicans once again getting away with what they did while in power.

Interesting things are happening around the AI bubble – interest rates are going up, questions are finally being raised about whether there is a viable business model and a pathway to profitability (it would have been nice if that done before piling in hundreds of billions into data centres based on ‘vibes’). As others have pointed out, things are going to get nasty because those involved aren’t just a bunch of rich trouser stains speculating with their parents money but we’ve now got insurance companies involved, pension funds etc. meaning the exposure has moved to mainstreet. As one analysts said, the best time for the bubble to pop was yesterday, the next best time would be today because the longer it goes on for the worse the collateral damage is going to be. Unfortunately the cheerleaders of today are going to be the ones tomorrow claiming that “no one saw this coming” except for numerous people writing articles and providing analysis that it was a house of cards.

It was raining this morning so I just pottered around at home and did some free weights instead – if I cannot get a walk in then I like to have a backup plan so that I can still burn a few calories and build up some lean muscle (they’re only 5 kg barbells afterall). I watched some news on the television then got changed into my work clothes – I could stay in my pajamas but I like to keep in a routine in much the same way that when I work from home my work computer is in a separate room so it feels like I’m going into the office. I’ve been focusing on drinking more tea these days given that I’ve got a pretty healthy contain of tea in my kitchen although I prefer to take mine without milk.

Everytime I think “maybe I should start making videos” i am reminded that of the question I ask myself regarding whether my contribution would contribute anything useful to the discourse. I bring this up because with the launch of Googlebook there has been every tech dude bro reviewer out there convinced that firstly their opinions are objective facts and secondly that they’re adding something interesting to the discourse when in reality they’re whinging about the same thing everyone is whining about. This is the problem with content creators – when YouTube started off people had full time jobs, they made videos in their part time and any money made was the icing on the cake because it was a video regarding a hobby or an interest in something.

The consequence of content creation being a hobby rather than a full time job? there wasn’t the constant need to pump out low quality videos riding the algorithm wave – when something was uploaded it was because the creator was genuinely interested in what the video is about rather than “oh bugger, I need to put out a video or otherwise I’ll lose viewers…what’s the big thing this week? oh god but I guess I have no choice to put out a half baked opinion piece about it”. You see it in so many videos where the person uploading the video really doesn’t want to talk about it but they feel they have no choice but to cover it.

On a side note, it is perfectly ok not to have an opinion on something, it is perfectly fine to say “I’m not informed enough about that subject so I’m not going to voice an opinion on it”. There are plenty of subjects I don’t wade into because either I’m not interested in it or I don’t have the expertise or knowledge to make a good opinion without coming off as ignorant. I really do wish that the YouTube algorithm did a better job amplifying new creators and those who are making great content rather than going with whatever happens to be the popular topic at that moment to speak on.

Microsoft has released its patch Tuesday today and it includes a huge amount of security fixes (link) with the amount totalling 1414 accross the whole product range and 1102 on just Windows alone (link). I think we’re going to be in store for many more months of AI assisted security auditing helping developers pick up these bugs and fix them before they’re exploited. Many of these bugs have probably existed in the code base for many years and as these bugs are fixed the models are trained with the fresh new data which then enables even more security vulnerabilities to be found.

I woke up this morning at 8:30 am and it was raining heavily outside so I decided to have a doze in bed while listening to the rain on the roof. I eventually got up and out of bed, opened the curtains to let what little sun flood into the room and then I jumped back into bed to see what Apple had announced with their recent presentation. I have to to say I was underwhelmed – keeping in mind that my expectations were already pretty low so it must have required some effort to be below my already low expectations. I was expecting big HomePod to be updated but only the mini was (maybe they’ll announce a refresh of it on 27 October?).

Then there was the HomeView ‘smart home hub’ – it’ll be interesting to see how much demand there is for it when compared to just having a HomePod mini for voice commands and an iPhone or iPad to control devices around the home. I have to admit that part of me is asking “what solution is this trying to solve” but I guess if I’m asking that question then it is a subtle hint that maybe this isn’t a product designed for someone like me. The Apple TV got a much needed update with support for AV1 playback support along with many other benefits that come from moving to the A19 SoC (such as Siri AI support) but with that being said the price has gone up to an eye watering NZ$599 vs NZ$319 when I originally bought my Apple TV device not too long ago.

I checked for the weekly update and Google has released an update for Chrome (link) which has bumped the version from 155.0.8059.40 to 155.0.8059.80 and once again quite a few security holes have been fixed in the release. Chrome 156 is scheduled to be released on 21 October which has quite a few under the hood changes. When it comes to version 27.2 of Apple’s platform, beta 4 has been released recently released and based on previous updates we may see a release candidate with the next build release. Personally I think what Apple needs to do is make their operating system update release modular – more specifically have Safari on a quicker release schedule so that it is decoupled from operating system updates in much the same way Chrome is updated seperately from Android builds via the Play Store.

I’m off to work tomorow but I’m working from home so I’ll be looking forward to getting a good night sleep so I’m all ready for a walk tomorrow. I’ve got the new sunscreen I bought from the supermarket but I couldn’t be bothered getting the name brand stuff so I just got the Woolworths branded which is SPF50+ which is good enough for when I go walking. I was hoping that getting out of the house by 9:30 am would result in me being out before the sun is it at its most intense but the one thing to keep in mind about New Zealand is even on overcast days the UV is pretty intense.

Apple is now pushing a marketing bitz to get people interested in switching from Chrome to Safari (link) – with all due respects, Safari is already included with your platforms by default so if people are going out of their way to down a competing browser then maybe you should so something about why people feel the need to do that. For example, Apple needs to have a proper native implementation of the declarative net request in the browser rather than it sitting on top of the content blocking API (the lack of a native implementation means having to wait for filters to be converted from the DNR format to the content blocking format vs being able to use the filters without the conversion process).

That doesn’t touch on the numerous implementation bugs that they haven’t addressed. For example bug case 295043 – over a year and nothing has been approved for merging, 10 months ago I requested the status of the bug but I was completely ignored by Apple engineers. Then there is the issue of website compatibility such as YouShop (NZ Post) doesn’t render properly – I’ve reported it and over a year later nothing has been done. WordPress for the daily writing prompt doesn’t work when you click on post and for that daily prompt to appear in a new post but it works on Chrome. Teams routinely throws login errors when on Safari (added to my uBlock Origin Lite allowed websites) but the problems don’t exist on Chrome (I also use uBlock Origin Lite on Chrome as well). On Google Chat when you send a message it automatically scrolls up to the last message the receiving party views and on Chrome when you receive a message there is a red dot in the tab showing a message has been sent to you but on Safari the only option is to have an annoying notification to come through.

All of these issues I’ve reported and all of these issues have been ignored by Apple engineers – at some point you stop wasting time and just shift browsers. This is the same issue that Microsoft faced many years ago when they had EdgeHTML and websites deliberately breaking on it but would suddenly work if you spoofed the useragent to Chrome which made it clear EdgeHTML could render the website but the website was the one at fault. After years of playing cat and mouse Microsoft eventually threw in the towel and decided to create a Chromium based Microsoft Edge which has resulted in a reliable experience for end users ever since. Microsoft are now adding support for Google accounts so that it will be possible to sync to your Google account – if you like using Edge but have a Google account then it is all good. Something tells me that Apple aren’t going to be that pragmatic no matter how far behind Safari gets with the only remaining users being hardcore Apple fanboys and those who don’t know how to download a different browser.

I woke up this morning at 8:30 am and it a rainy day so I decided to take the day off and start the day off for breakfast with the curried egg salad mum gave to me last night. It definitely brings back memories when mum would make it. I jumped onto my work computer and checked to see whether I had received some messages – boss got back to me regarding something that had popped up which didn’t make sense and needed investigating along with another colleague who wanted to follow up regarding some customer feedback. Generally I like to wait till I get back to work but sometimes when it is already fresh in your mind then it is best to get it out of the way.

I’m back to using Chrome on my computer after experimenting with Safari but I’ll get it a second chance to see whether there are sizeable improvements in 27.2 or maybe a later build. Tomorrow will be when Apple is having an presentation with the title “Welcome Home” which will be interesting to see what ends up being launched – rumour has it that it’ll include a refresh homePod, homePod mini, an Apple TV along with maybe some new hardware as well. I don’t expect any new software to be released other than maybe 27.1 but that could be reserved just for the new hardware support and maybe some security fixes although beta 3 of 27.2 has been released recently so that is pretty closed to maybe a release candidate coming out soon.

uBlock Origin Lite 2026.1012.1545 has been released and is in the Chrome webstore before it is in the Apple app store which is a change from what it was like a few months ago when it was the other way around. UniFi Network Application 11.0.83 has now appeared on the release candidate channel and there appears to be many under the hood changes introduced such as migrating the application database to PostgreSQL which will take around 20 minutes to full migrate – before the adoption of PostgreSQL they were using MongoDB. It’ll be interesting to see how well it performs in the real world along with the UniFi OS 6.0.12 upgrade which is currently being tested as well.

I’ve been watching a few videos regarding the iPhone 18 Pro Max launch and it compares to the current one that I have (iPhone 17 Pro Max) along with what the competition has to offer (the competition primarily being the Samsung S26 Ultra) . The one thing that that is left off is how it integrates into a larger ecosystem – are there people who may just have a phone? sure however there are plenty of people who have a laptop, maybe a desktop, possible home appliances like security cameras along with bluetooth trackers – how well does it all integrate together using the Google, Samsung or Apple ecosystems? how smooth is the integration between a Samsung phone and having a Mac laptop? to talk about a phone without talking about the ecosystem is like buying a car without considering how easily it can be serviced, what is the availability of spareparts like?

I woke up today and decided to have a relaxing day off from work – I didn’t want to go for a walk because I’ve gotten sun burnt a few times and unfortunately I didn’t have any sunscreen which is something that need to get sorted out. I walked down to my local bakery and had eggs bene with a side of mushrooms and a bowl of mochaccino on the side. I took my time as I read some news on my phone – I like to catch up on the news in the morning from the usual sources such as Radio NZ, Reuters, Bloomberg, Business Desk and NBR. It is always important to get news from a variety of sources because sometimes there are parts of a story that maybe glossed over by one website but in another website they go into further detail because the writer believes the audience maybe interested in exploring into detail a particular issue.

After brunch I then jumped onto the next bus into town where I went for a walk around at the stores, I stopped in at Noel Leeming to see what the S26 Ultra is like and I was in luck because One UI 9 was ready to be installed so I rebooted the phone so I could get to see what it was like. There wasn’t any visual changes when compared to One UI 8.5 but I did notice it was more snappy and responsive. As I’ve noted in the past, we’re at peak smartphone so it is a matter of the vendors are focused on refinement and making use of AI to improve the experience but I don’t see anything radical nor do I expect anything radical given that smartphones are a mature product. The kernel of One UI 9.0 is on the 6.12 LTS however it is rock solid and the performance is great – it’ll be interesting to see how things develop going forward.

After having a look around I picked up a few items from New World then caught the bus up to mum’s place where I updated her computers and enjoyed fish pie for dinner. We had a chat and caught up with what had been happening during the week – my sister got another dog, mum has been seeing how my brothers who kids are growing up quickly with the oldest getting ready to head off to school. Mum also prepared some curried egg salad – something I used to be able to buy at the store but only just recently they’ve stopped selling it at the local Pak ‘n Save so I’m unsure what the story is – maybe the manufacturer discontinued the line? oh well, I guess I’ll wait and see whether it suddenly appears.

One thing I do have to complain about is the sad state of affairs when it comes to iOS 27.0.1 and the buggy experience I’ve had with Reddit and other apps running on my iPhone 17 Pro Max. With the Reddit app I would find that the user interface elements would suddenly go a dark grey as if it were in dark mode then I would find that the whole app would suddenly freeze which would require me to do a forced quit. I have also noticed that they keyboard and screen has gotten worse – 26.x series wasn’t the best but I had high hopes that 27.x would fix the issues – for example, normally you can tap on the cursor then drag the cursor to where you want it in the text but nothing happens, I would then double tap on a word which normally should auto select the whole word but nothing happens. Then there is the keyboard itself – the lag and inaccuracy which makes the experience worse than when I was using a Samsung Ultra S26. The strange thing is that in the case of macOS things are pretty robust so I guess we’re going to have to wait and find out what 27.2 fixes up and the future improvements planned for the future.