Matisyahu's Blog

"When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called 'the People's Stick'"

recent posts

  • Returning to work.

    Getting ready to go back to working, did some washing however I couldn’t go for a walk today because I have sore feed – there is a crack at at the back of my heel and it hurts when walking on it, the skin is dry and cracking so I wonder if that has something to do with it. I’ve applied some skin moisturiser and one of those band-aid ‘second skin’ to it but I’m unsure whether it just needs some rest over night so that I can go for a walk tomorrow before work – I’ll try to at least get a small one in so then I’ve got some fresh air before work.

    uBlock Origin Lite 2026.315.1814 is now available in the iOS/macOS App Store and the Chrome Extension store and I haven’t noticed any regressions and there have been some improvements with a few websites that resulted in some of the content getting through. It is kind of annoying that any sort of update to the filtering needs to be bundled with the extension rather than being updated remotely but maybe we’ll get lucky and WebNN will enable the use of LLMs created to help improve the content blocking experience. I remember there was discussion about extensions making use of LLMs for content blocking but I didn’t see much come of it so maybe the discussion of WebNN will make some of the ideas floating around will become reality.

    I was watching the the latest episode of ‘Bradbury Group’ and although the number of construction businesses going to liquidation has increased what wasn’t discussed (and I thought it was bought up by a NZ Herald business journalist) that many businesses were on borrowed time when it came to the loans provided during COVID with both Labour and National kicking the can down the road to eventually the loans had to be called in. The reality is that many of these businesses would have gone under if it were for the IRD giving out 2nd and 3rd chances but in reality some of these businesses just simply weren’t viable.

    With that being said, when the National-ACT-NZ First government got into power one of the first things they did was to reset the infrastructure pipeline meaning that for many of these businesses who looked to that pipeline as a way for their business to be saved ended up going under. With all that being said, it goes back to what I suggested which was to nationalise all these struggling construction companies, put them under the umbrella of a newly formed ‘Ministry of Works’ and then use that army of skill trades people to engage in nation building sized projects with housing being at the centre of it – decommodifying housing by turning ‘Housing New Zealand’ into the primary provider of rental accomodation and rallying the skilled trade people of New Zealand to build a robust supply of houses close to where the jobs are.

    There ist much discussion regarding petrol and diesel supplies – once again just like back in the 1970s when National cancelled the investments into electrifying the rail network and failing to support Mayor Robbie’s mass transit system for Auckland, they’ve cancelled renewable energy investments, rebates for solar energy and batteries for homes and removing the assistance to make EVs more affordable. What is the old saying – history doesn’t repeat but it rhymes, and National have demonstrated they haven’t learnt a single bloody thing and unfortunately the situation is made worse when the collective memory of New Zealand is that of a goldfish (which isn’t unique given that after 8 years of George W Bush causing in two quagmires and an economic collapse resulting in Barrack Obama being elected then 2 years later the Republicans being given a majority in both houses not to mention flipping a whole heap of state houses in the process which laid the foundation for a decade of gerrymandering that cemented a permanent majority for the Republican Party).

  • A productive day.

    Woke up at 11am, got dressed and then headed down to the blood testing lab for a blood and urine test – just the usual testing to make sure everything is on track and that there aren’t any sort of issues regarding my blood sugar. I think I’ll be all good but my main focus will be what the stats will be like in another three months after doing the new routine of getting up, going for a walk in the morning and then having a walk at the end of the day after I come home from work.

    While I was down the road I picked up a couple Mexican salad mixes, one for Monday and the other one for Tuesday, along with a few other bits and pieces and then on the home I stopped off at the bakery I picked up a filled roll for lunch. Once home I had lunch, watched some YouTube videos and tidied up the house then around 5pm I put on dinner, a butterflied roast chicken, and I had that with the salad mix.

    I watched a few more bits of news – trying to keep up with what is happening with the world but at the same time avoiding getting too overwhelmed with the world going to hell in a handbasket. After catching up on the news I went for a 13.8km walk – the weather was nice, a slight bit of coolness in the air but it was comfortable enough to be able to walk wearing tracksuit pants and a t-shirt. After I got home, I had a shower then jumped into bed.

    uBlock Origin Lite 2026.315.1814 has been released but at the moment it is only available on the Microsoft Edge store with the other stores pending approval. I can’t work out how Microsoft approves it quicker than Google and Apple – I guess that it’ll be just one of life’s mysteries lol.

  • Getting ready for Monday.

    After work tonight I went for a 13.8km walk with a total of 21.8km walked today – feeling good and no sore feet which is a small achievement. I got a message from my doctor about having a blood test and I’ve been putting it off but the continued pestering I thought I may as well do that on Monday – I don’t see the numbers changing much from the last time so I’ll get it out of the way and then afterwards I’ll pick up a few things from the supermarket, maybe check out the stores and then head home.

    I’ve got the chicken out of the freezer and I’ll pair that up with some salad and for Tuesday I’ve kind of been putting it off because I’m lazy but I’ll be making nachos but that’ll require me to purchase some corn chips, sour cream and a few other ingredients such as capsicum, mushrooms etc. I have some chilli flakes that’ll add some extra heat and the steak seasoning smells almost exactly like the Old El Paso taco seasoning but if I don’t have that then cajun seasoning does a pretty good job.

    Good news on the CD I ordered online, it arrived in Auckland and is in transit so hopefully that’ll mean it will arrive in Wellington and then out for delivery on either Monday or Tuesday. There are a few more CDs I’ve got an eye on over on discogs but I’m going to do some price comparisons before making the jump into buying them.

  • Almost there.

    Today has been good, work hasn’t been too busy and very little drama and hopefully that’ll carry over to the rest of the shift – fingers crossed. I checked for updates for Chrome only to find that there has been an update pushed out to address a pretty serious security issue (link) so if you haven’t updated I would suggest you check to make sure you’re running the latest version of Chrome. I’m looking forward to the end of the shift – I’ll go for a walk, unwind and look forward to the weekend.

  • One more day to go.

    Today I got up at 11am and decided that rather than go for my usual 5.8km walk that I would go for an 8km walk before work.- it felt good pushig myself to go a little further and I love the feeling of the warm sun before midday along with the cool breeze. I was surprised at the number of cars out this morning given that there is so much talk about oil prices going up, energy security and the limited amount of supply on hand. I think for many New Zealanders they are going to have a unwelcome surprise when the price of petrol goes higher and they’re having to consciously think about planning out there day so that they do everything in one trip rather than doing multiple trips.

    After work tonight I went for a walk and this time I pushed myself a little further by having a 13.8km walk (8km loop followed by a 5.8km loop) – I have arrived home, had a quick shower and now watching some YouTube videos before I head off to sleep. When I go to sleep I try to aim for at least 8 hours of sleep – I can survive on less but I feel horrible the next day so I would sooner get a good night rest and recovery. I did have a day off on Friday due to rain in the morning and I thought I’d get lucky at night but by the time the weather did clear it was already too late.

    Daily writing prompt
    You’re going on a cross-country trip. Airplane, train, bus, car, or bike?
    View all responses

    I would go on a train – having my own private cabin. I have always wonder what the The Trans-Siberian Railway would be like, travelling for days, just alone in ones cabin, writing on ones laptop about the experience, travelling over multiple time zones. I’ve always liked the idea of travelling long distances on a train – when confronted with either a 6 hour flight or a 24 hour train ride in my own cabin I would sooner take the train rather than being crammed in a seat for 6 hours.

  • Looking forward to Saturday.

    I was hoping to get some exercise in on Friday but it has been raining all day but if everything goes according to plan I’ll get getting up at 11am on Saturday and go for a walk – I might even go for an 8km walk since I’ll have some extra time up my sleeve. For dinner tonight I had some pumpkin soup and some fresh ciabatta that I ordered from Woolworths along with a few other necessities for the weekend.

    At the moment I’m still giving Chrome ago as well as Google services on iOS to see how well they perform. I don’t see myself going to Android because it would mean giving up the integration iOS has with the Apple ecosystem however Workspace does have the benefit of Chrome integration, cloud services appear to be better when it comes to Google Drive etc. but I’ll keep plodding along until I I can make a decision.

    I’m having a look over at Ubiquiti release candidates and I was hoping that the 5.0.16 firmware for the UniFi Gateway would be released but unfortunately it hasn’t. I guess what I’ll need to do is see what happens but then again when you have a large product portfolio you have to triage what are the most important things that need addressing.

  • Start of a new day.

    Woke up this morning before the alarm and I had a look outside thinking “ooh, the weather is looking good for a walk today” and now it has suddenly started to rain. I have to remember next time not to excited about the possibility of good weather because all to often it starts to rain. I had a look on the Metservice website and it appears that it’ll be raining all today as well as into the night so I guess I can do some free weights, squats and other exercises inside.

    I checked for updates this morning and Google had released an update for Chrome which updated it from 146.0.7680.72 to 146.0.7680.76 to address security (link) however Edge hasn’t been updated. Microsoft tends to update Edge on a Friday (Saturday NZ Time) although since it is a jump from 145 to 146 it may not be until next week but given there are security fixes included with 146 I would say the most likely time would be sooner rather than later.

    Safari Technology Preview 239 has been released (link) – light on new features with a heavy focus on fixing up bugs. There was also beta 4 of 26.4 that was released a few days ago so it’ll be interesting to see whether a release candidate appears sometime next week and then the week after the stable version is released. It’ll be interesting to see whether some of the bug fixes snoted in Safari Technology Preview 239 will make their way into 26.4.

  • Back home from work.

    Back home from work and I decided that tonight I’ll have a night off because I had some exercise this morning and kept to my meal plan for today. The train ride back from work was good – I’m not too sure whether it is just me but I’ve noticed that the speed of the train appears to be a lot better in particularly when it comes to the stopping and acceleration between stations. These sorts of upgrades are long term projects that require sustained investments over the term so if there is one saving grace it has been the fact that both National and Labour have continued investing in rail even though I think National should be investing a lot more particularly when it comes to getting freight trucks off the road in favour of rail.

    I’ve been watching the news about the potential impact of oil shortages and although it is fashionable to beat up on the government of the day there is very little that can be done other than tweaking with the exercise taxes etc. What ideally needs to be done when it comes to insulating New Zealand from these oil shocks is to invest into public transport and alternative modes of transport such as investing into cycle paths particularly in parts of New Zealand where the population density isn’t sufficient enough to justify investing into a bus service but alternative forms of transportation could be build.

  • Back from work, out for a walk.

    Arrived home after work, going to head out for a walk because goodness knows I need a way to unwind after dealing some interesting customers today. I updated Chrome today on all my computers along with installing the patch Tuesday update for Windows 11 – no regressions yet but then again I tend to have a pretty simply setup without any major under the hood tweaking so I guess I escape many of the problems some people report when updating.

    The walk before work this morning was refreshing – I was expecting it to be more difficult because it is the first time in a long time since I’ve done exercise after getting up but it was a good start to the day. When I did eventually get into work I was in a good mood, was able to focus on the day and being able to hit the queues and answer calls wasn’t as painful as it normally is when going straight form getting up to getting into work with very little ‘me time’ at the beginning of the day.

    Either tonight or tomorrow I’ll be writing a longish blog regarding the whole phenomenon of the ‘rock star CEO’ and where it originated from. What sparked it off was a video I saw on YouTube which relates to the McDonalds CEO video of him tasting a McDonalds product.

  • Back to work on Wednesday.

    Back to work on Wednesday however it appears that the night train will be getting replaced with a bus but I guess it is the price one pays for having an improved rail network. I’ve set my alarm for 10am so I can get up out of bed, jump into my exercise gear and have a quick 1 hour walk before having a shower, some fresh clothes then off to catch the train into the office. Tonight I had 11.6km walk and during the day I had a 11.6km thus making the total distance walked today being 23.2km. I think getting back into some exercise, in particular a walk before work, will put me in a good state of mind before getting into work and having to deal with customers.

    It looks like parcel that is arriving from the United States on around 20 March and while I’m waiting for that to arrive there are a few more CDs I’ve got my eye on over on Discogs. It’ll be interesting to see whether there are delays when shipping things to New Zealand or whether we’ll see fuel surcharges like there was many years ago when the price of fuel spiked and courier companies had to pass along the increased costs.