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

  • 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.

  • Controlling the narrative.

    “The first casualty of war is the truth”

    It is commonly said that the first victim of war is the truth and something that the neoconservatives (or what remains of them now) have learned from the collapse of support for the Vietnam War and the second war in Iraq is that if you don’t control the narrative then you lose popular support which then undermines the ability to keep the war going over long term (along with any other overseas regime change wars). We’re already seeing the Trump cult podcasters either taking one of two positions, the first position is that they’re defending Trump by claiming that this has been an ongoing war since the Islamic revolution in Iran and it is a continuation of what has already existed with the second position being the claim that Trump is being ‘blackmailed into it’ by some nebulous force (either the ‘deep state’ or antisemitic conspiracy theories). The second excuse also relies on the nonsense that when bad things happen it is never the ‘great leader’ that is at fault those who are around him (while ignoring it was the ‘great leader’ who choose those individuals to fill those positions) – apparently he is a big brained genius but simultaneously is either easily manipulated or so utterly clueless that he couldn’t locate his own backside using his own two hands.

    Outside of the lunacy of the Trump cult you have the new owners of TikTok that are deprioritising not only the reporting of what is happening in Gaza but also videos being uploaded from Haifa and Tel Aviv regarding Iranian strikes within Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu is desperate to maintain control of the narrative of being a war time leader, that the iron dome is impenetrable and that any missiles that do get through are having minimal impact. The US news for example isn’t reporting on the Iranian strikes in Haifa and Tel Aviv so many Americans are having to rely on overseas news services such as DW English, France 24, Al Jazeera, Channel 4 from the UK, BBC World and other broadcasters to find out what is actually happening in the middle east.

    If there is a silver lining I like to believe what my grandma used to say that the universe eventually balances out in the end – that eventually there is a day of reckoning. Benjamin Netanyahu has his own legal challenges and when Trump steps down the legal troubles he was experiencing before becoming president don’t magically disappear not to mention potential legal issues that may come about in a future Democratic administration doing an investigation into the Trump administration.

  • Feeling a lot better.

    I’m feeling a lot better now after going for two walks totalling 23.2km – 11.6km in the afternoon then 11.6km in the evening. I think getting out in the fresh air and breathing in fresh air has helped my recovery and tomorrow then the next day I’ll be doing the same thing however when I go back to work on Wednesday I am tempted to get up at 10am so that I can go for an hour walk then come back, have a shower then head off to to the train station at 12:30 to be in the office by 1pm. I think the benefit of getting in some exercise before work is that it will get me in the right mood for the day and then when I come home from work I’ll go for my usual 11.6km followed by a shower then into bed.

    I’ve been using Chrome for the last week on my MacBook Pro, Mac Studio and Surface Laptop – I’m pretty damn happy with it so far and I’m going to keep using it for a long term evaluation of a much larger decision I am making. Oh, and the performance of Chrome running on ARM CPUs when it comes to Windows is really good – I’m always concerned when I see ARM support for software given that it tends to be an afterthought (aka ‘if it compiles, ship it’) in the world of Windows but I’ve been finding that the world of ARM software on Windows is improving which makes me wonder whether long Microsoft want to ship more ARM based Windows computers and x86 simply hangs around for legacy backwards compatibility.

    Chrome is very much a gateway into the Google ecosystem and I keep being drawn into the ecosystem because of the multiplatform nature of Google because I have a mixed environment. With iCloud the expectation is that you’re running an end to end Apple ecosystem and if there is support for Windows it is rather reluctantly rather than it being done out of passionate enthusiasm. When it comes to Google, yes they have their own platform but they really don’t care if you’re running iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, ChromeOS or anything else because at the end of the day as long as you’re using their service that is all that matters.

    One of the things I do like about the Google ecosystem is that the Google drive application or more specifically how a lot of the management of what is uploaded, downloaded, the caching of files from the cloud can be all managed from the app on whatever platform it is installed but with iCloud it is all hidden and no way to make such changes. I can understand for the sake of simplicity but it would be nice to clear the cache once it is uploaded, to be able to keep track of what has been uploaded through some sort of progress like how One Drive and Google Drive show on their app.

    Daily writing prompt
    What is your middle name? Does it carry any special meaning/significance?
    View all responses

    My middle name is Louis which is my father’s name, my brother’s middle name is Robert which is named after great grand parent and my sister has the middle name Louise which is the female form of Louis.

  • And it continues.

    I was watching a video from ‘Amanpour & Co’ on YouTube where David Frum was interviewed regarding the recent military operations being carried out by Israel and the United States:

    I have to prefix this that I am not a fan of the Iranian regime nor am I a supportive of the military operations taking place but David Frum did make an important point. If you are going to carry out such a military operation then you need some sort of plan, some sort of goal – what are you tryign to actually achieve and then creating a plan on the milestones you need to hit to get to that goal and then in turn the objectives that there needed to get to reach milestone. The problem with Donald Trump is that he half asses it and quickly loses interest

    With a military operation it is either an all or nothing, you’re either all in on it or you don’t do it at all because when you’re indecisive there is almost a guarantee that you’ll leave the situation in a worst situation than when you found it. Btw, let’s also stop with this nonsense that Trump was available the war in Iraq and Afghanistan (link) – the guy is a weather vane where he takes both sides of the issue depending on the audience and whether it benefits him. If you are going to do regime change then be straight with the American people about what the goal of the military operation is but then again I don’t even think Trump has the slightest clue because either he is utterly clueless or that the person or persons making the decision have kept Trump out of the to avoid him saying something stupid on his social media platform.

    What happens if the United States leave the country in a half finished state? a power vacuum with various factions vying for power, ethnic groups pushing to have parts of the country to break away, oppressed religious minorities and victims of state violence wishing to seek revenge against the remnants of the state etc. Long story short the outcome isn’t good no matter which way you look at it and something I think far too many fail to appreciate is the fact that many times in life it isn’t about choosing the ideal but rather choosing the least worst option from amongst a list of potentially bad options.

    It reminds me of online leftists who have this romanticised vision of a revolution – storming the winter balance, overthrowing the bourgeoisie, making promises that the system that’ll replace it will be better than the last…then reality sets in and you realise that society doesn’t run on promises and good vibes, that a lot of statecraft is a lot of boring drudgery. A good example of that is like what happened when the Taliban took power they quickly realised that there is a whole lot of boring bureaucratic work that needs to be happening behind the scenes to keep a government functioning and meeting the needs of its citizens.

  • A day of recovery.

    Today I spent the day at home recovering – I really wanted to avoid having time off from work but at the end of the day there is little to no benefit working if as a result you’re not as productive along with prolonging the recovery. I installed Chrome on my MacBook Pro to see how much different it is when compared to Safari and I noticed some improvements in terms of responsiveness such resolving host names, rendering websites and the browser remaining responsive when dealing with complex webapps that make extensive use of JavaScript.

    I’m going to give Chrome a try and see how well it performs although I am looking forward to seeing Safari 26.4 and whether some of the issues I’ve raised in the past are addressed. Anyway I’m heading off to sleep and hopefully I’ll be feeling a bit better in the morning.

  • Day off work sick.

    Still got a sore throat and I’ve lost my sense of smell and taste – I think I may have COVID but I’ll need to get a testing kit to see whether that is the case. I originally thought that maybe it was due to a cold or seasons changing but apparently it is quite common at the moment and there have been reports of an uptick in COVID going through the community because of the regular waste water testing that is taking place. I’ve been vaccinated and don’t have any underlying health issues so I’m all good when it comes to not getting too sick but it is a bit annoying that here we are – I guess it is one of those things you have to learn to live with.

    Once again I’m following the Iran-United States/Israel war and once again we have the usual suspects in the ‘conservative moment’ (influencers, online activists or what ever terminology you’re interested in using) who are trying to save face by claiming that “this isn’t what I voted for!”. Yes, this is exactly what you voted for just as those who are complaining about Republicans slashing the social safety net and defunding the department of education – Republicans are doing what they’ve talking about doing for decades. The Republican Party have had a 90+ year old plan of dismantling the welfare state ever since FDR started building it (and subsequent Democrats building upon that foundation) – they’ve never made it a secret, you just chose to ignore the evidence.

    Getting back to the issue of the Republican Party, this whole idea of ‘neoconservatives hijacked the party’ is to ignore history or more correctly to invent a history of the Republican Party that can sooth people’s egos but not based on reality. The reality is that this whole nonsensical phrase of ‘peace through strength’ is like saying ‘fucking for virginity’ – it is completely illogical. If you’re claiming ‘peace through strength’ what you’re actually saying is that your whole policy is a giant bluff – an empty threat, a ‘wait until your father gets home’ because ultimately if you are going to use force rather than a bluff then you’re simply a neoconservative but with more flowery language.

    Oh, and not to be left out – the antisemitic conspiracy theorists are coming out in full force in defence of Donald Trump by crafting conspiracy theories in defence of Trump by claiming there is something occuring behind the scenes involving Israel and the ‘Deep State’ (a term that Trump keeps invoking as an excuse to his followers why everything is going pear shaped). I tend to subscribe to Occam’s razor which can be simplified to ‘the simplest answer is usually the correct one” and at the end of the day Trump doesn’t believe in anything other than what benefits Trump and the Republican establishment saw him as an empty vessel that is unwed to an particular ideology. There was no mind trick done on Trump to convince him to take the action he did, Trump saw it in his own self interest and he did it and then all his cadre of sycophantic influencers did a complete 180 on their ‘deeply held conviction’ and realigned with Trump’s new position while rewriting the past by claiming that Trump had always held the position he is now advocating for.

  • A good day today.

    I had a fairly uneventful day today – some busy periods but mostly rather uneventful over all. When I woke up this morning I checked for updates and Apple had released an update for iOS, iPadOS and macOS in the for of 26.3.1 – the updates were pretty big (I have Apple Intelligence enabled on all of them) so I am unsure whether it includes updates for those models but I have noted that many files have been updated including Safari being updated to 26.3.1. There aren’t any security fixes mentioned on the security page but it could be possible that security holes have ben found and fixed by Apple but generally software vendors wait for a sizeable number of people have updated to the newest version before disclosing any security holes that have been fixed.

    I have noticed some slight improvement in the performance of macOS a Safari – just small changes that have improved the smoothness and responsiveness. It makes me wonder whether the reason why the download was so big was because there have been micro optimisations that have been made and I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up seeing the new computers that were announced will ship with 26.3.1 – I don’t see it coming with 26.4 because it is only on beta 3 and there are still some known issues so we may see a beta 4 then a release candidate but this is all dependent on how things progress.

    For dinner tonight I had some fish and oven fries although I personally prefer to have more fish that oven fries because the protein in fish makes me feel fuller for longer when compared to the amount of calories that come with the potatoes. I had that with this new Culley’s Creamy Sriracha & Lemon Mayo which went really go with the fish – I tend to prefer a hot and spicy sauce with my fish rather than something like aioli or tartar sauce.

  • Today was a good day.

    I worked from home today because I was feeling under the weather to go into the office so I’ll be working for the rest of the week at home but I’ll be all recovered to go into the office next week. After finishing work tonight I went for a walk – had to wear a jersey for the first time tonight as the weather is starting to get a bit chilly as we move into autumn. It was a good walk and I came back home, made my bed after letting it air all day, had a shower and now I’m in bed relaxing.

    I logged into my work computer expecting Chrome 146 to be released but instead Chrome 145.0.7632.159 was released for Windows. According to Google it appears that Chrome 146 will be released on 24 March. It is kind of strange there is such a delay given that according to the platform status page for Chrome (link) the 147 release of Chrome includes a lot more changes but then again there could be a host of changes under the hood for 146 that aren’t mentioned in the platform status page for Chrome.

  • At the half way point.

    Work is going well and I noticed that macOS 26.4 beta 3 has been made available (link) which makes me wonder whether the delay could have been due to product model information being in the build – Apple always wanting to ‘make a splash’ when they launch products. It’ll be interesting to see how quickly we’ll get to see the 26.4 release and what will be in store for 26.5 – many rumours being around the refinement to Liquid Glass and any bigger changes being pushed off for version 27 with the one in charge of the user interface team being a veteran of Apple going back decades so hopefully that is a sign that we’ll see some sanity return in the form of usability over making the interface pretty.

    On my 1/2 hour break I finally got some washing done and put it out on the clothesline to take advantage of the wonderful sunny day at the moment. It looks like for the rest of the week it’ll be fine and sunny however on Sunday it appears that there will be some rain later on night. I’ve paid all my bills for the week and I’m all good for groceries at least for the next few weeks as I work through what I have in my freezer – work through what I have and then maybe in around 6 weeks I’ll head down to the supermarket for a big stocking up.

    I was watching a few videos talking about Microsoft ramming AI into everything and over on YCombinator Hacker News forum there was a post by someone talking about how he had a chat with a Microsoft manager who said their main focus is B2B and dealing with enterprise customers. Sounds nice in theory but here is the problem, even their business customers aren’t interested in their AI slop so who are they ultimately trying to please other than attempting to justify to their shareholders that the billions burnt on the pile of AI hype.

    For those wanting the numbers, 3.3% of Microsoft’s commercial users pay for Copilot Premium – and what is Microsoft’s answer to this? oh, we need more slop, more AI because maybe if we overwhelm the customer base with AI slop that they’ll see the wisdom of centering their whole business on a technology that has a failure rate that is worse than if you employed a contractor to do the exact same job – as a recent study showed.

    Corporations are desperate to improve productivity so they can pad their bottom line and rather than investing in actual proven technology they throw money into technology that is proven to be a colossal failure. I worked in a bank that was using Windows XP right up until 2016, the core banking system was so ancient that you had to put manual requests for statements to be generated for customers to then get those manually created by someone in another department rather than it being an automated service done by the system itself like other banks do. I don’t know about you but the money would be better spent migrating to a modern core banking system than throwing money at AI.

    This is what happens when you have c-suite executives running companies who are entirely clueless about the business they’re meant to be managing. These are the same executives who spend millions on getting outside consultancy firms to come in, consultants who have no idea what they’re talking about because they’ve never worked in that industry in their life but people have bestowed upon them the mantle of authority because they went to one of the overpriced ivy league universities. What is the end result? businesses who get sucked into the next BS hype train because their executive echo chamber have convinced themselves that they’re on the right track.

  • Back to work tomorrow.

    I had a good night sleep but I’m still feeling sick with a sore throat and coughing but not sick enough to take time off from work so I’ve given my boss a heads up that I’ll be working from home all this week. I’ve been making sure this week that I’ve been having a good balance of fruit, vegetables and lean meat – hopefully I’ll be feeling better soon but in the meantime I’ll take it easy.

    uBlock Origin Lite 2026.301.2014 is now in the App Store for both iOS and macOS as well as in the Chrome Web Store and Microsoft Edge Store. I’ve got it updated on all my devices as well as the Chrome that is installed on my Surface Laptop and next week there will be patch Tuesday which will include security updates as well as the enhancements found in the preview release which was released last week. Chrome 146 will be getting released tomorrow so that’ll also be interesting to see what improvements have been made as well.

    Apple has released the third beta of 26.4 for iOS, iPadOS but macOS has been left out but then again a last minute show stopper bug could have been found so maybe that is the reason for it being held back. There appears to be quite a few interface related bug fixes relating to Liquid Glass and there are quite a bit list of changes for Safari as well, I’m also tempted to give Chrome 146 a try and see how well it performs.

    Although Safari has made some significant improvements there are still bugs that keep appearing – videos that randomly pause where as with Chrome they stream smoothly, on YouTube the video will play the first 5-10 seconds then suddenly start the video again for no apparent reason plus other weird behaviour. I’m unsure whether it is a bug with Safari or whether it bug with the website where they only test with Chrome and if it works with any other browser then it is by accident rather than by design.

    I’m up to episode 4 of Paradise with episode 5 will be released at the end of this week but I’m gradually catching up. I’m also working through Fallout so it’ll be interesting to see how the story evolves going forward. There are a few television shows that’ll be coming out later on this year such as Silo, Foundation and others so I’ll be keeping an eye on when they are launched.

    Oh, and today I got out of the house to head down to the local cafe for a coffee and a muffin, I then had a look around at JB Hi-Fi and they have the Samsung S26 Ultra in stock running One UI 8.5. The interface has a few elements inspired by Liquid Glass such as floating toolbar at the bottom and a bubble that highlights the element you have selected. It is running version 6.12 of the kernel which is the long term support branch. It is similar to One UI 8.0 but it has further refinements which make sense given that smartphones are mature tech at this stage so any improvements aren’t going to be massive leaps forward but rather incremental improvements and refining what already works. Rumours are circulating that One UI 9 will be based on Android 17 but no details have been released nor any leaked screenshots but given how close Google and Samsung work I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a beta not too long after Android 17 public beta is shown off this year by Google.