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

  • Another week is over.

    Another week is over and I’m feeling good going into a new week. Mum has asked me to help out cleaning out the rental property after the tenant left a complete mess but I guess that’ll keep me out of trouble for the day. The one thing I am going to make sure of is that when I am doing yard work that I’ll wear sunscreen because I made a huge mistake last time I did some work outside by not wearing it. Something to remember about the sun in New Zealand – you can easily get burnt on an overcast day and I was really burnt on my back resulting in blisters, peeling skin etc. it was not enjoyable dealing with a sore back.

    It is interesting to see how the players in the AI space are slowly walking back their robust commitments they made publicly only to then spend an extraordinary amount of time parsing what they said when asked follow up questions by the media. As I’ve said in the past, this round of AI hype is the modern day equivalent of radium water – a lot of pseudo science around radium but eventually an actual useful use of radium is eventually found. Apple is siding with Gemini along with Salesforce any many others, Microsoft working on their own specialised models with some of the players probably gearing themselves up not to go public but to be eventually bought out by a larger company.

    For those wondering, I’ve still got my Surface Laptop ARM based laptop – keeping it up to date so that I can keep abreast of the latest Windows 11 developments. As I’ve said in the past, I’m pragmatic about the platform I use because at the end of the day it is amount using the right tool for the job. I think the interesting part will be when Nova Lake is released and when Windows 11 will support the new architectural changes that both AMD and Intel agreed to. As Jim Keller pointed out, the ISA itself plays a very small role when it comes to energy efficiency so it is possible that we may see Intel and AMD close that gap between themselves and Apple’s ARM CPUs to the point that the gap is so small that it becomes a none issue for 99% of laptop purchasers.

    On my Windows laptop I have Chrome for ARM64 installed and it is buttery smooth however I did try the latest version of AdGuard and it keeps hanging when it is being applied to websites. The strange thing is that when I do delete the AdGuard extension and install the uBlock Origin Lite extension then visit the same website the website hanging doesn’t occur. The other thing I noticed, which is quite odd is how Chrome is more responsive than Safari but I wonder how much of that will be addressed in Safari 26.4 when the 26.4 platform update is released.

  • Almost to the weekend.

    At the half way point and feeling good – I like to have a fast on Friday, Saturday and Sunday then break the fast on Sunday night. I used to do it and I stopped but I’ve gotten back into it because I have found it as a way to reset and afterwards I feel a whole lot better. I break the fast with a John West tuna meal along with some roasted seaweed and an Up and Go Iced Coffee with the total number of calories around 600 or so. The main thing to remember when having a fast isn’t to go crazy and eat everything that isn’t bolted down afterwards or otherwise there is a high likelihood that it’ll make you either sick or feeling really, really crappy. I also make sure that I keep hydrated, light weights during the day and having a power walk.

    I like tracking the package that I ordered – here are the two articles of clothing I am waiting on.

    It is the first time I’ve had a top of that colour but I guess it’ll go well with the brown Dickies trousers that I have. Hopefully it’ll get delivered maybe next week or the week after.

  • A busy day but an enjoyable day.

    It was a fairly busy day today but on a good side I am able to work on the days when it is busy so that makes the whole experience a lot more enjoyable. Finished work at 10pm, went for a 11.6km walk and I have to admit I really didn’t feel like going for an 11.6km walk but after doing 5.8km I thought I may as well go all the way since I had already done half of what I normally do.

    I’ve also had a look online and I finally found the two CDs that I wanted to buy. Years ago (something close to 20 years ago) there used to be a blog called “My Jazz World’ that would have vinyl rips from out of print records. I downloaded the everything the blog had available however I was foolish enough not to back up the music to a secondary source with the result being when my external hard disk died it took all the downloads with it. Anyway, long story short, I found the two Arthur Adams CDs (It’s Private Tonight and Home Brew) which are available to purchase so I bought those tonight but I chose to the cheapest postage to save money so I’ll probably see them arrive in a couple of weeks.

    I was going to watch ‘Real Time with Bill Maher’ but god help me because I’m not going to watch an episode where I’m having to deal with the moronic ramblings of Lauren Boebert twisting herself into a pretzel as she defends the god king himself. Why waste what little time I have each day watching something that’ll just get me annoyed so instead I decided to relax tonight by watching another episode of Fallout season 2 which allows me a moment of escapism from an otherwise crappy world.

  • A couple more days to go.

    Work today was so-so and I finished it up with an 11.6km walk tonight along with some free weights when I got home (on top of the ones I had done during my breaks while working from home). I’m looking forward to getting the week over and done with but on a good side I am feeling a whole lot better than I did a week ago where I had a sore throat, sore nose etc. basically just feeling straight up lousy. What I have done over the last couple of weeks is making sure I get a good amount of exercise, a balanced diet, drinking lots of water and getting out in the sun on my days of to boost my vitamin D.

    I finally ordered the temperature knob for my oven – it was starting to ‘spin’ when I turned it thus not gripping the metal rod that the knob sits on top of. It arrived today (this morning) so I replaced it and checked to see whether it worked. After getting that all sorted out I had a check to see where it was failing so I could see what maybe the cause and it appears that where the metal shaft goes into the plastic casing cracks over time from continued use and the heat from the oven (when the oven is opened) probably makes the plastic weak as well. Anyway, long story short, got it all installed but it wasn’t cheap with the cost of it plus P&P costing around NS$32.14 delivered.

    It is always funny to see middle class people convince themselves that the problems they face are due to those who are barely surviving wanting a decent minimum wage. It is amazing the number of people who fail to understand that the amount they get paid is set relative to the minimum wage and when the minimum wage goes up their wage or salary also goes up. Why? let’s say there is a fast food place and workers start off on 50 cents above the minimum wage but now you need someone who is going to run the shift – is someone earning 50 cents above the minimum wage going take on the additional responsibility but earn the same as an entry level staff member? no, so obviously you have to pay them more. You set the hourly supervisor at $1 per hour above the crew wage which is set 50 cents above the minimum wage. Fast forward to the minimum wage increasing – it goes from $19.50 per hour to $20 per hour which would make the entry level worker $20.50 per hour and then the hourly supervisor on $21.50 per hour.

    An increase in the minimum wage increases everyone’s wage because there needs to be sufficient enough of a gap between the different levels as to make each job worth while for the person to take on the additional responsibility or training required to do the job. This is the same situation where I am at the moment, the minimum wage goes up, the living wage goes up and then my salary is updated to bring it in line because the failure to do so would make my job unattractive – why take on a whole lot more responsibility and stress when one can move to a job where you may earn slightly less but without all the stress associated with it.

    I really do wish that the ‘temporarily embarrassed millionaires’ realise that they’re closer to those barely making ends meet than the illusion of being a millionaire let alone a billionaire. Just as a side note, I really have to wonder what motivates so many such social ladder climbers – are they seeking validation through some sort of gamification of life – he or she who has the most number of goodies at the end of ones life wins the game of life? Sigh, I could never quite understand so much obsession about continuously seeking the validation of others to somehow bring meaning to ones own life.

  • The day is looking good.

    The day has been pretty good so far – the weather is nice with the temperature not too hot or cold which will make going for a walk after work a whole lot more enjoyable. I’ve been working my way through he speech that Marco Rubio gave at the Munich Security Conference and once I’ve watched it while taking some notes I’m going to write up a blog post regarding it. I made a post on BlueSky not too long ago making a few observations and at least from my perspective it is a reheated version of neoconservatism through the lens of the Trump administration rather than a wholly original foreign policy – it had the the sort of vibe one associates with Samuel P. Huntington book ‘Clash of Civilizations’ when listening to it.

  • End of the night power walk.

    I finished work tonight at 10pm but before I caught the train home I made a quick dash to the local New World which is around 2km from the office – in a space of around 40 minutes I was able to walk from my office, carrying my laptop bag, get into the supermarket, do my shopping then back to the train station. I only had around an hour to do it so I really had to make sure I was motoring. On a good side, I made it back to the train station and caught the last train home for the night. I wanted to get a walk in so I guess that was the easiest way to get it done with minimum fuss and bother. Would I do it again? probably not because it wasn’t particularly enjoyable when you’re carrying a whole heap of stuff while trying to rush to the supermarket.

    For dinner tonight I had a smoked fish salad and a chicken satay salad with dessert being blue berries and some fruit salad. The chicken satay salad was particularly tasty with the satay sauce having a hint of chilli in it which gave it an added bit of kick and the chicken was actually real chicken rather than the horrible tasteless chicken that are used by so many businesses these days – there is a pizza company that I am thinking of which markets has ‘seasoned chicken’ where it isn’t seasoned and it is questionable as to whether it can be classified as chicken.

    The black Impulse hoodie arrived today before I left so I put it in the wash along with my other washing. When I get new clothes I wash them first before wearing them – it is a habit I’ve gotten into years ago because I don’t know where it’s been, whether it has been sitting a warehouse for a while before it was sent out. The two remaining items I’ve ordered are coming from the United States that is coming via DHL which may take up to a couple of weeks to arrive but then again my experience has been that DHL under promise and over deliver so sometimes you get told a set amount of time but they end up delivering it sooner.

  • First day back in the office went well.

    Finished work tonight at 10pm however rather than taking the train I ended up having to take the bus replacement which wasn’t so bad after all. As for some exercise today, I got off at the train station that is 3 stops from where I live so then I could squeeze in a 2.9km walk. Sure, 2.9km isn’t a big walk but today I tracked my calories so I was already under my calorie intake for the day and some exercise at the end of the shift is always good after sitting in an office all day. Tomorrow after work I’ll go for a longer walk but apart from the recent rain and chaos I’ve stuck to the ‘going for a walk at least once a day’ goal that I set for myself.

    I’ve been watching a few videos from people who have been brave enough to install the beta release of 26.4 and there are many fixes that have been noticed but not documented. For example when it comes to iOS 26.4 they have fixed up the pin entry dialogue that had the dots pushed over to the left but now they’re back to where they were originally which is in the middle of the screen. I’m sure there are going to be more features that people will note but it appears that 26.4 will be a pretty robust update. I also had a read through Safari 26.4 beta and there are many fixes and features so it’ll be interesting to see what score the web platform test gives it when it is run against Interopt 2025.

    There has been a few announcements recently, there is an Apple event on 4 March and Google has announced their I/O event for 19-20 May. It’ll be interesting to see what is announced at these two events – will there be a refresh of the Apple TV? MacBook refresh? I guess we’ll need to wait and see. For me the interesting thing will be regarding Android 17 and whether we’ll be seeing the two part release where Android 17 has under the hood changes and then the user visible changes come later on in the year with a refresh like how they’ve done this year. WWDC is still scheduled for June so I’ll be holding out to see when it’ll be scheduled but if it is like previous years it is normally the first week in June.

  • Software update before I go to bed.

    Just out of curiosity I had a check online and it appears that Apple has released the beta testing for the 26.4 platform update. When it comes to Safari 26.4 there is a change log available which gives an insight into what will be coming when 26.4 final is released (link). Generally speaking once the list of fixes etc. are made known in the Safari 26.4 beta then the focus is about making sure there aren’t any regressions rather than the possibility of new changes occurring. My guess is that with each release they triage the features are bugs that need to be addressed so that by the time the beta release is made available that the list is more or less finalised.

    Regarding macOS 26.4 beta, tvOS 26.4 beta and iOS 26.4 beta, the change logs can be found here for macOS (link), here for iOS (link) and tvOS (link). Looking forward to seeing the improvements because at least in the macOS update there are notes of interface bugs being fixed – keeping in mind that in a lot of cases not all the bug fixes are listed so expect people to document improvements online when the developer and public beta are installed on more devices.

  • Getting back to work.

    Getting back to work on Wednesday after having a harrowing couple of days of wind, rain, more wind and more rain. I’ve had a look on the Metlink website to see whether the trains have been delayed or cancelled due to damage to the track and/or overhead power lines. It appears that everything is working normally except some schedule maintenance that’ll occur at night meaning the late train service on the Hutt Valley line will be replaced with buses. I dislike taking the bus replacement but I have to come into the office at least twice a week so I may well get the 2 days out of the way on Wednesday and Thursday rather than trying to push it off until another day.

    There is a lot of work being done when it comes to the railways and it is interesting to see how the different parties, both the opposition and those who make up the current government, are differentiating themselves after the “National Infrastructure Plan” was released today (link). It’ll be interesting to see what Labour Party infrastructure policy is particularly when you consider that NZ First, Greens and Labour agree on the need for more investment into rail where as the current National led government have been very much focused on building more roads rather than making the existing roads work a lot better (which funny enough the report said that the government should be focusing on – the majority of the money being spent on making existing infrastructure work better and the remaining funds being spent on new infrastructure).

    One of the moves that the National led government have done which I agree with is the reforming of the Resource Management Act (link) – there is no use have the world’s greatest plans only to find that those plans are continuously undermined by NIMBYs using their noise making in an attempt to block or slow down anything and everything (the alternative version of NIMBY is known as BANANA which stands for ‘Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything’). I’m hoping that with the regulatory reform changes and improved delivery that we’ll finally get the infrastructure built at a reasonable price in a reasonable amount of time as to avoid the current situation where we spend a lot but get very little in return (see the cancelled ‘light rail’ project in Auckland whose price just kept going up).

    Daily writing prompt
    What bores you?
    View all responses

    What bores me are people who engage in politics not so that they can take an interest in developing policy then advocating for such policies but instead those who use politics as a vehicle to virtue signal – to morally posture about how they’re better than anyone not in their political party rather than doing something productive. It is something I see in US politics where liberals will claim to be progressive but then do the complete opposite – having a Black Lives Matter sign on their front yard and yet they’ll fight tooth and nail to oppose zoning law changes to allow affordable dense housing or change the way in which schools are funded as to ensure all children have access to the same quality of education. The New York Times not to long ago talked about this hypocrisy found in this video (link) and it is something that liberals in the US need to think long and hard about (I say liberals because left wing people already know about the problems and how to solve them).

    One of the other major things that annoy me is when I hear US commentators talk about how so-and-so politician is a ‘policy wonk’ and my first reaction to that is “shouldn’t every politician be a policy wonk? if they’re not interested in policy then why are they even a politician in the first place?”. This is the reason why nothing gets done, because congress are filled with hangers on and oxygen thieves who aren’t there to do something productive but instead to use congress as a soap box to further their career and then after they retire then they get a show on Fox News or some other god forsaken right wing media outlet.

    Coming back to the original question, why does it bore me? because it is completely and utterly unproductive and if I am going to be unproductive I might as well stay at home watching television because then at least I’m being authentic in my indifference rather than going through the motions to give the illusion of caring.

    On a side issue, the other reason I can’t stand performative politics is the damage that it does to the democratic process. When ordinary people see that those involved in politics are involved for their own self interest then the legitimacy of the system is called into question. This is how a charlatan like Donald Trump is voted in because of politicians are not taking their job seriously so in the end large numbers of people throw their hands up in the air and take a chance with someone who markets themselves as an ‘outsider’ and promises to ‘shake things up’ and ‘drain the swamp’ (even though they’re very much part of and benefit from the establishment).

  • A relaxing day at home.

    After getting through Sunday night and all of Monday, I thought there was a meeting but then I realised the meeting wasn’t until 2 March but I guess it wasn’t all bad because I double checked before heading to the venue. For lunch I had some pumpkin soup along with some fresh garlic bread and for a small dessert I had some boysenberries. The weather has improved and looking out for the 7 day forecast on the Metservice website it appears things are getting back to normal but given how things can change at a moments notice I wouldn’t get too comfortable.

    Around where I live we didn’t have a massive amount of flooding other than around 4 inches of flooding in the drive way but apart from that the road I live on and the road my road connects to wasn’t flooded. Regarding other areas, there are a few streets close to where I live where the outcome has been pretty bad due to a stream overflowing and the water getting up to the height of the door handle on a sedan car. I haven’t gone exploring out there because I think the last think those doing recovery work want is someone rubbernecking and causing more problems. Hopefully things will get back normal by around Wednesday when I head back into the office for a couple of days.

    The electricity went off just after midnight so I checked out Wellington Electricity to see what the repair schedule is – at the time I saw the repair time being 17 February at 6:00 but I had incorrectly read it as 6pm when it was 6am. The whole of the Hutt Valley had gone offline so I wasn’t expecting it to be fixed that soon especially one considers how bad the weather was and if the outage was caused by trees falling etc it doesn’t make much sense to do any repairs until after the the weather had improved.

    I was watching a video debunking the idea that young people are going back to the church:

    It reminds me of the book ‘The Desecularization of the World: Resurgent Religion and World Politics’ that we’re going through a process of not only secularisation but also desecularisation. What do I mean by that? as a society we’re secularising in terms of becoming less religious or at least affiliated with religious institutions while those who are remaining religious are being more intense in their religiosity. The other part of the equation is the rate of retention over the medium and long term – it is one thing to get converts, the honeymoon period of doing something new but the question is whether it can be sustained over the long term or does it end up being like the list of other things they got a sudden interest in and years later have moved on from.

    Regarding the secularisation process, the liberal main line denominations have been hit particularly well over the years and the usual refrain I see on YouTube from the more conservative wing of their denomination is the claim that it is liberalism that has caused it. Like a lot of things in life I would say that there is an element of truth but you’re just as likely to lose members if your church simply becomes a force of reactionary religiosity. The problem with liberalism isn’t liberalism per se but if you aren’t willing to have clearly defined borders of where the limits are then the problem is that with no clearly defined borders then what do you actually believe in? I’m certainly not a fan of the slippery slop argument but your denomination gets to the point that you’re saying that you’re still part of the domination even when your beliefs clearly contradict the core elements of the religion then what do you actually stand for?

    If at the end of the day you make the tent so broad that almost anyone and anything fits underneath it then eventually the whole thing will collapse in on itself and you’ll no longer be able to clearly define what makes your particular domination unique from other dominations or the non-religious. When I am talking about the the ability to define oneself I am referring to the core fundamental theological beliefs – sure, around the edges you may have differences regarding whether something is a sin or how to understand the organisation of a church by learning the lessons the past, but that the centre there has to something there or otherwise you run the risk that there is nothing at the core of your denomination’s beliefs, that the core is hollowed out then at which point you may as well call yourself a social club that meets up every Sunday to sing some songs and randomly recite random passages out of new favourite book that parishioners choose every week.