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

  • Apple releases an avalanche of updates.

    I woke up this morning and found that Apple had released an avalanche of updates. I’ve updated all of my devices and here are a few things I noticed:

    1. On my iPhone 17 Pro Max the carrier settings has been updated from 67.0 to 68.0 – I’m unsure what it could be related to other than a guess that it is related to the shutting down of the 3G network in favour of a pure 4G and 5G network (I’m with Skinny which is a sub brand of Spark and thus uses the Spark mobile network – they’re at the moment moving their infrastructure from Huawei to Nokia for 4G and 5G along with using Ericsson, Cisco and a few others).
    2. The WiFi firmware has been updated from Oct  3 2025 00:48:50 version 23.41.7.0.41.51.200 FWID 01-8b09c4e0 to Dec  6 2025 00:30:14 version 23.41.8.0.41.51.201 FWID 01-990604ea and the Driver Kit version has been updated from IO80211_driverkit-1533.5 to IO80211_driverkit-1540.16. The Menu Extra has been updated from 1.0 (19133.6) to 1.0 (19140.10). I haven’t noticed any regressions but if I do come across any improvements or regressions I’ll post an update.
    3.  System Firmware Version and OS Loader Version has been updated from 13822.61.10 to 13822.81.10..
    4. I/O Kit drivers have updated and the number have expanded. It kind of fits into probably their long term plan of not just getting third parties out of the kernel but also push as much of their own kernel code out of the kernel so then only but the absolute bare essentials remain in it.

    Regarding Safari, I cleared all the cookies and cache, then visited some websites to see how it performs and I found that a few websites were more responsive and loaded quicker. There were a few CSS fixes and other improvements (link) but nothing major. I would hazard to guess if there is going to be some big changes that it’ll probably come in 26.4 and assuming it is the same 3 month gap between the release of 26.3 and the release of 26.4 then we may end up seeing it appear in around May. There are rumours that 26.4 will include Gemini based AI but the really big changes will appear in the 27 release – I assume they’ve done that because the changes they wish to introduce are too disruptive for a 26.x release which makes sense.

    There are rumours regarding changes to the Liquid Glass design however Mark Gurman has noted there won’t be any major changes which makes sense. When I look at the whole Liquid Glass it looks to me like a rebooted Aqua so I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up seeing maybe a move in that direction – rather than a radical change we’ll see it mature. This isn’t the first time a refresh has had negative reviews initially and then becomes something that people really latch onto – iOS 7 when it was initially launched had its critics but then over time as the new design language matured it gained many fans. I think we’ll probably see the same thing with the Liquid Glass where the rough edge will be smoothed out, we’ll probably see some more colour which will symbolise the departure from the flat minimalism that has kind of become kind of a vibe to represent the 2010s through to the 2020s.

    Like a lot of fashions, they eventually run their course and there is a push back in the opposite direction – the uptightness of the 1950s paved the way for the psychedelic 1960s which then lead to the toned down autumn colours of the 1970s with the reaction to that being the fluro colours of the 1980s and the Memphis style, big shoulder pads etc. then the excesses of the 1980s lead to the ‘great moderation’ of the 1990s etc. Each style being a response to the previous style so it inevitable that the reaction to flat minimalism was something like Liquid Glass, a reinterpretation of Aqua that came with Mac OS X when it was first launched back in the 2000s.

  • The litmus test for politicians and political party.

    The simple litmus test I have for whether a politician and their party is worth considering is whether their entire campaign is centred around culture wars rather than real policies that actually address the material conditions of the working class. With the election in New Zealand scheduled for November this year the usual culture war nonsense is trotted out by the usual suspects with the media pearl clutching and behaving as if this was the first time said politicians and their party have ever engaged in it even though it has been their modus operandi ever since they were founded over 30 years ago.

    When it comes to those culture wars the big question is whether firstly there is enough of a constituent that can be split across the two parties that engage in it and whether the current economic situation will trump culture war issues. There will always be a group of people who are completely detached from reality but I’m hoping that if National is the largest party that they’ve learnt from the first term to push back against the sort of nonsense pushed by minor parties. National have experienced the backlash in the first term to the ‘Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill’ and there is already push back against NZ First who ar pushing for a referendum regarding the Maori seats. The big question is whether Luxon has the testicular fortitude to put his foot down during negotiations or will he roll over like he did in at the start of his first term.

    On Monday there is the local Labour Party meeting so I’ll turn up because it is on a day I can actually attend. I’m very much excited about what will be announced by Labour because there are another 9 months to go before the election and a lot of water un the bridge has yet to flow not to mention the scale of policy will be dictated by the economic recovery. The economic recovery is as much to do with government policy as it has to do with events outside of the control of government. The problem I have with the current government isn’t the fact that things aren’t the best but more the fact that things would have been tough but due to incompetent management the situation has been made a whole lot more difficult that needed to be. The three headed monstrosity decided that giving unaffordable tax cuts to landlords then engaging in a massive slash ‘n burn to the infrastructure pipeline was somehow going to get things back in order.

    The net result of this slash ‘n burn by the government has resulted in what has occurred today – the construction industry collapsed which then had a flow on effect to the rest of the economy. The day labourers who would visit the local bakery for a pie and a bottle of V? well, they’re no longer employed and no longer spending their money at the local stores resulting in small businesses cutting back on hours because the foot traffic that would result in a shop buzzing with activity is now but a slow trickle. That reduction in hours that spread through to those employees being paid less and them having to cut back on their own spending – a downward spiral has started.

    Regarding external factors, there was a vote in the United States congress to over turn the tariffs imposed by Trump on Canada and it passed with the narrowest of margins – 6 Republican crossed the floor to vote for it meaning that almost 90% of Republicans in congress have fallen in line with Trump and are unwilling to break with him. It’ll either die in the senate or get through but it’ll be vetoed by Trump but either way the whole episode is nothing less than a giant empty virtue signal. As I’ve said, anything less than a veto overriding majority in both chambers for the Democratic Party in the midterms is an indication that the average American is happy with the status quo and the rest of the world should heed the message that the future is one where the United States is no longer a major player in it.

    I think the United Stats are going to be learning a very tough lesson over the next few years – 8 years of George W Bush and 8 years of Trump have taught the world that the United States cannot be trusted. When you have a population who are wholly ignorant about the role the United States play in the world and whose view is myopic and provincial then it shouldn’t be surprising that someone like Trump ends up being voted in. As much as large sections of Americans online don’t want to admit it – Trump represents middle America just as George Carlin noted, the politicians in the United States are a reflection of American society.

  • A pleasant surprise in the morning.

    I woke up this morning and there was a pleasant surprise of seeing that Apple had released 26.3 and Ubiquiti had also made available UniFi OS 5.0.12 for the UniFi Gateway and the Cloud Key. The changes in Safari can be found here (link) and the security fixes for macOS (link), iOS (link) and tvOS (link). It has been a rather small feature update but as noted in previous posts, given that the development occurred towards the end of the year and over the festive season it make sense to keep a narrow focus on the core essentials (Microsoft did very much the same thing with their own updates over the festive season as well along with many other software vendors).

    I’m getting ready to go to work so when I come back I’ll give a more in-depth evaluation of the update and the changes I’ve seen and maybe if I’m lucky in the next couple of days (maybe next week) we’ll see the first beta of 26.4 be released.

  • Back home now.

    Arrived back at home and checked my letter box – the CD I ordered off Discogs (it was posted from the United Kingdom) arrived:

    I checked the CD, perfect condition and I ripped the music to my FLAC collection to back up to the cloud then to AAC format for my iPhone. I’ve had a quick listen to the tracks and I’m very happy that I made the purchase – not a single track that I felt I needed to skip. One of those rare albums you purchase and find that not a single track is put there to pad it out. It is one of the reasons I”m picky about buying CDs, nothing worse than spending money to buy a CD only to find that half the tracks aren’t worth listening to because they were added simply to pad it rather than contributing to the quality of the album.

    I’ve been good today, stuck to my meal plan so when I came home I decided to having an easy night given that if I went for a walk I wouldn’t get back until 1:30am and may end up not having a decent night sleep because I wouldn’t have time to unwind after working out. I’m looking forward to work tomorrow – got my dinner all in my bag and ready for me to pick up the bag and leave without having to to worry about accidentally leaving my dinner at home.

    Today I was expecting version 26.3 of Apple’s platform update to be released however it hasn’t been and I’m unsure as to the reason but I haven’t heard any negative feedback so far (based on what I’ve read on Macrumors and the Apple subreddit) so maybe they’re just being extra cautious. On the issue of updates, I was at the train station today waiting for my train so I sync’ed up my head phones to my phone (they’re Sony headphones I won at work). After sync’ing the headphones I was offered a firmware update which installed rather quickly. I haven’t noticed any difference and the version number was only bumped up by one number so it was probably just some security and bug fixes (link).

    Anyway, I’ve had a long day at work and I’m off to sleep. I enjoyed a bowl of soup before jumping into bed as I had a grumbly tummy and I know if I try to get to sleep with my tummy grumbly I won’t have a good nights rest.

  • Back to work on Wednesday.

    I had a good walk tonight of 11.6km and the weather was good – warm but not hot when compared to the walk down to the bakery when I picked up a late lunch. I’ve got my laptop bag and swipe card all organised as well as lunch too because last week I forgot all about it resulting in me buying something at work when ideally I should have bought something from home which I made sure of this time. I think if I get myself in a better routine by getting ready what I need before I go then I’ll always have what I need for work. Yes, in the back of my mind I hear my mum’s voice saying, “that’s what I’ve been telling you!”.

    I finally got it sorted and ordered the t-shirt and 2 hoodies from Impulse/Verge records, I had been contemplating but I decided to go for it. It is one of those things that you can spend too much time pondering and never actually getting to the point of making that definitive decision regarding whether or not to do something. It’ll be shipping on 3 March because it sounds like what happens is that they do them in batches rather than having a stock then sending them out. One of the hoodies is Irish green, the other is black, both of them having the Impulse logo and the t-shirt is John Coltrane Love Supreme t-shirt.

    UniFi OS 5.0.12 for Cloud Keys has been released – you can force it to install by changing to the release candidate channel, install it then switch it back to the release channel. I haven’t noticed any issues but I have to admit I’m mainly focused on when UniFi OS 5.0.12 for UniFi Gateways to be released because it’ll be a big jump from the current stable version of UniFi OS 4.3.1. It has been only 4 days and normally if all is well it’ll graduate to the release channel in the next 3-4 days but that is assuming there are no show stoppers. I guess they have to be extra sure of it because it relies on the cloud or a cloud key meaning that many organisations they remotely manage them so I guess they want to avoid a situation that the device is left in a state where a remote recovery cannot take place or a feature is broken which stops one from doing remote management.

    Oh, and it isn’t surprising to see how immature MAGA behaved regarding the whole NFL half time show – their inability to understand that a) Puerto Rico is part of the United States thus making ‘Bad Bunny’ an United States citizen and b) nothing is forcing them to watch it – go for a walk, iron some clothes, go for a bike ride around the block. I swear the right wing in the United States have a raging hard-on to be always perpetually the victim of some elaborate conspiracy theory, that the world is conspiring against them personally.

  • Off to sleep.

    Off to sleep and hopefully tomorrow 26.3 will be released but that may not happen until Wednesday (NZ Time) due to Apple normally releasing it on Wednesday but that all depends on whether there were any show stopper bugs found in the release candidate. I don’t expect it to be a big update but we may even see a beta release of 26.4 either later on this week or early next week. I’ll be keeping an eye on Safari and what changes have made their way from the Technology Preview builds into the mainstream release.

    uBlock Origin Lite has had a flurry of activity with the release of 2026.209.1522 – it has been released less than 1 hour ago so it hasn’t made it’s way to the appropriate stores but I’m sure when I wake up that I’ll find it available in one of them. Chrome 145 will be released this week and I’m tempted to give it a try to see how it performs when compared to Safari 26.3 (assuming it is released this week).

  • A strange night sleep.

    I had a bit of a late night because I got stuck into a binge watch of Fallout season 2 and had a small sleep then I woke up early but couldn’t get to sleep so I then went for a walk at around 6am. It is surprising the number of people out at that time going for a walk – many good mornings were said. The weather is nice, the temperature not too hot and by the time I came back I was in I was ready to get back to sleep. I tend to find that if I cannot get to sleep what I need is a good walk to empty my brain of all the stuff running around that keeps me from falling asleep. As soon as my head hit the pillow I was off like a light witch and had a solid 8-9 hours sleep uninterrupted.

    uBlock Origin Lite has been updated to 2026.208.2004 – it is currently available on the Mac and iOS App Store along with the Microsoft Edge Store however it is waiting for approval on the Chrome Store. I can’t work out why it takes the Chrome Store so long to approve uBlock Lite updates given that other platforms can do it quicker not to mention the fact that the developer has had a stellar reputation for years which should result in the extension getting fast tracked when compared to a new extension from an unknown developer with little or no reputation built up.

    There have been a few updates to DBpoweramp Music Converter, CD Ripper and PerfectTunes in the last month or so. I decided to buy the family version since I have the software on multiple computers with the benefit of the new licensing being that you have access to both the Mac and Windows version for the same price. The only downside is that the Windows version isn’t ARM native – I’m unsure whether the decision not to support it is because the market is too small and add an undue burden in terms of maintenance or whether it is just simply the case that the developer doesn’t have an interest in supporting the platform but then again that could change if ARM based devices running Windows gains moment with the X2 release.

    Rumours regarding the Galaxy Unpacked are swirling but no firm date has been announced but one website (Sammy Fans) has noted it could be anywhere from the end of February through to April but I guess it comes down to issues such as the memory and NAND shortage (rumours had it that there was a bit of a struggle to get the components from the division of Samsung that manufactures memory and storage). The bigger question is in regards to Android 17, the release date and how the release will line up with the update being made available for the Pixel phone. One thing to keep in mind is the fact that Android like iOS is at the point of maturity where the focus isn’t about big under the hood changes but rather improvements regarding the quality of life, integration with Gemini, improving the Android ecosystem integration.

  • Start of the weekend.

    Finished tonight at 10pm, went for a small walk round the block to clear my head and then came back to heat up some ciabatta bread I had in the freezer – something basic like some fresh bread with butter and honey or butter and marmite is always nice. It is funny how the simpler things turn out to be the most satisfying. Reminds me of when I worked at a pizza outlet where I could have a pizza every night for dinner (which didn’t help my waist line) and there is a temptation to have a whole lot of toppings but then you quickly realised that less is more – that there is actually. whole lot of work that goes into developing a new pizza by having toppings to compliment each other rather it just being a incoherent mess on top of a base.

    There is a push by some to cancel subscriptions from organisations that align with the Trump regime but it is interesting to see whether in the long term there is any fall out. If there is a fall out in a post Trump presidency will there be a differentiation between those who were complicit with the regime vs those who enabled the regime vs those who kept their distance and kept silent. It reminds me of Mark Zuckerberg talking about a ‘cultural change’ and need for more ‘masculine energy’ – I wonder how that is going to look in a post Trump presidency, will it look pathetic? will society collectively forget such a nonsensical pronouncement?

    On a side note it is rather pathetic to see how the right have embraced this new age language of ‘masculine energy’ and ‘feminine energy’, it’s almost as though they’re trying to rebrand patriarchal values in the language of new age language to make it sound as though it is the ‘natural order’ of things. This shouldn’t be surprising given the wellness guru to alt right pipe line given how many will start off saying something reasonable such as “grow a vegetable garden…” which then eventually leads to pseudoscience.

  • Almost the end of the shift.

    I’m enjoying my lunch break and catching up on some politics on YouTube – Donald Trump has become so toxic that there are now Republicans are saying to Trump “woah, woah, hang on, maybe you should sit this one out…” when it comes to Trump trying to involve them in senate and congressional races. The most recent example of that would be Trump throwing his support behind John Sununu from the New Hampshire federal senate election – Trump is deluded enough to convince himself that his endorsement is something people want but given how his popularity has nose dived the endorsement is closer to being a kiss of death.

    With all that being said, I wouldn’t get too optimistic in terms of the bigger picture given that I can remember back when George W Bush’s run for the second term there was a lot of unhappiness with George W Bush and optimism that maybe John Kerry would make him a one term president but the reality is that it never turned out to be the case. There is a lot of optimism regarding Texas and the idea that maybe someone can over turn 30 years of Republican dominance – would I love that to happen? sure but is it realistic? probably not given that Ted Cruz has been unpopular for years and yet he keeps being voted back in – unpopular doesn’t necessarily translates to “so therefore I’m going to vote for the Democratic candidate”.

    This is the one reason why I am sceptical about the idea of Labour winning this year because it is very rare that you have a one term government – you’d have to make a major balls-up of the economy. Election day is still another 9 months away and a lot can occur in 9 months and if the ‘green shoots’ of recovery are not only showing but voters experiencing things improve then you may find the public willing to give them another team. The big question is what will happen regarding the minor parties – what is NZ First and ACT going to do to differentiate themselves from each other given that we’re 5-6 years on from COVID and the unhappiness they took advantage of in the election in 2023 no longer has the same pulling power that it once had.

  • Back into a routine.

    My routine got thrown out this week when I headed into the office then had an early start the next day where I had to get up at 7:45am but I’m used to getting to sleep at around 2am so I only ended up getting around 5 hours sleep. The net result was after that early day I was exhausted by the end and needed to have an early night in bed rather than going for a walk – getting a decent night sleep is more important than going for a walk.

    Tonight I got back into the swing of things with a 11.6km walk which was much needed although during the day I did some free weights when I went on my 2 x 15 minute breaks and a 30 minute break. Tomorrow I’ll go for another walk and on my day off I’ll aim to squeeze in a couple of walks – 5.8km during the day then 11.6km at night with my long term goal to be below 100kg by the middle of the year.

    Rumour has it that 26.3 will be released next week and Patch Tuesday maybe getting released next week as well, I think the interesting release will be Windows 11 26H2 and whether FRED will be supported given that there are reports of Zen 6 supporting FRED which should provide a performance and reliability boost but that is assuming that Microsoft adds support to Windows 11 26H2 given that support has already been added to Linux. Nova Lake will receive it and Zen is scheduled to be released towards the end of 2026 or early 2027.