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

  • A good day today.

    Nothing major today other than the usual process of getting up, going for a walk, having a shower then starting work for the day .The weather was good outside and it was nice to get some fresh air after being stuck inside because of the wet weather. At the moment as I write this blog post there is some showers outside but given how unpredictable the weather is I find it easier to just play it by ear and not look too far into the future when it comes to weather forecasts. I’m making use of the fine weather when I can so then I get out of the house because as much as I prefer hanging around at home I also want to get out and do something different to break up the monotony.

    I’ve gotten around to installing Chrome 151 along with uBlock Origin Lite 2026.729.1529 tonight because as much as I like to give Safari another chance I keep finding that there is always something wrong. As much as I love Apple’s operating systems I do find that their cloud service and web browser leave a lot to be desired. I’m not too sure whether I’ve mentioned it in the past but YouShop doesn’t work properly, Microsoft Team throws an error message and yes I have uninstalled uBlock Origin lite believing that maybe it was causing issues even when I’ve allowed the Microsoft Teams website and there is Google Chat status not appearing in the icon in the tab to know whether a message has ben sent etc. I originally though the status thing with Google Chat was a Chrome only featue but Firefox also supports it as well.

    At the moment I’m watching Silo season 3, episode 5 and I’m really enjoying the season so far. One of the things you’ll notice is the use of going back in time to the pre-silo society to give context to what is happening in that moment or covering the same time period but what was happening elsewhere in the Silo. Episode 5 of Silo for example covers the time from the first episode of season 3 until now but what was going on behind the scenes that wasn’t being shown in those episodes. From what I understand, based on rumours, the gap between season 3 and 4 will not be long because season 4 will be the final season . I’ve checked to see when Severance will return but that may not be until 2027 at the earliest and many others aren’t returning until end of 2026 or sometime in 2027.

    Daily writing prompt
    What’s a skill you consider basic, that most people don’t actually know how to do?
    View all responses

    I had to think long and hard about that question – I first thought budgeting skills but as I thought about it for longer, maybe cooking skills would be basic skill everyone should but very few people have. After much reflection I’d say that the basic skill that many people lack is critical thinking skills. We can complain about a laundry list of issues but the reality is that they’re symptoms of a bigger problem – the lack of critical thinking skills being taught at school. When people lack critical thinking skills then what takes over as the basis of making decisions? vibes, gut instinct, the well trodden path, doing something because that is what other people do etc. The end result of this lack of critical thinking skills is a voting population primarily motivated not by an understanding of policy, the pros, the cons, the opportunity cost etc. but instead many vote based ont he vibes – does it tap into some deep seated prejudice? does it tap into nosetalgia by a politician promising a return to ‘the good old days’? does it offer a scapegoat for society’s problems but no real tangible solutions?

    Fediverse reactions

  • Two good days in the office.

    I woke up today at 9:30 am, went for a walk, had a shower then I started getting ready for work. I jumped o the train into town and worked until 10:00 pm then caught the train home – during that time in the office it had started raining but it really picked up on the train ride home but luckily when I got to my stop I was able to get off the train and onto the underground connection to my street then back home without getting too wet. Once at home I heated up some oven fries for dinner – I wanted something comforting on a cold day and on Friday Ill be working from home so I may just adjust my alarm because it’ll be raining by the time I get up anyway. Although I will change the alarm time if I do wake up early without the alarm then I’ll get out of bed and start the day because I know if I lay around in bed having a sleep for even another hour I end up feeling more sleepy than if I just go out of bed and started the day.

    When I got to work I checked for Chrome updates and Google has pushed out a huge update with 370 security bugs fixed (link) so if you haven’t updated your installed version of Chrome then this is the opportunity to do it before something nasty happens. uBlock Origin lite 2026.729.1529 was released and it is available on the Chrome and Edge extension stores however it is still waiting for approval on the Apple App Store. I have noticed that on YouTube there is a couple of bugs I’ve noticed, the first being when you click on the three dots in video shorts the click on ‘don’t recommend this channel’ it doesn’t move onto the next video like it used to. Another bug is when you download a file, delete it and the find in the downloads it doesn’t have the usual line through the file name to indicate it has been deleted. I’m unsure whether that is a Microsoft issue (I haven’ tested it on macOS yet) or an issue with Chrome.

  • First day back in the office.

    first day back in the office after not going in for quite some time and waking up at 9:30 am I really wanted to have another hour of sleep but I know if I force my body into routine then eventually I’ll be able to get to sleep at a good time and wake up refreshed. I caught the train into town and started work at 1:30 pm and finished at 10:00 pm however they had a train replacement but on the good side the cost of the train replacement is around NZD$2 cheaper than taking the train so I guess it isn’t so bad. I have to admit, I missed the coffee machine they have at work – it has the sort of good quality coffee beans that mean you can have a black coffee and enjoy the flavour and aroma because they use good quality beans and haven’t been burnt to a crisp when roasted.

    I received notification from Ikea that the order I placed is getting ready to ship – they go through Mainfreight and once they pick it up I’ll be able to opt in to letting them leave them on my back door because I’ll be hope all day when they eventually deliver it. The trousers I bought recent I wore to work and they are very comfortable and tomorrow I’ll probably given the olive coloured ones a go with the shirt and long coat that will work all together nicely. The weather was still a bit chilly especially when coming home at night so I am tempted to wear maybe a woollen jacket so when I come back from work I don’t feel as cold.

    The one ting I always find funny is the American political system and the number of Democrats who chant ‘vote blue no matter who’. That sounds ok until you realise that it doesn’t apply if the candidate who ends up winning is backed by the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) then at which point the ‘vote blue no matter who’ crowd throw their toys out of their pram. This goes back to the larger thesis I’ve been saying and many others say online – the so-called ‘moderates’ and ‘liberal’ Democrats compromise to the right but punch to the left – the old fish hook theory that moderates are more willing to compromise with the right than find solidarity with the left.

    Even when the left is willing to compromise the moderates keep pulling to the right – for example the left were not the ones undermining the ACA in its original form, it was the so-called ‘moderates’ and ‘blue dog’ Democrats who gutted the ACA in the name of bipartisanship even though not a single Republican voted for it even after giving them everything they wanted. Then to add insult to injury we have Joe Lieberman who threatened to filibuster the ACA unless the public option was taken out – so moderate that he was more concerned about protecting the private health insurance businesses bottom line than actually fighting for better health.

    Getting back to the issue of the primaries – don’t complain when there is a candidate you didn’t like but you couldn’t be bothered getting involved in the primaries. When it comes to the primaries, push for your candidate to win and who ever ends up winning then get behind that candidate, don’t just throw a temper tantrum because you didn’t get what you want but understand that politics don’t stop the moment you don’t your own way, it continues going by lobbying who ever is the winner and push them in the direction that you want them to go in. At the end of the day if the candidate wins and wishes to keep winning then they have to start delivering – an organised movement that pushes representatives ensures that they’re kept honest because they’re constantly reminded that they’re being monitored and will be called out when they do something that isn’t in the interest of those who voted for them.

    There are reports that Apple will be releasing a refresh to the HomePod in October which would probably put the announcement at around the same time as they do their iPhone refresh. I wouldn’t be surprised if we also see an Apple TV refresh – hopefully betting updated so that it can support hardware accelerated AV1 playback which will allow higher resolution videos on the many different streaming services that have adopted it over HEVC. I’ll be looking forward to that along with the release of version 27 of the Apple’s next platform upgrade – when it is released I’lll be doing a clean install on all my devices to ensure that nothing strange or unusual occurs because an incompatible app or setting causes problems.

  • Back to work on Wednesday.

    I caught up with mum for dinner and we popped into a local restaurant to grab something to eat and then popped over to Pak ‘n Save to do some shopping. I normally go to Woolworths but given that we we had already parked at the Pak ‘n Save carpark we may as well do the shopping there. While I was there I picked up some extra frozen food for the freezer as well as picking up some odd extras such as chilli beans for when I have chilli in the future, canned tomatoes along with a few other items. I did notice while I was down there a jar of Shakshouka style tomatoes – I have to admit I was interested but maybe next time when I grab some eggs I’ll grab a few jars of it to give it a try.

    I’ve got the alarm set for 9:30 am so I’m all set to get out of bed and go for a walk – I’m still a little bit sore from the walk on Monday but it felt good pushing myself to do a long walk and I think I might start doing it more often on my days off. On my walk I listened to some music as well as listening to a few podcasts – it was a great way to pass the time while getting up to date politically with some interesting interviews. When it came to the music I did recompress the music again but I disabled the volume normalisation. The reason why is that I found a lot of the music was coming through really low volume no matter how high I put would the volume up so instead I recompressed the music, played it back and now everything is working normally.

    I’ve been having a look at maybe getting myself an ottoman for the lounge room because the chair isn’t really big enough to lay on but a decent sized ottoman may do the trick. I saw one at Target Furniture of around the same size as the chair that I bought for my desk in the lounge room . Long story short, I picture myself being able to sit on the sofa, feet on the ottoman, a blanket over me and being able to settle in to watch a movie or tv series. The ottoman looks like the following:

    Which should go with the general tone I’m going for in the house. The other purchase I am looking at is some carpets for around the house – adding a bit of colour to the place and making it a little more cosy. The bigger long term goal is to replace the fence at the back along with the shed I have outside in favour of a shed that is big enough that it has a proper floor, power going out to it so then I can put my freezer in there as well as the ability to put a clothes horse in there so when it is raining I can dry the clothes without the dampness that would occur if I dried it inside. Something like that is more of a long term project because of the cost involved – the shed however I would get a kit set one but I’d want to make sure it is done correctly so then it lasts a long time.

  • Right on schedule.

    Well, I turned off my alarm on my phone because I decided to have a sleep in but I ended up waking up at around 9:45 am which kind of made the whole ‘turning off the alarm’ a bit pointless – oh well. I checked the time on my phone then opened up my laptop to check for software updates and to my surprise Apple has released 26.6 for all their platforms so I went about updating all my devices. The update includes a lot of security updates (link) so I’d strongly advise that you get your system updated as soon as possible.

    On my iPhone 17 Pro Max the modem firmware was updated from 1.60.2 to 1.70.1 however the carrier profile has remained the same. On macOS the firmware has been updated from 18000.121.3 to 18000.161.9 and the WiFi firmware has been updated from:

    wl0: Feb  2 2026 19:18:30 version 23.50.20.0.41.51.208 FWID 01-ef259bc2

    IO80211_driverkit-1561.3 “IO80211_driverkit-1561.3” Apr 18 2026 17:42:26)

    to:

    wl0: Jul 10 2026 02:04:56 version 23.50.20.2.41.51.209 FWID 01-fa2c3dc1

    IO80211_driverkit-1566.5 “IO80211_driverkit-1566.5” Jul 13 2026 20:07:09

    When it comes to Apple Watch the modem firmware has remained the same at 1.51 however on the beta version of 27 the firmware has jumped to version 2.xx so it’ll be interesting to see what improvements it’ll bring. For me, I don’t have my watch linked up to any plan but that is mainly because I bring my phone with me when I go for a walk but I’m tempted to start using my Bluetooth headphones with the watch and copy my music to my Apple Watch so then it is one less thing I need to carry.

    I’ve gone back to giving Safari another chance (the one of many chances) and so far it has been fairly reliable. There has been quite a few bugs fixed in this release (link) I would say that any of the big changes are going to come when version 27 is released. If the choice is between new features vs dealing with standards implementation bugs then I would sooner Apple spend the time getting the fundamentals working well rather than the next wiz bang feature.

  • Well, that was a big walk.

    I woke up this morning at 9:30 am and headed out for the walk from my place all the way down to Petone then from Petone to Ngauranga and then once I got there I walked back to Pak ‘n Save, grabbed a drink then jumped on the bus home. The total distance of that walk was around 23 km in total and by the time I got to Pak ‘n Save my legs were so sore and tired that I had to grab the bus home because I don’t think I would have been able to make it if I tried walking home from Petone.

    The weather today was wonderful although did wear a hoodie because although the temperature was fine around place place I did find that it got colder the closer I got to the waterfront. I was really surprised at the number of people out biking and walking during the day because I was expecting people to be out using it but I would have expected being a Monday that it would be quiet with the weekend being busier. The walk was really enjoyable, the people who put it all together did a really outstanding job and money well worth spent now that cyclists can ride into Wellington without having to go along the dodgy bike track of on the highway shoulder.

    Last night I finally found a place that sells the seaweed salad that I normally get at the supermarket. It comes frozen so I’ve bought myself 4 packets of it – each packet is 400g thus making a total of 1.6kg. I’ve only just bought 4 of them so then if I like it then great, I’ll order some more, but if I don’t like it then I’ll just eat through what I have so I don’t waste it and I won’t purchase it again. On a good side the business that was selling it online has a good selection of seafood so if there is something else I need then I’ll grab it from them since their price is better than what one pays at the supermarket.

    On the software update front Ubiquiti released UniFi Network Application 10.5.67 however it is a phased roll out but if you change the channel to ‘release candidate’, install the update then change it back to the ‘release’ channel then you’ll be runnning the latest version. Apple last week released the release candidate of 26.6 so it’ll be interesting to see whether that’ll translate to the official release being on Tuesday NZ Time (Monday US Time) or whether I’ll need to wait until Wednesday NZ Time before receieving the update.

  • Day off from work sick

    I had today (Sunday) off from work sick but I’m now feeling a lot better – I had a sore stomach with cramps and unsure as to the reason why, maybe shifting to a higher fibre diet has give my body the shock of its life? Oh well, I made sure I rested up, drank plenty of water and when the weather was fine I was able to get out to have some fresh air after being locked inside due to the bad weather recently.

    I’m still working through the ‘narratives we tell ourselves’ post and hopefully tomorrow I’ll get it out of the way but if the weather is good I’m wanting to get out of the house for a walk with my headphones on listening to music or maybe evening listening to a podcast or two. I’ve got the alarm set to 9:30 am which is 30 minutes earlier than all this week which has been 10:00 am and hopefully once I’ve done a week of that I should find it a whole lot easier to get up at that time. The mistake I made in the past is not sticking to that routine and the problem is that once I get out of the routine it is difficult to get back into it again. The one thing I need to remind myself is that I can always do that thing I want to do the next day – I don’t need to watch that video tonight or read that article tonight, that can always wait.

    I’m normally pretty sceptical about AI given the over valuation that is taking place in the market but it is always good to talk about ‘good news’ and this recent good news is the Cisco Antares Open Weight AI for Cybersecurity (link). This model goes back to what I’ve been talking about recently – the future isn’t these massive sprawling bloated LLMs that OpenAI and Anthropic are doing but instead it is about smaller more focused and efficient models that follow the old UNIX principle of doing one thing and it it very well.

    Oh, and I finally ordered those Peanuts merchandise off the web – it’ll have to go through the remailing service that NZ Post runs called ‘YouShop’ but from the estimated time the stuff I ordered will arrive next week at the depot NZ Post has in the United States and then I’ll get them mailed to New Zealand. I tend to avoid going through the remailing service as it can be kind of pricy so if I do purchase something through that method then it is primarily to get something I cannot purchase in New Zealand.

    Daily writing prompt
    If you could rewrite any book’s ending, which one would you choose?
    View all responses

    The Firm by John Grisham – I would have loved to see what actually came of the firm after Mitch provided the evidence. Not that I’m necessarily looking for a ‘happy ever after’ ending but more wanting to see what happened to the firm, did Mitch continue working in law etc. I’ve wondered whether some of John Grisham’s books could be turned into a television series – using the book as a launching bad to explore the background of the characters in much the same way ‘Better Call Saul’ looked into the origins of the characters who would later appear in ‘Breaking Bad’.

    Fediverse reactions

  • The importance of being self reliant.

    Watching the following video regarding the declining technology literacy and why it is concerning for reasons outside of just simply getting and retaining a job:

    The importance of being of being self reliant when it comes to technology isn’t just a matter of being able to use technology to improve your life but understanding technology makes you less dependent on third parties. When you become reliant on a third party to provide you with a solution then you’ve now created a scenario where you’ve now got a dependency on that third party which limits your options in the future. What do I mean by that? they can keep pushing up prices and you’ll need accepting that price increase because you’re not equipped to either do it yourself (self hosting) or migrate to a different third party.

    It is also important to understand what is going on under the hood in much the same way that a student completes a maths equation using a calculator but will still learn the ‘why’ behind the process taking place. The purpose of learning the why behind each step also allows you to work back from an incorrect answer and see why you got the incorrect answer. This is the reason why when you were at school your teacher required you to show your working when completing an equation. When you have an issue with your computer, being able to understand what is going on under the hood allows you to fix it yourself and then learn from that experience so maybe in future you can void the same problem occuring.

    A good example of diagnosing a problem would be if you setup an email service using a domain you regisred via WordPress and you’re finding that you’re not receiving emails or not sending email. Being able to understand what TXT, MX and other settings do then allows you to compare the settings of your email provide and then compare it to what you’ve setup and understand why you’re getting the error. When I set up my settings on WordPress I looked into what each of the settings mean, what they did and how that would impact the reliability of sending and receiving emails – it gave me an appreciation of how the internet works.

  • Day off from work today.

    I woke up on Saturday feeling under the weather with a sore stomach and although I am still feeling a bit under the weather I’m going to get some sleep and see how I feel in the morning. When I got up it was raining crazy outside however it appears that it’ll be fine from Sunday through to Friday next week where there will be more rain. On a good side the two pairs of trousers have arried a couple of days ago that I washed and hung up inside with the dehumidifier going are now dry. The olive coloured trousers I wasn’t too worried about the dye running but the blue jeans tend to have a bit of a habit of blue coming out in the first was so what I did was wash each of them separately just in case the dye ran.

    I then opened up Chrome and checked to see if uBlock Origin Lite 2026.723.1724 had ben released – it was now available in both the Chrome store as well as the Apple App store too. There aren’t any major changes other than filter update and a bug fix for a minor issue that was reported. When it comes to Ubiquiti there has been the release of UniFi Network Application 10.5.67 and the UniFi OS – Dream Routers 5.1.26 appears to be rock solid so I wouldn’t be surprised if we ended up seeing both of those being released next week. I’m still holding onto my UniFi Gateway because what I’ll be doing is getting a powerline networking device then use it to create a link between the UniFi Gateway and the current router so then the router can behave like an access point however I may decide to go all in and just buy an access point then install it in the roof cavity so then there is better coverage for the whole home.

    Daily writing prompt
    What’s your home decoration style?
    View all responses

    I’m not sure what I would call it but I prefer a decoration style in my home that uses natural fibres such as wool, cotten, wooden furniture and the wooden furniture doesn’t have too much ornamentation. I go for a simple furniture design because I’ve seen when people buy furniture based on whatever the latest trend is then they find in a few years that it looks old and out of place. I’ve uploaded a few photos of what I have such as the piece of furniture that my television sits on which I bought around 12-13 years ago back when I was living at my old place. I guess the vibe that I go for when it comes to decoration style is something that is cosy, warm, relaxing and inviting.

    Fediverse reactions

  • A couple of days to go.

    I went for another walk today – three days in a row and the weather was a big miserable with plenty of drizzle but I didn’t get too damp. I set my alarm to 10:00 am which is a reduction from 10:30 am but eventually next week I want to get it down to 9:30 am which will give me 30 minutes to get out of bed, get changed, do some stretches, got for my walk, come back at around 11:20-11:30 am then I’ll have a shower which will give me plenty of time to either relax before work or catch the train into the office.

    Google released another update to Chrome which updated the version from Version 150.0.7871.182 to Version 150.0.7871.187. There were four security fixes included with it (link) and an update for Edge was also released – I don’t use it on my work computer but the Outlook client makes use of the Edge rendering engine so it is important to keep it up to date. It would be good if Google did some ‘deep dives’ in terms of the methodology of picking up these security bugs internally – how much of it is uBlock Origin Lite 2026.723.1724 was released today and it is in the Edge extension store however it hasn’t arrived yet in the Chrome store or the Apple App Store.

    There has been discussions online regarding the rumoured leak of JD Vance saying that if the US is to go to war then it has to be ‘all in’. Some on the left view this as JD Vance showing his true posture when it comes to interventions when compared to what he said on the campaign trail but I’d beg to differ. I have to say straight off the bat that I’m not a fan of JD Vance or the Trump administration but then again that shouldn’t be surprising to anyone who reads my blog. I think the point that JD Vance was trying to make is that when you do something like an intervention you need to remember two things, a) do not have romanticised ideas b) if you’re going to do it then you’re all in or don’t do it at all.

    The reason I think JD Vance said that because politicians have a habit of jumping into something with a whole lot of gusto right up to the point that it starts to become politically unpalatable and then try to ‘cut and run’ resulting in the situation being worse than if they never did the invention in the first place. The problem with Trump is that when things gets tough he tries to back out – that may work when it comes to really poorly thought through domestic policies but if you’re going to enact regime change then it isn’t the moment to suddenly back track – you cannot uncrack an egg or put toothpaste back in the tube.

    As for what I would have done, the US should have returned to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and if there was evidence that Iran wasn’t living up to their side of the agreement then the I would bring that evidence to the other countries involved with the agreement and come to some sort of solution. End of the day the agreement was only written to deal with one thing and one thing only – for the Republicans to incessantly whine about peripheral issues not being addressed tells me that the Republican strategy. That strategy isn’t about coming up with a solution but rather to create a pretense to justify regime change by dragging out the negotiations then claiming that there is no partner for peace on the other side – just as they’re doing right now.