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

  • Embracing the Samsung ecosystem.

    A bit of a background is that I upgraded my television that I had for over 12 years to a nice new 65inch Samsung television and part of that, when you setup the television, is logging into the Samsung Cloud because the television also acts as a hub for your devices such as security cameras (I have two Arlo cameras on the outside of my home). I was at first scepticla about how useful the Samsung Cloud would be given that I tend to go ‘all in’ on one vendor be it Apple or Google but I wanted to give Samsung a chance before drawing any conclusions. Btw, I’m going to talk about them in the order I purchased and installed them in which is why I setup my television before my phone or watch.

    I setup my television and I decided that before setting up my Apple TV 4K that I would give One UI a try given that I’ve tried it at the store but to give ia fair chance I wanted to make sure I was running the latest version. The latest version at the moment of writing this post is 1260 and the model of television I bought was a Samsung QN70F 65″ Neo QLED Smart TV (I bought it from my local PB Tech). After configuring it along with linking the YouTube app to my Google account (I’ve got a Workspace account and I’m on YouTube Premium) and then tested it out seeing how smoothly the YouTube app was, searching, switching between different parts of the app and then playing videos. Unlike the Apple TV 4K the software included with my television supports av1 CODEC along side vp9 which is supported on Apple TV 4K.

    Regarding how the over all One UI performs, it is very fast and fluid – in fact I find it a lot more responsive than the Apple TV 4K even with the home screen having a lot more content on display vs the tendency of Apple to have a more minimalise approach. i was concerned that because the home screen on One UI is busier than the tvOS interface that maybe I would find it difficult to navigate but I found that after a bit of practice where I found where things were then everything fell into place. There is support through the app store for TVNZ+, ThreeNow, Neon, Amazon, Netflix etc so if you’re using one of the big streaming services then you should have any issues.

    I think the big strength the television does have is the fact that there is a built in web browser although one has to keep in mind that there isn’t the ability to install an adblocker on the browser but other than that I found it pretty good when I want to watch ‘Democracy Now!’ which can be streated through their website. One thing to also keep in mind that you can also use your mobile phone as a keyboard in much the same way you can do that with the iPhone and the Apple TV 4K rather than having to use the remote.

    Here are a couple of photos of my television in my lounge room (yeah, I know, I’ve got to move the picture on the wall over to the right so that the television isn’t covering part of it – that is a project I’ve got in the planning stage at the moment):

    The second part of moving to the Samsung ecosystem was getting the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra and a four pack of Samsung Smart Tag2 Bluetooth Trackers which I was able to pick up at a good price (bought with the bonus I got from work). Although you can use Google Workspace and Google services with iOS the experience is never as good as running it on an Android device and that kind of makes sense given that the respective platforms are designed from the ground up to integrate into their respective ecosystems.

    I’ve setup the phone and updated to the latest version – the whole experience with One UI 8.5 is rock solid and the updates came through smoothly. There are a few preinstalled apps such Spotify but they can easily be uninstalled. I’ve pretty much stuck with the tock apps that Samsung included and added any missing Google apps – Google Wallet doesn’t come preinstalled out of the box so I can only assume that the image that they use for the phone also targets markets which have Samsung Pay because in New Zealand we just have Google Pay and Apple Pay. There isn’t anything remarkable about the phone that other reviewers haven’t covered already but it is a solid phone if you need an Android phone but the Pixel isn’t available in your market.

    I setup the Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra and although it does come with LTE support out of the box I’m with a carrier I’m with doesn’t support it (well, technically it is the ‘cheap and cheerful’ sub brand to the main brand (Spark) which does support eSIM for the watch) but it isn’t a main issue since I mainly use it just for workig out. The GPS is pretty accurate with the distance being measured matching the distance if one were to jump into a car and measure it that way or logging into Google Maps to do the same thing. The calorie count is a bit iffy because there are so many factors involved you tend to find that regardless of the brand that there is an inaccuracy from single digits all the way to 20-30%. For me, the main focus is about the number of steps, heart rate and keeping track of my time with the goal being that as long as I stick to 6km per hour then that gets my heart rate up to where it needs to be.

    Overall I’m fairly happy with the change. Regarding AirDrop and Android, it is working well although the downside is that you cannot transfer directories so what I’ve found is that I’ve uploaded my music backup and music collection to the cloud and then on my phone I then downloaded it via the Samsung Files app from my Google Drive to my phone. Funny enough, since I’ve got a 1Gbps internet connection the speed of downloading it from Google Drive to my Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra is about the same (slightly faster funny enough from the Google Drive) if I copied the files to my phone via USB cable using OpenMTP.

    Regarding the applications I run on my phone, I use Pocket Cast for podcasts because even though I have YouTube Premium I find the podcast functionality of Google Music pretty lousy – 9to5Mac Happy Hour for example that appears in YouTube Music hasn’t been updated since 2020 so you’ll need to add the RSS feed manually to YouTube Music and even then if there is a change in the RSS feed you have to manually find the new address then add it where as Pocket Casts, Spotify and other podcast providers take care of that in the background. I really wish that Google would bring back their old podcast software because that was exactly what worked – simply design without any clutter. The other piece of software that is a must is dbPowerAmp because the YouTube Music is really bad at dealing with large music libraries on local storage not to mention basic things like navigating by tapping on Artists then album is non existent. All the other software is exactly the same as I had on my iPhone such as Reddit, BlueSky etc.

  • Start of a new week.

    After having a nasty week of bad weather it is good to see the start of a new week which will mean geting back into a routine again – I’ve set my alarm and I know it’ll be difficult for the first couple of days but getting into a good routine will mean that everything else falls into place. I’ve set the alarm to 9:30am and in the morning (although I may push it back to 10:30am depending how I feel when I turn off the light and close my laptop) I’m going to head down to the supermarket to pick up some groceries with the $75 voucher from work plus the $15 voucher I got by accumulating points as I shopped.

    I’ve been following the whole AI hype cycle and it appears that reality is setting in – the idea of ‘all you can eat’ subscriptions are not economically viable and as Ed Zitron noted on a recent podcast regarding the need to move to a system where you pay as you go. The problem is, at least as far as I see it, the move to a pay as you go model might make sense if the models were actually good enough to the point that you don’t waste tokens.

    The problem is that there are examples of companies blowing through a whole years budget in a matter of a few months – the end result is something that doesn’t actually save money the moment you start paying as you use it and that is something that companies are quickly facing. I can’t help but get the feeling that many of the AI companies were hoping that their technology would become so critical that businesses would be willing to pay through the nose for it but the reality is that if the numbers don’t add up then aren’t going to keep paying for it.

    I think what you’re going to find is that after the hype dies that down we’ll see that eventually it’ll be primarily aimed at businesses, AI companies will probably eventually jettison chat just as they jettisoned video creation on demand because it is too costly and has no chance of actually turning a profit given how much they would need to charge vs how much organisations are willing to pay. I wouldn’t be surprised if you end up having a developer tools with preconfigured set of commands that call an API to ensure that the least amount of tokens are used when when completing the command rather than relying on a wordy prompt.

  • One more day to go, feeling better.

    Had a good day to day apart from the first customer being one of those people who need help but aren’t willing to help themselves – you can lead a horse to water but you can’t force it to drink. The one thing I learned, don’t let them get under your skin, advise the customer that you’re going to end the call and then end it – I’m not there to be someone’s emotional soundboard nor should any other customer service operator be a soundboard for people who have ‘big feelings’ and ‘big emotions’. I started the day by getting up at 11am and on Sunday I’ll push it back to 10am so then I’ll get into a good routine where on Monday and Tuesday I’ll get up at 10am (so I can go for a morning walk) then when I go back to work on Wednesday I’ll set my alarm to 9:30am so then I can get some exercise in before work.

    Probably the main benefit of getting up at a decent time in the morning and going for a walk means that you can squeeze it in before work when the sun is out and the weather isn’t as cold although when I do work from home I’ll still go for a walk later on at night but there won’t be that pressure if it is particularly cold. I am interested in getting some gloves or mittens because I have a nice big and warm hoodie although some gloves to keep my hands warm will make going for a walk at high a lot more enjoyable.

    It is funny how the small things that make all the difference and the one thing I really like about Keep is how the title of the note is seperate from the content like they’re two separate fields. Although I do have a bit of a preference for native applications I’ve also come to accept that in this day and age that web browsers are the run time engine of the internet in much the same way that .NET and Java were sold with the promise of ‘write once, run everywhere’ (when in reality there was the old joke ‘write once, debug everywhere’) where as modern web standards have actually delivered where .NET and Java failed.

  • A productive day, looking forward to Saturday.

    I had a productive day today – not too busy which meant I was able to catch up on some paper work, some training modules I needed to get finished by May so I am now al up to date. I’ve been keeping the heater going during the day because the weather has once again been very cold but it looks like over the next week things are going to get a bit nicer. I’m going to an early night in bed tonight so I can get up a little bit earlier and then eventually get myself back into my normal routine on Monday next week but I’ll do it gradually as to avoid over promising and not being able to carry it through.

    Safari Technology Preview 242 was released recently (link) and there are plenty of bug fixes as well as features being added as part of bringing it into compliance with the latest web standards. I’m waiting for the latest Web Platform Test (link) which tests browsers against an agreed set of standards that the major browser vendors have all agreed to work towards. Once again Safari is trailing behind the competition but that could be partially due to the fact that Apple sometimes develops stuff behind closed doors and then merges it with the project later on which is where you sometimes will get a major release of Safari followed by a big leap forward in features being implemented then followed by those changes appearing in the Technology Preview as well.

    Ubiquiti has released in their early access channel UniFi Access Point (all U7 and E7 models) 8.6.7 which fixes up issues reported in particularly those related to MLO. For me, I don’t have it enabled on my access point because I really don’t see much of a purpose given that even if I could connect to the router at 2.5Gbps I would be limited to the backhaul capacity which is 2.5GBps back to the gateway. All my devices are making use of 6GHz although my television is connected via 5GHz. The new television is rock solid and I haven’t had any problems connecting at 5GHz and utilising WPA3 encryption.

    I am currently working on a review of my television and a few other devices along with how they integrate into the Samsung Cloud ecosystem but that is a work in progress. It’ll probably be finished on Monday but I want to collect as much notes as I can along with being able to upload a photo of how it looks in my lounge room. at 65 inches it is substantially bigger than my old television which was 49 inches (I was able to give it away free of charge since I would sooner it find a new home where it can be used rather than it being turned into e-waste).

  • A very old evening tonight.

    After having many days of wind and rain there is now a suddenly drop in temperature down to 6 degrees celsius with the temperature in Lower Hutt reported as feeling as though it was 4 degrees celsius. For dinner I had some steamed vegetables and fish with hollandaise sauce over the top that I had left over from a previous meal. I’ve got the heater going in my bedroom – set to 20 degrees celsius to keep at least the main area where I stay during the day a lot warmer where I can wear socks, tshirt and tracksuit pants while still remaining warm. I’m going to get back into going for a walk on Monday next week once the weather gets back to normal but in the meantime I am ensuring I get a decent night sleep along with having a balanced diet including plenty of vegetables.

    uBlock Origin Lite 2026.422.1301 has been released and is now available at the Apple App Store along with the Microsoft Edge extensions store however it is waiting to be approved on the Chrome webstore. The release date is normally 1-2 days and so far on Chrome the previous version has been functioning well although the new update does fix some regressions. An update for Chrome was also released which updated it from 147.0.7727.102 to 147.0.7727.117 and at the time of writing this blog the security fixes are noted which is an indication that whatever has been fixed Google want to ensure that a large number of people have installed the update before giving any details (link).

    On the issue of politics, it is shocking at the number of people who have convinced themselves that the biggest boosters of Trump are now having ‘buyers regret’ because that assumes that their boosting of Trump was sincere in the first place. At the end of the day these Trump boosters are changing their tune because there is a vibe shift taking place and they’re preparing their business for what comes after Trump and they want to be ready when that day comes. The problem is with such a business plan is this – the internet never forgets and the whole parasocial relationship that gets built up between the audience and the influencer is based around the perception of that person being genuine but ultimately that whole brand of authenticity is undermined when the audience can see a shift not based on a genuine change but instead as a business calculation.

  • Raining with a cold snap.

    With how horrible the weather is I decided to stay and work at home instead and I’ll do the same on Thursday as well because the temperature is dropping with more rain on the way. The forecast on the Metservice website says the weather could improve on Friday onwards but the problem is that the weather is so unpredictable so I guess it is a matter of playing it by ear. I’m staying in tonight, had some comfort food to keep me warm as well as having the heater on – I generally prefer holding off on putting the heater on until June or July at the earliest but I’m not going to freeze myself for the sake of saving a few bucks. On a good side, at least my home as double glazed windows and plenty of insulation which keeps the warmth in without having a big electricity bill.

    Once again we have some tech dude bros convincing themselves that they’re modern day philosophers by putting out a book with this post over on Twitter (I refuse to call it ‘X’) getting a lot of attention in the mainstream media (link). Having read through the post it is amazing how it is a toxic mixture of playing the victim, creating strawman and rhetoric which amounts to what can be described as (quoting the song ‘Psycho Killer’ by the Talking Heads) “You’re talking a lot, but you’re not saying anything”. It reminds me of Juche, repetitious and getting high on one’s own farts. It also reminds me of the never ending whinging by far too many entitled New Zealanders who claim that there is a ‘tall poppy syndrome’ when in reality the problem is that far too many who get to the top end up acting like arrogant pricks and then get surprised that the unwashed masses aren’t worshipping the ground they walk on.

    For example, the 10th point is the prime example of projection. I simply don’t see the sort of cult of personality or hero worship that exists on the right appearing on the left when it comes to people treating Trump rallies like some sort of religious pilgrimage, the purchasing of ‘relics’ in the form of merchandise, the imitation of what the ‘great leader’ does by wearing a bandage on ones ear etc The cult like behaviour within the Republican Party isn’t new, we still have people worshipping Reagan even though outside of cult of believers he was a horrible president or those who selectively quote Barry Goldwater while ignoring that he enabled those who eventually become the basis on which the modern Republican Party cult of personality is built.

    Then there is the 9th point where the establishment tears down anyone who is left of centre – the Washington Post for example published 16 negative articles in a space of 24 hours attacking Bernie Sanders but something tells me that author of the book aren’t too concerned about things like that. Something tells me that the author of the book aren’t interested in giving those further left of centre a fair go given that the establishment are more than happy to sane wash Trump when it suits their agenda or rehabilitate the image of a politician or public official after a sufficient amount of time has past. The establishment never attacks those who do what the establishment want, the only reason why the establishment doesn’t like Trump isn’t a matter of policy substance but one of presentation – if the exact same things were being done by someone who could form a coherent sentence then mark my words the mainstream media would fall in line, bending over backwards to defend the administration – anyone remember MSNBC over 10 years ago when Trump ordered a strike and commentators quoted lyrics Leonard Cohen song and claiming that at that moment Trump had become presidential? I’m always reminded of what George Carlin said: “It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it. You and I are not in the big club.”

    I’m waiting for a delivery from the United Kingdom but I was silly enough to choose UPS rather than going through DHL which I normally would. The estimated time is 7-10 business days and the package hasn’t landed in New Zealand but I wonder whether it has been delayed given that normally parcels coming to New Zealand from the United Kingdom and Europe tend to go through Dubai but given what is happening over there I wonder whether it has been diverted through the United States meaning it is bouncing across the United States and then down to New Zealand.

    On a side note, I woke up this morning and there wasn’t a Chrome update so it’ll probably get released on Thursday (Wednesday New Zealand time). When it comes to the next update for Apple’s platforms, a couple of days ago Apple released 26.5 Beta 3 with speculation being that the final release will be around in May but keeping in mind that such speculation is based on the schedule of previous x.5 updates being released. On a good side I have organised time off in June starting on the 8th so I can spend some time chilling out at home, following the WWDC keynote although as I’ve said in past blog posts my main focus is on ‘Platform State of the Union’ that goes into more technical details than what the keynote does.

  • Things are hopefully getting back to normal.

    Over the last 3-4 days the weather has been crazy in the Wellington region – even in Lower Hutt there has been non-stop raining, my drive way was flooded but I’m happy that my house is raised rather than the new style ‘slab on the ground’ types’ that get built these days. It is still raining outside and I think this isn’t the end of the weather given that the Metservice has noted that there is a. lot of uncertainty. On a good side though I did do a decent shop today where I picked up a whole heap of food although I forgot all about using my $50 voucher I got from work but I’m going to make use of it along with the $15 Woolworths voucher I earned because of the Everyday Rewards programme I’m signed up for. Its good to have food in the house so that even when I am lazy and don’t feel like doing any cooking that there is an easy solution available.

    The National Party had a confidence vote regarding whether Chris Luxon should remain as leader of the National Party (link). It is never a good idea to call a confidence vote because it instantly feeds into the narrative that you’re not confident of your position. It reminds me of the old saying “Any man who must say, “I am the King”, is no true king.”, if you need to assert your authority through calling a confidence vote then you’ve already shown that you’re uncertain about your future not to mention that any opposition within the party have already got a easy test regarding how far they are away from actually replacing you.

    There was an interesting point regarding just that by the YouTube Channel ‘The Sloan Zone’ (link) regarding what happened in Australian politics when Liberal Party leaders did the same thing – when you find out that only 57% of the caucus supports the leader and that was done with no work then it tells anyone wishing to topple the leader that one only needs to move the numbers by 10 points to roll the leader – before the vote the numbers weren’t known but now the numbers are known it is then possible to develop a strategy targeting those who appeared to be weak in their support for the party leader.

    I’ve installed uBlock Origin Lite 2026.419.1519 on Chrome and things are going well and I’ve enabled ‘User Scripts’ so it’ll be interesting to see whether there will be ‘User Scripts’, either bundled with uBlock Origin Lite or distributed separately, that will appear sometime soon. On the issue of Chrome 148, that is probably still at least 1-2 weeks away but tomorrow there will probably be the usual update on Tuesday that’ll be filled with bug and security fixes. As I’ve said it in the past, Apple really do need to seperate Safari from their operating system so that improvements made available in the ‘Safari Technology Preview’ make their way into macOS in a timely manner even if it means that they split the Webkit into two versions, the rapid release and stable release where the rapid release comes with Safari then moved to the stable version with the release of the next version after extended testing to ensure apps that rely on the Webkit framework don’t break.

    Ubiquiti has released ‘UniFi Network Application 10.3.55’ – they’re gradually rolling it out but if you put your channel into ‘release candidate’ you can download it. I’ve instaalled it and then rebooted my Cloud key afterwards and everything is working as it should It is a minor update in many ways which is good given that I prefer my networking equipment to be predictable and dependable partically given that I work from home. The interesting party has been the release in the early access channels an update for UniFi Gateways 5.1.5 and the feedback I’ve read so far has been that there aren’t any issues appearing but then again it has only been available for around a day so we’ll probably see more feedback in the next few days and if it works out to be a solid release then it’ll graduate to the release candidate area and then available as a stable update.

  • Keeping safe inside.

    In the Wellington region the weather has gone crazy over the last few days with a lot of very serious flooding in Wellington suburbs with the Hutt Valley (at least Lower Hutt) not too badly hit although the Hutt River is getting pretty high as you get closer to Silverstream and heading into Upper Hutt. I’ve ben keeping an eye on what is happening along with ensuring that I have plenty of food and water to tide me over if there is a loss of power or water. As I’ve said on previous blog posts, we’re starting to see the beginnings of climate change in weather events that are becoming more and more frequent.

    The interesting part, based on a YouTube video from ‘The Electric Viking’ about how there has been a decrease in the number of second hand electric vehicles which there being a big uptick that coincides with the cost of petrol going up but that being said it was also increasing before the war in Iran. Although the United States have imposed ridiculous tariffs on cars coming from China, there are many other countries that are more than happy to take Chinese electric vehicles – China doesn’t really care about the United States market given there is plenty of demand for their vehicles outside of the United States. Given how competitive their vehicles are and the shortage of cars in the second hand market it appears that the US’s decision to go to war in Iran has help boost demand for electric vehicles from China – insert meme of President Xi “do nothing, winning”.

    I’ve decided to spend a bit of time tonight being productive in terms of looking for a new job. Yeah, I’ve been moaning about the job but moaning doesn’t change anything other than being unproductively venting with things still remaining the same. I’ve seen a few jobs that I’d be all good to apply for although I’ll need to write up a new curriculum vitae given that I’ve lost the one I used originally to get the job I’m in. Although it isn’t the ideal time to start looking for jobs it does allow me to have a sense of control over what is happening in my life rather than forever complaining but never doing something along with the fact that it gives me the opportunity to see what opportunities there are. I’ll need to check with my team leader who I put as a reference but at least I’ll get the sense of having some control on where I am going.

    uBlock Origin Lite 2026.419.1519 has been released this week and there are quite a few changes in store. The one that stands out to me is the ‘Add support for custom scriptlet filters’ change so it’ll be interesting to see, once they’re made available in filters, how well they perform. I say this because when it comes to complex pages given how in my experience AdGuard there have been stalls in terms of webpage responsiveness on Chrome – maybe it is just an AdGuard issue or is related to how the ‘User Scripts’ are implemented. The update is available on the Apple App Store as well as the Microsoft Edge Store but it is still waiting for approval on the Chrome Store.

  • Thank goodness it is the end of the week.

    Today felt as though it had dragged on for longer than necessary but parts of it sped by but on my break I ordered a few things – pumpkin soup, some fresh fruit and I paired that up with the bagel that I put in my freezer last week, put garlic butter on it, wrapped it in tin foil and then heated it in the oven while I microwaved the pumpkin soup. Although the pumpkin soup I get is quite tasty I do like to add some cracked pepper and chilli flakes to give it an extra kick. The other thing I also like to do is sprinkle some chilli flakes on the garlic bread because not too long ago you used to be able to get garlic and chilli butter but they stopped selling it but standard garlic butter plus sprinkling on some chilli flakes does a good job without too much fuss.

    It has been raining on and off today but the temperature hasn’t dropped by much so maybe this is a good indication that there will be a mild winter this year. I haven’t been able to go for a walk for a few days so instead I’ve done some exercises at home – squats, free weights etc. I think that as I move into winter there will be plenty of days where I’ll need to do some exercises inside because the weather is too wet to go outside – gradually start building up more of a routine particularly on my day off.

  • Lousy weather but almost the end of the week.

    Sunday is almost here and it’ll be the end of the week. There has been nothing but crazy raining on Friday night and then all day today (Saturday) however it has now stopped it looks like it is going to start up on Sunday and then on Monday. Meanwhile I’ve finally used my toaster for the first time – I got it as part of those kettle/toaster combo deals from Noel Leeming but I never felt motivated to cook some toast but today I did and found that it works perfectly. The only downside of cooking Vogel bread from frozen is that you have to toast it twice but other than that I’m a happy lad and look forward to maybe getting some crumpets and/or muffins (preferably the cheese ones I can have with marmite).

    I’ve finally sold my old Surface Laptop 7 online, I’ve held onto it but I’ve sold it so I’ve cleaned it all down, boxed it up but before doing that I did a reset and clean install of Windows so that when the new owner gets it they can start using it I’ll be sending it off on Monday via overnight courier – the cost will probably be something like $30 or so but the benefit of courier is that it also includes insurance so it covers any sort of problems because we all know Murphy’s Law.

    Oh and funny enough there was an update to my U7 Pro Max access point which upgraded the firmware to version 8.5.21. Everything is going smoothly although I was caught off guard when my Wi-Fi connection suddenly dropped out.