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

  • End of the week.

    I was expecting wet weather this week but it has been pretty quiet but I was able to get in some walking over the last few days. On Sunday I’m going to get up at around 11am and go for a walk before work then after work I’ll go for another one. Tonight for dinner I got out some chicken from the freezer because it had been sitting there for. while – I have to admit I wasn’t all that enamoured by it because the marinade that it came in was pretty mediocre. I cooked it, had it with some steamed vegetables – baby carrots and edamame with some garlic butter. The only reason why I got the chicken was because it was on special due to it expiring soon but I think I’ll avoid it in future in favour of getting the Turks nibbles whose marinade is a lot better tasting along with freezing a lot better than what I got from Woolworths.

    I’ve been having some fun with Safari – enjoying all the fun ways in which YouTube doesn’t work or how its Microsoft teams it has a built in spell checker, you click on the word, select the correct spelling and then nothing happens resulting in the incorrect spelling remaining. At the rate things are going I’m wondering whether the testing process at Apple is ‘if it compiles, ship it’ followed by ‘if it load the Apple website and the Google front page then it is good enough for me’. I’m going to spend the weekend (Monday and Tuesday) having an another go with Chrome because for better or worse it has pretty much become the ‘default runtime engine for the internet’. There is also the fact that the benefit of the Google ecosystem is that it is heterogeneous by design where as with iCloud, sure you can theoretically have it word with Windows but the experience is never as smooth.

    I was having a look back at some of the predictions I have made in the past and one of the predictions was that the low cost device that Apple would launch would be called the iBook and run a version of iPadOS. It appears that I got part of it right which was the idea that Apple would release a low cost laptop but what I got wrong was the operating system because I assumed that macOS would be ‘too heavy’ for a smartphone SoC. With the launch of the Apple MacBook Neo it is interesting how it is becoming the gateway device for people who may have an iPhone but never really thought of getting an Apple laptop. I think the big question is what happens with macOS 27 and whether with the rumour of it being. ‘Snow Leopard’ style release which is focused on optimisation and bug fixes that we’ll see it perform better on devices with only 8GB of memory.

  • Two more days to go.

    Work was good today – went into the office to do my two mandatory days however I think next week what I might do is start doing three days in the office and two days at home. The other change I’m going to make is rather than having two walks a day I’ll get up at 10am, go for a 8 walk, come back home, have a shower, get dressed up for the office and then head in but when I come back from work I won’t have a walk at night. I think the more productive thing would be to get to bed earlier, wake up earlier and work in a work out before work which will wake me up fresh for the day. I think a good night sleep and getting in a good routine will help in the long run – particularly on my day off where I can enjoy more of my day off rather than wasting away half the day then missing out on the things I want to do.

    I jumped onto Webkit to see whether they had released a new build of the Safari Technology Preview and it to my surprise they had released build 240 (link) however there aren’t any major changes. I also checked out to see what was discussed over on the latest WECG meeting minutes and it was kind of disappointing that once again Apple’s complete lack of enthusiasm to supporting another Declarative Net Request feature in the form of ‘declarativeNetRequest: matching based on request headers’. Once again Google and Mozilla were the only ones seriously making a commitment to actually implementing it. It truly is amazing seeing the amount of useless crap that is added to Safari that lead me to ask the question ‘why’ yet get minimum support for MV3 is akin to watching a kid drag their feet every step of the way to avoid having to do their chores.

  • Best to avoid getting wet.

    I left work on the train and I was hoping that by the time I got home there would be enough time to squeeze in a walk before finishing for the night but by the time I had gotten things sorted out from the day it started raining. It started raining, then it stopped then it started raining again – nope, not going to take a chance because the last time I went walking I got stuck in a downpour. At the moment of typing out this message it is still raining and according to the Metservice there are forecasts that it’ll continue raining tomorrow and the next few days so I may well get a good night sleep and maybe pick up a walk after work in the evening assuming that the weather is fine.

    I was having a read through the Chrome Platform Status page (link) and it looks like for the next couple of releases there are some big changes however it is interesting that version 148 has a limited number of features listed. The release date for Chrome 148 will be during May which is when Google I/O 2026 will be hosted which may indicate features being added that they want to home back from making public. There is the long term project of replacing ChromeOS with Android and with that comes the need to add extension support to Chrome given that there are many businesses that make use of ChromeOS desktops and laptops that also depend on extensions such as 1Password.

    When it comes to how things are progressing when it comes to the Web Extensions standard that are being developed, the best place to check out the latest progress is on the ‘WECG Meetings 2026, Public Notes’ document. It is interesting to see the discussions taking place in terms of harmonising the implementation of the various parts of the standard. I think the long term goal is to eventually get to a point where you a write your application, test it and deploy it with minimal browser specific tweaks.

  • Back in the office in Thursday.

    This morning I got up at 10am and went for an 8km walk, arrived homed and decided to work from home today then after finishing tonight I then went for an 11.6km walk which works out to be around 19.6km for the day. My big focus on the next 3 months (before my next blood test) is to get my blood sugar in the low thirties and that can only really be done with some further weight loss and sticking to a meal plan but now that I have a target I can work towards that while I remind myself during the day to ‘keep your eye on the prize’.

    I’ve also updated the my blog to include a search box again – a previous template I had been using already had it by default but I never got around to adding it back again on the left side. I’ve deleted Chrome off my computer now that Safari 26.4 really has improved substantially to the point that the gap is closing in terms of speed. The uBlock Origin Lite 2026.323.2044 update was made available and it installed without any issues.

  • At the half way point.

    I’m at the half way point of my shift and I thought it would be a good time to build upon what I posted previously. Over on Webkit.org there is a comprehensive list of changes that have occurred with Safari 26.4 (link) with the cumulative effect being that the over all responsiveness and speed is noticeable when compared to the previous version. For me, my focus aren’t on the new wiz bang features that get the headlines but having those basics done well so then what I want to do becomes the focus rather than having to focus on trying to get the software to be have the way I want it to. There appears to be a lot of under the hood optimisations such as ‘Threaded Scroll-driven Animations’ which should translate to improved responsiveness. I could imagine there is a lot of work occurring behind the scenes that we may not see until version 27 since those changes are probably pretty disruptive. Safari Technology Preview 240 hasn’t been released yet but I’d say it’ll be released in the next few days – looking out for it to be posted on the website.

    Apple announced Apple Business (link) which appears to provide a platform similar to what Google and Microsoft provides but I have a feeling that the main focus of Apple Business will be around integrating Apple devices together rather than a heterogenous environment. There are a list of features that will be available for each region with not all regions having the same level of functionality (link) but I think that is due in part to having to build out the infrastructure and launching it when it is ready rather than ‘moving fast, breaking things’. It’ll be interesting to see what the details are when it launches on 14 April regarding the number of aliases that will be allowed because I couldn’t imagine the Apple Business service sticking to the 3 aliases currently on offer with the iCloud+ service at the moment.

  • A big update was released.

    Apple released the 26.4 update today and I installed it on all my devices – the update was a pretty decent size on all the devices which points to many parts of the operating system updated. The first thing I noticed after installing is how the responsiveness of the operating system has improved – from the interface of the shell through to the bundled applications. I can’t help but get the feeling that they’ve spent a good amount of time fixing up a lot of things that should have been addressed before it was launched.

    The first thing I noticed in terms of the under the hood change has been the update of the System Firmware Version and OS Loader Version from 13822.81.10 to 18000.101.7, the firmware and driver of Wi-FI has been upgraded from version 23.41.8.0.41.51.201 to 23.50.20.0.41.51.208, the Wi-Fi stack has been upgrade from IO80211_driverkit-1540.16 to IO80211_driverkit-1555.23, I’ve also had a look through the ‘System Information’ and pretty much everything has been updated in some way. As for Safari being updated, I’ll write a longer post after work tonight when I have time but I thought it would be best to get my initial thoughts posted on my blog.

  • No, the software industry isn’t going away.

    I’ve been watching some videos over on the YouTube channel “The Tech Report” where Ed Zitron has been a breath of fresh air regarding the AI hype. I was watching the following video which appeared in my ‘suggested videos’ section on YouTube (I guess the algorithm is suggesting this video as a counter balance to the other videos I have been watching):

    The above video is the perfect example of someone getting high on their own supply of believing the hype – the reason why the there are software companies in the first place and that is because you’re not just paying for a system that can be customised into a bespoke solution but you’re also paying for someone to take responsibility for maintaining it over the long term. In other words businesses want to know who the buck stops with and that who is the software company. It reminds me very much of an executive from Westpac many years ago when talking about the role of technology within the banking sector – that is something that enables the organisation to serve their customers, the bank isn’t there as a technology company in and of itself but there to use technology to achieve an end goal.

    The other problem is the fact that AI code is slop code – poorly written code not to mention the complete absence of system analysis and design documentation to make sense of how the whole system works together. The lack of documentation also means that you spend just as much time if not more trying to understand the code before fixing any bugs, auditing the code base to ensure there aren’t security holes and ensuring that it is compliant with the given regulations for the industry that your business operates in. That doesn’t even touch on the cost of the technical debt that builds up resulting an even more complex and convoluted code base that those within the organisation have very little to no understanding on how to maintain and develop it further.

    If there was ever evidence that the market isn’t rational then it is the recent weeks of Trump saying something and then the gulliable people on Wall Street believing what Trump had to say. This is what happens when you have traders and analysts who get sucked into the hype of something and lack the knowledge to find out whether what is being said is a load of nonsense or whether there is actually some truth to it. It is something I see in large business, executives lacking the intellectual curiosity to go out of their way to educate themselves on something – you don’t need to be an expert at a a micro level but you should have a good understanding at the macro level so then at least you can detect hype and over promising not to mention asking the right questions.

  • I’ll put this under the title of ‘a penny for your thoughts’:

    I was watching the following video and thought about it in context to the post I made before entitled ‘I’m sorry, I don’t believe they’ve changed’ (link) that I made a few days ago where I pointed out that I don’t believe that the videos of people regretting their vote will actually translate into a long term change of those people’s politics.

    The original post I made wasn’t just in reference to Trump supporters but also independents (those who don’t identify with either party) who voted for Trump but are having regrets. I talked about the idea that far too many Trump supporters appear to vote based on vibes but I also wonder to what extent are we not picking up everyone – how many Trump supporters are stuck in the sunken cost fallacy vs staying for the sense of community, belonging, identity being defined through ‘the struggle’, the comradery that they get being part of a movement; the tendency for movements to continue past their used by date.

    Regarding the whole AI hype frain, put me in the category of being an ‘AI Hater’ given the amount of time and resources wasted on what has become yet another attempt by Silicon Valley to look for the next growth market – metaverse failed, 3d televisions and phones failed, the ‘touch first’ vision that Microsoft put out with Windows 8 failed, the belief that the AR/VR headset would become the next smartphone etc. Here we are and now Silicon Valley is convincing the coke snorting micro dosing types on Wall Street that the next ‘big thing’ is just around the corner and all they need is a few hundred billion more and then something magical will happen.

    One of the major promises of the ‘AI revolution’ is that it will allow us to overcome the limitations of our current forces (which is causing persistently high inflation) to herald an age of abundance where money would cease to having meaning aka a post scarcity society. Sounds great in theory but we’ve seen promises like this is the past regarding other technological leaps – sure, there were improvements in productivity but the degree in which the technology improved productivity never really lived up to the hype. The current crop of LLMs are already hitting their limit with each increase in the size the improvement in accuracy decreases meaning at some point we’re going to hit some sort of plateau and thus will need to develop something better than LLMs.

    You’ve heard about the big lay offs in the press but what isn’t covered in the press are the businesses that months later reverse their decision and try to rehire all those people they had laid off. What also isn’t being reported on is how well it performs when compared to humans – how accurate are they when compared to a human, when it comes to code aka vibe coding is the output unreadable verbose slop resulting in technical debt or will it actually improve product quality and productivity. All the test so far that have been done has resulted in underwhelming results and one could argue that the results would be even more underwhelming once these services are no longer subsidised and are charged at the cost of delivering it. Unlike the dotcom bubble where there was actually something useful being sold, I think at the end of the AI bubble there will be very little in the way of scraps that can be used to build the next push forward for the technology sector.

  • And I’m feeling good.

    I woke up this morning and the weather is looking great outside – I’m going to catch the bus down to the mall to have a look around, get some fresh air and see how the world is going. I have to admit, I was a bit lazy yesterday and apart from a walk during the day I just stayed at home and chilled out because I’m at a point in my life where my value peace of mind over satisfying some abrirartry need to feel ‘productive’ on my day off. While I’m down there I’ll probably get my self a coffee, check out the music store along with a few other things and because it is Tuesday it should be fairly quiet which is one of the reasons I like working Wednesday to Sunday with my weekend being Monday and Tuesday – I avoid the crazy crowds on Saturday and Sunday when everyone else has their weekend.

    An update for Chrome was released which bumped the version from 146.0.7680.154 to 146.0.7680.165 on macOS with the details of the update can be found here (link). The uBlock Origin Lite update hasn’t been released yet although there has been an update in the last couple of hours to fix a regression so it’ll be interesting to see whether uBlock Origin Lite 2026.322.1735 will appear or will they jump straight to 2026.323.2044 instead. Oh, and in disappointing news, 26.4 wasn’t released today so many it’ll be tomorrow however what I have noticed though is quite a few updates have come through for apps on my phone which makes me wonder whether there maybe some changes in 26.4 that require apps to get ready for the platform launch.

  • A relaxing day at home.

    I woke up early today to the chime of a message being sent to say that the food I ordered was on its way. When it arrived I put it all away and then got to cooking up the mince – it had been in the freezer for quite some time, I cooked it up and it was truly awful. I’m unsure what may have happened but I’m going to remember next time not to freeze the mince for longer than a few months before the mince I had was all grey and dry – even cooking it with a decent amount of canned tomatoes didn’t fix it up. Unfortunately it was a bit of a waste of food but I had a plan (b) that I could turn to so I guess it wasn’t that bad after all but I guess it is a case of ‘you live and you learn’.

    I checked for updates for my software and uBlock Origin Lite 2026.322.1735 was released today. I wasn’t expecting an update so soon after the beta release but there are two notable updates for Safari – I quickly updated, cleared the cache, and set it up cleanly and I haven’t noticed any regressions so far. The update has ben made available on the Apple App Store (both iOS and macOS) and the Microsoft Edge store but it hasn’t arrived yet in the Google Chrome store yet – that may take 24-48 hours. On Tuesday we may see the 26.4 update (which would be Monday in the United States) but it could be possible that they’ll release it on Wednesday (which would be Tuesday in the United States).

    On a good side I ordered two CDs on Discogs: Grady Tate Movin’ Day and Grady Tate After The Long Drive Home which are getting shipped from Japan. The Arthur Adams CDs arrived and I ripped them to FLAC, backed them up to the cloud and then I encoded the FLAC to AAC for playback on my iPhone along with playing on my other devices. I’m getting back into listening to music and I’m tempted to buy a DVD player so that I can build up my DVD collection once again. At the rate things are going I may need to buy myself another bookshelf or do some rearranging of furniture around the home – I need some more space.

    Winter is coming in the next few months so one of the things I want to do is to setup a curtain on the side door where I can feel the heat escaping. I’m tempted to get some sort of ready made curtain that I purchase ‘off the rack’ but I’ll need to get a tape measure so then when I do pop into a place that sells them that I get the correct sized ones. In the area I have a wicker wood chest for my shoes but what I really would like to get is a proper shoe rack/cabinet – the one at Kmart looks good enough and the colour fits in with the other furniture (I’m avoiding the whole white furniture look because it would look out of place in my house).