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

  • Two more days to go.

    Got up this morning and it was chilly outside but I had my heater going the whole night which made getting out of bed not so bad. It looks like for the next couple of days that it should be fairly fine although it’ll be a bit chilly with the temperature getting down to 1°C so I’ll be staying at home. Next week I’m hoping that my Ikea order will be sent and will arrive so then I can change my duvet and duvet cover where on my own bed I’ll have a king sized duvet on my queen size bed and the queen sized duvet cover will go on the king sized single in the spare room that I’m using as my office.

    I’ve been following the early access builds over on Ubiquiti – UniFi Network Application 10.5.61 has been released however there have been plenty of people reporting issues but keep in mind it could be due to UniFi Network Application 10.5.61 or it could be due to the underlying UniFi OS that may have a bug that needs fixing but I guess we’ll need to wait and see what happens. There is the UniFi OS 5.1.21 however it is still in early access and has been so for a couple of weeks so it may not even appear as they move onto the next release in the 5.1.x series or may even hold off for the 5.2.x series.

    I think that things are going to start to get a bit rocky now that the conflicted between Israel/United States has flared up, ships aren’t able to navigate, insurance companies not willing to insure boats in such a dangerous area of the world and also keeping in mind that the price of oil has stablised because of the draw down of strategic reserves but eventually they will run dry. The New Zealand government has help fund extra storage capacity for diesel reserves however the one thing to keep in mind is that the extra capacity does come with a price tag it costing $1.2 million per month – that cost has to be recouped either it being passed along to consumers via higher prices or the government subsidising the additional cost but either way that cost has to be covered by someone.

    It is also interesting to see that as the electioneering continues on that National are how scaling back some of their ‘Roads of National Significance (RoNS)’ or as what I like to call them – ‘the party who claims that they’re good at business demonstrate they have no idea about business’. The reason why I say that is because the roads are of such poor value for money it would be the equivilent of placing a $100 bet, bringing in your ticket then next day and being told you won your bet and get paid out $70 – less than the amount you spent on the bet.

    What amazes me is the fact that we had a report made by, if I remember correctly it was the infrastructure commission, that stated the focus for future spending needed to be making the existing infrastructure work better (60% of funding) and the remaining amount spent on new infrastructure. A good example of making infrastructure work better was the installation of rail tracks from Trentham through to the Upper Hutt station (it was only single track) which would then enable more frequent train services. That is a good example how you take the existing infrastructure we have and then making it work better.

    Daily writing prompt
    What’s one habit that has improved your life the most?
    View all responses

    The best habit I’ve picked up is the habit of making small changes one at a time rather than trying to make a whole heap of changes all at once. The benefit of making those incremental changes is that it allows you to focus all your energy on getting that change embedded in your life so that it becomes muscle memory rather than trying to do a whole lot of changes at once then finding that you cannot keep all the plates spinning at once. As a result of this gradual approach I am finding that my life is a lot better organised because now I have a routine where I just do things without having to consciously think about doing whatever needs to be done.

    Fediverse reactions

  • A cold and chilly day.

    It has been a cold and chilly day today. I’ve left my heater on all day and although it’ll probably push my power bill north of $200 I would sooner spend the extra money to keep myself warm rather than trying to ‘tough it out’ and end up getting sick. Had a good breakfast in the morning although for dinner I had some tacos with plenty of vegetables which went well. As I’ve noted on previous blog posts my focus is upping the amount of fibre that I’m having and at the moment it is above 36g of fibre which is about the amount a person my age should be eating. I’m finding that with the eating of fibre that I don’t get the sugar spikes meaning that when I have a meal that I don’t have an energy crash nor do I end up feeling hungry a couple of hours after having a meal.

    I finally got around to installing Chrome on Wednesday and then when I checked for updates on Thursday I found that Google had pushed out another update – from version from the initial version of 150.0.7871.101 to 150.0.7871.115 and there were plenty of security bugs that were fixed in the release (link). One thing I did notice is that the ‘writing prompts’ are now working properly in WordPress where as from the main page when you click on ‘post answer’ a new page would open up but the writing prompt wouldn’t appear. The issue regarding uploading a photo is still occuring – I’m unsure whether that is because I’m selecting the photo via open window and selecting photos rather than copying the photo from the Photos app to the desktop then uploading from the desktop to WordPress.

    When it comes to uBlock Origin Lite – yes, it works a whole lot smoother on Chrome than it does on Safari but I guess when macOS 27 I’ll get to see if there are improvements but I’m not holding out much hope because extension support appears to be a very, very, very low priority when it comes to what the Safari developers are focusing on. The problem comes back to the fact that the Declarative Net Request (DNR) has been implemented on top of the native content blocking API that comes part of macOS rather than it being implemented natively. The net result of it not being implemented natively are two fold, the first being that the filters need to be converted from the Declarative Net Request format to the native content blocking format (unfortunately there is no way to know when the filters have been converted after installing an extension – you just have to leave it alone for 5 minutes then hope that it is completed)

    Oh, and I’ve finally taken a photo of my lounge room with the tree in the corner:

    It adds a bit of colour to the room and the corner is no longer looking empty. I bought it online from KMart and got it delivered – it is around 180cm high which is slightly shorter than I am. I’m at the point now where it feels really nice and cosy during winter, being able to cuddle up in the couch, watching movies or television shows on the big screen, the heater in the hall way keeping the house warm.

    I am still looking at some rugs for my bedroom, spare room/office and the hall way but I’m in no great hurry to get it but it would be nice to add some colour given the grey carpet I have (the carpet is perfectly find and hard wearing but some colour would lift the vibe of the place).

    Daily writing prompt
    What’s a book you think deserves a sequel?
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    Two books I’d love to see not only a sequel but also a prequel would be 1984 and A Brave New World. When it comes to A Brave New World I would like to know what lead up to the system being created and how a society transitions from one that is highly controlled where people were divorced from their emotions to one where all where all those emotions come flooding back and how one would handle that without having never been given the tools to understand them. When it comes to 1984 the prequel would probably more important than the sequel in terms of how the system came into being although a sequel would be nice assuming there is some sort scenario where the system is reformed or collapses. I’ve kind of wondered whether 1984 could be a television series in much the same way that 12 Monkeys was turned into television series which allowed the exploration of the themes raised in the movie.

    Fediverse reactions

  • Not every critic is out to get you, sometimes they’re trying to protect you.

    Today was a windy and wet day however it appears that things are going to get better on Friday which will hopefully translate to the weekend drying up. Today I worked from home and it was rather uneventful although two system issues caused a higher volume of calls than expected but that being said at least it wasn’t on a day where we’re traditionally more busy. In Australia the telecommunication giant Telstra had a nationwide outage which caused chaos which reminds me of the nationwide outage in New Zealand that occurred on the One NZ network (Spark had their own nationwide outage back in the days of XT Network when they moved from CDMA to 3G UTMS). When this sort of thing happens it makes me wonder whether there should be some sort of fall back mechanism where the other mobile phone carriers pick up load just in case people need to make an emergency or urgent phone call etc.

    Over the last day or two there has been fall out from more revelations coming out regarding Graham Platner. For me when I saw the primary taken place I stood back and waited to see what else came out and I couldn’t help but get the feeling that something was being held back, that not every revelation had ben made public. I generally want to believe in the idea of giving someone a second chance, that there is redemption in this life time, I’ve even rallied against cancel culture on my blog because I believe people have the capacity to deconstruct their past beliefs and reform themselves. With all that being said, rehabilitation doesn’t occur over night and the fact that these issues didn’t come up during a background check for opposition research makes me wonder whether it was a situation of not wanting to find something because what he was saying blinded them from doing some serious digging into the guys past.

    Oh, and as for the Republicans, there was Kevin McCarthy on Fox News who claimed that the Republicans when they found out there was a bad candidate they didn’t vote for him. Really? because how do you explain Donald Trump? Roy Moore? Dr Oz? Herschel Walker? Michelle Bachmann? Marjorie Taylor Greene? Lauren Boebert? Matt Gaetz? Rick Santorum? Christine O’Donnell? do I need to go further? it is amazing how the average Republican voter appears to have no long term memory because Republicans just spout provable lies and there is no political consequences. It’s almost as if Republican voters just live in the moment and what happened 5 minutes ago let alone an hour ago or a year ago didn’t happen because it isn’t even remembered. It’s like watching 1984 where the past is rewritten to justify the present when the phrase “We have always been at war with Eastasia” was uttered. The average Republican has somehow perfected the art of double think – being able to hold two contrary ideas in their head at the same time and consider it perfectly normal.

  • Back to work on Wednesday.

    Woke up today around 10am and I had some breakfast but I decided to make it a little more interesting by having chia pudding but rather than eating it out of the jar I decanted the contents from the jar into a bowel and then put some black Doris plums on top (minus the stone). The combination of that along with the vanilla Up and Go, chia seeds and the psyllium husk added some much needed flavour after having pretty bland breakfasts for the last couple of weeks.

    I caught the bus so I could have dinner at mum’s place – meat loaf, whole potatoes with sour cream and sweet chilli, broccoli and cauliflower with cheese sauce then for desert some ice cream. I was also able to pick up some home made musli bars which were quite tasty although I asked that next time mum made them to maybe add some craisins which would add an interesting sweet but tart flavour to it. The musli bar reminds me of the Cookie Time Bumper Bars – quite a hearty snack with plenty of fibre.

    After dinner mum dropped me off home but on the way I picked up some groceries – I picked up some yoghurt for breakfast along with some chocolate Up and Go. I also finally got my act together to buy bigger glass containers because the current ones are around 300ml where as the new one is around 450ml which makes it a lot easier to meal prep because I can give it a good shake, stir it thoroughly to remove an clumps of chia seeds or psyllium husk that may form as the chia seeds or psyllium husk are absorbing the water in the Up and Go.

    Daily writing prompt
    What villain actually had a good point?
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    I’m sure it isn’t going to be a popular opinion but I would say that the villain from the movie ‘A Few Good Men’, Colonel Nathan R. Jessup, and the famous “you can’t handle the truth” speech he gave in the court scene. What the main protagonist pointed out was the hypocrisy of the those running the proverbial sausage factory but not wanting to know how the sausage gets made. The professional managerial class, politicians and those in positions of power are happy to bask in the glory of success but the moment that it is known how that success was achieved then they suddenly become very high and mighty, giving bloviating speeches about the importance of the very things they were happy to ignore as so long as the masses didn’t know how the results were achieved.

    Unfortunately there is a habit that for many in power they like to keep their distance so it always gives them plausible deniability when things go pear shaped, to be able to claim that they were left in the dark or if they had an inkling but to never actually ask the necessary questions. The reason why many don’t ask questions because asking questions would then expose themselves to trickier questions regarding why underlings made the decisions they did and what sort of culture exists within the organisation along with who is responsible for the culture – the culture being very much a product of those at the top. As the old saying goes, “The fish rots from the head down”, it is ultimately the leadership who create and nurture a culture within an organisation – if you punish people who do things by the book but take longer but reward those who take short cuts and break the rules then get the results you want then it shouldn’t be surprising that there is now an incentive structure in place.

    We’re already seeing that in New Zealand when it comes to the Ministry of Social Development where employee performance is going to be evaluated based on whether they can hit the numbers set down by the government (link). What is the National led government doing in response to the revelation reported by Radio New Zealand? well, there appears to be a ‘Yes Minister’ video for everything these days – or as my old man used to say about how Yes Minister isn’t too far from reality:

    The government of the day are trying to distance themselves from the objectives they’ve set down and the methods that are being employed to achieve those end goals. Like the Yes Minister video the government of the day are trying to make out as if methods of achieving goals have nothing to do with them while ignoring that the policies that they’re laying down lead to such operational policies being drawn up and implemented by the ministry itself. It is truly amazing how no very few seem to have learnt from the work that Sue Bradford over 20 years ago did while in parliament where she worked on undoing the damage of prior government policies. The policies of prior governments where by Work and Income New Zealand (the precursor to the Ministry of Social Development) would withhold information from those seeking help so then they could hit their KPIs for the year for example, not voluntarily telling clients the benefits they were entitled to. Sue Bradford worked tirelessly to ensure that when clients were dealing with Work and Income New Zealand that there was full disclosure regarding all the assistance that they could apply for rather than the onus falling on the client to do the research regarding what they may or may not be entitled to.

    Fediverse reactions

  • A relaxing Monday.

    Today was a pretty rainy day and I checked to see the news regarding whether the rest of the country had experienced something similar. Unfortunately down south there has been some pretty major floods but thank goodness the local and central government were able to mobilise resources to help those who were affected. In the northern hemisphere there are heat waves and wild fires, in the southern hemisphere we’ve got El Niño making the weather go crazy. It looks like it’ll be horribly nasty weather until Friday although given how unpredictable the weather is I guess it’ll be a situation of having to play it by ear.

    It is interesting to see the number of centre left and left wing Americans getting excited for the mid terms but I can’t help but get the feeling that there is an echo chamber online. As much as I’d love to believe that things are crashing and burning for the MAGA faithful and then for those MAGA faithful to have a road to Damascus moment, I am reminded that so often that their entire identity is linked to a party and/or an individual rather than an ideology. When you have a large number of Americans whose politics are based on vibes rather than a robust understanding of the issues and the policies being promoted to fix those issues, I wouldn’t hold out on a mass rush towards Democrats. Assuming that they do make the move to vote for Democrats then I’m pretty confident they’ll switch back to the Republican Party the moment the next charlatan comes along promising to feed into their inclination of blaming minorities for the problems in their life rather than the very people they keep voting for.

    In terms of software update, uBlock Origin Lite 2026.705.2152 has been released and it has appeared in the Edge extension store however it hasn’t appeared in the Chrome or Apple Store. I’ve been following the release of Chrome 150 however I liked to check out the Chrome Platform Status page (link) to see what is being implemented. Apple has released Safari Technology Preview 247 recently and on the Web Platform Test it has been bumped from 85.9% to 87%.

  • But, but, but China are going to beat us!

    Oh the hysteria from the usual suspects in politics and the media – the never ending avalanche of hyperventilation about how there is a race for AI between the United States and how the United States cannot afford to ‘fall behind China’ because of…well, visions of what they believing AI is capable doing and by AI we’re actually talking about LLMs. Behind all this nonsense I think it is important to understand the difference between China and the United States – the United States is trying to make a business off providing AI where as the Chinese want to integrate AI into their business to make their products better.

    On one side you have people convinced that if they throw enough money at a problem then they can corner the market and ‘name their price’ – remember Sam Altman talking about AI being like a utility? yeah, that is what I think they’re hoping to be – OpenAI and Anthropic provide the foundation models then charge businesses who will then build products on top of those models. Part of that cornering of the market involves both throwing huge amounts of money at a problem in the belief that they’ll have an unsurmountable lead and the other part is the hysteria about safety, the need for regulation, claims that the next model is ‘super dangerous’ etc. (I’ve compared the nonsense to a chicken wing restaurant boasting about how they have the hottest wings in town along with the theatrics of going as so far as getting customers to sign a legal waver because their wings are so hot and dangerous).

    The second part isn’t just about pumping up excitement and drumming the investment community, most of who are as thick as two short planks (even that is an insult to planks because at least you can turn planks of wood into something useful), but the other part is about creating an environment where politicians are compelled to keep out of the United States the free and open source models that are getting closer and closer to the capabilities of the proprietary models made by OpenAI and Anthropic. The best description of such behaviour would be a non-tariff barrier – creating hurdles so that for most businesses they throw in the towel and not bother entering the United States market and instead focus their energy somewhere else.

    Getting back to the the difference, the comparison I made in the first paragraph only really applies to OpenAI and Anthropic because if you look at the big players – Google, Microsoft and Apple, the value isn’t in the AI but how the AI integrates into their products. The value of Gemini is how it integrates into the Google Workspace, with Microsoft they’re working on their own in house models (Microsoft have five of them) then there is Apple that worked in collaboration with Google (model distillation) to improve their own models. I assume that as Google’s models keep moving forward that Apple will keep doing model distillation on the newer models then deploys those models when they push out updates for their platform every 2-3 months.

    I think with he recent information we’ve had leaked about OpenAI’s alleged financials along with rumours of Meta pulling back on capex spending along with leasing capacity of the unused capacity to the market (the comparison I made on BlueSky is comparing the move to that of a fast food store using up the 5″ burger patties for 4″ burgers rather than cooking more 4″ burger patties – it is better to do that than lose a whole lot more money by having to throw out 5″ burger patties) and at least get some money back from their unwise investment.

    Long term think there will be a correction, the AI companies will scale back, no more subscriptions in favour of pay as you go API access along with ending the free consumer version of their services as investors start demanding they make themselves profitable. It’ll be interesting to see if, once they remove subscriptions and free consumer access, whether there is a viable business model and if there is a viable business model I have a strong inkling that the business isn’t going to be worth $1 trillion let along half of that amount. Keeping in mind that essentially what these AI companies are offering are development tools with an AI service slapped onto the side of it – not particularly all that exciting in the grand scheme of things.

    Regarding the AI washing, we’ve already seen some businesses come out and admit that their layoffs had nothing to do with AI and everything to do with the fact that hey had been over hiring for over a decade simply to keep talent away from competitors but now shareholders are demanding a better return on their investment. Maybe we’ll finally see more businesses be honest instead of hiding behind AI. when thy restructure because it is one thing to be laid off from your job but it is another thing to have your employer lie to your face about the reasons behind the decision.

  • A good day at work.

    Going to have a short post tonight as I am laying in bed relaxing after having a fairly busy day at work. I woke up feeling good after the walk I had before going to bed and then had my breakfast of the chia seed pudding and I noticed that I had a two bottles of this vitamin berry shot and I thought I may as well starting working my way through it since knowing my luck if I don’t then it’ll end up going off. Something I forgot to mention that when I went shopping on Monday this week I was finally able to find the high fibre, low calorie and low carb noodles – I’m going to give them a go on my my day off when making spaghetti bolognese (I’ll need to pick up some mince, onions, canned tomatoes, tomato bolognese sauce and mushrooms).

    Silo Season 3, Episode 1 was released on Apple’s streaming service and there were quite a few flash backs during the episode. From what I have read online regarding Season 3, there will be quite a few flash backs like that to give context to how the whole network of Silos came into being, what happened to the Silo that Juliette visited and what could potentially be the future of her own Silo. One thing to keep in mind with Silo is that it is a slow burn and stories gradually unfold so it’ll be interesting to see what happens in the coming episodes. I’m looking forward to the return of Severance and other originals from the many different streaming services in the coming year or so.

  • Oh, the wailing and gnashing of teeth from the online moderates.

    It is always interesting to hear the Democratic establishment whining Democratic Socialists winning in primaries – rather than seeing this as a sign of enthusiasm and engagement by young people they see it as a challenge to their entrenched interests. What is even worse is the chorus online, particularly on BlueSky, by so-called ‘enlightened centrists’ by claiming that ‘moderates get things done’ even though all evidence points to the contrary.

    Why do I say that? because it is the moderates, not the left wing who have undermined both Obama and Biden when they were in power. It was the moderates who took the ACA who undermined the most progressive parts, there was the Connecticut Independent Senator Joe Lieberman (put up by such Democrats as being the embodiment of moderation) who threatened a filibuster if the public option wasn’t taken out – the public option being one of the few ways to keep the private sector in check.

    Then there was the ‘Build Back Better’ bill that was undermined by once again moderate Democrats by getting on television and spreading half baked justifications with the two most prominent people being Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin (although there were reports of another 8 senators who were unwilling to support it – as I like to call them, the treacherous ten) – talking about the enormous cost while leaving out the tax increases at the top end of town to pay for it. Then there were claims that the impact would be inflationary while ignoring that it wasn’t adding new money into the system but taxes being used to pay for it.

    What was the consequence of the undermining these two big pieces of legislation? in the 2010 midterms the Democratic Party lost control of the house because voters felt that after giving the Democratic Party a mandate to make major changes they instead did a wimpy compromised half baked solution rather than the robust response that the moment demanded. Then in 2021 there was a the Build Back Better build that was once again a vision to address systemic problems – a once in a lifetime opportunity to make real changes to impact the lives of ordinary Americans and once again it was undermined by so-called ‘moderates’.

    What was the consequence of these so-called moderates undermining progressive change? low voter turnout and some even throwing their hands up in the air and voting Republican. What was the response by moderates when they lost power? ah yes, the usual chestnut of complaining about ‘woke culture’ and ‘identity politics’ even though it was their obstruction of progressive reforms that could have won back middle and working class voters who had abandoned the Democratic Party for Trump because they felt like they had nothing to lose.

    The greatest threats to the Democratic Party don’t come from the Democratic Socialists but instead the wishy-washy moderates who, when the moment calls for bold solutions they instead find refuge in mediocre half baked solutions that have minimal impact in the lives who are really doing it tough. Democrats need to learn that when you have a majority then you use it, you act with a unified voice and you deliver – if that means getting rid of the filibuster then do it. The right wing aren’t scared of wielding power when they have it so neither should the left be scared of their own shadow when it comes to having the power in their hands to make transformational change.

    Daily writing prompt
    What do you do to improve your sleep?
    View all responses

    I avoid caffeine 3-4 hours before I go to bed because I find that if I have coffee too close to bed time results in me being able to get to sleep. I also like to go for at least an 8-10 km walk before having a shower then heading to bed – some people find it difficult to get to sleep after a work out but for me I fall asleep a a lot easier when I’m tired resulting in me being able to fall asleep quicker. Probably the last but most important one, don’t use your phone or computer 30 minutes to 1 hour before going to bed – even if you just lay there listening to a podcast or the radio, just allow your brain to relax and unwind by not having constant stimulus.

    Fediverse reactions

  • Getting back into the swing of things.

    Today was a rather uneventful day however I have finally got back into going for a walk – went for a 14km walk after work. I was making such good progress however when I went for my holiday and then there was a week and a half worth of rain then the result was met falling out of a routine. I’m going to go for a walk after work each night for the rest of the week then next week I’ll gradually transition back to going for a walk before work in the morning so then I get my daily exercise out of the way rather than leaving it to the end of the day when I’m less inclined to do it.

    A strange thing to do has been the Chrome Releases page (link) not loading – I’ve checked on my fixed line internet connection (fibre) and it only partially loads and either it eventually loads after a long time or Chrome asks me whether I want to keep waiting. If I try loading the website on Safari it doesn’t load then when I tried loading it on my phone but using mobile data but the same time occurred too. I’m unsure what is happening but apparently others are experiencing the same issue regardless of the browser or the ISP they’re on. The strange thing is that other Google websites load perfectly fine – I hope that Google get their act together and fix it.

    Regarding the Chrome update that was released, if you haven’t update then I advise you do given that there are 430 security vulnerabilities were found and fixed. A lot of the security vulnerabilities were found by Google themselves so it would be interesting to see to what degree is AI helping them when compared to the other tools that they use to pick up these security vulnerabilities. Probably the one good thing about Chrome is the fact that features such as AV1 playback aren’t disabled based your hardware – Apple seems to have this obsession of “if we don’t provide hardware support for it on your computer that we won’t support it at all in your browser even though your computer could easily decode it without hardware acceleration”.

  • There is a price to convenience.

    I was watching a video regarding the rise in subscription based software and the bigger theory of everything becoming a subscription. I remember when the first subscription software appeared in New Zealand over 25 years ago, I saw it being sold in Dick Smith back when it was in business as a physical store – you paid for a one year subscription and on the piece of cardboard you received there was a serial number that you would enter in when launching for the first time and you’d be good for a year. The way it was marketed was that it was cheaper to pay per year (assuming you upgraded every time a new version was released) rather than having to pay for a copy of office upfront (keeping in mind that Microsoft also had ‘Microsoft Select’ which allowed employees to install Office on their own computer for a nominal amount (normally just the price of the CD or DVD)).

    When I saw it the first time I thought ‘no one is going to buy that’ but what it did allow was for Microsoft to get a vibe check on what end users were willing to pay – test something on a small scale, get feedback and then make any changes as necessary. It would be interesting to see how the small scale experiment informed their future product roadmap. I also remember when Apple launched the iTunes Music Store and how you could purchase individual tracks for a couple of NZ dollars or a buy a whole album then download it so you could have it instantly with the icing on the cake being when they started to sell DRM free music which allowed you to backup your music collection you bought online.

    Then what we started seeing (as broadband became more widely available) was the rise of Netflix and Spotify with Netflix more of a competitor to pay television but Spotify promoted the idea of paying an amount each mouth and have unlimited music collection available at your finger tips – why pay NZ$20-30 per CD when you can have it all on your device of choice. Such an offer is tempting when you’re thinking that you’re paying around half the price of a CD per month and having a massive library to select from. It is interesting though how there has been a rebound in sales for physical media – with money being tight I think people are realising the benefit of having physical media which avoids having an ongoing amount being taken out each month. Moving over to physical media puts you in the drivers seat on terms of your monthly bills. When you have left over money you buy a CD, when you don’t have left over money then you’re happy knowing you haven’t got money going out of your account regardless of how often you use that service.

    Coming back to the original reason why I wrote this blog post, when someone sells you convenience then more often than not there are strings attached – on going to bills that need to be paid, one more additional bill because you’d prefer not having to do it yourself so instead you outsource that to someone else to take care of. This is what the whole Windows model is based around these days – get the operating system for free and Microsoft makes the money up on selling cloud services or taking a cut when software companies sell their software through the Windows store. This is the reason why they make you create an online account – it is their way to get you into their ecosystem and then eventually you become dependent on it because now your whole life is now dependent on the services you pay Microsoft for.

    This is part of the reason why alternatives to Windows struggle to gain ground because it demands that the end user put in some minimum effort in terms of learning how to use the system which is why the established players bet on most people unwilling to put in the bare minimum in favour of paying a subscription so then they don’t have to deal with it all. This is part of the reason why AI is being pushed so hard because the AI companies hope that once they get you hooked that you’ll keep paying through the nose and thanks to the cognitive decline it causes (link) I guess like a drug addict you’ll keep paying for that AI fix.

    Now, with that being said, I’m not saying that you should pull up sticks and build your own server, host your own email server etc. but I think it is important to recognise the hidden cost when you offload responsibility onto someone else. In some cases it makes a whole lot of sense – could I setup a NextCloud server, organise a static IP address and run a server myself? sure but am I interested in dealing with the ongoing maintenance associated with keeping my server secure? probably not. The question that one should ask is whether buying convenience is worth the price of dependency – paying someone to take care of what is sitting in the cloud? sure but does it make sense to keep renting the same music over and over again when your music collection has only increased by maybe a couple of CDs every year.