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

  • Rain, rain and more rain.

    It has been a rainy day today so I’ve spent my time at home relaxing, recovering, watching some videos and catching up on the news all while trying not to get too anxious about the world. For lunch/dinner tonight I had some chicken, steamed carrots with garlic butter and some fresh bread which was satisfying. After I finished that I then I had some of the berries I ordered online that got delivered this morning along with a couple bananas. The weather maybe getting colder and there is more rain but I’m going to take advantage of the ability to get access to seasonal fruit before it starts becoming expensive again.

    uBlock Origin Lite 2026.301.2014 has been released with the typical filter refresh however it is waiting approval of the relevant stores. On the matter of extensions, I had a look at the latest WECG meeting minutes that have been uploaded with an interesting note regarding the London face to face meeting with Declarative Net Request (DNR) stalled issues are hopefully going to be addressed. The reason why it had peaked my interest is the fact that there are still limitations in the Declarative Net Request when compared to the original webrequest that the Declarative Net Request replaced. I could imagine long term that Firefox will want to eventually move fully to MV3 but I don’t see that happening until the limitations of MV3 are properly addressed.

    Oh, a side note, it truly is amazing just how irrational the market is – this idea that Salesforce is going to suddenly replaced with a CRM that vibe coded and some how through some miraculous divine intervention the bugs for that vibe code will fix itself is just plan idiocy. Whenever I hear Wall Street making big claims about AI replacing programmers (and in turn will some how challenge the notion of the SaaS business model) it is clear that these people should put down the $100 bill they were using to short coke, check into a rehab and maybe take a year or two off from work to touch some grass instead of talking out their backside on topics they know little to nothing about. I’m working on a blog post debunking a laundry list of BS I see spreading online but currently it is a ‘work in progress’. To quote the great philosopher group ‘Public Enemy’: “Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t believe the hype”.

    Regarding the current conflict between Israel/United States and Iran, there have been cracks in the MAGA coalition as many have raised the issue that the promise of ‘no new wars’ has been broken. I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up seeing the Trump administration will attempt to justify their actions as not being ‘a new war’ by saying that there has been a simmering low level conflict between Iran and the United States ever since the Iranian revolution and that the recent action taken by the United States and Israel is about tying up a loose end rather than starting a new conflict. Once that is announced then expect the MAGA podcast bro echo chamber to take that as their marching orders as they go out to do the PR work for the Trump administration.

    This showed up on my YouTube, makes me wonder whether this is a potential solution for New Zealand – moving away from bespoke homes in favour of standardised designs that are manufactured in factory like conditions can be deployed without the delays normally associated with building homes the ‘traditional way’.

  • End of the week, start of a new week.

    Work today was ok but it wasn’t exactly smooth sailing with a sore throat but one small blessing is the fact that I still had some fisherman’s friend sore throat lozenges – like Kurols Mentholated Pastilles, it has a strong menthol hit to them which does a good job dealing with a sore throat. I’ll be taking it easy over the next couple of days, getting some good sleep and resting well. At the moment I’m enjoying a couple sandwiches (cheese and onion, and an egg salad). The weather is lousy outside and a lot colder than what it has been with the temperature being around 9 degrees celsius but it feels closer to 4-5 degrees celsius even wearing a hoodie.

    I’m tracking the CDs I bought recently where it has gone from Texas to Indiana and now it is in Ohio so hopefully it isn’t too far away – maybe the end of this coming week or sometime next week? I guess I’ll need to wait and see but I’m happy that it is now possible to buy some of the vinyl rips that I lost many years ago. I still buy CDs because I prefer to have the physical media on hand rather than hoping that the music I’ve bought online will still be accessible in the future. The reason I say that is because I’ve heard some horror stories of people losing their whole movie collection that they’ve bough legitimately online through one of the big movie resellers only to find that due to a licensing dispute they end up losing access to the very thing they paid for.

    I’ve been following along regarding the strike on Iran by the United States and Israel with the goal set out (based on what Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu) of regime change in Iran. When I heard this there were a few things that came to mind with the first being that any administration is made up of many different factions that come together to pursue their particular interests which leaves open over who eventually takes over and what degree of support will they have from the citizenry. The second issue is how many within the power structure itself are there because it is an ‘iron rice bowl’ (earning enough for three square meals and a roof over your head) vs. actually true believers who will lay down their lives for the regime.

    What I find particularly interesting are the two groups who who come to mind that have been conspicuously quiet over the last year or so, the first group being the die hard MAGA supporters who claimed that Trump/Vance were the ‘peace ticket’ and that a vote for Harris/Walz would result in WWIII or some other hyperbole ridden claim. The second group being the chronically online self identified leftists who make the usual brain dead claim of ‘the vote for the less of two evils is till voting for evil’ and how they would vote third party to ‘stick it to the establishment’ or ‘stay at home to stick it to the establishment’.

    I find it funny how these people are going to be exactly like those in 10 years time who claimed they never voted for Trump just as there was an army of people who claimed they never voted for George W Bush even though they were the most obnoxious people on social media talking about ‘supporting the troops’ and ‘these colours don’t run’ etc. It is bit of a joke when you have a sizeable section of the population who vote based on vibes and how easily they can discard their once claimed ‘deeply held beliefs’ the moment that a new vibe comes along and happens to tickle their fancy.

  • One more day to go.

    Finished work tonight and then went for a 11.6km walk – having been lazy for the last couple of days it was good to get back into some exercise, enjoying fresh air and do a bit of looking around to see if anything had changed in the couple of empty plots of land that are currently being readied for houses to be built. For dinner tonight I had Naked kitchen soup Mexican black bean chilli with some warm ciabatta rolls that I heated up in the oven. it was a nice dinner and plenty of flavour although I did sprinkle some chilli flakes to give it an extra kick.

    The United States and Israel have conducted strikes against Iran with the goal of regime change (something that Republicans have been talking about since the first George W Bush presidency) – get ready for the chorus of ‘but this isn’t what I voted for’ from the Trump supporters who convinced themselves that Trump was the peace president even though in his first term he ripped up the ‘Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action’ which made it clear Trump and the Republican Party weren’t interested in peace. It is amazing how Trump supporters have convinced themselves that chanting ‘this isn’t what I voted for’ some how is a form of general absolution where they’re absolved from the responsibility that comes as a consequence of their voting decision.

    I shouldn’t have to say this but given how the internet is inhabited by many, many special individuals, I am no supporter of the current Iranian regime. If the current Iranian regime disappeared tomorrow an replaced with a secular democratic liberal democracy then the world would be a better place for all concerned. With that being said, I don’t support countries conducting regime change, if there is going to be a change it should be done by the Iranian people and what ever comes after the current regime is toppled should be left up to the Iranian people to decide not for the country to become vassal state for western interests.

  • Two more days to go.

    I had an enjoyable dinner tonight – a nice balance of fresh vegetables and meat made the meal satisfying but not to the point of feeling too full. It is the one thing that I do these days when I have a dinner delivered is making sure that the meal is balanced rather than refined carbs as the main with refined carbs on the side then a few more refined carbs for good measure with little in the way of dietary fibre or lean protein. I also got some extra beans and corn for some extra fibre because that is something that I’ve been lacking in my diet – it is all good to focus on protein but fibre is also good at ensuring that when carbs are eaten that the energy is released slowly in a sustainable way rather than a rapid release followed by a energy crash.

    Chrome 146 is going to be released hopefully next week (the early release was released this week with the public release being a week after) so when that happens I’m tempted to get it a try. I’m still waiting for Apple to fix a bug related to NZ Post/YouShop website where on Firefox and Chrome it renders correctly but on Safari the page is around 3/4 of the way down the page so you have to scroll down before you get to see it. I reported the issue over a year ago and it still hasn’t been fixed. If it works on both Firefox and Chrome then it is a clear indication that you need to do something about it rather than ignoring it and hoping that it’ll eventually disappear.

    Daily writing prompt
    Describe a phase in life that was difficult to say goodbye to.
    View all responses

    Moving out of home and saying goodbye to a carefree lifestyle where I didn’t have to plan for anything other than earning enough money to pay for a train into university and some spending money to pay for any hobbies. Once I moved out of home then I had to come to terms that the freedom from responsibility disappeared and how I had to take on responsibility of paying rent, electricity, budgeting when it came to groceries etc. After making that big change almost 20 years ago I look back at home much progress I have made and have matured although I have to admit I do occasionally make some foolish choices I have come a long way since I moved out.

  • Work went as well as to be expected.

    A rather uneventful day so far – I love working from home, being able to have a cup of coffee within arms reach or being able to sit in front of television when having dinner/lunch. I was reading through the Chrome platform status for the next version of Chrome (link) and there is some interesting things being added behind the preview flag. The interesting part is the Web MCP and how that’ll fit into things like voice assistance being able to traverse the internet and buy things that people request. The other feature is WebNN to allow models to run locally on the local NPU rather than having it sitting in the cloud. I could imagine that is something that Microsoft and Google wish to do which will push off non-premium models to end users that can be run locally and the premium users can take advantage of the larger models running in the cloud.

    Safari Technology Preview 238 has been released (link) and I’m a bit disappointed that I haven’t seen any progress made in the area of Web Extensions. I hope that the reason for the lack of progress when it comes to Web Extensions is due to the developers wanting to get a Web Platform Test tool setup so that bugs and compatibility can be routinely checked against rather than implementing something and then wondering whether it is compatible with what else is out there.

    Anyway, I ordered dinner tonight because it is Friday so why the hell not, from the local Mexican outlet that is fairly good value and their food is always top notch. At the moment I’m waiting for it to be delivered but once arrived I’ll have that while watching two episodes of Paradise then once that is done I’ll finish off where I left off regarding Fallout.

  • Get ready for a whinge and a whine.

    Before I start, I’ll give an update on how things are going. Work was great today, went into the office, the weather was nice and there was a nice vibe to the office although I have to admit I’ve been a bit lazy recently so I need to get myself back into working a bit harder than I have. I was able to catch the train home tonight and I then went for a small walk around the block so I could get some fresh air which I am happy about given that at the moment it sounds like there is some drizzle. I had a check of the Metservice and it is highly likely there will be some rain overnight but how much I guess I’ll need to find out.

    I was using my Surface Laptop today and I updated all the software – lots of updates have been released along with a preview of next month’s patch Tuesday update. I have Chrome installed on it along with uBlock Origin Lite. From what I have read it appears that the next version of Windows 11 will be build off 26300 and the 28000 series which forms the basis of 26H1 will become the basis of the update in 27H2 which makes me wonder whether we’ll be seeing a lot more under the hood changes which will bring the aged ISA changes that both AMD and Intel agreed to. I guess we’ll soon find out when 26H2 is released but it appears based on those rumours that Microsoft is addressing many of the long held complaints people have of Windows – maybe the whole AI industry will crash and things will finally get back to normal.

    Samsung released the Galaxy S26 and the usual suspects in the online tech community have their incessant whinging and whining about how they wanted a revolutionary change but instead got an evolutionary spec bump. I really do have to wonder whether some of these people who upload videos are doing so simply to create rage bait to ride the algorithm or whether they’re that genuinely stupid. We’re at a point in the smart phone cycle that it is a mature technology and that the sort of ground breaking, earth shaking, bong shaking and bone shattering changes are in the past with the focus being refinement – taking what’s works and refine, making an incremental improvement and making the integration of software and hardware a whole lot better.

    The release of the S26 will come with Android 16 with One UI 8.5 and it’ll be interesting to see what happens with Android 17 in terms of the release date and whether that’ll resulting in One UI jumping to version 9. Even the software version bump should be a clear indication that the massive changes are in the past – some AI enhancements but most of the focus is about improving the over all experience. Reminds me very much of what Apple is doing now and with the version 27 of their platforms later this year – refinement, refinement and more refinement.

  • Back at work.

    First day back at work, had a one on one to track how things are progressing – I’d sooner get told amount something that needs improving rather than never getting the opportunity to fix something. The day wasn’t too busy so during the slow periods I focused on getting some house keeping out of the way that needed catching up on from Monday and Tuesday which tend to have a skeleton crew on since they’re the quietest days of the week. I caught the train into work but I got the bus replacement back – I got off at a couple of stops before my normal stop so then I can squeeze in at lease 3km worth of walking which isn’t much but it is better nothing.

    One of the interesting things that has been reported on iOS 26.4 (I’m sure something similar has occurred on the other platforms) is the improvement in multithreading performance along with a modest improvement in single threaded performance. It appears that there has been some under the hood improvements recently along with dealing with the feedback around the Liquid Glass – although Apple doesn’t publicly acknowledge when it’s user base is unhappy it does eventually address issues even if they do release those improvements without much fanfare. There are rumours of maybe a 26.3.1 release that is around the corner but then again there have been rumours of that ever since 26.3 release so I guess I’ll believe when I see it.

  • Back to work on Wednesday.

    Well, that was a weekend over pretty quickly – I wish that the weekend dragged on as long as the week day but alas here I am getting ready for work on Wednesday. I helped mum cleaning the drive way outside – unfortunately it hadn’t been done in a while so it was a matter of hosing it down and then using the yard broom to scrub the drive way. After giving the drive way a good scrubbing I then hosed it down and found there was a lot of loose dirt that come off along with the culmination of dirt, dead plant material etc. Once that was all cleaned down I went back to mum’s for dinner and I provided a dessert, lemon icing cake that I picked up on Monday, then after all that I was dropped off home. Mum is off on a holiday with her camper van for the next 6 weeks – it is good to keep physically and mentally active as you get older because god knows it is easy to fall into a sedentary lifestyle only to then find that your health goes down hill shortly after.

    I’ve started watching season 2 of Paradise where as season 1 was filmed in the bunker with flash backs giving glimpses as to how it came into being, the focus on season 2’s first episode is another flash back to when the catastrophic event occurred. I think what we’ll probably see is maybe more time in season 2 being spent on the events leading up to the catastrophic event – something that I noticed other tv series tend to go where the story is jumped straight into it and then in season 2 there is a focus on how the world got to that point. The first three episodes have been released but tonight I’ll watch one episode and pace myself out for the other two episodes – savour the story line because this is one of the few interesting tv series that’ll be available until Silo drops along with Severance which are at least a year away.

    I spent some time today going through my t-shirt drawer and I have found some of the clothes I didn’t fit I can now fit – I now able to fit into a Mr Vintage t-shirt I bought many years ago which now can fit me. It really is serving a good incentive to keep on tracking when you see the progress in a practical way such as clothes fitting better. Having a good routine has helped particularly going into the office each day gets me out of the house, improves my mental health by meeting people, a change of scenery etc. On Wednesday I’ll be in the office but there is a train replacement when I come home – it is a bit annoying but the benefit is that the train replacement is free so it ends up saving a bit of money, I think the idea is that the local city council understands the inconvenience of having to use a train replacement so I guess by making it free it makes up for that inconvenience.

    Regarding the release of version 26.4, there is much chatter online regarding whether Gemini will be integrated in 26.4 or whether it’ll be pushed off until 26.5. One thing to keep in mind is that Apple has only said that it’ll be released in 2026 so there is a possibility that we may not see it until the version 27 is released. Personally for me I’ve never used voice control and what Apple Intelligence services I do use without consciously thinking about it I haven’t had any issues but then again my computing needs are pretty basic.

  • Tuesday, a day to relax.

    I woke up this morning to a chime that my package was going to be delivered today and it was delivered in the afternoon. I love the colour of the hoodie and the t-shirt. The t-shirt has kind of a orange-brown kind of colour which goes well with the print – a bit of a 1970s like vibe to the style and the icing on the cake being that the t-shirt is 100% cotton and the fabric isn’t thin like a lot of t-shirts are these days. The hoodie has a nice green colour, the fabric is great (it is a blend but majority cotton) and the fit is great as well. I’ve washed them both and they’re now hung up on the clothes drying rack and hopefully they’ll be all dried so I can wear them tomorrow when I go into the office.

    In terms of software update, uBlock Origin Lite 2026.222.1657 was released today – no major changes other than the usual filter refresh and I haven’t noticed any regressions. I’ve checked out a few websites and they’re all running smoothly and blocking all the ads required. It would be nice if uBlock Origin Lite could synchronise the settings such as ‘allowed websites’ to iCloud but I guess if you’re aiming your extension at multiple browsers that it would add extra overhead. As for what I do, I copy and paste the ‘allowed websites’ to ‘Notes’ and then copy and paste it from there to the settings on each of the devices I have it installed on.

    Things are progressing well with 26.4 and it appears that as reported by other media outlets they are working on addressing the complaints regarding Liquid Glass specifically when it comes to legibility of text (link). I wouldn’t expect major changes to the UI any time soon because such major changes would be disruptive and potentially undermine the stability of the system although Mark Gurman has reported that bigger UI changes will appear in 27 along with Apple Intelligence being built upon the latest Gemini model. I wouldn’t be surprised if, when 27 is released, it is based on a Gemini model that is currently being developed with Google using Apple as a show piece for their latest model.

  • A productive Monday.

    Monday was a productive day, I went for brunch and then helped mum clean up the rental property. My sister and partner had come over to do some deep cleaning and repairs at the flat and I came over to clean the outside of the house down, trim back the vine that had grown all over the fence and then cleaning the inside of the windows down. It took a while to get it all done because the inside of the window were pretty horrendous and it looks like they had sellotaped something onto the windows thus leaving a stick residue. On a good side I did eventually get it cleaned and I guess I had the luck that it wasn’t as heavy going as what my sister and her partner had to do. On Tuesday I’ll be heading in there again to clean down the driveway.