Matisyahu's Blog

"When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called 'the People's Stick'"

recent posts

  • A day of recovery.

    Today I spent the day at home recovering – I really wanted to avoid having time off from work but at the end of the day there is little to no benefit working if as a result you’re not as productive along with prolonging the recovery. I installed Chrome on my MacBook Pro to see how much different it is when compared to Safari and I noticed some improvements in terms of responsiveness such resolving host names, rendering websites and the browser remaining responsive when dealing with complex webapps that make extensive use of JavaScript.

    I’m going to give Chrome a try and see how well it performs although I am looking forward to seeing Safari 26.4 and whether some of the issues I’ve raised in the past are addressed. Anyway I’m heading off to sleep and hopefully I’ll be feeling a bit better in the morning.

  • Day off work sick.

    Still got a sore throat and I’ve lost my sense of smell and taste – I think I may have COVID but I’ll need to get a testing kit to see whether that is the case. I originally thought that maybe it was due to a cold or seasons changing but apparently it is quite common at the moment and there have been reports of an uptick in COVID going through the community because of the regular waste water testing that is taking place. I’ve been vaccinated and don’t have any underlying health issues so I’m all good when it comes to not getting too sick but it is a bit annoying that here we are – I guess it is one of those things you have to learn to live with.

    Once again I’m following the Iran-United States/Israel war and once again we have the usual suspects in the ‘conservative moment’ (influencers, online activists or what ever terminology you’re interested in using) who are trying to save face by claiming that “this isn’t what I voted for!”. Yes, this is exactly what you voted for just as those who are complaining about Republicans slashing the social safety net and defunding the department of education – Republicans are doing what they’ve talking about doing for decades. The Republican Party have had a 90+ year old plan of dismantling the welfare state ever since FDR started building it (and subsequent Democrats building upon that foundation) – they’ve never made it a secret, you just chose to ignore the evidence.

    Getting back to the issue of the Republican Party, this whole idea of ‘neoconservatives hijacked the party’ is to ignore history or more correctly to invent a history of the Republican Party that can sooth people’s egos but not based on reality. The reality is that this whole nonsensical phrase of ‘peace through strength’ is like saying ‘fucking for virginity’ – it is completely illogical. If you’re claiming ‘peace through strength’ what you’re actually saying is that your whole policy is a giant bluff – an empty threat, a ‘wait until your father gets home’ because ultimately if you are going to use force rather than a bluff then you’re simply a neoconservative but with more flowery language.

    Oh, and not to be left out – the antisemitic conspiracy theorists are coming out in full force in defence of Donald Trump by crafting conspiracy theories in defence of Trump by claiming there is something occuring behind the scenes involving Israel and the ‘Deep State’ (a term that Trump keeps invoking as an excuse to his followers why everything is going pear shaped). I tend to subscribe to Occam’s razor which can be simplified to ‘the simplest answer is usually the correct one” and at the end of the day Trump doesn’t believe in anything other than what benefits Trump and the Republican establishment saw him as an empty vessel that is unwed to an particular ideology. There was no mind trick done on Trump to convince him to take the action he did, Trump saw it in his own self interest and he did it and then all his cadre of sycophantic influencers did a complete 180 on their ‘deeply held conviction’ and realigned with Trump’s new position while rewriting the past by claiming that Trump had always held the position he is now advocating for.

  • A good day today.

    I had a fairly uneventful day today – some busy periods but mostly rather uneventful over all. When I woke up this morning I checked for updates and Apple had released an update for iOS, iPadOS and macOS in the for of 26.3.1 – the updates were pretty big (I have Apple Intelligence enabled on all of them) so I am unsure whether it includes updates for those models but I have noted that many files have been updated including Safari being updated to 26.3.1. There aren’t any security fixes mentioned on the security page but it could be possible that security holes have ben found and fixed by Apple but generally software vendors wait for a sizeable number of people have updated to the newest version before disclosing any security holes that have been fixed.

    I have noticed some slight improvement in the performance of macOS a Safari – just small changes that have improved the smoothness and responsiveness. It makes me wonder whether the reason why the download was so big was because there have been micro optimisations that have been made and I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up seeing the new computers that were announced will ship with 26.3.1 – I don’t see it coming with 26.4 because it is only on beta 3 and there are still some known issues so we may see a beta 4 then a release candidate but this is all dependent on how things progress.

    For dinner tonight I had some fish and oven fries although I personally prefer to have more fish that oven fries because the protein in fish makes me feel fuller for longer when compared to the amount of calories that come with the potatoes. I had that with this new Culley’s Creamy Sriracha & Lemon Mayo which went really go with the fish – I tend to prefer a hot and spicy sauce with my fish rather than something like aioli or tartar sauce.

  • Today was a good day.

    I worked from home today because I was feeling under the weather to go into the office so I’ll be working for the rest of the week at home but I’ll be all recovered to go into the office next week. After finishing work tonight I went for a walk – had to wear a jersey for the first time tonight as the weather is starting to get a bit chilly as we move into autumn. It was a good walk and I came back home, made my bed after letting it air all day, had a shower and now I’m in bed relaxing.

    I logged into my work computer expecting Chrome 146 to be released but instead Chrome 145.0.7632.159 was released for Windows. According to Google it appears that Chrome 146 will be released on 24 March. It is kind of strange there is such a delay given that according to the platform status page for Chrome (link) the 147 release of Chrome includes a lot more changes but then again there could be a host of changes under the hood for 146 that aren’t mentioned in the platform status page for Chrome.

  • At the half way point.

    Work is going well and I noticed that macOS 26.4 beta 3 has been made available (link) which makes me wonder whether the delay could have been due to product model information being in the build – Apple always wanting to ‘make a splash’ when they launch products. It’ll be interesting to see how quickly we’ll get to see the 26.4 release and what will be in store for 26.5 – many rumours being around the refinement to Liquid Glass and any bigger changes being pushed off for version 27 with the one in charge of the user interface team being a veteran of Apple going back decades so hopefully that is a sign that we’ll see some sanity return in the form of usability over making the interface pretty.

    On my 1/2 hour break I finally got some washing done and put it out on the clothesline to take advantage of the wonderful sunny day at the moment. It looks like for the rest of the week it’ll be fine and sunny however on Sunday it appears that there will be some rain later on night. I’ve paid all my bills for the week and I’m all good for groceries at least for the next few weeks as I work through what I have in my freezer – work through what I have and then maybe in around 6 weeks I’ll head down to the supermarket for a big stocking up.

    I was watching a few videos talking about Microsoft ramming AI into everything and over on YCombinator Hacker News forum there was a post by someone talking about how he had a chat with a Microsoft manager who said their main focus is B2B and dealing with enterprise customers. Sounds nice in theory but here is the problem, even their business customers aren’t interested in their AI slop so who are they ultimately trying to please other than attempting to justify to their shareholders that the billions burnt on the pile of AI hype.

    For those wanting the numbers, 3.3% of Microsoft’s commercial users pay for Copilot Premium – and what is Microsoft’s answer to this? oh, we need more slop, more AI because maybe if we overwhelm the customer base with AI slop that they’ll see the wisdom of centering their whole business on a technology that has a failure rate that is worse than if you employed a contractor to do the exact same job – as a recent study showed.

    Corporations are desperate to improve productivity so they can pad their bottom line and rather than investing in actual proven technology they throw money into technology that is proven to be a colossal failure. I worked in a bank that was using Windows XP right up until 2016, the core banking system was so ancient that you had to put manual requests for statements to be generated for customers to then get those manually created by someone in another department rather than it being an automated service done by the system itself like other banks do. I don’t know about you but the money would be better spent migrating to a modern core banking system than throwing money at AI.

    This is what happens when you have c-suite executives running companies who are entirely clueless about the business they’re meant to be managing. These are the same executives who spend millions on getting outside consultancy firms to come in, consultants who have no idea what they’re talking about because they’ve never worked in that industry in their life but people have bestowed upon them the mantle of authority because they went to one of the overpriced ivy league universities. What is the end result? businesses who get sucked into the next BS hype train because their executive echo chamber have convinced themselves that they’re on the right track.

  • Back to work tomorrow.

    I had a good night sleep but I’m still feeling sick with a sore throat and coughing but not sick enough to take time off from work so I’ve given my boss a heads up that I’ll be working from home all this week. I’ve been making sure this week that I’ve been having a good balance of fruit, vegetables and lean meat – hopefully I’ll be feeling better soon but in the meantime I’ll take it easy.

    uBlock Origin Lite 2026.301.2014 is now in the App Store for both iOS and macOS as well as in the Chrome Web Store and Microsoft Edge Store. I’ve got it updated on all my devices as well as the Chrome that is installed on my Surface Laptop and next week there will be patch Tuesday which will include security updates as well as the enhancements found in the preview release which was released last week. Chrome 146 will be getting released tomorrow so that’ll also be interesting to see what improvements have been made as well.

    Apple has released the third beta of 26.4 for iOS, iPadOS but macOS has been left out but then again a last minute show stopper bug could have been found so maybe that is the reason for it being held back. There appears to be quite a few interface related bug fixes relating to Liquid Glass and there are quite a bit list of changes for Safari as well, I’m also tempted to give Chrome 146 a try and see how well it performs.

    Although Safari has made some significant improvements there are still bugs that keep appearing – videos that randomly pause where as with Chrome they stream smoothly, on YouTube the video will play the first 5-10 seconds then suddenly start the video again for no apparent reason plus other weird behaviour. I’m unsure whether it is a bug with Safari or whether it bug with the website where they only test with Chrome and if it works with any other browser then it is by accident rather than by design.

    I’m up to episode 4 of Paradise with episode 5 will be released at the end of this week but I’m gradually catching up. I’m also working through Fallout so it’ll be interesting to see how the story evolves going forward. There are a few television shows that’ll be coming out later on this year such as Silo, Foundation and others so I’ll be keeping an eye on when they are launched.

    Oh, and today I got out of the house to head down to the local cafe for a coffee and a muffin, I then had a look around at JB Hi-Fi and they have the Samsung S26 Ultra in stock running One UI 8.5. The interface has a few elements inspired by Liquid Glass such as floating toolbar at the bottom and a bubble that highlights the element you have selected. It is running version 6.12 of the kernel which is the long term support branch. It is similar to One UI 8.0 but it has further refinements which make sense given that smartphones are mature tech at this stage so any improvements aren’t going to be massive leaps forward but rather incremental improvements and refining what already works. Rumours are circulating that One UI 9 will be based on Android 17 but no details have been released nor any leaked screenshots but given how close Google and Samsung work I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a beta not too long after Android 17 public beta is shown off this year by Google.

  • 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.