Matisyahu's Blog

Today was uneventful at work and then afterwards I went for a 17.4km walk which was done in under 3 hours – I like to keep track of time so that I maintain a decent pace so then I get the most out of the exercise. I was lucky in that when I came back it just started spitting and now around an hour later it is now raining. The big focus for the next 16 weeks is to focus on getting as close to my goal of below 100kg before the end of the year – I may not get there but I’m hoping to get as close to it as possible.

The order that I placed has shipped via DHL coming direct from China to New Zealand – it says it’ll arrive on 27 August but I have a feeling that DHL will probably deliver it earlier based on my experience so it may arrive on Monday or Tuesday next week and if so mum and I will pop down to PB Tech to pick up a monitor, keyboard and mouse – I’m tempted to get a monitor that uses USB-C so then i can use the monitor as a hub which should reduce the amount of clutter on the desk. Another thing I’m hoping to grab is some shelves so that I can put the printer on the bottom shelf and on the top shelf the scanner so it tidies it all up. If it all ends up working out well I may consider getting myself one because it is great value for the amount of power that can be contained in such a small package.

I’m gradually getting used to using the Samsung phone and finding that the lack of integration isn’t a major issue given that everything is sitting the cloud and Samsung Files allows me to download whole directories, such as my music collection, from my Google Drive to my phone which avoids the need to fluff around with finding a MTP synchronisation app. I’m still tossing up whether I should get a Samsung television that is being offered through Mercury Energy which will fit into the Samsung SmartThings ecosystem. At the moment even though I’ve now got a blended/heterogenous ecosystem the problem with Windows is that it still has many rough edges that need addressing but I’m in no hurry.

Today macOS 15.6.1 was released to address a security vulnerability that is being exploited (link) which probably explains why 15.7 hasn’t been released – it probably won’t be released until the iPhone announcement along with the iOS 26 release date. Mimestream 1.8 was released but I’m still holding off for at least the non-IMAP push to be implemented but at this stage the web app Google provides is a pretty awesome experience to the point that web apps these days pretty much feel as though they’re native given all the all the technologies that have been developed that make using apps as responsive as using a native app such as changing directoris, creating labels, being able to drag and drop files into specific labels or a directory.

The Pixel 10 has been released along with the Pixel Watch 4 and other products – it’ll be interesting to see what happens once they’re released and I’ll see whether it is worth it when compared to the Samsung S25 Ultra that I have at the moment. When it comes to how well Zen 5 compares to the M4:

At some point the battery life gets to a certain number of hours that for the vast majority of people, primarily people such as myself who browse the internet, use productivity apps etc, the massive number of hours of battery life becomes rather meaningless. I’m unsure what is happening in the land of Intel given all the drama that is unfolding but AMD appears to have their ‘eye on the prize’. Over on Tom’s Hardware there is an article regarding Zen 6 details and much more at their 2025 Financial Analyst Day on Tuesday, November 11, 2025, in New York City (link). It’ll be interesting to see the release dates given that the rumours I’ve read online put it end of 2026 or beginning of 2027 which will include a die shrink along with architectural improvements which will make for interesting reading once those details are made publicly available.

The one thing that is interesting is the nVidia SoC aimed at the desktop market and beyond which has been delayed – Microsoft appears to be dragging their feet in regards to Windows so are we going to see further delays or maybe a special release of Windows 11 next year that adds support or maybe big under the hood changes for 26H2? I guess we’ll need to see what happens with Qualcomm’s developer conference and whether we’ll see a Surface laptop refresh as well – as I’ve noted, there are plenty of sales at the moment with the current ARM based Surface Laptop which makes me wonder whether Microsoft is clearing inventory before they announce a Surface laptop refresh.