I woke up this morning at around 10:30am and I really didn’t feel like going for a walk but I know that once I went for that walk and got it out of the way for the day I would feel a whole lot better. I went for an 8km walk and said hello to quite a few people not only going for walks but there appears to be a cycling club of retired people who go for bike rides together – it’s good that people are getting out and keeping fit even in their retirement. I’ve got my alarm set to an hour earlier – 9:30am which will allow me to take my time getting up, doing some stretches and have a more relaxed start along with the possibility of going for a longer walk it I feel like it.
It has been a while since I last went for a walk and a lot of activity is occuring when it comes to building in the empty lots and up in Auckland the council has just agreed to a plan for greater intensification around transportation hubs which will avoid unsustainable sprawl. Once the central rail link all comes online and then combine that with the intensification around transportation hubs, we’ll see the city transform and hopefully it should also result in more people taking public transport vs taking private vehicles especially if things in the middle east don’t get sorted in a timely manner resulting in petrol prices going up further.
Where I am I can see some greater intensification around transportation hubs but there is also development occuring at the old MAF facility which is within walking distance of the Wallaceville Station. That station received a major upgrade a few years ago when they double tracked from Trentham all the way down to Upper Hutt. There is also a lot of chatter regarding the Wellington Racing Club redevelopment (link) which will provide the sort of transit oriented development around the Trentham translation which has the added benefit of shops being around the station as well.
I’ve checked the webkit website to see whether the Technology Preview 248 had been released but it hadn’t – maybe the developers were too busy preparing the Beta 4 of macOS 27 along with the release candidate of macOS 26.6? oh well, I guess we’ll find out in the next day or so what changes are in store. As for Chrome, there was the update from version 150.0.7871.129 to 150.0.7871.182 with quite a few security fixes being made available (link). Getting back to the Safari Technology Preview, given that Webkit and Blink probably share quite a lot of code I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some big security fixes coming with 26.6 which is why they’re holding back Technology Preview 248.
It is interesting to see the number of puff pieces that have come out regarding JD Vance and Usha Vance having another child on CNN. Then there was the soft interview done by Joe Rogan to try and humanise him – try to get the manosphere onboard with the idea of JD Vance running in 2028. I’m not one for conspiracy theories but I can’t help but get the feeling that we’re in the midst of a ‘manufacturing consent’ moment those with money and power have decided that JD Vance will be their guy that they want to get into the Whitehouse next.
I think that part of the plan is trying to market JD Vance as a ‘return to normal’ after having 4 years of Trump by some how separating JD Vance from the Trump administration. I’m skeptical regarding whether it could work but that being said one does have to remember that 2 years after the Republicans got the US stuck in two wars and collapse the economy that they were given control of both houses in the 2010 midterms. Voters have a very short memory
Regarding the situation in Iran, the one thing I think people need to be reminded is the the United States walked away from The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) under the first Trump administration. I would say the calculatio by the Trump administration was that Iran would do something that would violate the agreement and then the United States would use that as a pretense to strike Iran. The simple fact of the matter is the the United States never had any intention of negotiating in good faith the Iranians because if they did they would have kept the JCPOA intact then negotiate a better deal so then at least if the negotiations failed there would be a treaty to fall back on. The war in Iran was always their plan but what they failed to do was preparing the ground work aka ‘making the case to the Americans’ for the war which is why backlash to the war has been been so swift (and made worse by the deteriorating economic situation domestically).
In Auckland there is a road know as K Road and I had spent my whole life in Wellington so when I heard ‘K Road’ I thought it was ‘K Road’ as in ‘Kay Road’. Well, lo and behold I later find out that K Road is shortened version of the official name which is Karangahape Road – I felt quite the fool when I found out what the proper name is.
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