Well, it is the end of the week and I’ve logged off for the day. Unfortunately the vibe of the day was undermined by a few idiots ringing up who refuse to listen but rather than wasting what little fucks I have left give I decided to end the call. It is always amazing how people who have used our services for over a decade still cannot get their head around the absolute basics particularly when they have had it explained to them multiple times. It reminds me when I worked at a bank and the number of customers who were ignorant of something, you educate them and then a week later they’re back with the same problem even though you have educated them – at what point do people take responsibility for themselves instead of this learn helplessness of expecting everyone else to pick up the pieces of the dumb decisions they make.
After work I had a coffee, some toast and a protein bar because I was a big peckish – I’ve gotten back into intermittent fasting and the big thing is making sure that after you come off intermittent fasting that you have a light meal. It has been my second week at it and I’m feeling good and starting to see some benefits already but keep in mind that you also have to remember to maintain calorie counting during the week – it isn’t some sort of magical thing that produces instant results but rather something you integrate into your life so then it becomes second nature in much the same way that when I moved to getting up at 9:00 am was difficult at first but then has become a regular part of my life. Gradually making lifestyle changes and consistently doing them so then eventually it becomes something that is second nature rather than having to consciously thinking “oh, today I have to do…”.
Microsoft released a massive update as part of their September 2026 patch tuesday update and then shortly after that they had to release an out of band update to fix some things that were broken in the proces. The problem is that when you have a platform that works on many different system configurations, third party drivers, software and kernel extensions. Given all the possible combinations and even with all the testing in the world it is possible that a bug slips through and that doesn’t even touch on third party kernel drivers like anti-cheat software that routinely cause BSODs or end point security software because these same companies fought tooth and nail for a better way of doing things are only just coming to the table after the whole CrowdStrike fiasco back in 2024. Some of it is of Microsoft’s own doing by promising backwards compatibility forever with no clear guidelines on deprecating and removing old crufty things
It is always funny when I hear Americans complaining about ‘unfair trade practices’ and ‘bad trade deals’ yet when you look at what they complain about they’re unhappy that other countries actually have food safety standards – oh the horror! that the reason why people outside of the United States don’t buy American made vehicles is because their vehicles are too expensive thanks to their overvalued dollar (which makes their exports uncompetitive) and imposing costs on their businesses (such as forcing them to pay for the healthcare of their employees where in every other OECD country they have some form of single payer healthcare) which makes the United States the 2nd or 3rd most expensive country to do business in. When faced with the choice of a brand new car made in the US costing NZ$100,000 where the median wage is NZ$65,000 or a car from Japan, Korea or China for around NZ$40,000 brand new, why would I buy the more expensive American made car?
To hear the United States complain about other countries with the usual nonsense about currency manipulation, tariffs and non-tariff barriers it reminds me of an analogy that I posted a while ago. Imagine there was a person who decided to adopt a “I eat fast food at every meal” policy then in a years time they have type 2 diabetes, gained a whole lot of weight, their blood pressure is through the roof and cholesterol is at an unhealthy level. Is it the various fast food chains who are at fault for that person voluntarily choosing an unhealthy lifestyle or it the responsibility of the person who made the decision to adopt such a lifestyle actually at fault? I think we know the answer. The US chooses to have a ‘strong dollar policy’, they choose to run massive budget deficits which has a result of being the global safe haven people buy the debt and to do so they have to buy US dollars which push the value of the dollar up (some economists say that the US dollar is 15-20% over valued but I’d argue it is closer to 20-25% over valued) and that doesn’t even touch on the regulatory clusterfuck of every state being their on fiefdom so god help you if you want to operate a business in more than one state (that doesn’t even touch on the healthcare issue I raised in the previous paragraph).
Call me old fashioned but I am reminded of something my boss used to say which was “focus on controlling the controllables” – in other words, focus on the things you can control. The United States are never going to compete with making $10 t-shirts but what it can do is compete where it does make sense and to compete that involves having to take stock of the obstacles that make the US uncompetitive when compared to other first world industrialised nations then deal with them. Replace employer based healthcare with a single payer system (publicly funded, privately delivered), negotiating lower drug prices, dealing with the indemnity insurance of healthcare professionals etc. When it comes to regulation to bring as much regulation up to the federal level so then when a business operates in multiple states there is one set of regulations they have to abide by. Invest in structured apprenticeship schemes that involve practical on the job training as well as in class learning at the local polytechnic. Then there is the matter of the overvalued currency and budget deficit that would be a long term project but it is doable if there is the political will behind addressing such a challenge.
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