Matisyahu's Blog

Enjoying my weekend (Monday and Tuesday) with the first I went for a walk down to my local cafe and had a eggs bene (with smoked salmon) along with a bowl of mochaccino – a nice way to start the day with a late brunch by getting me out of the home and getting in a bit of exercise. Not too sure what I’ll do tomorrow but I’m sure when I wake up tomorrow I’ll think of something.

There is a rumour that there will be an update to iOS 17.4.x released this week (link), there is also a rumour about an update to macOS 14.4.x which fixes up the recent update breaking compatibility with Java (link) along with iLok-protected plugins (link). Keep in mind that these are rumours so it could be this week, next week or they might just roll it up with the next macOS 14.5 and iOS 17.5 update, unlike Microsoft who has a fairly predictable schedule and open communication in the case of Apple it is very much ‘wait and see’.

Things are going great with my iPhone 15 Pro Max with the Snakehive case – the 5G coverage with One NZ is great with the signal very robust so overall the move to One NZ as my mobile carrier isn’t a decision I regret. I am looking at maybe a later date moving to One NZ for my internet but maybe reducing the speed from gigabit down to 300mbps down and 100mbps up given that I never make full use of the bandwidth available. Since I’m located in NZ, unless there is a local point of presence, it is difficult to max out a connection when downloading data from overseas – I can flood a connection downloading from a local source such as downloading a Linux ISO from a local website but most of the stuff I do involves uploading/downloading from overseas websites that never max out the connection.

I’ve been thinking about the recent legislation that’ll speed up the process of building infrastructure and projects of national significance (link). I can understand the frustration because I routinely talk about how projects take longer than required and cost more than they should all because of the pandering to a small but noisy NIMBYs resulting in much needed housing, for example, always delayed with the usual whining about ‘the character of the neighbourhood’ in justification of blocking any sort of intensification of housing density. Although some have have voices concerns about it, I am going to take a cautious ‘wait and see’ approach for what projects are fast tracked and what safe guards are put in place to ensure that legitimate concerns are addressed.

It reminds me very much of a video I watched on YouTube regarding the escalating costs of building infrastructure – one of the costs that were discussed was the work that was done after the initial design to take into account potential complaints by NIMBYs and preempting them by making changes as to avoid slowing down the project. For example, building a rail connection either elevated or ground based out to a low density area would make sense because it would be fast and affordable but then the project preempts the chorus of whinging so they then create an underground service which requires a tunnel boring machine along with all the expenses it entails. In otherwods, an otherwise relatively simply operation made more expensive than it needs to be.

Let’s jump to New Zealand where there was a plan for a light rail connection out to the airport in Auckland – in a perfectly run world it would be built through to he use of elevated rail (which can be done relatively easily since we already have expertise in building elevated highways – elevated rail would just be a elevated two lane road with trains with tracks instead of roads). What was the end result of design and taking into account potential NIMBYs? NZ$17 billion, and I would argue that is on the low side given the incidentals that pop up on a project of that scale. The new government has scrapped the whole idea (link) but I am hoping that it will come back in the form of an elevated rail project with fast track approval which will basically ignore the complaints and just get it built.