Matisyahu's Blog

I had a quiet day at home today – went for a walk around the block, sent off a the Google Streamer I sold online via courier as an overnight (it is easier for me to courier it than for the buyer to pick it up or me drop it off even though we’re in the same region). I did some organising around the house but I think I’ll be doing a lot more when I go for my two weeks off over Christmas. I’m tempted to replace my current desk along with getting some new chairs for my office desk as well as the desk in the lounge room but it is something I want to go and sit in as well as measure up when sitting so I can compare it to the height of the desk to ensure that it is comfortable.

I finally ‘bit the bullet’ and ordered a a desktop replacement – Mac Studio along with a monitor, keyboard and touchpad which will arrive in the next week along with a Snakehive case for my phone. I’ve been asked what colour phone I got, I ended up getting a silver one because I looked at the orange one and given the reports of fading and other issues I decided to stick with silver but it isn’t a major issue given that I always keep my phone in a case hence it remains in pristine condition.

The one thing I noticed with iOS when compared to Android is how responsive it is – everything is so far as fluid not to mention the fact that when Apple makes updates available it is made available globally on day one rather than the situation with Samsung of “will it be this month? my guess is as good as yours” not to mention the fact that as of 2 December 2025 NZ time that the Play Service was still stuck on the September release. All I can say is that thank god I’m not a prominent person with thousands of people trying to hack my phone.

Another thing I noticed is that the App Store on my Mac receive extension updates a lot quicker than with the Chrome and Edge stores. I have uBlock Origin Lite installed on Safari but I’ve also given the new AdGuard 2.0 – unfortunately I found that with AdGuard it would freeze the web page – I’ve enabled all the filters that are available so I am wondering whether there Is a performance hit because it maybe the result of having to wait until the filters are converted over to the native content blocking filter format (since the Declarative Net Request (DNR) API is built on top of the native content blocking API rather than it being a native implementation from the ground up.

Safari 26.1 is a big improvement over the 18.7 that was included with macOS 15.7 – I’m wondering whether they made some big under the hood changes that were too intensive to include a minor updated so instead they rolled into the next major version of macOS instead. I’ve uploaded the passwords along with setting up 2FA integration rather than having to use an external application which makes the experience a lot smoother. It’ll be interesting to see the improvements that come with Safari 26.2 (link) and how it’ll improve the experience when using it. The link is for the beta release of Safari 26.2 which is an upgrade of Safari for macOS 15.x series so there maybe functionality differences but it does give a good insight on how things are progressing.

Tomorrow I’ll post about the announcements that Labour have made regarding healthcare, capital gains tax etc. I’m cautiously optimistic about the idea of the current National led government being a one term government but I’m also realistic that one term governments are very rare – just because people are unhappy with the current government doesn’t automatically translate to the majority of voters wanting to vote for parties on the left. This is the reason why I’m cautious about influencers online talking up a ‘blue wave’ in the mid terms given that I’ve heard similar rhetoric being put out there into the ether only to find that when election day came that rather than unhappiness translating to more voters for Democrats it actually resulted in a lower voter turn out with Republicans still winning.

I really don’t want this to be the case but I also have to be realistic and not to get caught up in the hopium that many online engage in. I understand the need to have something to look forward to particularly when you see the world in the state that it is in but equally it is important to remain grounded and understand that it is an uphill fight. The fact that the party in power is shooting themselves in the foot is no assurance that it’ll translate into an automatic victory for the centre left. With that being said, it is encouraging to see there is a realisation of what Obama said one time “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” or was Biden said “don’t compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative”.

The holding out for the perfect candidate with the perfect policy has resulted in what we see today with Trump – hopefully it’ll act as a reminder to the Democratic base that politics is a marathon not a sprint or to use another metaphor, when you’re playing football you have to gradually move the ball from one end of the field to another which may involve passing backwards, or simply holding on the ball then taking opportunities when they’re provided. You’re not going to score a goal by booting it down the field then holding it lands in the goal given thee is a high likelihood you’ll lose possession resulting in not having to push back to ensure the other team doesn’t gain ground but also working to take the ball back.