Matisyahu's Blog

I had a splitting headache so I decided to take the day off from work to recover and I’m taking it easy today and I’ve given my boss a heads up that I’ll take Thursday off. I updated Chrome to version 148.0.7778.97 and it looks like there are some big security fixes that have been made their way into the release given that at the time of this blog post they haven’t put up the details regarding what has been fixed (link). It makes sense to wait because in the end you don’t want a situation that exploits are created for the security vulnerabilities before a sizeable number of end users have updated their installation of Chrome.

I’ve been writing down some random notes in Google Keep so when I get a suddenly inspiration to talk about a topic but it is rather incoherent until I have the time to write a coherent post on my blog. I’ve been thinking about AI and the rise of consumer products like iPhones, iPads etc resulting in a generation that is less tech savvy than many of the Gen X and Boomers who came before. It is amazing the number of people who are younger than I am who don’t know how to send an email, who understand the internet other than through apps on their phone with no idea on how to use a web browser and that doesn’t even touch on how to navigate a file system, how to manage files or in the case of emails – how to manage your emails through the use of folders. Maybe I’m getting old and grumpy but are kids actually being taught those skills at school because I remember spending years at high school learning how to touch type and as much as I found the experience boring at the time I look back happy knowing that I can now properly touch type.

Then to compound the rise in tech illiteracy has been the growth of AI and the impact it has on critical thinking, how it flattens history, philosophy, politics etc by removing the nuance not to mention the fact that getting the answer is as important as the journey on search of answer – the twists and turns culminating in the understanding that history isn’t a matter of black or white but a whole lot of grey area. We’ve now got a generation who cannot effectively use Google to find an answer then complain that ‘Google is getting worse’ whey fail to understand the use of keywords and how to narrow down the scope of a search when looking for something. It never ceases to amaze me the number of people who get locked out of their Google or Microsoft account which makes me wonder whether things are getting so bad that I’m starting to look like I have my life together.

Oh, and I did something silly today, I cleared the cookies and cache for both my computers and phone but on my phone I ticked all the boxes including the password box and accidentally cleared them off resulting in all my passwords disappearing. I was lucky in that I had backed up my passwords but I need to remember that for next time – on Chrome for macOS the option of clearing the passwords isn’t present so I guess I wasn’t thinking when I ticked all the boxes because I assumed it was like what happens on macOS.

uBlock Origin Lite 2026.503.1521 has finally appeared on the Chrome website although there is still 2026.504.2301 waiting for approval but the update is primarily to fix up a regression on Safari with some filter updates for everyone else. The release candidate for version 26.5 has been made available but I’d say that unless there is a serious security fix they need to push out then I’d say it won’t be released until early next week which will given testers enough time to report and fix up any regressions that appear. Oh, and you’ve probably noticed, I’ve changed the background from white to grey, I find the whiteness too harsh on my eyes although I am looking at maybe moving to a theme of a black background with white text but I’m still doing some experimentation with themes.