Matisyahu's Blog

"When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called 'the People's Stick'"

recent posts

  • Random thoughts about relationships.

    It is fun to sometimes to ‘ride the algorithm’ on YouTube to see where it takes you and what I found is a bunch of relationship videos appearing – a few funny shorts along with some long form discussions with a good portion either rage bait or people who clearly lack of the maturity to be in a relationship with another person. With all that being said I do find it as a great way to find interesting topics or as a starting point when I get a writer’s block or find that I have some ideas swirling in my brain but there isn’t a coherent way to bring it all together.

    One of the topics that were bought up in the YouTube videos I saw were the dysfunctional nature of relationships – particularly of millenials and the gen z (keeping in mind that there wasn’t an idealised time in the past and somehow we ‘fell from grace’ (to use a religious turn of phrase)) where those in the relationship can’t see to find moderation between having hobbies, interests etc but also understanding they’re in a relationship that needs to be nurtured or seeing every decision that isn’t focused on them at the centre of the relationship as an example of a failing relationship.

    I was thinking about my grandparents as one example, my granddad was involved with the local Masonic Lodge and also helped out with the local RSA, grandma was involved with the local ‘Spinners and Weavers’ club along with helping out with the women’s division of the Masonic Lodge. They had a long lasting marriage because they both had things outside of their marriage to kept them sane, they maintained their friendships with people they knew since primary school.

    I really have to wonder whether this change has come about as a result of the ‘me, me me, it’s all about me’ generation where personal fulfilment is the only thing that matters and as a result a generation of narcissists with the main character syndrome have convinced themselves that anything less than being the centre of everything is depriving them of something they are owed as a matter of birthright. I guess we can have a look at the rise of neoliberalism and hyper individualism, the idea of relationships playing second fiddle to individual wishes, whims and desires which is great if you’re wanting to tap into individual insecurities by promising a commodified lifestyle that be bought (and in the process creating the treadmill of unhappiness -> desire product because it promises to fix the unhappiness -> acquisition -> honeymoon period -> unhappiness).

    One could make the argument that capitalism benefits from having a large number of unhappy and insecure people believing that fulfilment isn’t found through relationships, community, religion etc. but through the acquisition of goods and/or services while ignoring the fact that the demand is manufactured through the promise that said product will fill that void in their life when in reality shortly after getting it they feel just as empty as before. The capitalist class ends up benefiting but society as a whole is falling apart and unfortunately, we see the consequences manifest itself as seen in recent events. The problem is that as long as people convince themselves that capitalism equals freedom then it’ll serve a distraction from the fact that they’re not really free.

  • A relaxing day at home.

    A nice relaxing day at home where I was catching up on some news and once again it appears that the National lead coalition government is demonstrating how detached they are from what is happening out in the real world at the moment (link). I can understand the logic of means testing but why not make it consistent by bringing it in line with the student allowance or better still, wouldn’t it make a whole lot more sense having a universal student allowance but means test the unemployment benefit to send a signal that the government would sooner see you learning a skill than being on the dole?

    Personally, I think the whole idea of means testing the unemployment benefit and the student allowance are both ridiculous and I also think it is ridiculous to expect someone who is 18 or 19 years old to get a job in an economy that is contracting, record number of businesses shutting up shop and the employers who are employing are getting 600+ applications for a single position. Once again we have a narrative put out there of an economy that doesn’t exist – it has the same energy as the ‘young people need to stop eating smashed avocado on toast then they’ll be able to buy a house’ meme with the same entitled class of people are now insisting ‘there are jobs out there, they just need to get off TikTok and start applying for jobs’ as if there was an avalanche of employers out there who are demanding workers but cannot get anyone to apply for a job.

    You can see the prime minister was clearly asked a follow up question regarding the jobs that are being created as being seasonal jobs and he failed to address the fact that those jobs only exist during that particular season so what happens when their contract ends? I’m sorry but just ‘charging through’ the questions instead of addressing the concerns the journalists have raised in the press conference just shows how out of touch the prime minister is from the real world. It reminds me of the idiotic thing someone said almost two decades ago: “I’ve been on food stamps and welfare, did anyone help me out? No.”. That is what wealth does to some people – makes them completely disconnected from what is happening in the real world.

    I can understand why people voted for Luxon because many saw him as a continuation of John Key, they were struggling to make ends meet and saw him as maybe a return to a time where the cost of living wasn’t so bad and the economy was better. I would use my sister and her partner as a barometer to represent normies out there and that was the rationale that they used. Who did I vote for? I split my vote between the Green Party and the Labour Party, Chris Hipkins received my constituent vote and Green’s for the party vote. I’m a member of the Labour Party and recently made a $20 donation. What I am hoping is that maybe next I can get more involved politically because I’d like to have some input into the direction of the party when it comes to policy. I wouldn’t call myself a radical although I do sit on the left with most views being pretty traditional Labour policy that existed prior to the neoliberalism hellscape that New Zealand was subjected to in the 1980s (and was continued on through by subsequent governments).

    I was completing a Connections and Wordle puzzle tonight – it is funny how with Connections how one can think there is a pattern but there isn’t or end up over analysing the words to the point that you end up missing the obvious connections. Anyway, I like having something that gets my brain working – reminds me of the crosswords in the newspaper back in the day when mum and dad had a newspaper subscription to ‘The Dominion’ (the paper in the morning, there was ‘The Evening Post’ which used to be the evening paper).

  • Relaxing at home on a rainy night.

    Finished work tonight and I noticed it had started raining – basically it has been going on and off the whole night so I decided I’ll take the night off from going for a walk and instead chill out. Had some weird behaviour today with the work VPN crashing out and ended up going offline a few times but I cleared the cookies and cache, checked for updates via the company portal, shut down the laptop then rebooted – long story short it appeared to have fixed the problem. Ah technology, just when you think you’ve mastered it there is a spinner being bowled and you don’t know how to deal with it but eventually it works out in the end.

    Just a follow up to the comment I made about Microsoft 365 – one of the things I do like about Microsoft Edge is that the grammar and spell checker is so much better than what is included with Chrome. It reminds me of the video:

    The one thing I am reminded of when I visit YouTube is why you never go to the news.com.au YouTube channel – a News Corp outlet that interview idiots and attract morons in the comment section. Unfortunately, social media has emboldened idiots into believing that the noise they make online is a representation of their numbers when in reality they just make a lot of noise – like an empty soft drink can with a couple of stones inside it rolling down a flight of stairs.

    The narrative that has been making the rounds recently has been talk about AI being in a giant bubble and how what we’re going to see is a correction in the next year or two. For me I put myself into that camp because I look around at what is happening and see a change in relationships between organisations. For example, the massive agreement that Oracle has signed with OpenAI, the move by Microsoft to build its own models after ending its exclusive agreement with OpenAI, Meta downsizing its AI team and nVidia working closely with Intel which make me wonder nVidia is realising that the hype cycle around AI is coming to an end and they need something to come in as a replacement or at least a partial replacement for that demand.

    One to look at is the relationship between OpenAI and Microsoft – I wonder whether OpenAI approached Microsoft with the business proposal and Microsoft made the decision that they weren’t going to plough billions of dollars into building data centres. Maybe there is something Microsoft knows that OpenAI isn’t willing to admit – that the hype cycle of AI is coming to an end, businesses are now questioning about how it can be integrated into actual products to improve productivity rather than just an expensive toy not to mention Microsoft working on their own specialised AI models rather than having a single one that tries to be everything to everyone (and do it a mediocre job at it while consuming more energy than required). Is Oracle’s play that they build out for OpenAI, when OpenAI run out of cash that Oracle is one of their creditors where they pick up OpenAI for a song then integrate it into their own cloud-based service offerings.

    This is the reason I believe the wailing and gashing of teeth regarding Apple and what they were doing in AI (along with the tech media and YouTube tech dude bros going on and on about how they’re ‘losing’ and ‘behind their competition’) was over blown. When you’ve got Google getting better results using less power and less hardware than OpenAI and Meta (using their own LLAMA model) I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple is taking a good look at the layout of the land before making any big investments and if there is going to be something I wouldn’t be surprised if we see Apple lean on Google given that Apple already has a long standing relationship with them. I think long term what you’re going to see is Apple employing specialised models, making use of on device AI where possible and for most people, apart from the oxygen thieves going on about how they’re going to sue Apple, for most people they either don’t know or don’t care about AI outside of it being a curiosity. How do we know it is merely a curiosity? because the dearth of paying customers willing to pay the amount that OpenAI is demanding and I would hazard to guess that would very much be the same when it comes to Google Gemini but then again for the Google AI Pro it is NZ$36.99 along getting more Google Drive storage and integration into Google Apps (which appears to be better value than what OpenAI is offering).

  • One more day.

    Finished work tonight, went for my nightly 11.6km walk and when I arrived home I decided to have some minestrone soup – Artisano make a good range of soups from the supermarket and they’re great to have in the fridge if one feels the need for something to eat with minimum fuss and bother. I’ve got enough food in the pantry so this week I’ll probably pick up some coffee but apart from that I’ve got enough to get through until next pay day. The good thing about going for a walk each night is that it allows me to disconnect from work, from the world and just listen to some music without having to deal with whatever else is out there – a couple of hours just to myself.

    Watching Real Time with Bill Maher and it is frustrating how surface level the analysis is particularly when it comes to dealing with material conditions that result in the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah coming into existence not to mention the legacy of the cold war, collapse of the Ottoman Empire and western colonialism. The guests get so close and yet somehow they completely completely miss not just the target but the dart board entirely which is the part that is so frustrating – they’re smart enough and yet there appears to be a barrier to go further than the surface level analysis they provide. I keep watching it because like a broken clock they’re correct twice a day.

    I guess they’re better than ‘Meet the Press’ where talking heads ramble on about the ‘far left’ yet never define what they even mean by that term – treating trans people with respect and dignity is now far left? the idea that people shouldn’t go bankrupt when getting healthcare is considered far left? that workers should be represented on the boards of corporations through their union is considered far left? I sometimes wonder how so many of these dullards are employed in the first place – are they just employed to be rage bait to get an audience who hate watches them every week?

    On Monday this week I’m going to give Microsoft 365 Business a try – either going all in or Exchange Online Plan 2 because I’ve already got a consumer account (that makes use of Microsoft 365 for Family paid by mum) so does it make sense to setup a Microsoft 365 Business account which will be my main account and use the consumer account for the Phone Link application. Much pondering – something I appear to have been doing for almost at this rate but I want to make sure that whatever the decision I go with that it is well thought out.

  • Nights are getting warmer.

    Went for my nightly walk and tonight I cracked a sweat for the first time given how cold it has been for the last few months I found that even when wearing a sweatshirt I still didn’t get hot enough to start sweating when on a walk. Getting closure to summer so I’ll finally give myself a haircut if it starts to become to uncomfortable as the weather gets better and the average temperature rises. Two more days to go and then the weekend but I am really looking forward to the two weeks I have scheduled for annual leave over Christmas because goodness knows I want just a couple of weeks where I don’t have to do a single thing or worry about anything.

    The one thing that I have really taken a liking to has been the use of winget from the terminal prompt – the ability to perform software updates. It is the one thing I did as soon as I setup my laptop I opened up a terminal window with administration privileges, winget update and then installed all the updates. It is one of the benefits that came with Windows 11. Personally I cannot work out where all the negativity regarding Windows 11 comes from having used WIndows 10, 8.1, 8, 7, Vista, XP, 2000 and even NT 4. Compared to the previous versions it is the least problematic and the most robust as so long as you don’t do something stupid like install anti-cheat that worms its way into the kernel resulting in instability or making ‘tweaks’ to the system because some blow hard on YouTube who has enough knowledge to be dangerous but not enough to be useful is giving out tips that are the equivalent of old wives tales.

    I’ve been reading up regarding the Qualcomm X2 and it is interesting the announcement made during September however it won’t appear in products until 2026 and then pair that up with the recent restructuring of the Windows team (link). I was listening the Windows Central podcast on YouTube and one of the hosts was unsure as to why the team was divided in the first place. I don’t have any secret knowledge but I would hazard to guess that the move of having the Azure team taking care of the Windows core has more to do with wanting to have a rock solid core on which end user facing functionality could be built. In other words it came from a place of good intentions but the problem is that the line of demarcation between the core and the end user facing is difficult especially when end user facing functionality is dependent on features being present in the core of the operating system.

    How does this relate back to Qualcomm X2, Microsoft will need to add support for the new chip not to mention the rumours of an N1X coming from nVidia and then there is the whole x86 working group. I bring up the x86 working group because they’ve agreed on APX, FRED and AVX 10.2 (link). One thing to keep in mind is that APX and FRED have been getting worked on for several years and AVX 10.2 is part of the larger focus of cleaning up the AVX mess so that both Intel and AMD are on the same page. I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up seeing either Nova Lake or Zen 6 or maybe a release after that bring that into compliance. Given that FRED for example has been worked on for years along with APX I wouldn’t be surprised that AMD and Intel have been working behind the scenes – end of the day there is no point is pushing the technology if you’re the only one using it. This is the reason why I’m in no hurry about getting a desktop – I want to wait for those big improvements to be made available so it makes the investment worthwhile rather than buying what exists today.

    I’ve installed Microsoft Edge 141 and everything is going well. I am tempted to maybe giving Edge along with Microsoft 365, More leaked builds of One UI 8.5 which makes me wonder whether they’re a leak or whether Samsung is doing a vibe check about what end users want to see in a future update.

  • Getting closer to spring.

    Finished work tonight at 10pm and went for my walk – temperature outside was 13°C so it wasn’t uncomfortably cold and apart from a bit of drizzle I went for a 17.4km walk tonight where I completed it in around 2 hours and 40 minutes. I like to keep track of the speed I walk at so then I get a decent work out rather than dawdling. I came back home, heated up something to warm me up before jumping into bed to watch some YouTube videos before heading off to sleep.

    There are reports of 25H2 being made available to some people but I haven’t been offered it so I have a feeling it may not appear until after patch Tuesday when it arrives 8 October NZ time. While I had some spare time I hooked up my old bluray player to my laptop to see whether it is all working and everything worked perfectly with Videolan (the release candidate for ARM64 native) so I’m a happy chap so far. I still keep buying music on CD so I keep it around so then I can rip the music to FLAC then back it up to the cloud.

    Regarding the whole government shut down in the United States – need I remind people that Republicans have a majority in the upper house, lower house and presidency, and there is nothing stopping from the senate majority leader from suspending the filibuster and pass the budget with a simple majority. The simple fact of the matter is the fact that the ‘big beautiful bill’ is a disaster and Republicans want Democrats to sign onto it so then they can spread the responsibility for the fall out of the bill as wide as possible. That is how little the Republicans believe in their ‘big beautiful bill’ – by virtue of the refusal to suspend the filibuster and pass it via a simple majority tells anyone with an IQ above room temperature that they’re not wanting to actually take the responsibility of being the government of the day seriously.

  • Not today Satan.

    Work today was uneventful apart from one particular customer who refused to listen to an explanation I gave – at some point you have to say ‘not today satan’ and end the call. If you’re unable to accept something after having explained to you 3 times then the problem can be found in the mirror – you made a choice and you cannot accept the outcome of that choice. Part of being an adult is the freedom to make a choice but with that freedom of choice comes the responsibility for the outcome of the choice whether the outcome is good or bad. Oh a side note, if you don’t understand something then maybe don’t do it and then blame everyone else but yourself when the outcome isn’t what you wanted (a variation on the Warren Buffet idea of “don’t invest into something you don’t understand”).

    Chrome 141 was released today and I noticed a slight improvement in performance but nothing earth shattering but nothing broke along with uBlock Origin Lite ticking along without any problems. The uBlock Origin Lite finally updated itself on Microsoft Edge but the update to version 141 will probably either come on Friday or Saturday New Zealand time. Next week on Tuesday will be the release of the next patch tuesday however I have been keeping an eye on Windows 11 build 26220 which makes me wonder whether 25H2 based on 26200 is released and then we’ll see 26220 be made available as an optional feature update.

    Unifi Gateway 4.4.4 has made its way to the early release which makes me wonder whether we’ll see 4.3.1 release skipped in favour of 4.4.4 given that there are reports of issues DNS resolving issues when there is high demand being placed on it. I wouldn’t be surprised if they end up skipping it in favour of releasing it which will bring it up to date with the other product line up. Funny enough I logged into my Unifi cloudkey and found that it had automatically updated itself to 4.4.2.

  • Back to work on Wednesday.

    I had a good sleep in today and then went to mum’s place for dinner along with picking up some groceries for the next couple of weeks. For the last couple of weeks I have fallen out of a routine so I’m happy to get back into a routine tomorrow – got some extra fibre I can add to my chia seeds mixture I have with yoghurt for my meals with the fibre adding extra ‘bulk’ to keep my full for longer. I also need to get back into a good routine when it comes to exercise as well – a good night sleep tonight followed by taking it one day at a time should result in me getting back into a good routine.

    Either tomorrow or the next day there will be the release of Chrome 141 and I noticed the preview of the September 2025 patch Tuesday has been made available today (link) and next week it’ll probably be made available as the patch Tuesday. No major features, boring and predictable is exactly how I like it. Another interesting thing the WECG are working on is a WPT style testing framework for the extension framework which should hopefully mean that the implementation of the extension can be tested and pick up on implementation bugs so that the issues can be fixed in a timely manner and any holes in the standard that may cause compatibility issues can also be addressed.

    I’ve been watching videos on YouTube regarding opinion polling around Trump, his administration and the Republican Party – the problem I have is the degree of copium being consumed by liberals, progressives, left wing, convincing themselves that poor polling numbers equal support for Trump is imploding. I understand the instinct of searching high and low for positive news given the avalanche of bad news that is out there but I don’t think anyone benefits from failing to have clear eyes when viewing the information more in depth.

    Firstly it is possible for a politician or a party to have low approval numbers but it does not necessarily translating to a boost in the poll numbers of the other party. For example, if I completed a survey based on my view regarding the Labour led government for the prior two terms you would have assumed, based on my negative feedback, that I was going to vote for the other major parties and yet I turned out and voted Chris Hipkins for my local MP and Greens for my party vote. Yes, I was disappointed in the previous two terms but that doesn’t mean that I therefore will vote National, Act or NZ First. How many people who said they have a negative opinion on Trump, his administration and the Republicans necessarily translates to “and therefore I am going to vote Democratic up and down the ticket”. How do we know this? because they ask the follow up question, “would this have changed your vote in 2024”, and a sizeable number of those surveyed said that it wouldn’t change their vote.

    Secondly, give how easily these voters were to be fooled into voting for Trump and the Republican Party what are the chances that they’ll get easily fooled again? need I remind people that 2 years after 8 years of war and an economic implosion under George W Bush the average American gave the Republican Party a majority in both houses in the mid term as well as flipping the state houses to give the Republican Party a majority in those states which then allowed them to rewrite the electorate map to favour their party. The fact that, even after 8 years of disastrous policies that the American public gave the Republicans a second chance 2 years after Obama rescued the economy from certain ruin tells me that there is a sizeable number of Americans who are completely disconnected from reality.

    While I’m on a rant, don’t get me started on ‘cancel culture’ given that when it was the Republicans and the George W Bush administration that went after people who weren’t 100% onboard with invading Iraq and Afghanistan, getting artists cancelled and losing their careers, the whole ‘freedom fries’ crap that made the rounds and other obnoxious behaviour to the point that Americans travelling abroad said they were Canadians. The same people complaining about ‘cancel culture’ were quite happy to do it when George W Bush was president and they were pretending to be ‘real men from Texas’. Can we please stop with the nonsense that the right wing care about freedom of speech – they have never cared about freedom of speech and only care about freedom of speech when people push back against right wing BS because their definition of freedom of speech is “I want to be able to say whatever I want and for to be left unchallenged”.

    What is the right wing source of ‘cancel culture’? some rando on Tiktok with purple hair rambling about their 27 1/2 genders with a septum ring wanting to get someone fired because their correct pronouns weren’t used. Yes, that is the basis of their whole persecution complex that Republicans parade for the world to see – randos on the internet with plenty of opinions but zero social capital or clout to actually do anything about it. This is what happens when you make the internet your whole entire existence, you convince yourself that the internet equals the real world and as a result your perception of reality is warped. As the saying goes, turn off your computer and touch grass, go out and join a club, head down to your local pub and meet some people in your community because you may find that what your see online and what happens in reality are poles apart. The algorithm is setup to show you the most obnoxious content to get you forever doom scrolling – it isn’t healthy and it warps your perception of reality.

  • A relaxing day at home.

    I love having a weekend that is zero drama and doesn’t require me to do anything more than the bare minimum. I went for a long walk last night and then came back had a small nap then woke up, went down to the supermarket to pick up a few items then came back home to have a small snooze and then I went for another walk tonight before having a shower then jumping into bed to watch some videos. It was an uneventful day – exactly the way I like it.

    After a brief period of quiet Ubiquiti have pushed out updates and early access builds for their devices – from the cloud key through to the gateway devices. The gateway (non-cloud) has been updated to 4.3.1 which has the feature parity of 4.3.9 – at the moment it is a release candidate but generally after 7 days, assuming there are no showstopper bugs, it is upgraded to a stable release then gradually rolled out. There is also an early release for the U7 access points and from what it looks like it’ll probably be the 8.2.x version that’ll end up getting released. At the moment MLO is a bit iffy (based on what I read in the comments section, and it is marked as an early access feature) so I’ve left it turned off. For me I’ve got a rock solid Wi-Fi connection from my laptop so no complaints from me.

    uBlock Origin Lite has received an update to uBlock Origin Lite 2025.928.1920 and funny enough Chrome received the update before Microsoft Edge which is a little out of the unusual. AdGuard 5.2.80 was made available for Chrome (on Edge it is still on the MV2 version but I’d say that they will move to MV3 once Microsoft no longer supports MV2). I’ve stuck with AdGuard because I’ve come across weird situations where the webpage will hang when using it where as uBlock Origin Lite doesn’t display the same sort of behaviour. I wonder whether the difference is due to uBlock Origin Lite being a pure DNR based content blocker where as AdGuard relies using its own in-house way of doing things.

  • Thank god that day is over.

    Thank goodness that day is over – having to deal with a customer who blames us for their screw up and yes I understand a person can be frustrated but when you’re a fully grown adult you should be able to first take responsibility for your screw up and secondly to control the ‘big feelings’ that you’re having in regards to what took place. After dealing with that particular individual I needed to go for a walk to work that stress out of my system so I went for a nice long walk which took me past the foreshore where I enjoyed some nice sea breeze not to mention that tonight wasn’t frigidly cold so the experience was a lot more enjoyable than in the past. While I was on my walk I dropped in to the petrol station to pick up a drink and a light nibble on my way home – had a bit of a craving for something sweet.

    Funny enough, on my way home I noticed that a lot of road work being done, the bike path being built along the train track is being built through to Melling which will link up with the new Melling interchange. Personally they need to go all the way and address the intersection where the Kennedy Good Bridge is along with the Silverstream turn off so then it is possible to have the Hutt Highway to be completely free of lights from Wellington all the way to Masterton. While I’m dreaming, how about a tunnel for vehicles and trains out to Wainuiomata (it was talked about decades ago) along with connecting up the Melling line to the Hutt Valley line at Manor Park (maybe even double track it) so that there can be an express bypass from Masterton straight into Wellington or move freight service to that line resulting in the freeing up capacity on the Hutt Valley line for more frequent service. While I’m dreaming, maybe upgrade to 25KV overhead wires then eventually electrify the whole rail network…I guess one can always dream.