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

  • Two days to go.

    It is so close to the end of the week, I can hardly wait for my annual leave to begin. Tonight I had a small walk then had a lite meal of some fresh ciabatta bread and a vegetarian Mexican style chilli that has lots of fibre and protein which left me satisfied but not bloated. Next week I’m going to work through what I have in the cupboard because I’d sooner start with a clean slate when I do my next grocery shop I’ll have a meal plan going forward – I guess the balance is trying to find enough variety to make meals interesting but also ensuring that there is a balance of nutrition as well as easy to prepare since when I work I only have 30 minutes for dinner.

    I’ve been following news about the RMA (Resource Management Act) reforms and it is good to see that the media is providing some balance to a pretty complicated wide reaching reform that will touch almost every part of the economy. The left really hasn’t helped itself by resorting to the hysterical claims about how it’ll allow a complete free for all when it comes to pollution but Chris Hipkins, leader of the Labour Party, took a more balanced approach pointing out that there were many similarities between what Labour proposed and passed and what National have done (link).

    Although there is a laundry list of issues I have with the government particularly around long term infrastructure planning there are some good things that are occurring such as dealing with the market dominance of a small number of players in the building supplies market. There is also dealing with the ridiculousness of a building supplies having to be retested even though they already confirm to standards that are equal or better to what we have in New Zealand which is just needless duplication and complexity that only the big players can deal with.

    When I talk about politics I try not to ‘both sides it’ but equally it is important for New Zealand not to turn into what the United States has turned into. If the National led government does something good then one shouldn’t just instinctively go “well, it sucks because…well, they’re not my team” because now you just end up with the politics like in the United States where the Republicans stand for nothing other than “do the opposite of what the Democratic Party propose even if what is being proposed is a good idea”. Will I still vote Labour/Greens? sure but I also realise that if the policies being proposed are good then I don’t see them being repealed or if there needs to be changes they’ll amend then to address any concerns that may arise.

  • Another three days to go.

    Finished wok tonight at 10pm and then went for a walk – even if I don’t do the same amount every night my goal is to at least get out of the house to get some exercise after being inside all day. The weather has been wonderful for the last couple of days and there are many people out even at that time of night enjoying the good weather, families getting together to enjoy BBQs, heading down to the local pub for a couple of pints, the local takeaways serving people who have come back from going to the clubs in Wellington.

    One thing I noticed with Safari 26.1 has been how the look and feel of the browser matches the colours of the website for example if you go to WordPress.com it changes the UI to black, Arstechnica the same thing. I guess it kind of makes sense when it comes to web applications trying to make themselves look as native as possible by having a consistent look and feel between the browser interface and the website itself so then it ends up blending into a single UI look and feel rather than there being a dissection between the browser and the web app.

    I logged into work today and Google had released an update to Chrome – no regressions with the websites I use for work, it was slightly snappier but then again that could be entirely due to a clearing of cookies and cache along with rebooting my laptop. In the world of Ubiquiti the early release channel there is ‘UniFi Access Point (all U7 and E7 models) 8.3.2′ made available’. If you’re into testing early releases then give it ago but personally I’m too paranoid to take a chance so I’ll leave it up to someone more adventurous. There is the UniFi Gateways 4.4.6 which was made available as a ‘release candidate’ and it has been 7 days so we may see that been made available in the next few days because generally, assuming no show stopper bugs, they move an update from release candidate to stable release 7 days after it has been released.

    One thing I did notice with my MacBook Pro and my Mac Studio when setting it up that when I connected to my access point it would only connect via 5GHz however when I upgraded to macOS 26 both of my computers now connect by default to 6GHz. I couldn’t make heads or tails regarding it so I checked the ‘System Information’ and it appears that a firmware upgrade has improved support for 6GHz. The other thing I noticed is ‘IO80211_driverkit’ which tells me that IO80211 operates in user space – DriverKit is the user space driver API that was released a couple of years ago (link). If you check under ‘Extensions’ in ‘System Information’ there are quite a few DriverKit extensions so I wouldn’t be surprised if long term Apple is working towards slimming down the kernel so that only the bare essentials are running in kernel space with everything working in user space. From what I understand Microsoft is also doing that with Windows – it’ll be interesting to see whether the adoption of FRED (Flexible Return and Event Delivery) deals with the performance penalty and latency that is typically associated with shifting between kernel mode and user mode on x86/x86-64.

  • On a break, looking forward to the end of work.

    On my 30 minute break at the moment while watching some political videos on YouTube – I had John West Protein+ Tuna Roasted Tomato & Onion (link) along with a tub of yoghurt (link). Tonight I’ll go for a walk after work – it allows me to clear my head and have my brain reset itself so I’m ready to jump into bed rather than having the day replay in my head. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I’ve been fasting as a reset to get my routine back on track again – I like to do that occasionally if I’ve indulged a bit and want to reset the routine which has a definitive break from what I was doing and starting afresh.

    It is funny how the YouTube tech dude bros were whinging about how Apple were ‘behind the competition’ when it came to AI but then these same are the ones jumping onboard the ‘we hate agentic OS’ (post Windows 11 presentation) bandwagon. It is almost as though the YouTube tech dude bros jump from one grift to another grift, that there is nothing at the core of their being other than to hype the latest tech du jour because it get’s clicks and sponsorships (god help me I can’t stand the AI advertisements on YouTube – thank god I’ve got YouTube Premium on my personal computer). I was watching a video on YouTube (link) and I would argue that even their enterprise customers don’t want it either – a recent report noted that half of Microsoft’s sales staff cannot meet their sales targets in regards to getting business customers to upgrade to a subscription that includes AI features. If your business customers aren’t interesting in upgrading then maybe that is a clear indication that the ‘huffing your own farts’ that occurs in Silicon Valley has warped your understanding of what your customer base actually wants.

  • Another 4 days to go.

    I was able to make it through the first day back at work – the end of the week is looking so close, I’m trying to keep it together until the end of the week. On Monday I’m going to pop up in for my 3 monthly HbA1c test – I’m not too sure how long they’ll keep testing but I trust that my GP is asking for it for good reason with my assumption being that he wants to ensure there aren’t any regression back to high blood sugar. Tonight I went for a walk and after being stuck inside all day it is always nice to get some fresh air and moving around after sitting at a desk all day.

    It appears that the Chrome update wasn’t released today however Microsoft release an update to Microsoft Edge which is kind of strange given that Google releases Chrome updates before Microsoft does. I’m keeping an eye out for Apple to release the platform update however it depends on whether the feedback they receive from testers gives two thumbs up. When the 26.2 update is released I’m sure, like in the past, there will be a post over on Webkit.org that’ll give in-depth overview of the changes included with Safari 26.2.

    When it comes to the Liquid Glass interface, the head of Human Interface has been announced with much rumours that there is discontent within Apple regarding the Liquid Glass design with the new head of Human Interface with many decades of experience. I don’t expect to see a major change any time soon other than further refinement particularly around text legibility with any major changes being left for the much rumoured ‘Snow Leopard’ release next year which will focus on dealing with the rough edges along with delivering in the area of AI functionality in particular when it comes to improving Siri which has received much criticism over the years. I guess it is one of those things that you sometimes need to take a break from adding features and start to do a bit of house work to tidy things up.

  • One week to go.

    Back to work on Wednesday and then in 5 days I’m finally off for 2 weeks – I’ve been looking forward to time off for the whole year and it is almost there. Tonight I went for a walk and the temperature outside was 18 degrees celsius – not too hot but warm enough to get a bit of a sweat while not being uncomfortable. I’m looking for the time off because I’m going to squeeze in a bit of extra exercise and see how close to the goal of under 100kg I can get – the last few kgs of reaching my eventual goal will take longer but once I get there I’ll be back to the same weight I was back in my 20s before I went to university.

    uBlock Origin Lite version 2025.1207.2142 was released today – you may find that once you update the extension you may need to wait a few minutes after opening Safari for those filters to be converted to the native content blocking filter format that the declarative net request on Safari is built upon. Safari Technology Preview 233 was released and funny enough another release candidate for the 26.2 was made available which may result in either it being released this week or pushed off until next week. It’ll be interesting to see what happens but I guess if there is great urgency they’ll push it out as soon as they feel like it is ready to go. Tomorrow will be the usual Chrome update but that could change – things get a little weird around this time of the year with people having time off to spend with family so I guess with tech companies like Google the release schedule may vary by a few days.

    The government is talking up ‘green shoots’ but there are also headwinds such as Westpac raising their interest rates with the expectation that there maybe interest rate rises next year. There is also the issue of inflation with the cost of everything going up with the National led government hoping that next year things will look a bit better so that people feel as though the policies are slowly delivering. When it comes to what the left is going to offer – it’ll be interesting to see whether we may see a Labour-NZ First coalition especially if National has privatisation back on the menu given that Labour and NZ First have a lot more in common when it comes to economic policy. Next year is going to be an interesting year for policy because as we get closer to the PREFU (Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update) we’ll see numbers being attached to policy along with new announcements particularly in the area of infrastructure.

  • A productive day today.

    After doing some shopping today I came home, watched some YouTube and then cooked the chicken and had that with some fresh bread. The chicken was ok but would have much preferred having a tandoori butterflied chicken but I guess the Manuka Honey & Rosemary butterflied chicken is good enough. After enjoying the meal I then watched some more television then went for a 11.6km walk – get back into a routine and enjoy the good weather along with the fresh air.

    uBlock Origin Lite version 2025.1207.2142 has been released – it is available on the iOS App Store however it hasn’t come to the Mac App Store year. It appears there has been some under the hood changes so I’m looking forward to seeing whether there is any noticeable performance improvement. There is an update for Apple’s platforms possibly in the next couple of days which includes Safari being updated so I’ll keep an eye on any improvements.

    Regarding how things are going with iCloud – I’ve got three domains, one for this blog and two which and different suffixes (.net and .com) which allows me to have 9 email aliases in total. So far things have been working reliably although it was funny on my laptop I had to manually add the aliases within the Mail app but on my Mac Studio when I set it up the Mail app was automatically configured during the setup and installation process. The process of selecting a suffix is relatively easy although some services may get confused and see the email as invalid if it has a suffix other than a traditional .com, .net or something country specific. Keeping that in mind, the suffix chosen can result in a variety of prices such as a .org suffix being priced different than say one ending in .io.

  • Grocery shopping all done.

    Last night I got a chicken out before I went to bed, woke up this morning, had some yoghurt and iced coffee for breakfast and headed down the road to pick up some groceries. Quite a few people down at Woolworths – I assume people getting ready for Christmas along with family getting together for BBQs to celebrate the lovely weather. I’ve got the windows open around the house to get fresh air – it looks like my two weeks off which will be starting next week. I’m tempted to run down the food I have in my cupboard over this week and then do a decent grocery shopping next week and maybe I’ll be in luck with the specials they have over the silly season.

    The buy out of Warner Bros. Discovery by Netflix will be interesting given the number of relationships that Warner Bros. Discovery have with pay television operators around the world. In the case of New Zealand, Sky TV is their exclusive partner however from what I understand that exclusivity ends in 2026 which will make for interesting watch – will Sky TV pay a premium to maintain that exclusivity or will Sky TV be all ok with Netflix offering the same Warner Bros. Discovery as what they offer. When it comes to their Linear television offerings such as CNN it appears that it isn’t part of the sale but personally if I was Netflix I’d buy the whole thing because CNN has potential to be a hard news channel like their international version and raise the bar rather than the current crop of shows that are little more than ‘he who has the loudest voice wins’.

    Although I am not a big fan of the Liquid Glass interface it does appear that there were quite a few within Apple who were not overly fond of it either (link) which makes me wonder whether we’ll see further refinement in the 26.x series and then in the 27 we’ll see a revamp of Liquid Glass where the usability issues others have raised are addressed. As for the executive leaving to work for Meta – making your software and hardware pretty isn’t going to change the fact that it is still a product/service being sold by Meta and all the creepy surveillance capitalism that goes on regarding Meta. It is amazing when executives in charge of companies convince themselves that the problem is their products, services or their corporate culture but rather it is a branding issue.

    It reminds me very much of the whole Metaverse hype and the refusal by Meta to accept that what they’re offering has very limited appeal. Second Life for example has existed since 2003 with very limited appeal – a few hundred thousand people using it at any one time pales in comparison to the hundreds of millions of people who use traditional social media. People want to use a service that has minimal friction – easy to use, doesn’t require them to do anything more than the bare minimum to use the service. This is something Microsoft learned when they tried to ram down the collective throats of Xbox end users when they force bundled Kinect while ignoring that their base were people who wanted to collapse in a bean bag with a bottle of beer, a head set and play a game shooting some bad guys online while chating with mates.

  • It’s good to be back on the Mac.

    Oh, how it is good to be back using a Mac – MacBook Pro and a Mac Studio, got them both setup exactly how I wanted. I didn’t expect a big leap from the M1 Max but it there is definitely a leap in performance. I’ve got Simcity running on my laptop and it is very responsive – fast graphics, nothing strange or usual when running it on macOS 26.1 (I was expecting maybe compatibility issues but it worked without a problem). I’m looking forward to macOS 26.2 being released in the coming week assuming there are no show stopper bugs along with maybe a Safari Technology Preview being released as well.

    Tomorrow (Monday) I’ve got my Snakehive leather case arriving to replace the rather flimsy one I am using today – I needed something to my phone in until the one I wanted arrived. I like the wallet case because it allows me to have my wallet and phone all in one so then when I leave the home I have everything I need in one wallet.

    Before heading off to bed I got the chicken out of the freezer and tomorrow I’ll head down to the supermarket with the $50 voucher I got as a prize recently and pick up a few odd bits and pieces. I’m unsure what I’ll have with the chicken although I am thinking of having some roast vegetables because it has been a while since I last had them. While I’m down there I might treat myself to a cappuccino at the mall along with maybe a muffin since it has been a while since I last had a bit of a sweet treat.

    When I come home, I’ll get the chicken cooking and while that happens I’ll finally get the washing all sorted out – hopefully the weather will be fine but worst case scenario I can always dry it inside on the clothes rack and have the dehumidifier going to ensure that the house doesn’t get damp.

  • It appears that humanity never learns.

    Finished work for the week, one week to go and then I’ll be off on my break for two weeks. I was watching a video regarding the AI hype cycle (link) and the way in which mainstream media are almost as though they’re ‘in on in’ it in much the same way that in the early 2000s you’d have talking heads hyping up stocks but secretly behind closed doors the talking heads were betting against it. What amazes me is how the ‘high priests of Wall Street’ are let off Scott free over and over again when they hype something, that something crashes and burns, then the audience has collective amnesia regarding what just took place. It reminds me of 8 years of George W Bush, the economy heading down the toilet, the United States stuck in two pointless wars then 2 years ago Barrack Obama is voted in as president the American population give Republicans a majority in both houses then act surprised that the whole time they’re in power they accomplish nothing. It’s almost as though humanity has collective amnesia where is a complete lack of capacity to remember something more than 2 years ago.

    Every time I hear Greenspan excuse away financial crisis as ‘irrational exuberance’ then how the heck does that jell with the ideological underpinnings of neoliberalism that private sector is the best allocator of capital because it is propelled by the profit seeking motive that is shaped by rational self interest. If the market was rational then these sorts of idiotic hype cycles wouldn’t happen – people would see beyond the marketing hype and realise it for it is. The problem is that the alternative to neoliberalism is the government being the allocator of capital through government policy – using the government balance sheet and the ability to issue their own currency to make investments into social housing, to have institutions such as the Ministry of Works planning long term. I refuse to believe that the prophets of neoliberalism are unable to see the flaw in their own ideology but rather they keep perpetuating it because they now in a situation where they’ve invested so much into it that the only choice other than continuing would be to openly admit that they were wrong – the whole neoliberal experiment has been a colossal failure then having to admit they got caught up in a cult of market worship where they threw all rational thinking out the window.

  • Another good day at work.

    Woke up this morning, had a tuna meal bowl for brunch along with a coffee then jumped into the queue answering emails and telephone calls. Unfortunately things went a bit pear shaped at work because of Salesforce issues but they were eventually fixed. I’m not in the technology area where they do all the system integration but given how you can integrate everything into everything else the problem could be anywhere – Amazon Connect or many other systems that integrate into Salesforce with Salesforce kind of being the system that brings everything together into a single source of truth. When the issue arose I originally thought it may have been Cloudflare because apparently they had an outage today for around 1/2 an hour which was caused by a misconfigured firewall (link).

    I’ve got a couple of weeks off this year so I’m drawing up a plan on what I’m going to do. The two gardens at the side of the house has pebbles and weed matting underneath it but the problem is that the weeds are coming through. The big job will require me to pick up the weed mat with the pebbles inside it with help from a family member then work on dealing with the weeds before relaying it. I’m also having a look at sorting out the weeds in between the concrete around the back – find a more permanent way of dealing with it rather than having to waste time tediously weeding. I’m also tempted to have a look at the fence on either side of the property – they’re looking a little bit worse for wear but that is a much bigger project that I need to think about long term because it involves more than just replacing a few planks of wood.

    From the ‘and this why people don’t want an agentic OS’ (link) but I’m sure the wizkids over at Microsoft are once again convincing themselves that the problem isn’t the fact that what they’re offering no one wants but apparently we, the little people, are big brained enough to understand how awesome this technology is. This is what happens when you have a company stuck in an echo chamber where everything is thinking the same thing and then you convince yourself that what you think is the mainstream position because everyone else is thinking the same way. The best thing that can be done would be for Silicon Valley companies to leave Silicon Valley – set up offices where the unwashed masses live so that they have an easy way to ‘touch grass’ and ask themselves whether what they’re proposing is actually what people want or need. Always remember, when you may think is a great feature isn’t always a reflection of what your customer base wants – reminds me when I worked in hospo, a food item that you may love may not be the sort of product your customer base likes so even if you have the best intention it has to ultimately meet the needs of the customer.

    Just on a side note, I’m not anti-AI but I do think we need to stop conflating LLMs with AI as if they were interchangeable given that AI includes many pieces of technology that are actually useful such as frame generation used in games as one example. Like a lot of things in technology there will be a lot of hype and promises but ultimately when the darling of the industry fails to deliver the industry will move onto the next big thing. I’ve been following the technology for many years and have seen trends come and go, this too shall pass.