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

  • At the half way point.

    Yeah, at the half way point of my shift – another 4 hours to go after my lunch break. In between serving customers I was watching a few videos and reading some articles regarding American women rejecting MAGA and Republican men and then MAGA and Republican men whining and complaining. I don’t know who needs to hear this but your politics are an outgrowth of your morals, your values, the ethnical framework you use to navigate the world. I saw one video where this guy was whining about it as if the differences were superficial and it was silly not to date a Republican or a MAGA man – pardon? we’re not talking about differences over whether the top tax rate should be 39.6% of 43.5% or whether there should be a mortgage interest tax deduction for first home buyers etc. but one party dehumanising undocumented immigrants and apparently that process of dehumanisation, according to that individual, should be treated the same way as arguing over tax rates.

    What it tells me about that person is one of two things, the first being that he cannot understand why someone should care about something that doesn’t directly impact them which is why they don’t care if ‘the other’ is dehumanised because it doesn’t impact them directly – when your moral framework is based on “does it directly me” rather than on the basis of a shared humanity then it shouldn’t be surprising that people are able to sit by and allow horrific things happen without even the slightest flinch in horror. The second being the number of guys who are MAGA or Republican because of ‘the vibes’, the chest beating, the posturing, the sort of peacocking machismo on display by the podcast bros that convinced young men that politics is no deeper than perfective masculinity. Btw, the sort of performative masculinity that is on display is akin to a young boy dressing up in their father’s clothes and imitating ‘what it means to be a man’. I guess it is kind of cute when you’re young but when you become an adult and you’re still doing the equivalent of doing performative masculinity based on a shallow set of stereotypes then it be surprising that there is a whole generation of young men who were sucked into the MAGA and Republican bullshit vortex.

  • The third day completed, one more day to go.

    One more day to go and then I’m on my weekend. This week has had a lot better vibe to it that last week and I’m unsure as to why other than I’ve gotten into a good routine outside of work which maybe makes me feel a lot better when I am at work. I finished work tonight at 10pm, went for my 11.6km walk, came home, did some free weights and stretching to cool down, shower then jumped into bed. It has ben 5 days in a row worth of exercise and although the first few days I had to force myself to do it I am now looking forward to it. The one thing I have gotten into a routine to do is brushing my teeth earlier because for some unknown reason I don’t feel the need to eat something – maybe the act of brushing my teeth is telling my brain “no more food, you’re going to have to wait till tomorrow”.

    On Monday I’m looking forward to a day off – the weather is looking good although there is some overnight showers. I’m keeping track of my order, it has left Dubai however the big question is whether it goes straight to Auckland (New Zealand) or will it go via Sydney (Australia) then to Auckland (New Zealand). When it does arrive I’ll take a few photos and upload it on my blog. At the moment the wind is pretty strong outside but it is kind of strange that the wind has just picked up recently but hopefully it’ll calm down so I can go for a walk without getting blown around.

    Although I did feel like going to the local bakery for eggs bene when I made my blog post yesterday, I also feel like having some soup with fresh ciabatta bread with garlic butter on it. I guess I am craving not only something comforting like a warm soup but also the satisfaction of some crusty bread. The big question is what type of soup – tomato, pumpkin or maybe the Thai green curry then adding some shrimp or maybe even like a marinara mix mixed with a chowder (I miss the wonderful seafood chowder when I was in Ireland).

  • No, investors aren’t rational actors.

    One of the biggest myths perpetuated by the neoliberal orthodoxy is the idea that markets are rational because those participating in the market are motivated by rational self interest. If that orthodoxy was real rather than being an article of faith akin to some sort of religious conviction then there wouldn’t be crashes on a near routine basis of almost every 7-10 years. Well, here is an example regarding Apple’s share price in regards to AI (link), there was a survey not too long ago where they looked into the buying habits of iPhone purchasers and what they prioritise when purchasing a phone and want to know what was at the bottom of the list of features? at 7% ‘thinness’ of the phone and AI functionality were dead last or close to last on the list of priorities.

    If there is one thing the AI bubble proves it is the idea that a small group of people have far too much money and they’ve convinced themselves, after huffing on their own farts for decades, that they can do no wrong and everything they touch will become a winner. Well, I think that when the correct comes I think there are going to be many left wondering why they were so foolish but I do hope is that governments of the world put their foot down and say ‘play stupid games, win stupid prizes’. I think it is abundantly clear that LLMs are a dead end and this idea of “we just need to make them bigger and that will make them better” has been well and truly debunked by people who are a lot smarter than I am. Are there great things occurring in the field of AI? sure, and that will continue, what will crash and burn will be the fixation on LLMs and the realisation that there is a law of diminishing returns because as the models get bigger the improvements become less and less to the point that they’re just giant money and power sucking operations that aren’t going to get better.

  • The third day completed, feeling good.

    I’m on my third day and stuck to my plan for the day and I have to admit the lazy side of my is, “oh god, do I have to keep doing this” but I know that after I’ve done this for a month that it’ll become something that I do without even thinking about it. I finished work at 10pm then went for my usual 11.6km walk, arrived at home, while cooling down I did some stretching to improve my flexibility, had a shower and jumped into bed.

    Microsoft release an update for Microsoft Edge however I don’t see any reports regarding what will be included on Patch Tuesday for January 2026 or when it’ll be released. I haven’t been able to sell my Surface Laptop so I am holding onto it because it would be a waste if I sold it. I like to keep up to date with technology so I guess it is an easy way to keep my toe in the Windows ecosystem and keep track of Windows development even though I’m a totally embedded in the Apple ecosystem.

    I’ve been tracking the clothes I ordered from overseas and at the moment it is in Dubai (which makes sense since it is an international hub for freight and passengers). It is scheduled to arrive on 13 January but most of the time it ends up arriving on a day before the due by date. I’ve informed them to leave it in a safe place because I really don’t want to get up early when it can easily be left in a place that cannot be seen from the road. I am tempted to make another order, there are a few shirts that look nice although they are made to order but I’ll make that decision when the parcel arrives.

    I’m looking forward to the weekend on Monday, I might head down to the store and pick up some wooden coat hangers because they tend to last a long time then after that I’ll pop into the local bakery for some eggs bene with smoked salmon and a side of mushrooms. I am still having.a look at either a dresser or a wardrobe and I’ve found what I’d like but I’m going to save up then buy it but it’ll need to be delivered though because it is coming from the South Island since nothing is available locally that goes with the furniture I already have. I’m also looking at a fabric tub chair but I need to get the measurements of my desk so when I do go shopping I want to ensure that the seat isn’t too low.

  • Feeling good so far.

    At the half way point of my shift but I am feeling good – third day of getting back on track. I have to admit, the first few days were pretty difficult but on the third day I’m feeling pretty good and I’m sure that as the days turn into weeks and weeks turn into months that it’ll become a lot easier.

    I checked my email before going to bed last night and I received confirmation that the clothes I have ordered have been shipped. It is amazing how connected the world is because the clothes I purchased are coming all the way from Jordan and being couriered all the way down to New Zealand. It is something that for young people (younger than myself) who grew up in a time where the internet and buying stuff from overseas being the norm now take for granted where as when I was growing up the whole process was pretty laboured thus most people avoided it if they could. Once it arrives I’ll have another look at their catalogue to see what else I can buy because unfortunately it is closing down and their clothes are the style of clothing I like along with being good quality and at a reasonable price.

    I opened up my Microsoft Surface Laptop with an ARM chip and Qualcomm has released an update to their GPU driver however it isn’t a major update. After installing the driver update I was hoping that maybe it would be updated to WDDM 3.2 but unfortunately it is still stuck at WDDM 3.1, I haven’t done any benchmarks regarding the improvements but I have a feeling that because ARM is more geared towards battery life over absolute raw performance I’m sure any improvement will come about through balancing performance and battery life. On a side note, the ARM based laptops running Windows are a great device if you’re mainly using Microsoft Office and web based applications via Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome.

  • The second day completed, feeling good.

    It’s the end of the second day of getting back on track again – I stuck to my diet plan today, did some free weights before work, on my breaks and after work, then I went for an 11.6km walk tonight and although there were a few drops of rain it quickly stopped. I was able to get the walk out of the way in 1 hour and 50 minutes then when I came back I did some stretching as I cooled down, jumped into the shower and got all washed up after that work out, and now I’m in bed relaxing before I head off to sleep for the night.

    I was hoping that maybe Safari Technology Preview 235 would be released but it appears that with the time off over the festive season I guess it is a matter of people gradually coming back into the office. When it comes to Ubiquiti, they have released UniFi Gateway software version 5.0.10 in the early access area which makes me wonder whether their focus has been getting the software support for the UniFi Gateway (the non-cloud version) to date before releasing a final version. Just recently the UCK G2 Plus (UniFi Cloud Key) software version 5.0.9 was released which updated the software to the latest version. It’ll be interesting to see whether we see the software update for cloud released in the next few weeks.

    Oh, and on the issue of macOS 26.2 where I noted that there was a performance increase with the release of macOS 26.2 but I couldn’t nail down exactly what the reasoning was. It appears that there was a software update (link) which is probably the reason why I saw the WiFi stack updated in the ‘System Information’ application. It is great that in the era of pointless AI crap being rammed down the collective throats of end users that there are still companies in Silicon Valley making sure the fundamentals aka ‘meat and potatoes’ are being taken care of.

    I’ve noted in the past how more an more functionality is being pushed into user space (use the use of DriverKit in the driver names) which makes me me wonder whether the version 27 release will be more about under the hood changes that they can make since they’ll be (rumoured to) dropping support for x86 where drivers operating in user space has a performance penalty hit that is higher than doing the same thing on ARM. I wouldn’t be surprised if we ended up seeing iOS end up becoming more powerful through the use of more companies supporting their hardware on iOS through the use of DriverKit.

    Given the backlash regarding Liquid Glass and the new executive in charge of user interface, I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw further refinement in future versions of macOS and iOS with any major overhaul being reserved for version 27. I don’t think there is going to be a major change but I think some of the ‘glassy’ aspects of it will be toned down, we may even see a nod to the Aqua interface of the past and see some of those aspects return.

  • A lovely day so far.

    It has been a lovely day so far – nice weather, the neighbourhood is quiet although that will change once the kids go back to school. There are two schools nearby and they’re doing some building improvements – nothing major, just regular maintenance but is good to see that the government is finally making the investment required to bring it up to a reasonable standard.

    I’m gradually working through my second bottle of coffee concentrate because I’m eventually going to move to the Up and Go Iced Coffee with extra protein because it used long life milk so it is possible to buy them in 6 packs and fill up the fridge so then I’ve always got them cold and ready to be consumed. I’m on my 30 minute break at the moment and have been squeezing in some barbell exercises – rather than setting aside a set amount of time I prefer to squeeze it in when I have spare time or when I’m waiting for something to happen eg waiting for the washing to complete.

    Daily writing prompt
    What are your thoughts on the concept of living a very long life?
    View all responses

    The idea of living a long life would be great but you’d have to have something to keep you engaged in the world rather than just merely existing. For me, living a long life would mean being able to live to experience scientific and technological progress that at the moment can only be dreamed of. Imagine being able to live long enough that space travel becomes as much of a normal thing to do as we do today when we board an aircraft. When you think about flying, I don’t think anyone would have imagined 70 years ago that in 2025 there would be massive aircrafts like the Airbus A380 and the Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet would be flying people around the globe. That doesn’t even touch on the latest aircrafts, an Airbus 350 long range model can be in the air for 22 hours.

  • Keep your eye on the prize.

    Back to work on Wednesday which was uneventful although I had to catch up on a bit of news and changes that got released at the beginning of the week. The industry I am it is important to always stay up to day with changes inside the industry as well as any sort of legislative changes given that said industry has quite a few regulations that need to be followed – it certainly right up there with the banking sector when it comes to regulations and oversight by various government agencies.

    After finishing work tonight I went for a 11.6km walk then came over, had some roasted seaweed as a snack then jumped into the shower to freshen up then clean my teeth all ready for bed. I’ve stuck to my diet reset today and I’m looking forward to getting through tomorrow – taking it one day at a time with my goal being to be below 100kg by the middle of this year. I’ve had a look in my closet and there are quite a few items I’d love to be able to fit into by the time I have my mid year time off in June when WWDC ’27 takes place.

    There is a red hemp hoodie I purchase many years ago from Cosmic Corner in Wellington but I never got around to wearing it because it didn’t fit me when I bought it. Why did I buy it? I guess I had the horrible logic that it would serve as an incentive to lose weight but many years later it appears it didn’t work. At the moment I have made great progress and it is working to serve as a good incentive these days – I try it on once a week to see how thins are progressing and it does give me a boost of confidence seeing that it is starting to fit me better.

    I think I’ve mentioned in the past that I find things like my clothes fitting better as a more useful barometer regarding how well I am progressing because it isn’t can abstract idea like weight but something you can see relative to where you were when you bought the clothes and comparing to now where it is fitting better. I’ve got some trousers that are size 36 and 38 although I may find that even with weight loss the cut of the trousers won’t work with my body time and if that is the case then I’ll either give it to my sister’s partner or I’ll donate it to an op-shop where someone will find a use for it.

  • Back to work on Wednesday.

    Today was a good day, I was able to get a whole lot of tidying up the house sorted out as well as getting my kitchen better organised. I think I need to get into a habit of keeping things organised as I go rather than waiting for the weekend to get everything in order. It reminds me of the old policy when working in hospitality – clean as you go, don’t let it build up because it you spend so much more time at the end of the shift trying to catch up.

    Mum came over and had a look at the garden shed out the back and what we decided is we need to get around 2m of 4×2 as a way of providing rigidity to the metal structure when we attach the door because the problem is that the metal is flimsy and the weight of the door isn’t properly supported by just the metal walls alone. I am tempted at some point to maybe construct a false floor or put something on the ground so then I have a dry foundation I can put stuff on the floor without having to worry about dampness. At the moment my furniture padding is currently inside but outside would be easier.

    I went mum’s place for dinner and help her with updating the software on her computer and devices – she has a Chromebook laptop but her desktop is a Bee-PC and the phone is an iPhone 16 Pro. I’ve kept mum on iOS 18.7.3 because I’m unsure about moving her to 26.2 so what I’ll probably do is wait until 26.3 or maybe 26.4 but the concern is regarding whether the text is readable and the UI change isn’t too much all at once.

    After dinner mum dropped me back home and on the way I did some grocery shopping and part of the ‘new year, new me’ the big focus is on making sure that those cupboards are full and there are no excuses for buying outside the fortnightly shop. The problem is when you shop outside the fortnightly shop is that you say to yourself that you’re only going to pick up a few items then 30minutes later you got those items plus a whole lot more. The other point is to make sure that I always have tasty nutritious meals in the house so that there is never an excuse for sneaking out to grab from the local store. Oh, and I found some anti-frizz spray which I’ve put on my hair and it has done a pretty good job – it is a ‘leave in conditioner’ and it has made my hair less frizzy.

    One thing I am looking at doing is maybe getting my ears pierced, both of them, however I am looking for a local place with a good reputation for doing a good job. I’ll have a chat with my sister to see what place she goes to get it done. As for the type of earrings, I’d be looking at a basic stud like this:

    I may get some black, dark blue and dark red ones if I can. One of those things you keep putting off and I’m at that moment in my life where I just want to go ‘fuck it, I’m going to do it’ after playing it safe.

  • A good night sleep, a wonderful day.

    I had a good night sleep, one of those sleeps when your head hits the pillow and you’re out like a light and have a solid 8-9 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Before going to sleep last night I received an email with a credit so then I could purchase the free hats and scarfs up to the value of the order I made, I was going to leave it to the next day but I thought it would be best to get it out of the way or otherwise I’ll end up forgetting all about it.

    I woke up this morning check for updates and uBlock Origin Lite version 2026.104.1656 had been released for both iOS and macOS. It fixes up a few regressions – I have a feeling that they may have no bothered with the previous release and rolled up the bug fixes into this release. I noticed on a few websites that the websites loaded a bit cleaner and faster so I’m unsure whether that is related to the update but if you are running an older version then take the plunge and update

    Microsoft CEO is complaining that AI slop is being called slop – the lack of self awareness by the tech dude bros is truly amazing but then again when Silicon Valley are huffing each others farts then convincing themselves that they know better than end users regarding what they want. It shouldn’t be surprising at all the dopey ideas that come out when you’re so divorced from reality. If there was ever a good argument to move an organisation out of Silicon Valley just so tech dude bros can ‘touch grass’ and get acquainted with reality then the last 5 years at least would be a good argument in favour of it.

    I’ve been following the media coverage post Venezuela regime change and the announcements by the Trump administration afterwards. What I find interesting are how the pro-USA sycophants in New Zealand politics have remained remarkably quiet – why have they suddenly disappeared or at least are very quiet? sorry to be snarky but such individuals lectured via the media about how China is the giant boogieman and that we need to suck up and snivel to the United States because it is in our ‘best interests’.

    I hope that after the recent action by the United States that there will be some push back to those in politics who routinely push the narrative we need get closer to the United States. The last time I checked, it wasn’t China who imposed a 15% tariffs on New Zealand exports, the Australia signed a ‘free trade’ agreement with the United States over 25 years ago and have found that it isn’t worth the paper it is written on after the Trump administration pretty much ripped up the agreement (not to mention it is a worse free trade agreement that exists between New Zealand and China).