Matisyahu's Blog

I was going to write a more ‘heavy’ blog post but I’ve decided to hold off until Monday or Tuesday after I’ve had a good night sleep rather than trying to construct a half decent argument after a long shift. The weather has just been plain crazy over the last few days so I’ve decided to focus on my calorie intake and making use of the free weights when I have some spare time. The main focus has been around building up muscle and maintaining that muscle so that as I get older I’m in a better position physically rather than waiting until it is took late and then finding it is a lot harder to regain that lost muscle mass.

I’m going to start also doing some squats and lunges then from there I’ll start adding weights – although walking does build some muscle I think that a little extra muscle on the legs to help with mobility and stability. It is the reason that I’ve kept it up so far is because I can see the benefits in my every day life where just simply doing every day activity rather than being a struggle or an arduous task. After living a life for 14 years a certain way then having a major lifestyle change, it is the small things you notice and I think it is the appreciation of those small things that keep me on track.

It is interesting to see how with CES there was an observation made by Dell (I’m sure others will sure to follow) that consumers don’t actually care about AI. Yeah, I know, that is self evident statement but unfortunately for many in the corporate world they create a bubble, an echo chamber if you will, then convince themselves that such views represent the mainstream when in reality they’re listening to a very small audience that make a lot of noise. Are there some interesting features that fit under the umbrella of AI? sure, upscaling, frame generation to improve performance, editing photos such as removing something then having the missing part of the photo regenerated, they’re all great but I don’t think they’re features that are people are making their purchasing decisions around – nice features to have but not something that would compel people to upgrade.

This is something I noticed regarding tech YouTubers with many of them disconnected from what the average person wants eg the constant barracking on about wanting small phones only for them mediocre sellers once they hit the real world (regardless of who makes them). Something you’ll see non-stop on Apple forums of people demanding a small phone and when Apple does sell one the sales are mediocre just as Apple has found out with the iPhone Air – the reality is that very few people care about ‘thinness’ (something like 7% of iPhone buyers care). Then there is the usual excuses to explain away why it wasn’t a success – at the end of the day if you want a small phone or a thin phone then compromises need to be made to ensure all the core features fit into the form factor – if you want a thin phone there will be compromises, if you want a small phone then it’ll come with it’s own compromises.

Regarding the holiday in June, I’m deciding whether I should have 2 weeks off or three weeks off but I do know that the first week I’ll be enjoying WWDC 27 with the rumour being that version 27 will be a Snow Leopard release. There are rumours about an Apple pin device but I think that for a lot of people they jump from rumour to believing it’ll be an actual product when in reality, having worked in large organisations in the past, there are plenty of things that are worked on behind the scenes that never actually make it to market. In many large organisations it isn’t uncommon to have a ‘proof of concept’ then see whether firstly there is a market for it and secondly whether it can be developed into a useful product. I remember working in the bank, they would have trial runs of technology – sometimes it worked and went onto being rolled out while other times the underlying technology just wasn’t mature enough so it was shelved till a later date.

On a side note, there appears to be a trend of CDs coming back into fashion these days – we first got vinyl then cassette tapes and now it is time for CDs to make a comeback. I think it is due in part to subscription fatigue where everything has been turned into a subscription, money disappearing every month to multiple streaming services and given the way the economy is going at the moment the first thing to cut back on are those things that aren’t essential. When I wanted to get my cost of living under control the first thing I did was evaluate everything I was spending terms of subscriptions and the thing I found is that it was easy for money to go out the door in small amounts vs buying music as a once off purchase where you have to consciously think about whether to purchase it.

For me, I started off purchasing music many years ago and gradually built up a library and that doesn’t included the DRM free FLAC albums I have purchased over the years – Daptone records selling physical copies as well as DRM free FLAC versions available for download. Maybe this is the pendulum swinging back in reaction to everything becoming virtual and no one owning anything, people are now seeing value in actually owning something tangible, the idea of owning an album and the stories that go with how and why you bought the album along with the memories one associates with the music on the album.

Daily writing prompt

Name an attraction or town close to home that you still haven’t got around to visiting.

View all responses

I guess it depends on how you define ‘close to home’ but I’ve never been to Waiheke Island although I’ve travelled up to Auckland many times in the past but it was mainly to travel through on the way to Kaikohe. In the middle of this year I’m going to head up to Auckland on a holiday, see the sights and sounds of Auckland, maybe go for a walk along the water front etc. I’ll also pop into Ikea and maybe even Costco while I’m up there as well. The other part of New Zealand I’d love to visit would be Stewart Island (at the bottom of the South Island).