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

  • The start of a new work week.

    Back to work on Wednesday but tonight I went for a walk – the weather was marginally warmer and I really felt the need to get some exercise after having not done it for a couple of days. On Monday I picked up some milk and a few bottles of Pepsi Max but I kept it a small shop because I’m gradually working through the stock I already have – I’ve got some tinned tuna, meals I can heat up in the microwave and in the freezer I’ve got 2 x 500g mince that’ll I’ll cook up on my day off and add the tinned seasoned tomatoes to add some flavour (the steak seasoning that masterfoods has pretty much got the same taste as the Old El Paso seasoning packets have). I might end up grabbing some sour cream and corn chips but I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.

    Apple has released a release candidates for the current release of macOS, iOS etc. which indicates that as long as there aren’t any showstopper bugs then we may either see it released towards the end of this year or possible next week on Tuesday NZ time at the earliest. Whether it is released sooner isn’t just based on whether a shopstopper bug appears but also the urgency of the update – Google sometimes push our Chrome updates a day early if there are some serious security bugs that cannot wait to be fixed because there are active exploits out there. The latest version of the Safari Technology Preview 223 is working well with uBlock Origin Lite which is available in TestFlight but I haven’t seen whether the declarative net request bugs present in Safari 18.5 have been fixed in in 18.6 since what appears in the Safari Technology Preview may take a few months before they appear in the stable version of Safari.

    It’ll be interesting to see what happens with the Beta 4 build of the upcoming platforms – although I am tempted to give the public beta a try I think I’ll hold off until the stable version is released sometime either in October or November. For me the interesting part will be the feedback regarding the whole liquid glass and whether further changes will be made – will they offer the ability to have a sliding scale of how ‘glassy’ the effect is or whether they go with a choice between the eventual standard that Apple decides or reduced transparency altogether (at the moment I have reduced transparency on both my computers).

  • A chilly day today and even chillier night.

    I slept in today and when I woke up…it was chilly and it is really chilly at the moment with the temperature sitting at 3°C so I’ve decided that I’ll stay at home, keep myself warm rather than risking the cold weather but end up getting sick as a result. I really was hoping that the weather would get better but it appears to another month to go before things start to warm up. During today I popped down to the local supermarket to pick up some chicken and coleslaw for dinner along with a couple of bottles of milk and some Pepsi Max. It’s funny, since I started walking most places or taking the bus I am forced to consider what I am buying since I’m going to have to carry it home – “yeah, I want it but do I really need it” is the question that runs through my mind when I scan what I have in the trolly and I’m left wondering whether I’ve forgotten anything.

    uBlock Origin Lite 2025.718.1921 is now available in the Chrome extensions store – I cannot work out why it takes a little but longer for Google, maybe they can take the initiative and have an app/extensions review team in New Zealand and Australia so then app/extensions can be reviewed and approved in a timely manner. I’ve also realised that I didn’t have a feature enabled in my Workspace Administration area in regards to Search and Assistant so I’ve enabled that which should allow Google Home integration to work a bit better – or at least work a bit better once the Pixel 10 Pro XL makes its way to New Zealand. I’m tempted to also get the Pixel watch while I’m at it since it’ll allow me to keep track of exercise statistics so then I can work to meet my goals.

    With each day I’m learning more about Google Workspace – understanding how things are setup by default and how that can cause problems when setting up something like a Pixel Watch. At the moment I’m using an Apple TV but I am tempted to replace the television then give mum my old one. I’ve been having a look more videos regarding the One UI on Samsung televisions and the more I see the more I like with the added benefit that it all integrates into SmartThings (which does a better job than Google Home which is still very much rough around the edges).

    Oh, and a spot of good news it appears that the UK is stepping away from demanding Apple to install a backdoor into iCloud which also impact other providers as well (link). As I’ve said in the past, always be weary of politicians who either invoke claims of an emergency or claims of protecting a particular group as a justification of acquiring more power because once that power granted it is very rarely rescinded at a later date but instead becomes normalised. Just as I am concerned about the concentration of capital in the hands of a few who then use that economic power to influence politics in service of protecting their class interests I am also concerned when I see politicians seek more power in the name of ‘the greater good’ whose arguments contain holes large enough that you can fly a A380 through.

  • The week has ended (finally!)

    Oh god knows I needed the week to be over and the weekend couldn’t have come soon enough. I’m relaxing in bed after going for a walk – it was spitting and really cold, a lot colder than the temperature is being reported by Metservice as 6°C but feels like 5°C. I’ve got my heater going and thank goodness I have insulation in the floor, walls, floor and double glazed windows to ensure that the horrible cost of heating will at least keep me warm. I’m enjoying some sandwiches and a biscuit then I’ll see if there are some interesting tv series that I can binge watch.

    Something I noticed when using my phone is Samsung Files and how you can link Google Drive then download a folder from Google Drive to ones phone. I like to keep all my music backed up to my Google Drive so I decided to download my music collection (the ones encoded in AAC) to my phone which funny enough was as fast as it would be if I used OpenMTP on my desktop. I always thought that Samsung was needlessly duplicating apps but it appears that there is a good reason for those apps – even Google’s own Files app doesn’t allow you to download directories of files from Google Drive to ones phone which is kind of strange given that I would have thought that is a pretty common thing to do unless Google expects the user to cache their the director then point their music player to the Google Drive to play back music.

    I go back and forths between my Apple TV 4K (128GB) and Google Streamer but I keep coming back to the Apple TV 4K because the experience is so much more fast, fluid and responsive vs the under powered device that Google put out. Sure, the Apple TV 4K is more expensive but nothing stopped Google from putting out a decent device akin to an nVidia Shield – it isn’t as though a set top box is something you buy on a regular basis but rather something you buy and keep for years and years until it stops receiving updates and then you upgrade. I’ve never understood the complaints about the price of the Apple TV 4K given that if you buy it and keep it until it loses support then it is costing less than NZ$1 per week – most people spend more on coffee per week than a device that’ll use for hours every day.

  • One more day then the weekend.

    Tomorrow is the last day of the week and it couldn’t come sooner. I was going to go for a walk tonight but it has been raining on and off and when it did rain it was a real downpour so I decided to take a night off, watch another episode of Foundation and keep warm in front of my heater. While here I cleared the cookies and cache along with clearing the stuff out of the cloud, sort my phone out etc. I’m still using Google Streamer but I’m leaning heavily towards getting a Samsung 2025 television – I’m going to head down to the local Noel Leemings to check out what they navigation is like given that the only point of reference I have is a television from 2016. To be honest the only thing I use on the television is free to air television and YouTube – something that the Samsung TV could easily do without too much hassle.

    One of the other reasons is if I can get Samsung Pass to work on a generic PC (based on the specs from the Microsoft app store it says it should as long as there is a TPM 2.0 module and Windows Hello) then I’ll move from using Google Password manager to Samsung Pass ince it includes support not only for OTP built into it but also the newest televisions from Samsung include Knox built in which will make using the built in web browser a lot easier as well. Sam Mobile has a good video giving an overview of the changes that are coming with the 2025 Samsung television range:

    Anyway, I’m going to head off to sleep, have a good nights rest and then get to do it all over again.

  • Evolution towards a unified core.

    Just watching the following video – I have to admit a lot of the information that I’m seeing around the internet is rumours but it is interesting to hear just how bureaucratic Intel is relative to AMD – multiple teams working on multiple architectures ends up sounding very much like a needlessly complex organisational structure.

    Seeing that the efficiency cores are going to become the basis of the unified core reminds me very much of the days back when the P4 had a pipeline to the moon and back with it’s replacement being created by the Israeli team which was based on the Pentium III which evolved into the Core, the Core 2 – if I remember correctly Core 2 had a 14 stage pipeline which balanced efficiency with scalability. While we’re on the topic of taking a basic core design and building from there, it reminds me very much of Sun Microsystems working on the T1 whose basis was the UltraSPARC II that they built up from there to create the multicore monster (link).

    There is also the matter of the nVidia ARM CPU – it’ll be interesting to see whether Windows 11 25H2 brings compatibility for the nVidia ARM CPU and whether Microsoft brings about a nVidia ARM CPU based all in one computer or a mini-pc running Windows 11. There is also the Google event in August where the Pixel 10 and Pixel Watch 4 will be announced – it’ll be interesting to see whether it is made available in more markets or whether instead I’ll grab it through Mighty Ape.

  • The future of ChromeOS and Android.

    It appears that there has been confirmation, be it passing a line within an interview, about the future of the coming of two operating systems into a single unified one that’ll span from watch to phone to tablet then to laptop. There is also talk about bringing extensions to Chrome along with making Chrome feature comparable to the Chrome that came with ChromeOS – it’ll be interesting to see whether Android on the laptop with extensions make their way down to the tablet and smartphone.

    It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out for Google’s partners such as Samsung with their OneUI branding – will they allow the sort of customisation on Android on phones and tablets for laptops as well? will they also extend that to Android TV so then it would encourage Samsung to maybe bring them into the fold by allowing them to apple their OneUI magic to Android TV and Android on the laptop so then effectively Samsung, rather than being yet another Windows vendor to create a uniquely Samsung experience where there is the underlying Android operating system but a unique OneUI look and feel that makes their products stand out from the competition.

    On some good news, the Samsung has released the July 2025 update, the kernel has had a minor bump in the patch level but it remains at 6.6.30, along with a baseband update, SE update etc. the size of the download was close to 600MB but because I’m at home on a decent wifi connection to the internet via fibre it downloaded pretty quickly resulting in it updating relatively fast. I haven’t noticed any regressions not noticed any changes which is a good sign that the best update is an update that fly belows the radar and life carries on as usual.

    There are more rumours regarding Intel and the work being done to turn aroujd their fortunes such as this article (link) and (link) with the interesting part being around AVX-10 instruction set, and the APX extension being added which will hopefully translate to better power/performance to maybe closing the gap between x86 and ARM – it doesn’t have to necessarily beat Apple but if the gap closes then add on top the savings of going with Wintel is significant enough then for the average person it’ll be ‘good enough’ to get the job done (one of the reasons I’m looking at a post-Apple future given how i’m slowly falling in love with my Samsung phone). It appears that Intel have realised that approach they’ve taken has made it needlessly more complex and more expensive than it needed to be especially when compared to how AMD have pulled ahead while keeping very much a unified architecture. Keeping in mind that this is all rumours at the moment so it is a matter of seeing what actually ends up transpiring. As for mum, she still needs a new computer so I’m probably just going to order a Beelink SER9 Pro AMD Ryzen™ AI 9 HX 370 which has more than enough grunt for what is required with oodles of space then pair with a better router for her fibre connection I’m hoping I can setup a computer setup that’ll make life easier. As for the old Intel NUC, I’ll probably take that off her hands, load Linux on it and turn it into a server with an external SSD sharing files to the network with it located in my office so it is directly hooked up to the router via ethernet cable.

    Tonight I had a lazy dinner of a couple of sandwiches a small packet of crisps then went for a small walk – didn’t feel like it but I know I feel a whole lot better once I have come back home after getting some fresh air.

  • I needed that walk after today.

    One of the things I hate about working in customer services are people who use us as an emotional sound board because god forbid taking responsibility for decisions they made. After dealing with a few of those I went for my usual 11.6km walk tonight to work it out of my system so then I can have a clear head so when I got home I could have a relaxing shower then jumping into bed to relax by watching a few television episodes. The great thing about walking is not just the health benefits (which helps in the weight loss journey) but also the psychological benefits of being able to unwind and deal with stress and other emotions in a productive way rather than trying to eat ones problems away by resorting to binge eating comfort foods.

    Google released a Chrome update today and I would suggest if you haven’t updated to do so pronto – plenty of security fixes for some nasty vulnerabilities (link). Along with that AdGuard 5.2.35 has been released – haven’t noticed any regressions but given the amount of big changes under the hood I have a feeling they’ll be taking their time before they make the big leap to a stable version. Looking forward to comparing the final stable version to uBlock Origin Lite once it is released.

    It truly is amazing how the government, be it local or central, can get in the way of good work being done to deal with the homeless crisis (link), if they’re failing to upgrade pipes to allow greater density housing in central Wellington then they’re blocking the ability to create a stop gap measure for homeless people until a more permanent solution can be found in the form of building more social houses. Personally I liked the idea I saw in the US with the homeless veterans communal housing where they were small houses along with a facility where the tenants could hang out together – almost like a common room with a television food preparation facilities etc.

  • Back to work on Wednesday.

    Another day of relaxing and today I went for an 11.6km walk tonight at around 6pm then when I came back, I put my recycling and rubbish wheelie bins out for collection then I headed down to the supermarket to pick up the all important milk and coffee. I was going to grab the bus but by the time I got half way to the bus stop I saw the bus go pass it so in the end I decided to just walk down to ehs supermarket and clock in a few extra km’s walking (thus making it around 15km walked today). While at the supermarket I picked up the milk with extra protein along with the coffee concentrate – I’ve decided to start buying the extra protein milk in future since it allows me to stick to my meal plan by allowing me to feel full for longer and I grabbed some Kombucha on special.

    Tomorrow (Wednesday) Google will release an update for Chrome and in around 2 weeks Chrome 139 will be stable with it being released to the public a week later. I don’t expect anything major but there is gradual progress in the area of ‘Web Platform Test’ in terms of working on areas that the major brower vendors have agreed to work on. There is also at work by the WECG to develop a similar testing system so that browsers can be tested and issues brought to the attention of said developers to that they know where compatibility issues are occuring and priorities can be set in much the same way that the ‘Web Platform Test’ is done.

    Apple is currently working on updates to their current platforms as well as working on the next generation. I am keeping an eye on what is happening with the next release and what I do hope is that they take on board feedback regarding their liquid glass. What I am hoping is that on macOS the ability to use reduced transparency will still result in a good experience because if you take the whole liquid glass out of the equation and look at the other improvements such as Metal 4, the laundry list of fixes and standards compliance bought to Webkit (it’ll be interesting to see what the benchmarks are like), under the hood optimisations, deprecated legacy frameworks etc.

    Things will be pretty quiet for the new few months but in September there will be the big Qualcomm conference where we will see a refresh in their product line up which will hopefully also translate to new ARM based products for not just laptops but also maybe seeing mini-pcs with Qualcomm SoCs making an appearance as well. There is the usual announcement by Apple at their iPhone even towards the end of September where they refresh the iPhone along with announcing when their new platforms will be released – generally they push out iOS first and then the rest follow from there. Towards the end of the year/beginning of next year there is Intel releasing the 300 series – rumours of a refresh of the existing product line up indicates to me that there maybe delays which is why they’re pushing for a stop gap measure to keep the OEMs happy.

  • Relaxing at home, enjoying day off.

    The weather has been less that ideal today but I got out of the house so I could pick up some much needed stuff from the store – what I needed were some tins of tuna. I like ensuring that I get a good amount of protein per day which helps not only in keep the metabolism firing all cylinders but also keeping me feeling full for longer which means I won’t snack between meals. I also noticed that there is milk with extra protein, I might start getting that instead of regular low fat milk because it’ll also up my protein consumption that’ll also keep me feeling satisfied during the day. With all that being said, I’m working through the food I have in the freezer and going to have a plan going forward rather than haphazardly shopping then trying to work out a plan from there.

    uBlock Origin Lite 2025.711.1256 is now in the Chrome web extensions store – no regressions, the drop down menu for the extension has been tidied up and more functionality is being added to really fill in the functionality gap when it comes to custom filters along with a ‘point and click’ tool where you can choose a particular element on a page to block it – quite good when something isn’t blocked by the current filters that are made available (I’ve had that happen a few times).

  • Dealing with misinformation and disinformation.

    Over the last 15-20 years there has been cottage industry of people and/or organisations spreading disinformation and misinformation which is then amplified not only by a large network of bots but people whose first reaction is ‘like first, ask questions never’ because it happens to tickle lizard brain. Unfortunately such an environment has had catastrophic consequences to society, upending a politics where now it is now ‘he or she who has the loudest and most obnoxious voice spouting the most insane nonsense gets the attention’ and in some cases creating an environment where individuals take it upon themselves with disastrous consequences such as the loss of life. Social media tends to get a lot of the focus because the speed at which such ideas can be spread whereas in the past you may have a right wing shock jock ranting down the microphone on an AM station (insert Simpson’s parody of Rush Limbaugh in the form of Birch Barlow) but their reach was limited – the ability to cut and share a clip with friends was limited to those who you know and even a smaller community online.

    So what is the solution to the spread of disinformation and misinformation particularly when we’ve seen the most extreme manifestations result in the loss of life? the heavy hand of the state in the form of the ‘Communications Legislation Amendment (Combating Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024’ that was proposed in Australia and but has subsequently decided by the government that they won’t be proceeding with it? The use of soft power project by governments in a hope that they can nudge the social networking to do the ‘right thing’ through the use of technology analysing and then alerting for manual review content that falls under misinformation, disinformation, promoting of violence and/or hatred? If that is the avenue taken then who defines the difference between misinformation, disinformation or just a difference of opinion when there is an agreement on the facts but different conclusions are drawn? that is particularly problematic when you think of qualified doctors making legitimate content but just have a difference of opinion when analysing the same data – which side do you fall down on?

    There are three steps that I believe need to be taken to address the issue of misinformation and disinformation:

    1. Ban the use of algorithms for user created content. Algorithms are great for scenarios where you have a defined set of data points for example, you are music subscription business with informaiton such as track name, title, year of release, the genre, beats per minute etc. so then it is possible that if someone is listening to ‘Bob Marley and the Wailers’ and based on the person’s IP address they’re located in New Zealand so the algorithm may suggest ‘Fat Freddy’s Drop’ and ‘The Black Seeds’ then depending on the time of the year might offer an ad for the ‘Raggamuffin Music Festival’. If the algorithm is even more elaborate then it may learn from what other people listen to who also listen to ‘Bob Marley and the Wailers’ and suggest that to the user. In otherwords, a finite set of data points and nothing strange will happen. The moment you start using alogirithms with user created content the problem is that the system doesn’t know the difference between good engagement or bad engagement, it cannot parse the content along with understanding the nuances of language and the context, with the end result being content being flagged that is perfectly innocent while crafty individuals are able to fly below the radar. Then on top of that you add non-state actors (funded via hostile states) using the algorithm by creating bot farms who generate fake engagement which then amplifies which in turn results in that content being suggested to more people. TL;DR ban the use of algorithms on platforms with user created content or at the very least every user should default to a chronological timeline and each user should have its own algorithm that they can tweak and customise (see BlueSky which does a pretty good job).
    2. Make the settings on social media opt in – for example, if you setup an account with Facebook and you add a friend at the moment you’re automatically signed up to their timeline so what I suggest is that when you add someone as a friend you have to opt into following their timeline. If you make it opt in then that (combined with the banning of algorithms for user created content) should break the virality effect and the gaming of the system by bot farms. In other words end users would only be shown the content that they follow and from those whom they have opted into wanting to see their pots rather than those managing the platform automatically assuming that the end use would like a particular feature enabled by default.
    3. Not only in schools but through public education campaigns – media literacy and social media literacy, being able to pick up on something that may excite your lizard brain but having the self awareness to recognise that you may agree with it but it doesn’t necessarily make true. A good example of this is is a recent article from NPR (link) and yes even the left are being fed conspiracy theorys such as “they’re installing incinerators at Alligator Alcatraz,” (as outlined the article) when there is no evidence but many on the left believing it because paints an already horrible president in an even worse light (I’m no fan of Trump but if you’re going to push back against the Trump regime then it needs to be done based on facts not spreading unhinged conspiracy theories). When I went through school we used to have ‘newspapers in classrooms’ where we would look at stories, see how they were written, the headlines being used etc. Being able to dissect stories allowed one to uncover any sort of bias, whether the author was trying to illicit a reaction from the reader, what was missing, what details were left out etc. For example, I like to keep track of what is happening with Kiwirail and the rail developments occurring in Wellington and Auckland (specifically the city rail link) and although the media gives an ok top level overview what you tend to find, if you read the white papers and meeting documents that city councils make available, that there is a lot more detail that are left out – the rationale why certain decisions were made etc.

    Will the above solve every problem? I don’t think it is possible but I believe that taking away the incentives in place for people to spread misinformation and disinformation along with giving ordinary people the tools to spot misinformation and disinformation will do a better job long term than hoping that a system, prone to flagging campaigns and not picking up on truly harmful content or scams using social media advertising network, to step in when ideally it is up to the individual to exercise responsibility for the content they consume and whether they believe it to be true and then share it in conjunction with taking away the very technology that bad actors exploit to expand their reach.