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'"

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  • Happy birthday to me.

    I went out tonight with mum, sister, partner and two nieces for dinner to celebrate reaching the ripe old age of 44 years old. It is amazing how the years go so quickly and yet at the age of 44 I don’t feel old, I don’t feel like I’m slowing down or aging when compared to when I was in my 30s or 20s although I do prefer to hang out at home rather than going out like I did when I was young – maybe it has to do with the lack of novelty associated with going out now that I’ve seen and experienced it all not to mention that it is winter and I’d sooner be at home where it is cosy and warm.

    My sister has decided to go to teachers training college so I helped her pick out a laptop (an ASUS Zenbook 14inch) and then set it up – installed all the latest updates so that everything is up to date along with firmware etc. When at dinner mum said it would be better for my sister to get my old router and access point since the modem they have is one provided by their ISP but the coverage is horrible. I finally got the UDM sorted out by putting it in recovery mode then upgrading it to the latest firmware – when I set it up I’ll register it to my UniFi account so then I can manage it from home.

    One more week to go before the big WWDC Keynote and State of the Platform Union on Tuesday NZ Time (Monday in the US) – a lot of rumours are swirling around such as unifying the version number of all their platforms around a year for example it would make macOS 26 become the next release. For me the whole thing with AI is kind of secondary when compared to wanting to get the fundamentals nailed down or as Chris Luxon (NZ Prime Minister) loves to say “making sure the basics are done well” – not use boasting about Ai when Webkit is failing to keep up with web standards and implementing the MV3 extension framework in a timely manner or failing to fix up bugs around iCloud and macOS integration (as mentioned on a previous post about custom domain aliases not appearing in the Mail app on macOS).

    The outcome of WWDC will pretty much shape my plans for the next couple of years – the experience of setting up my sister’s computer opened my eyes to the fact that Windows 11 is actually pretty good when it is paired with hardware from an OEM vendor that doesn’t chock it full of crapware. The laptop my sister got is an ASUS and the only crapware that was installed was McAfee which was easily uninstalled while everything else was exactly what was needed to make the laptop productive. If I ever did make the move then ASUS would definitely be a contender to replace my Mac or possibly Microsoft Surface. As for the desk, I’d probably build my own and have a 100% AMD based one – AMD CPU and GPU which woud give me the flexibility of installing Windows 11 on it and if at a later date I decide I’ll know that all the hardware will be supported out of the box with Linux.

  • One day closer to my birthday and time off.

    Finished work tonight at 10pm and then went for a 10km walk – I was going to just do an 8km walk but I got to the 6km mark and decided I may as well go the ‘whole hog’. I arrived back home feeling a bit sore but feeling good as though I had just accomplished something. I’ve never been someone into exercise or as the saying goes “built for comfort not for speed” but getting back into doing some regular exercise feels really rewarding. After coming back from a long walk you feel tired but you also feel like you’ve achieved something, kind of like when you climb a mountain and then get to the top then see how far you’ve come. At the moment the big drive is to get below 100kg by the end of this year and then once I get to my desired weight I’ll probably reduce my exercise to 4-5 times a week with a few rest days.

    Daily writing prompt
    How do you know when it’s time to unplug? What do you do to make it happen?
    View all responses

    When participating stops being enjoyable and instead starts becoming a burden, when you increasingly find that you become more and more angry but nothing productive comes from engaging with people who clearly are saying and doing things to get a rise out of you. When you’ve had that experience that is the moment you need to unplug, disconnect from the internet, to go out and ‘touch grass’ and start setting boundaries to what you do online. For me it meant walking away from Twitter (before it was bought out by Elon Musk), laying clear boundaries simply to disengage from unproductive discussions or as a family member said, “say your piece, then walk away, don’t engage any further in the discussion”.

    Part of the unplugging process also involves finding replacements to being always online – set a clear limits that you not only hold yourself to but also those who you interact with, for example, not replying to text messages or answering phone calls after a certain time unless it is an emergency. I also go for a walk after work each night as a way of unwinding and empty my head of what took place that day so that when I come home I go to bed with a clear head and then start a new day the next day with a fresh mind without the baggage being carried over from the previous day(s).

  • That was a long walk.

    After work I headed down to the supermarket to pick up some random things that I ran out of along with something for dinner then came back home, had dinner then decided to go for a long power walk. How long was the walk? 16km, and when I came back I had sore legs, sore feet and really tired but when I got into bed and I feel ready to go to sleep. Going to head off to sleep now, may make a longer blog post tomorrow but it depends on how I feel.

  • Busy night at work.

    Had a late start for work but I’m happy that tomorrow things are normal – I didn’t go for my walk tonight because of the late finish but also because I wanted to do a whole lot of organising around the house. In my bedroom in the closest I have a habit of keeping all the boxes of stuff I buy ‘just in case’ but I decided that I should start getting rid of them particular for stuff that either I no longer have or really can’t justify keeping around. That was all sorted out and then I went through all my draws (bed side tables, the draws in the computer desk and once that was sorted I folded up all my washing. Oh, and the package from YouShop arrived from overseas today, I washed the two hoodies, t-shirt and socks with them now on the clothes horse and I’ve got my dehumidifier running to stop the place from getting damp from the clothes drying inside. On a side note, I went through my sock draw and threw out all the old socks that had holes or ones so thin that there was no cushioning when I go for a walk each night – 24 pairs of socks in total which should take care of my needs for a few years before I need to replace them (I’m tempted to buy some slippers to avoid wearing socks around the home and wearing them out).

    Google released the usual update on Wednesday (Tuesday US time) and uBlock Origin Lite has been updated as well. I really do want to give Safari a go but when even the native content blockers are limited when compared to the tour de force that is uBlock Origin Lite does just such a great job as a content blocker. Maybe Apple at this point should throw in the towel and embrace Webkit given how much it trails behind even when it comes to web standards when one considers the web platform tests (link) where Safari even trails behind Firefox which makes me wonder why doesn’t Apple make the investment to bring Safari up to speed (the situation is even worse when you split from experimental to the stable release, Chrome sitting at 90% while Safari sits at 50%). That doesn’t even touch on where Safari is when it comes to bring MV3 to Safari given how much of their implementation of Declarative Net Request (DNR) trails behind Firefox and Chrome in terms of the features missing that are present in Chrome and Firefox (link) not to mention the various bugs that have been reported regarding their implementation yet have sat there not being address for months or in some cases years.

    Oh, and as for iCloud, I don’t know what is going on between my Mail app and iCloud but out of nowhere it’ll stop sending mail then ask me to select mail server that I wish to send my mail through where by I manually select the iCloud one already loaded on only to find that the Mail app tells me it failed. I think it is getting to the point where I may need to investigate an alternative to iCloud for my email if this keeps up. When there was an update recently to macOS to 15.5 I prematurely celebrated that my aliases appeared in Mail app only to find out recently that after logging out of iCloud, clearing out my ~/Library folder then logging back in again that the aliases have disappeared. So let me get this straight, I open up my Mail app on my iPhone my aliases are there but on macOS they don’t exist at all and I need to manually add them – please help me make sense of that because at this point I can’t work out what would explain such a situation other than Apple not giving a toss about macOS users in favour of all their attention being on iOS or what ever happens to be the next new gizmo.

  • Late start tomorrow, great day today.

    I decided I needed to get out of the house after being stuck in day all yesterday – I went down the road and popped into the local bakery in the mall for a cheese and onion toasted sandwich, a piece of carrot cake and a mochachino. I had a look around the mall, checked out a few things and then walked home which is around 3.5km – got home then a few hours later I went for my usual 8km or so walk I do every night then had a bowel of mushroom soup to warm me up. I’m making progress but I guess I’ve hit that plateau where the ‘easy weight’ has fallen off and now it is the last few kilos that’ll take the longest but I’m in no rush and would sooner just take my time and make sure that when the weight comes off it stays off rather than yo-yo dieting of losing weight and it coming back on just as quickly (if not quicker).

    Leaks of the Pixel 10 have been making the round – it appears that Google has stuck with the existing design but the hardware specs have been updated. Personally I think that if you find something that works that you may as well stick with it rather than just changing for the sake of changing. One thing to keep in mind is that with Android 16 there will be two updates – the release of Android 16 and a bigger update towards the end of the year where there is much talk about it shipping the features that weren’t ready for the Android 16 release but not really big enough to justify a new version number along with the fact that Google probably wants to get it out to consumers. The whole ‘two releases’ may end up becoming a trend to future releases where the base is stabilised and then more features are released later on with bug fixes for the base included. I think the big one I’m looking forward to is Android TV 16 given that that are references to the use of a 64bit kernel which makes me wonder whether we’ll see the Google Streamer shipping today will be reduced in price to become the entry device then a new Google Streamer will be released when Android TV 16 is released which will be their ‘premium’ version that’ll complete with Apple TV.

  • A quiet day at home.

    I decided to have a relaxing day hanging around at home – yeah, I like to get out of the house on my day off but today the weather was wet and cold so I decided hanging around watching some videos and having a tandoori chicken for lunch/early dinner was more the pace I wanted to cruise at today. Some of the videos were political while others were technology with a few random ones about building a log cabin in the woods – it’s one of the reasons I loath algorithms so much because god help you if you’re left wing and like watching homesteading videos of people building log cabin and vegetable gardens because you’ll end up getting an avalanche of right wing content then spending a good porting telling the algorithm that you’re not interested in it. I didn’t go for a walk today but I had no carbs, just some protein (chicken) and some mushroom soup – learning to moderate my diet so that exercise is an icing on the cake rather than a necessity to keep the calories in/out are kept in balance.

    Over the last few weeks I have been binge watching a few shows – I finally got myself into watching ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ and now I’m waiting for the final episode of the final season. Law & Order Organized Crime is another great television series that is worthy of binge watching, Foundation is coming back along with Twisted Metal and a few others. I might end up getting the DVD player off mum so I can watch some of the DVDs I’ve got laying around – I am tempted to rip them and back them up so then I can stream them to any device so if I am not in the lounge room on the big television I can watch it on my laptop (there is also the fact that media degrades over time even with the best storage).

    I’m looking forward to the end of the week, going out to a restaurant for dinner on Sunday (I’ve got three days off) with my family and will be enjoying a few days off. I’m excited to see what WWDC has in store and I’ll do a blog overview regarding the two big keynotes and anything interesting that pops up on any of the sessions that they have planned for the week. On a side note, I’ve backed up my 2FA codes to my Google account using Google Authenticator as a back up just in case something happens to the 2FA codes that I have entered via Authenticator (made by 2Stable and backed up to iCloud).

  • A week in review: Lots of AI hype but some gems uncovered.

    The end of another week which has been uneventful however I have been following the Google I/O conference and the Microsoft Build conference – AI obsession has reached fever pitch but at least we’ve now moved beyond the novelty of asking a chat bot the meaning of life with a focus on actually using it for something useful to those of us occupying the real world. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with Apple WWDC given there have been many rumours swirling around the internet that their whole business plan around where AI fits in has been rebooted from the ground up – if it means that it is delayed to ensure that they get it done right then I don’t think too many consumers are going to care one way or another.

    The problem is that there are far too many tech YouTubers, stock bros and tech journalists who convinced themselves that their echo chamber represents where the average person actually is in terms of caring about AI – such groups make noise but to the average person that I interact with daily I don’t see them clambering nor talking about the absolute importance of AI to their life but instead whether a particular feature that is added benefits them in their every day life. Too many in the press have convinced themselves that this is an iPhone moment and Apple is playing the role of Blackberry then the stock bros are micro-dosing themselves into a new dimension while convincing themselves of their own hype – meanwhile the real of the world continues on, Apple will continue on regardless of whether they trail the AI of other tech companies simply because in the consumer space the whole AI isn’t as important as the stock bros and tech bros make it out to be. This is only the start with a lot more that needs to be done to make it useful to consumers outside of novel demonstrates on a stage – the first mover isn’t always the one that wins in the end nor does their necessarily have to be only one winner or a small group of winners.

    When it comes to Microsoft it appears that the big focus is creating revenue streams now that Windows 11 is more or less free given that most get Windows 11 with a new computer (and upgrades are free) so that means they have to get revenue from somewhere. Part of that is turning Windows into a gateway to Microsoft services – Office 365 and the bundling of AI (along with making AI more energy efficient) will add more value to the idea of getting an Office 365 subscription as Microsoft tightly integrates Windows 11 and the cloud to fill in when on the device based AI is limited in what can be accomplished. It is also interesting seeing how Windows is developing, gradually making changes, moving the platform forward while making it clear to developers that the age of ‘do nothing and your software will work for eternity’ is coming to an end. I was hoping that maybe the MAX_PATH limitation would be addressed at this point but I guess that will be something I’ll perpetually complain about in much the same way I complain about Safari/Webkit along with a few other complains I have of Apple in regards to their platforms.

    Google has had their own conference with their own focus on AI and how it integrates into their products and services. To be honest I was more excited about Google’s I/O due to the lack of Windows 11 desktop related stuff at Microsoft’s own conference – Android, Gemini, the implementation of web standards, the use of Gemini nano models within Chrome itself in a variety of areas which are being use of by AI orientated web APIs such as Rewriter API, Writer API, Translator API and Summariser API along with many more that are being developed not to mention the use of AI in areas of security.

  • I simply don’t care, I really don’t.

    Microsoft’s Build conference is one big giant snoozefest of hearing them going on and on and on and on and on about AI – am I the only one who just doesn’t give a flying continental about AI? Dear Microsoft, your File Explorer can’t even handle long path names, Windows 11 is falling to pieces, Windows App SDK development is slower than me running up a hill and the adoption of it within Microsoft is woeful at best but hey, you keep telling me about how AI will promise to change the world. Google I/O was a little less depressing in that at least we saw Android 16 being announced, Android TV 16, Wear OS 6 not to mention that when AI was talked about it was within a larger context rather than it simply being AI for the sake of AI. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with Android 16 TV given that there are improvements to the 64bit kernel which makes me wonder whether we’ll see a new streaming device and a transition to 64bit Android TV towards the end of the year with the announcement of the Pixel 10.

    Regarding Apple, I would sooner they just get the basics done well before branching out in all manner of directions. I also have to admit to wanting to have a complaint about how Apple artificially limits features to certain hardware even though previous hardware have the capability – a good example of that is AV1 playback which is limited to the M3 and M4 even though the or M2 could easily decode it in software mode but alas you have to upgrade that get that ‘feature’. Sure, it isn’t something that is wide spread use but it is an example of artificially limiting something. Would I go back to using Windows? hell no, at least the core of macOS is stable so if anything it would be macOS for desktop and laptop, Android for phone and streaming device for the television with Google Workspace if I were to ever look at alternatives – I am reminded every day at work why I don’t use Windows.

    The Ubiquiti UniFi Controller Cloud Key G2 Plus I ordered arrived today which allowed me to cancel the 30 day subscription to the UniFi cloud hosting in favour of having a controller at home without the price tag of $50 per month (for 100 devices). I’ve replaced the cabling with cat7 (there was no price difference between cat6 and cat7) because my UDM and Unifi AP AC HD will be given to my mum since it’ll give her better WiFi coverage and WiFi 5 is good enough for what mum does on her laptop and desktop (long term plan is to get a new computer for her as the one being used is over 10 years old and will be losing Windows 10 support in the next few months). I’ve also ordered some cables from PB Tech with the USB-C to USB-C required for the Ubiquiti UniFi Controller Cloud Key G2 Plus because the cable I picked up tonight the device is picky about (although funny enough the el-cheapo charger I got at the same time works perfectly fine with my Apple USB-C to USB-C cable) – I like to have an extra cable around while having one where I recharge my phone with on a regular basis.

    What I hope is that by the end of this year I’ve replaced the Arlo security camera setup with UniFi security cameras which will use PoE for power and communications which avoids the whole process of having to recharge batteries plus it would work a whole lot more reliably and the storage of videos will all remain locally which avoids having the need to have an account with yet another provider I have to keep track of. On a side note, it is possible to create a bridge using Homebridge plugin or the Scrypted platform but the mobile app that is provided is good enough and on my desk I can log into the controller and view videos from there.

    In 9 days I’ve got three days off (Sunday, Monday and Tuesday) then the next week I’ve got Monday through to Thursday off, back on Friday and Saturday, then Sunday to Tuesday off then back to work on Wednesday. I’m one of two minds, I go to bed early on Tuesday night so I can wake up early and watch WWDC keynote live or I decide that doing that is work that it is worth and instead wake up at a normal time and watch it after Apple has uploaded it to YouTube.

  • Network upgrade installed.

    I went into Wellington to pick up a U7 Pro Max and UXG Max then ordered a Cloud Key from GoWifi which will hopefully arrive in the next couple of days. I’ve got it all setup using the UniFi cloud instance (3 day trial) but once I receive the Cloud Key then I’ll cancel the 30 day trial and use the locally hosted version. In the short period of time I’ve been testing it (I’ve updated the firmware on both devices) the performance in terms of connection strength, latency and download speed is an improvement over the previous setup (Multi-Link Operation (MLO) is available for early access but I haven’t enabled it as I’d sooner wait for it to be released as an official stable feature as to avoid connectivity issues). What I’ll be doing with the old setup is give it to mum and set it up at her home so that she is able to get decent speeds and coverage because at the moment there is just one router provided by Spark which is average at best (it is a free modem/router so I’m not surprised).

    I was tossing up either getting a WiFi 6 or WiFi 7 but decided to go WiFi 7 just to ensure I’m future proofed along with the fact that I may as well go ‘all in’ rather than compromising then later coming back months later and regretting the decision. I know in the next few years I’ll end up gradually updating my MacBook Air and Mac Studio which will mean that they will support WiFi 7 – looking forward to seeing Apple eventually make their own Bluetooth and WiFi chip which will hopefully result in greater power efficiency and standards adoption due to being able to ‘control the whole widget’. The way I’ve set it up, I have two networks, I have one network for the 2.4GHz frequency and a second network for the 5GHz and 6GHz due to preferring to use 5GHz and 6GHz due to no one using it where I live (but a tonne of people using 2.4GHz which causes poor experience due to all the interference (and houses where I live are pretty close together). If I group all three frequencies into a single network for some reason my devices default to 2.4GHz no matter how lousy the signal is so splitting the two ensures that it, at worst, defaults to 5GHz which is always rock solid.

    I had a chat with mum regarding getting a new computer for her – the one at the moment is an Intel i3 NUC I bought over 10 years ago when dad was still alive and Windows 10 support is ending soon so I’m looking at getting an ASUS NUC but they won’t become available until August this year but it is a pretty good deal and mum is happy with Windows so I’ll get one of those, put 512GB SSD, 16GB RAM, a new keyboard, mouse and screen then call it a day. Regarding the old computer, I’m tempted to set it up as a server running Linux on it then hook up my external hard disk to it so then I can share music, movies etc. to my various devices on the network.

    I had a good walk around today so I’m going to have a bit of a rest. What I think I’m going to do going forward is go for a walk on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday then on Friday and Saturday I have a rest since I finish working on those days at 10pm then go for a walk on Sunday so then I have at least a couple of days of rest while keeping up a good routine. Oh, and on a good side my shoes have finally dried after putting them in front of the dehumidifier to dry them out.

  • Well, I’ve learnt something today.

    As mentioned previously I went to the App Store and saw that macOS hadn’t been updated to 15.5 but out curiosity today I clicked on ‘Get’ to see whether it would download 15.4.1 or whether it would download the latest version being 15.5 and it appears that although it says 15.4.1 on the App Store it downloads the latest version of macOS straight from Apple. I’ve updated the USB installer so I’m all good to go if I need to do a clean install without having to depend on an internet connection.

    I had a look at PB Tech for the UDR 7 and UniFi U7 Pro access point to replace my existing setup of a UDM and Unifi AP AC HD primarily because I’d like to take advantage of the greater local network bandwidth when it comes to throwing around files. I’ve put a question to the experts over in Geekzone primarily because I get kind of nervous when I see early adoption of technologies based on past behaviour of wifi vendors adopting a technology when it hasn’t been fully finalised which can cause compatibility problems down the road (people around my age will remember the draft-n adopted by some which caused problems down the track). The big question is whether I order it from a New Zealand vendor who never seems to have it in stock or do I just buy it direct from Ubiquiti then get it sent to YouShop then from YouShop to New Zealand so then at least I’m not waiting for an eternity. I am also looking at the possibility of setting up some PoE security cameras to replace the current Arlo setup which relies on batteries which require regular recharging where as the Ubiquiti security cameras use PoE and integrate into the UniFi ecosystem.

    On the issue of networking, I am looking around at providers to see what they have to offer when compared to what my provider is offering today. At the moment I am currently with Skinny but I am looking at 2 Degrees or One NZ with the benefit of 2 Degrees being their interconnections with cloud providers I use for work along with support for IPv6 along with a potential deal between power, internet and mobile phone service. I was tempted to go with 2 Degrees but their electricity charges are more than what I am paying at the moment even with the discount per month that they’re offering.

    Just having a look through the cost of building my own computer – if I were ever going to jump ship it would be a ASUS AMD based for a laptop and for the desktop I would build my own since I’d prefer to go all AMD (CPU and GPU) – the question is whether I go with Windows 11 or Fedora Linux. On one hand Windows 11 has the benefit of a large array of titles, better hardware support and integration with the Android ecosystem (if I were to move I would also change phones) but with Linux there are fewer dramas such as not having to log into a Microsoft account. That being said, I have to admit, even if I grow weary of the iPhone or Apple TV I’ll end up sticking with macOS for the long term because the alternative is so much worse. I like to keep my options open even if it means trying to get different ecosystems to work together.

    Regarding the whole AI/Apple Intelligence, I can help but feel as though the media has created a storm in a tea cup, that the only people who really care about AI/Apple Intelligence are those in the media echo chamber who have convinced themselves that AI is the most important thing that every end user wants. The reality is that when you get out in the real world and talk to ordinary people, apart from the novelty of mucking around with ChatGPT for ‘shits and giggles’ the reality is that most people haven’t got it listed in the top 10 things they must have when deciding which smart phone to buy. For me, when it comes to WWDC I’m more concerned about Apple getting the basics done right rather than flights of fancy around AI that serve little or no benefit to most people. When it comes to the basics I am referring to iCloud integration such as improving Mail app/iCloud reliability, improving web extensions support in Safari, improving the standards compliance of the Webkit core along with many other shortcomings.