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

  • Back to work tomorrow.

    Well, after having a three day weekend I am back to work on Wednesday and hopefully things won’t be too chaotic but thank goodness I work from home which makes life a bit easier. Tonight I visited mum and had dinner with her, my sisters partner and two nieces. They’ll be heading up north for Christmas but I’ll give them their presents before they head off – I generally give them money which then allows them to make the decision on what they wish to spend it on rather than me trying to guess what kids are up to these days.

    Giving Chrome a go last night – a strange bug kept happening where the bookmarks appear from the bookmarks menu yet if you click on bookmark manager they’re there. In the end I deleted Chrome and all the remnants from the installation then moved back to Safari 16.1. It’ll be interesting to see whether macOS 13.1 will include the improvements that have been merged into Safari Technology Preview.

  • The Twitter exodus has started.

    When Elon Musk took over Twitter I expected some migration from those who had already planned an exit strategy but the reality was more than I could have imagined to the point that within a space of seven days there have been around 275000 new accounts created with an average of 3000-4000 new accounts created every hour.

    One thing to keep in mind is that 90% of activity on twitter comes from 10% of users and to be considered part of that 10% you have to tweet at least 3 times a day. Although the numbers may not be in the millions the reality is that the impact will be big over time particularly when you look at who are introducing themselves – journalists, academics, politicians etc. the sort of ‘high value’ users that you want on your website so that you can attract the advertisers. What we’re witnessing is the slow death of Twitter and Elon Musk is going to find out the tough way that businesses don’t want to be associated with a ‘free speech free for all hellscape’ meaning all the subscribers in the world aren’t going to make up for the revenue drop off from advertisers. Just to wrap this up, here is a great interview with Nilay Patel from The Verge:

    I’m back to using Chrome after giving Safari a try. I was hoping that with uBlock Origin developer creating a MV3 version of uBlock Origin (known as uBlock Origin Lite) would result in it eventually coming to Safari but it appears that as much as Apple likes to boast about it’s support for Webextensions API the reality is that there is a lot of functionality missing that uBlock Origin Lite relies on. As mentioned on a previous post, I waited until macOS 13 came out with Safari 16.1 to see whether those short comings have been addressed particularly in the area of Webextensions API support but so far it appears that just like the web standards, Apple is dragging their feet every step of the way. Although people have complained about Chrome moving to MV3 it appears that Webkit is in a much worse position when it comes to implementing the Webextension API.

  • Deleted all my tweets, I’m all in on Mastodon.

    Well, I’ve finally did it – I deleted all my tweets, retweets, likes etc. from my Twitter account and now it is completely empty – nothing there. I deleted it all using TweetDelete (link) – it does have a limit of only being able to 3200 tweets, retweets, likes etc at a time so depending on how long you have used Twitter for you may need to several ‘sweeps’ to get all the tweets, retweets, likes etc. on the account.

    For those thinking of moving to Mastodon here is a great article that gives a top level overview for new comers to the platform (link). One may find that at first the experience is a big overwhelming particularly the idea of having a federated network of instances that synchronise all with each other – I’m on mastodon.social which is one of the the latest instance (803K users) and hopefully soon I’ll start making donations each month – I would sooner my money fund a non-profit that my data being hoovered up so a billionaire can go on an ego trip.

    Regarding why I moved, as I noted on my recent toot:

    With all the #twitter migration taking place I want to put this out there: I’m all for robust discussions but those discussions must be not only grounded in respect but also grounded in reality, grounded in facts. For example, climate change is real, it’s a fact, what is up for debate is how best to solve the problem – carbon tax? ETS? direct intervention? carbon tariffs to stop leakage (off shoring of production)? that is where the discussion needs to be, not undermining facts and reality.

    Long story short Twitter has become more and more toxic because ‘getting’ someone is more important than sticking to the facts and discussing how best to solve a problem. A discussion is pointless when the other side substitutes reality with their own custom reality that they would sooner live in as it allows them not to deal with the harsh reality that actually exists.

  • Going cold turkey, I can’t take it any more.

    I’m going cold turkey when it comes to Twitter – I like to ‘stop in’ occasionally to see what is happening in the world of Twitter but it appears that as the US draws closer to mid terms (there is early voting in many states) the avalanche of crap that’ll appear on Twitter will keep getting worse and worse until it reaches a fever pitch then it’ll be months of relitigation as supporters of the two major parties accuse each other of everything ranging from steqaling the vote all the way through to some absurd insane conspiracy theory involving Antifa, space aliens and whatever else happens to be the du jour flavour of the month when it comes to conspiracy theories.

    It has just been signalled that the Twitter purchase by Elon Musk is on track to close this week (link) so expect more of the same as many of the banned users or users who left because they didn’t like the rules come back to the platform in the belief that Elon Musk will give them free rein to do what they want all in the name of ‘freedom of speech’. I think young Elon Musk is going to find out the hard way when Twitter turns into a bigger toxic cesspit than it is today, when advertisers start pulling their advertisements from his platform because they no longer want to be associated with such a platform,  

    Twitter is putting up the ‘Twitter Blue’ cost up to US$4.99 per month but it’ll be interesting to see whether there is a sizeable number of subscribers willing to pay for it. That is one of the things talked about, that the goal is to make Twitter less dependent on ad revenue but something tells me that the very sort of people who refuse to pay for YouTube Premium and instead use an ad blocker aren’t going to suddenly start paying for a subscription for ‘Twitter Blue’ even if they are ae giant simp for Elon Musk.

    Personally, I would sooner make a donation to the Mastodon project than giving it to a billionaire so they can fund their vanity project. Once I get some stuff cleared out of the way in terms of debt I’m going to given then $20 per month – it may not make a huge difference but every bit of money counts and with the European Union also backing the project I am hoping that with a bit of momentum with help from Elon Musk sabotaging himself that the end result will be a robust alternative for those who don’t want to deal with the less than salubrious characters that Twitter will eventually attract.

    The swathe of first updates are being pushed out by Apple for beta testing and if the rumour is true then I’d say that their goal is to get it ready for the rumoured refresh of the Mac range although rumour has it that Mac Pro refresh won’t be coming until next year some time.

    Side note: If a person is pointlessly replying to you and it is clear that they have no interest in listening to what you have to say then just block them – nothing of value will be lost.

  • Android 13 and Project Mainline.

    With the launch of Android 13 I thought it would be best to provide some links to some articles that go into detail regarding the ‘under the hood’ changes that Google has in Android.

    https://blog.esper.io/android-13-deep-dive/

    https://blog.esper.io/what-is-project-mainline/

    Not necessarily a Google fan myself but it’s always good to see what the alternative platforms are doing.

  • macOS 13 Ventura, iOS 16.1, tvOS 16.1 released.

    Yeah, I stayed up all night waiting for the release of Apple’s new operating systems and with that came the cleaning of my devices and doing a fresh install of each of the operating systems. When it came to my Macs I created a bootable USB drive. Both of the Macs had their firmware updated at the same time but funny enough the firmware on the Apple displayed has remained at 15.5 – I was expecting that maybe it would be upgraded inline with iOS update but then again it is possible that it could happen later on in a future refresh of iOS.

    The big benefit I see is the improvement with Safari – the web browser is pretty much the central application that people use on their computer and there have been a sizeable number of improvements particularly around the area of compatibility as well as implementing Webextensions API. It also appears that maybe the bug with YouTube has been fixed as well – may possibly have to do with the CSS work they’ve been doing to address the compatibility issues between the implementations on Firefox, Chromium and Webkit. As for the rest of the operating system, it is pretty much problem free for a x.0 release product – I don’t have any interest in stage manager so I’m unsure as to it’s usefulness (as I’ve said in a past post – it’s a solution in search of a problem) but everything else is pretty good.

    If you’re interested in a more exhaustive review then check out Arstechnica (link) which goes into a lot more detail.

  • A geeky weekend coming soon.

    I’m buzzing with excitement regarding the great news about the release of iOS 16.1, tvOS 16.1 and macOS 13 on 24 October (US Time, which translates to 25 October NZ Time) and with that news I organised a couple of days off so I am lucky enough to have a long weekend (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday) by using alternate days I had built up when working on public holidays. I’m looking for a small break before the big holiday at the end of the year.

    I’ll be doing a clean install on all the devices which is a practice I’ve gotten into the habit of doing because what it allows is for the operating system to be installed on a blank slate which avoids the possibility of the previous version of macOS causing problems. In a perfect world an upgrade should be relatively easy but having experienced upgrades with problems vs a clean install without them so I always err on the side of caution. It isn’t something unique of Windows and macOS, I also saw the same issues appears with Linux, FreeBSD etc. where old setting files hang around, old versions of system libraries etc. Long story short, reducing the number of vectors reduces the chances of things going wrong.

    When macOS 13 Ventura is released it’ll be interesting to see the software updates that’ll be released on the day and the weeks that follow – the important thing to keep in mind is that the migration to Apple Silicon is still on going with Aspyr still working on moving games to native Apple Silicon, software vendors optimising their code and taking advantage of underlying technologies that Apple provides etc.

  • Chicken and a good helping of vegetables.

    I had a nice meal from Bowl’d – chicken, a good helping of vegetables, a couple of grilled eggs to finish it all off. I had some food at home here but I really did feel the need for a good helping of vegetables, at least giving me the feeling that I was eating something healthy lol. I guess it is one of the benefits of the food delivery service (I go through ‘Deliver Easy’ which is a NZ based service. All in all it was a great meal and I would definitely order it again.

    There are rumours that the next iPhone will move over to USB-C, a year before the European Union law takes effect. It’ll be interesting to see if or when it arrives whether they’ll do it at the same time they move over to their own custom modem which they inherited when they bought the Intel modem business. One thing to keep in mind is the fact that products are planned years in advance so by the time Apple purchased Intel’s modem business it is highly likely that there were already 5G modem designs in the works but they wouldn’t be ready for 2-3 years where as Intel ideally needed a modem solution straight away hence selling their modem business to Apple then signed an agreement to acquire 5G modems from MediaTek. One thing to keep in mind is the fact that MediaTek also has a fab agreement with Intel so I’m sure they must have cracked a pretty good deal out of it all.

    There was a Google event and once again as expected it appears that the atlases that they have at Google headquarters only list 14 countries to have existed. When a multibillion dollar organisation can’t seem to rub together the skill set required to ship to more than 14 countries not to mention their insistence on ensuring their products do not work outside of those 14 countries then it is clear, at least to me, that they don’t take selling products as a serious business. I always find it interesting how Android fanboys will ask me why I’m so heavily invested into the Apple ecosystem – it’s because of Google’s attitude which is the reason I don’t won an Android product.

    Oh, and no, Samsung products aren’t good enough given that they see it as an opportunity, at every possible turn, to reinvent the wheel with their own versions of applications rather than bundling the phone, messaging etc. apps that Google themselves develop not to mention insisting on ramming their half baked ‘cloud’ (if you can call it that) solution down the collective throat of end users. If Samsung wish for me to use their product then here is a hint – provide me with a vanilla Android build loaded with stock standard Google applications and allow me to use your product for what I want to use it for and that is as a means to access Google services (Gmail, Messages, YouTube etc. etc).

    So what I am I going to do? I’m still pontificating over the idea of getting and iPhone 14 or whether I should just wait it out for next years to see what Apple has on offer. What I’m really interested in at the moment is iOS and tvOS 16.1 and eventually seeing macOS Ventura being released. Although new hardware is always nice the more important thing is new software because it enables you to have a better overall experience. What I am hoping is that macOS Ventura will have Safari 16.1 and that the improvements made available in the Safari Technology Preview make their way into the mainstream Safari release a lot quicker than at the current rate – it’s just disappointing that so much great work is being made by engineers at Apple but it takes so long to make its way to end users.

  • Being held to a standard that one sets for oneself.

    I really have to ask whether conservatives are playing ignorant or are actually that ignorant in real life as based on the tweets many of them put out. The latest one is from our good friend Benjamin Shapiro:

    I have a general rule that I set for myself and that is to never hold someone to a standard that they themselves never agreed to. The basic idea is that I hold them to the standard that they themselves have declared -for example, if you’ve declare that you’re anti-abortion then I’ll hold you to that standard. I’ll give you a recent example, there was a same sex couple wanting to buy a wedding cake a few years ago, the baker refused to provide a wedding cake because he said it was against his Christian faith. Well, then we had the usual right wing rent a crowd claim that the bakery were a private business and shouldn’t be obligated to serve customers that they don’t want to. Over the last four to six years there has been nothing but incessant whinging from these same right wing blow hards about how they’re being ‘censored by [insert big tech company here]’ – but what happened to your original claim that private businesses can decide who they can do business with? The company has decided that they not longer wish to provide you with a platform and according to the standard you set, you should put your big boy pants on and deal with that reality.

    When it comes to politics, the policies one advocates is an outward manifestation of ones personal philosophy and once again one should be held to the standard that one announces publicly. In the case of Herschel Walker, there have been accusations made and evidence provided (link) (link) and the right wing are twisting themselves into a pretzel trying to deflect and redirect (see the above Twitter screenshot). Herschel Walker has taken the position of being 100% pro-life, no exceptions, and he will be held to that very standard he set out publicly which is why he is being taken to the cleaners by the media. There is no grand unified conspiracy theory, Herschel Walker shat in his own bed and now he is complaining about the stench – he only has himself to blame for the predicament he has found himself in. Part of being an adult is taking responsibility for the choices you make, if you’re going grandstand with the holier than though routine then you better damn well make sure your ducks are in a row or otherwise you’ll find things won’t work out as well as you expected.

  • End of the year draws closer.

    As the end of the year draws closer the big players in silicon valley prepare to launch the last product updates out to the market. Google has a launch event for 6 October which includes the Pixel phone along with the Pixel watch. I really hope that Google will bring the Pixel phone to New Zealand but something tells me that Google are going to put minimal effort into developing their hardware portfolio beyond catering for 14 countries but with that being said, Samsung next year will be launching their S23 so it’ll be interesting to see what happens with their implementation of Android 13. I really wonder at this stage whether an gentleman’s agreement was made between Samsung and Google, that Samsung with embrace WearOS, Google would make Android easier to customise, Samsung would recommit to Android development on the phone and Google to promise not to go beyond the 14 countries they’re currently shipping their products to which directly compete with Samsung.

    Apple is still working on macOS 13 Ventura but based on the latest beta 9 release notes (link) there is still a decent amount of work needing to be done particularly when you consider that iPadOS 16.x has been delayed due to a shared feature, Stage Manager, not being ready to ship. Although there has been a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth online, I would sooner Apple hold back releasing a product if they feel that it isn’t up to standard. There is a rumour at the moment regarding iOS 16.0.3 to tidy up some lose ends but I would say that iOS/iPadOS 16.1 and macOS Ventura 13 will probably have the release date announced soon – maybe at the rumoured Apple event but according to Mark German (link) it is highly unlikely that there will be an October event but then again we’re just going to have to wait to see what happens. One thing to keep in mind is the schedule for the Intel to Apple Silicon transition was two years and there is one more Mac to transition which is the Mac Pro so it would make sense for there to be an event so it is possible for that event maybe towards the end of October/beginning of November given that in the past Apple have released macOS as late as November such as ‘Big Sur’ which wasn’t released until 12 November 2020 or late October such as ‘Monterey’ which was released 25 October 2021.