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.
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.
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.
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.
Well, the end of another week and sure enough we’re closing in on the end of this year so quickly that by the time February rolls around next year it will mark me working for the company I am at for five years. It is interesting how as you get older it feels as though time is speeding up but I guess it just comes with age. I’ve got work tomorrow but I’ll be working from home again – my cough hasn’t cleared up but I spent all of today cleaning the place, hoovering all the carpets, dusting etc. hoping that maybe that’ll help in terms of clearing up my cough my I doubt it’ll make an improvement other than making my place a lot nicer.
YouTube and Safari appear to be an on going issue – I’ve decided to accept it for what it is given that every other website doesn’t exhibit such behaviour it would be foolhardy to move to a difference browser simply on the basis that one website doesn’t work properly. That being said, there is still a lot of work going on over at the Webkit project with the latest Technology Preview (link) so hopefully we’ll see those improvements make their way into the stable version of Safari that comes bundled with macOS. Webkit is making great progress but the problem is the slow integration of those enhancements into the mainstream Safari build that comes bundled with macOS.
Having a look at the Unifi AP U6-PRO and it appears that they no longer include the PoE injector but on the good side I can reuse the PoE injector that came with the Unifi AP AC HD. When I eventually upgrade I’ll still stick to using 5GHz given that there are 15 2.4GHz networks all broadcasting so any attempt to setup a 2.4GHz would be an exercise in futility if there ever was one. That being said, when it comes to the big uploads I always prefer to have a networking cable that runs from my desktop to the router so that there are no transmission issues which can occur when uploading large files that measure in the gigabyte size.
As we draw closer to the mid terms in the United States and the New Zealand election next year with so many voters failing to grapple with the basic idea that we live in an environment where every economy is linked with everyone else’s economy – the idea that inflation can be magically addressed through policy is ridiculous. The information that we’re experiencing today is the result of 40 years of using China as the workhouse of the world which has acted as an inflationary sponge aka having a deflationary effect but now it has come back to bite the developed world in their backside. There isn;’t some magic switch that by voting for the Republicans that the moment they take over they press it then suddenly inflation disappears or if National/ACT form government in New Zealand that Luxon will trip over a magical button that will make inflation disappear and for houses to decrease in price for those wanting to buy while those who own houses their asset goes up in value some how.
Now the newly far right Prime Minister of Italy Giorgia Meloni has come out with the usual drivel about ‘the speculators’ as if capitalism has nobility at its heart but it is undermined by ‘speculators’ and ‘crony capitalism’ etc. etc. Why do people get suckered into this obvious nonsense? because firstly most people have no idea what capitalism actually is – firstly they conflate the market with capitalism, secondly they either are benefiting from the status quo but believe it could be better if there was ‘real capitalism’ (this is where the whole spiel about crony capitalism and speculators come out) or people who convince themselves that one day their boat will come in but what is stopping them from getting that is…once again…back to the idea that capitalism isn’t the problem but the ‘polluted capitalism’ that exists today is. Why does that happen? because it is easier to convince people that the status quo is ok but simply needs a few tweaks that admitting that the very things they complain about are core features to capitalism – that capitalism itself is the problem and that a superior system needs to replace it or otherwise things won’t get better.
To quote a phrase commonly attributed to Lenin: “fascism is capitalism in decay”. When capitalism falls into crisis it transforms into fascism as a defence mechanism and wheat do I mean by fascism? fascism is when the capitalist class seize the state and use the state’s monopoly on violence to protect their class interests by suppressing communist and socialists movements that offer an alternative to capitalism. This is why history is important – to avoid another generation making the same mistake as that a previous generation made. If we don’t learn from history then we’re doomed to repeat the same mistakes of the past and thus the cycle of progress and then regression will continue indefinitely.
I’ve been sick for the last four days – coughing up phlegm and blowing my nose. I went to visit my doctor and I was advised that the best he can suggest is so get some rest, drink lots of water, get fresh air and make sure that I eat some good helpings of vegetables. I’ve been taking it easy which include working from home – avoid the cold air in the evening given that even in September the night temperature is getting below 5°C. There appears to be four viruses doing the rounds out there so it is probably best to avoid exposure by working from home where possible particularly when one considers that the shifts being done are at night where the cold air can aggravate the lungs.
I’ve finally got my act together and voted this year in the local government elections – I had until the beginning of October to send it away (it is done via postal voting) but I thought it would be best to get it done now before I end up losing track of my voting papers. I did some Googling to find out who each of the candidates were and what their positions are. Personally I think that the established parties should play a larger role in local government to avoid the sorts of ‘independents’ who have been hiding their crankery but thank goodness Stuff, Newsroom, The Spin Off and others have been exposing candidates hiding their links to those behind the occupation of the parliament grounds. The benefit of having the established parties involved at the local government level will provide the venting process and endorsement which will encourage more people to vote in local elections – if voters don’t necessarily 100% know the candidate they can feel rest assured that the party that they support at the central government give them enough confidence to vote for said candidate at the local level.
Work was ok – not too busy but new changes are being introduced in the next couple of weeks. It is amazing how getting a new CEO results in the company getting its ‘a into g’ results in improvements coming out in a mater of months if not weeks rather than the many, many, many years of procrastination. I’ve been employed with the organisation for almost 5 years and in the last year and a half there have been more things done to improve the customer experience than the previous years. There is a lot of great talent where I work – lets hope that the talent is given free rein.
Looking forward to seeing what happens in the next few months regarding inflation but I think it is foolish to believe that our inflation woes can be fixed by increasing interest rates given that it is a supply issue not a demand – the capacity is under-utilised rather than it being a situation of demand being too high and the economy is operating at peak utilisation. I think the bigger question that needs to be asked is what the long term plan will be to avoid this sort of issue in future – to avoid a situation where we have turned China into the workhouse of the world which has simultaneously created a single point of failure for the world. There are also environmental reasons – is it really the smart to take fish caught in New Zealand, export that fish to China and hen reimport the processed product back to New Zealand? thousands of carbon miles – yay the efficiency of the capitalist system.
At 5:10 this morning Apple released tvOS 16, iOS 16, Safari 16 and macOS 12.6 released – they were decent size downloads and it took a while to install. So far everything has been very reliable particularly with Safari 16 which has been rock solid and no problems with AdGuard, the issue with Google Chat appears to have been fixed, YouTube bug of going back/forwards hasn’t cropped up either but with all that being said not everything that is present in Safari 16 on macOS Ventura isn’t available on Safari 16 on macOS Monterey. Having had a look at the System Monitor it appears that a side effect of fixing security related memory issues is a reduction in the memory foot print aka fixing memory leaks. No complaints from me – I’m always happy when a software company pushes out an update and a few other problems are fixed up along the way.
There is a new feature called ‘Security Responses and System Files’ with iOS 16 which will hopefully mean that when there is a security vulnerability that they’re able to push out a security fix a lot quicker than having to bundle the fix with the next update cycle that they have planned. Hopefully this is a sign that Apple has a plan to make iOS more modular so that updates can be made available in a piecemeal fashion which will make addressing security issues and bug fixes in a timely manner.
Ubiquiti has released UniFi Network Application 7.2.94 which updated itself relatively quickly while 1.12.30 is in development to tidy up loose ends with the main focus being on bringing UnifiOS 2.x to the UDM and UDM Pro. I’m tempted to get a WiFi 6 access point but so far they’ve been out of stock and I’d prefer waiting until the firmware and hardware is more mature – hopefully Ubiquiti will release an AP HD model for WiFI 6 which will have the benefits of the current AP AC HD which I’m currently using at the moment.
Well, that was the first week of my new work schedule and so far I absolutely love it. The days I start at 11:30 I can do half at work and half at home then on the days I start at 13:30 I can work from home the whole day. One of the benefits of working from home means I have a much better work environment along with a great internet connection – relaxing, quiet and none of the chaos in the background makes for a much better working experience. The other great benefit is the fact that is this, if I feel under the weather but good enough to work I can do so from home. This also helps coworkers as well – when people have the sniffles but still good enough to work, they can work from home which keeps the beginning of being sick away from the office while not having to worry about using up ones sick days (obviously if you’re absolutely sick then you need to rest).
Another cool thing I found is a website that sells cases of BOSS iced coffee directly to the public (link). Next pay I’m going to order 4 cases over all – something that’ll be a nice refreshing ‘pick me up’ before work that I’ll have with my daily iron supplement. I wish I could get the old Moccona iced coffee but unfortunately they stopped selling that and I can’t get the Nescafe ones that used to be sold on 1 Day Sale many years ago (if I remember correctly it was parallel imported from Malaysia). Oh well, looking forward to that eventually delivered.
Last week was the big announcement by Apple of the iPhone refresh along with refreshing the Apple Watch line up and Airpods Pro. To be honest I wasn’t expecting much given that we’ve now reached a point that these products are very much mature so one shouldn’t expect radical changes in the design. As much as the ‘tech dude bro’ on YouTube like to consider themselves as the centre of the known universe, the reality is that for the vast majority of people the iPhone, for example, is something that they’ll upgrade every three years which is why the comparison in the performance graph was for a phone shipping in 2019 rather than last years of the previous years. Apple has all the data at their disposal and they can see the upgrade cycle is has pushed out from an average of every 2 years to now an average of 3 years hence the comparison.
The big question is whether I am convinced that I should upgrade – at this moment I’m waiting for the iOS 16 to be released tomorrow, see whether Google realise there are more than 14 countries in the world and how the Samsung Galaxy S23 which is rumoured to have the Snapdragon 8 Generation 2, stacks up against my iPhone 12 Pro Max. The benefit with waiting for the S23 is because it’ll come with Android 13 which will include the compulsory modules that can be upgraded by Google (since new phones running Android have to fall in line with the requirements of Android 13 but upgrades from older versions the phone OEM isn’t required to implement it on their older phones). I personally would prefer to get a Pixel phone if it were available and supported in NZ but given how Samsung has really lifted their game in the last few years, they’ve really become a contender when it comes to choosing a phone. That being said though, the iPhone 14 is very tempting at the moment given how heavily invested into the Apple ecosystem – oh, and I’m looking at getting the purple one.
This week is the start of a new shift schedule, three days a week I start at 11:30 (finishing at 20:00) and two days a week I start at 13:30 (finishing at 22:00) – I’m able to go home at 16:30 on my ‘lunch’ so then I can finish my shift off at home, something I’ll do regularly in future which will avoid crazies on the road and avoid the cold at night. I’m a night owl and enjoy working the late hours so this is a perfect fit for me and unlike in my past life of working in hospitality I’m not dealing with customers who leave a trail of rubbish from one end of the eating area to the other.
Ubiquiti is looking into moving the UDM and UDM Pro over to the UniFiOS 2.x platform: “An upcoming version of UDM/UDM-Pro will migrate to UniFi OS 2.x. The process is currently being well-tested internally and will be released shortly, with no specific ETA.” (link) So at the moment they’re focusing on bug fixing and maintaining 1.12.x branch until UniFiOS 2.x platform matures which will then bring it inline with UDM SE and other products that utilise the UniFiOS 2.x platform. Hopefully the move to UniFiOS 2.x will result in regular updates which will include enhancements as well as bug fixes.
On Thursday NZ time (Wednesday US time) will be the day Apple gives their big iPhone announcement, when iOS, macOS and other platforms will be released to the public along with refreshes to other product lines. It’ll be interesting to see what is announced but something tells me that it won’t be the bowel shaking earth shattering ‘next big thing’ that’ll be announced. Expect to see a natural evolution of what exists with maybe some interesting additions but don’t expect anything huge. I’m looking forward to hearing the release date of macOS – maybe I’ll see. if I can get some time off when it is released so I can have some fun trying it – see whether some big steps have been made when it comes to Safari.
Back to using Safari after having some flirtation with Chrome. Funny enough after moving back and using Google Chat it appears that they’ve addressed the scrolling issue (it wouldn’t scroll down after sending a message resulting in having to manually scroll down after each message sent). It’s one of those things where a bug has existed for months then suddenly Google fixes it without much fanfare, oh well, at least it is now working which is the main thing. On the subject of Safari, Webkit is being developed with a frantic pace but the million dollar question is about the speed in which features developed and made available in the Safari Technology Preview make their way into the mainstream release of Safari.
It appears that websites are getting more and more crafty in their attempts to work around content blockers but on the good side I’ve be reporting those websites to AdGuard developers so that the relevant filters can be updated. It truly is frustrating when website owners do this sort of thing – if people are using content blockers when visiting your website then maybe this is an opportunity for you to question the decisions you’ve made up to this point in your life. I understand the need to have advertisements on the website to keep the lights on but if your advertisements are obnoxious and take away from the ability for the end user to enjoy the website then don’t be surprised that more people will use content blockers.
I went to mum’s house and had dinner with my sister, her partner and daughter, we had roast chicken, potatoes, kumara and, broccoli, cauliflower and carrots with cheese sauce. It’s always good to have some home cooking which funny enough has motivated me to getting my act together to start cooking some decent meals at home rather than the kind of half assed meal preparation I’ve been doing for the last few years ever since the pandemic. While I was there I updated mum’s computer which is stuck at Windows 10 due to the computer being too old but that being said it is perfectly adequate for what mum uses it for. Oh, and she’s happy with her iPhone SE – a replacement for her old Nokia mobile phone. If I trip over some winnings from a lotto ticket then I’ll get her a new laptop and desktop (Apple Mac of course).
It’s that time of the year again and I’m looking at seeing what the ‘big three’ aka Vodafone, Spark (Skinny being a sub brand of Spark) and 2 Degrees. Vodafone is looking pretty good at this stage when you consider that they’ve finally sorted out their billing system so that you can log in and see ones mobile and internet on the same bill not to mention that Vodafone offer a better entry level ‘pay monthly’ than what Spark and 2 Degrees offer. I’ll see what happens in 8 September when Apple have their presentation which will be the announcement of the iPhone 14 Pro Max – see what deals Vodafone have to offer.
Just to end this blog post a small reminder to those who like to offer ‘corrections’ in the comment section of YouTube and other forums:
If you’re going to be arrogant in your correction while throwing in unrelated nonsense in your post (what this has to do with ‘woke’ is a mystery, it appears that certain individuals throw it around in much the same way that right wings throw around socialism or communism as a place holder for ‘all things bad’) then you might want to make sure that you get your facts right. The video never said you couldn’t have have a song longer than 3 mins on a 45 rpm record, the video stated that if you tried to squeeze more onto a 45 rpm record that the quality suffers because of the closeness of the grooves resulting in audio ‘lacking punch’. When it comes to how they might have made available Hey Jude on a 45 rpm record then it might have something to do with the specifications:
Given that it was in mono then the result may have been the audio taking up less space on the record which may allow 7:08 to fit on a single side while maintaining fidelity.
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