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

  • My dissatisfaction with the licence changes in New Zealand.

    After much moaning and groaning by me regarding a poorly thought out law change pushed through over 7 years ago by the National government it appears that the Labour government has come come to sanity and reversed the decision (link). What was the poorly thought out decision that I am referring to? the decision to put a 2 year limit on learner/restricted licence on the along with the erroneous basis on which the decision was made. The erroneous decision was based on the notion that allowing people to say permanently on learners or restricted would serve as a disincentive to move to a full licence – and what basis did they make that? feedback by those who benefit from making an easy profit off people being pushed to have a full licence (regardless of whether they needed it or not) and ‘feel facts’ (‘which aren’t technically facts but feel true’, a term I borrowed from SNL (link)) made up by lobby groups whose narrow focus blinds them to the many possible scenarios that they haven’t considered.

    The frequently asked questions pretty much goes into detail addressing why people never actually move on beyond either a learners or a restricted licence with the question: Why don’t licence holders progress to a full licence?

    • the cost of theory and practical tests
    • the cost of renewing the licence
    • no adequate supervision/training
    • no access to a road legal vehicle to be trained in, or to take to a practical test.
    • only needing a learner licence to ride a moped
    • only wanting a driver licence for identification
    • having other transport options
    • no access a vehicle to learn to drive
    • in the case of a restricted licence, only needing to transport children or a spouse.

    When it comes to ID, there is the 18+ card now known as the Kiwi Access cad but the problem is that identity verification requires it to be used in conjunction with a birth certificate where as a drivers licence in almost every case is sufficient enough for ID. Then there is the scenario of given in the public submissions, for example on page 7 one submitter said their 78-year-old Grandmother has had her restricted for a long time and complies with conditions as she only drives by herself. (link) There were submitters also felt they should not be required to retake a theory test upon renewal for a licence they have already passed – a test would have to be reset every 5 years if one wishes to simply renew a learners licence. Then there is the biggest group I would say which are many university students, young adults and others who only have an interest in riding a moped and we can do so with a standard learners – so why force them to move to a full licence? thank goodness the government made the right decision in the end that’ll go back to the status quo.

    Does the quality of drivers need to improve? yes, but limiting the length of time one can remain on learners or restricted doesn’t benefit anyone and certainly won’t improve the quality of drives. If these organisations were serious about improving the quality of drivers then I suggest they put their ‘feel facts’ to one side and focus on an alternative to the current model that focuses on ‘can the person put on a good show to pass a test’ in favour of a more exhaustive regiment over a set number of weeks. The goal with such a change would result in a restricted licence issued based on a regiment of the first week being the base line and the last week being an indicator as to whether the mentoring that the instructor has provided has been taken on board by the student via a visible improvement 6 weeks later (thus demonstrating a degree of humility by demonstrating that recognise they’re a student and take on board the feedback the instructor provides) vs 6 weeks later there is no improvement thus indicating they need to remain as a learner for longer (thus also demonstrating that they’re not willing to take on board advice and improve – they’ve convinced themselves that they’re already the expert and don’t need to improve thus it is doubtful giving them a restricted licence will result in them improving long term).

  • The ongoing love/hate relationship I have with Android, Google and their attempt at getting into the hardware market.

    I’ve been a big fan of Google’s hardware line, specifically, their Pixel phones due to their ‘crapware free’ implementation of Android when compared to other big OEMs that bloat up the standard Android install with crapware because the said OEM has been paid by software vendors aka ‘partners’. Samsung is doing a lot better than before but they still insist on preloading their phones with Microsoft Software. It is something I wish Android OEMs would get through their thick skulls – if I want something I’ll download it myself otherwise don’t second guess what I want by preloading things that I’ll never actually use.

    The problem is that Google only ships their hardware to a limited number of markets and at first the excuse was because they had just bought HTC’s handset division, that they were building out the distribution network but at some point one has to accept that it’ll never be coming to New Zealand. At some point you have to ask what is the real reason why they haven’t gone beyond those small number of markets and then suddenly you see the big announcement Google and Samsung – replacing of Tizen on their watches with WearOS then there was the recent announcement of Android 12L for large screen devices which marks the possible death of ChromeOS on tablet devices.

    I think the long term issue is that Google cannot risk upsetting one of their most important partners particularly when you consider the breadth and reach that they have into markets that Google doesn’t have any presence in and would take years for them to build up the infrastructure not to mention years of losses. I also think that when it comes to Samsung, they’ve got a limited set of options when one considers the abysmal quality (see study from a couple of years ago where 40 zero day security holes were found not to mention the numerous security researchers who haven’t exactly praised the security worthiness of it) of the software when Samsung tries to go off and ‘go it alone’ resulting in the market having very little appetite for Tizen smartphones when it is offered (see also Huawei crash and burn outside of the US via the lack of Google Services being preinstalled on phones sold outside of China).

    I’d also argue that long term I could eventually see Android TV making its way into Samsung televisions as well – it makes sense at this point to cease re-inventing the wheel and use what is on offer particularly if that partner is willing to pick up a lot of the development moving forward. I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up seeing Samsung selling tablets loaded with Android 12L, ChromeOS on laptops etc. What I am holding out for is the rumoured S22 with the AMD GPU running Android 12 natively.

    On a good side regarding Android 12, project mainline has bought two new modules, ART and Device Scheduling, to the Play Store (link). It appears that Google is choosing the modules that are most prone to security issues and bringing the maintaining of that inhouse. Hopefully in the future we’ll start to see more modules so that eventually the OEMs maintain their kernel drivers, use public APIs to customise the look and feel of their Android build then Google themselves take care of everything above the kernel. It’ll be interesting to see whether Samsung will distribute GPU driver updates via the Playstore like what Qualcomm provides or whether they’ll continue shipping it as part of a monthly maintenance update.

  • Reviews of the new MacBook Pro 14″ and 16″ are out and the plague of disposable products resulting in an ewaste mountain.

    I’ve been watching videos reviewing the new MacBook Pro 14″ and 16″, even after all this time I am astonished at how well the Apple GPU is scaling given the tendency of GPUs designed for lower power tend to have an upper limit in terms of scalability (architectural decisions made to reduce power usage can inhibit the ability to scale) so I was expecting them to maybe work with AMD on a discrete GPU but it appears I have been proven incorrect (keeping in mind the post I made in the past was pure speculation rather than making definitive statements facts). It’ll be interesting to see the performance in the upcoming larger iMac and Mac Pro – rumour has it that it might end up scaling up 2 x M1 Max in lieu of putting more on a single SoC which will result in a 20 core SoC; 16 high performance cores, 4 efficiency cores. What I hope is that because they control the hardware and software that we’ll see a better graphics experience – greater use of Metal optimisation as Apple moves more of its underpinnings from OpenGL to Metal.

    The other part of the equation is where the Windows world will fit into this when one considers Qualcomm’s recent purchase of Nuvia which will hopefully give them to people power along with their expertise to bring about some silicon that can cater for the laptop, tablet, desktop and workstation market that Microsoft appears to be hinting at having an interest in moving Windows for ARM from merely a box that needs to be ticked to taking it seriously particularly when one looks at the investments being made by MIcrosoft to bring their middleware to the platform.

    On Another topic given the recent discussion about ‘right to repair’ and dealing with the amount of electronic waste that is building up, if we’re going to get serious about the environment such as using electricity more efficiently and reduce our e-waste then we need to, as consumers, demanding products that prioritise convenience over all things else.

    A good example of this would be the rise in wireless earbuds where the batteries are dead after 2 years max even with moderate usage then add to the recharging which is wireless which is inefficient – on a small scale that wouldn’t be an issue but on a cumulative basis it would cause a problem in those countries whose power generation is dependent upon burning fossil fuels. Then there is the ‘right to repair’ movement regarding the ‘right to repair’ ones devices by getting access to the information and parts required to do so. I think it is a good start but the biggest component in this war on electronic waste is the issue of planned obsolescence where there needs to be requirements – either the OEM is forced to provide x number of years security and bug fixes (rather than the current situation of Apple not providing all security fixes to old versions of iOS) or the alternative being that the source code for drivers etc. are merged back into a public Android tree that allows people to keep updating their Android phone beyond what the OEM is willing to provide (maybe a third party business model could develop around providing a long term supported version of Android that one can install after the OEM has abandoned it).

    This is one of the reasons I get frustrated when I hear people go on about how electric vehicles are the future – no they’re not, the future is better unitary plans that stop and reverse urban sprawl, focus on dense housing, shared green spaces, greater use of telecommuting, greater use of staggered start times, investing into mass transit and fully electrifying the rail network, building more renewable energy generation. Why aren’t electric vehicles the future (in the sense of it being a ‘silver bullet’ to solve all of life’s problems) – consider the full life cycle from start to finish when building a car including the battery, when you consider all that you quickly realise that although it is better than a petrol car it’ll never be as good as mass transit, it won’t fix congestion not to mention all the maintenance costs of supporting and upgrading urban motorways and state highways.

  • Senate investigating big technology and the role of algorithms in ‘manufacturing consent’.

    It is interesting to see the new service that Apple roll out (link) and finding myself recall a year ago (or so) how Apple should add custom domain hosting, that there is an opportunity to focus on small to medium business etc. etc. only for it to all end up happening. Not that I’m saying that I have some insider knowledge but it’ll be interesting to see whether the custom domain hosting for iCloud+ is a precursor to rolling it out for education and Small/Medium businesses. Although there has been a upsurge in Mac sales with the gradual release of Apple Silicon based Macs (due to many holding back from upgrading for years) the long term positioning of Apple is around services – be it the cut they get through the store or simply selling something like iCloud+ which includes custom domain hosting, private relay, extra storage, unlimited disposable email addresses etc.

    It appears that in the US there is a bipartisan senate proposal to deal with the algorithms that Facebook, Twitter, Google etc use to ‘increase engagement’ by amplifying content that is known to retain users using their service for longer (link). At the moment what is proposed is an ‘opt in’ system but what I hoping is that in the long run that it’ll become the default setting for not just new customers but for all existing customers to be switched over as well. I’ve also said in the past that Facebook should change the default settings it so that when adding a friend it shouldn’t mean that you’re automatically signed up for timeline – the virality effect only works because of the networking effect of everyone being lined up with everyone else so when one person likes something the impact is reverberated through friends and then when those friends react then the friends of friends then get to see the reaction that amplifying then combine that with algorithms that then amplify based on reaction that is how troll armies make use of the system to spread disinformation.

    It is interesting that governments have started taking on the big tech companies – in part due to their realisation that they have the ability to large sways of people through algorithms that increase engagement which ultimately end up undermining the basis on which democracy functions which is an agreed on set of facts so then the debate is based on an greed set of facts but different solutions being proposed to address challenges that need addressing. I have a feeling that we’re going to start seeing a series of bills in the US and elsewhere with the focus on addressing individual issues rather than trying to push through a large omnibus piece of legislation. We’ve already seen countries as South Korea undermine the ‘in app’ payment monopoly that Apple has so expect that to to spread to include Google. I don’t see Apple losing the monopoly that the App Store has for distributing apps to iOS devices but I think it’ll attract a lot more scrutiny and regulation when compared to Android given that you can already side load apps onto Android. As noted in a prior post, there are robust arguments of why a monopoly may benefit a consumer but if you’re going to go down that route then it opens you up for greater regulation – the question is whether Apple see’s the additional regulation is worth the hassle or whether allowing side loading through some sort of two step ‘power user mode’ (to keep regular users safe while allowing side loading for power users) is worth doing if it means having more control over their App Store.

  • Apple releases updates to all their platforms.

    Well, it is the big day – Apple releases macOS 12, iOS 15.1 and tvOS 15.1 and after a good night sleep I got to work upgrading all my devices. This won’t be an exhaustive review but rather pointing out some changes that I have noticed after using it for a few hours. Just to prefix this, when ever I move from a major version of an OS to another I always do a clean install – completely wipe my drive and then clean install it or in the case of my iPhone I do a DFU install which installs everything as if it were a blank device at a factory. The reason why I always do a clean install is because although one should (at least in theory) be able to smoothly upgrade between major releases the problem is that it is almost guaranteed that something will go wrong and when it goes wrong you’re never too sure whether it was a bug in the new operating system or maybe something went wrong during the upgrade process.

    Here are some of the things I noticed:

    1. When playing videos on YouTube, Safari now supports VP9/Opus playback where as in the past it only supported VP9/AAC playback. This brings Safari 15.1 inline with tvOS which has been doing this since the 14.x release. I’m unsure why it took so long – maybe they wanted to optimise it better for macOS before deploying it? Whatever the case maybe it is super smooth reliability – no playback problems like I experienced in the early days of macOS 11.x ‘Big Sur’.
    2. The system firmware on both my iMac and MacBook Pro were upgraded to ‘447.40.12.0.0’ and a new section in the ‘Hardware Overview’ (found in ‘System Profile’) called ‘OS Loader Version’ which is set to ‘540.40.4~45’. The system firmware is UEFI but it also includes microcode updates from Intel to work around bugs. Regarding the OS Loader Version – maybe it is an abstraction which enables Apple to simplify the support for two platforms? I guess time will tell.
    3. Twitter appears to be a lot more reliable – I guess that has come as a byproduct of the Catalyst framework maturing along with improvements to the Webkit framework. There are improvements across the board with the recent release – where as macOS introduced Catalyst, macOS 12 shows the technology has matured to the point that hopefully the apps that utilise it won’t be as buggy.
    4. The Podcast application on macOS no longer automatically download podcasts you’re subscribed to if you untick the ‘Automatic Downloads’. When I was running macOS 11.6 it would keep downloading them even when you had disabled it – it’s nice that they’ve finally fixed it.
    5. Mail is now recognising the custom domain email addresses and it is now possible to create a disposable email address from ‘System Preferences’ and in the website rather than having to log into the iCloud website which makes life a big easier.
    6. Safari 15.1 has bought back the traditional tabs which has made life a lot easier for me and many other users are happy with the change back to the traditional tabs. It is good that when Apple does receive feedback that they take it on the chin and correct course rather than dismissing it as the rabble not understanding the true genius behind the decision that was made.

    I’m still looking around the operation system but so far this has been pretty stable for a fresh release – not strange bugs, no regressions, so far everything is working well. I’ll keep the blog updated when I find things that are interesting.

  • Google announces the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro.

    Today was the day Google announced the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro – since there was already all the information out there the presentation was pretty much confirming everything and once again it isn’t available in New Zealand although Amazon is going to be a reseller so there is always the option of using YouShop or having Amazon selling it directly to New Zealand customers. If that is the price one has to pay to get access to it then I’m happy to pay it given that it is a niche product and given our small size it makes sense that Google focuses on the big markets (although Google could treat Australia and New Zealand as a single market in much the same way that Apple does which means that apart from the original Homepod we pretty much get everything that the Australians do). There is a good overview/unboxing by MKBHD:

    The thing is with Google is that once you use Chrome and set up a Google account then you’ve kinda got to go all in – and although you can run Chrome on iOS you’re still saddles with having to use Webkit because essentially Chrome on iOS is only a front end that integrates into Google cloud services but still uses the same underpinnings as Safari not to mention Google Maps, Google Contacts, Google Keep etc are a lot better integrated into Android (it makes sense given that Google controls the Android platform where as on iOS they’re ‘yet another third party’ where Apple has the benefit of deep integration because they control iOS).

    For me, I keep coming back to Chrome because it has the adblocker that I know and love, uBlock Origin, because it works a lot more reliably particularly on video sharing sites that are popup crazy. Although AdGuard Safari Extension does a pretty good job it still allows popups to get through etc whereas with uBlock Origin it stops all popups, ads, bitcoin mining etc. resulting in a much better experience. Side note: I disable my ad blocking on websites that have ads but aren’t obnoxious – if I’m blocking the ads on your website then maybe you should take a moment to reflect how you’re repelling people away.

    Although Apple is improving it support for the Webextensions API the more important thing that they need to do is talk to the big players in the extension community – it is the developers in the extension community that make use of what you provide them, if what you provide them is 9/10ths of useless then it won’t matter how much you hype up your support for xyz if the end result is something that isn’t fit for purpose. uBlock Origin has over 10 million users – maybe listen to what the developer has to say since it appears that the product he is putting out is pretty popular with end users so he obviously must be doing something right. Listen to the developers and take onboard their suggestions – don’t say “we know best” then act surprised that you can’t create an ecosystem when you haven’t bothered to speak to the very people who will be creating that ecosystem.

  • Apple developers realise their Safari tab changes weren’t so well received.

    Well, that’ll be a shortest flirtation with Chrome now that Apple has reverted back to classic tabs by default on Safari in macOS 12 and leaving the new tabs limited to compact mode which will be ‘opt in’ (link). I originally thought the satisfaction was limited to me and a few people online but it appears that it was a lot wider because rarely does Apple do a U turn unless there was a significant backlash. macOS 12 will be released on 26 October New Zealand time The timing was exactly as expected, both iOS 15.1 and macOS 12 will be released at the same time next week which makes me wonder whether we’ll see macOS 11.6.1 released before the end of this week for those who wish to stick with macOS 11.x because some of the software they rely on isn’t compatible with macOS 12.

    I watched the replay of the presentation – the naming of the CPU was a bit of a surprise with the M1 Pro and M1 Max but what wasn’t surprising that rumours of Apple maybe using discrete GPUs in the pro devices has been put to rest. It is interesting how well the GPU has scaled not to mention all the specialised hardware that Apple includes with their SoC such as their image signal processing, video encoding and decoding etc.

  • Consolidation in the NZ ISP market, speculation about future Google and Apple products.

    The end of another week and a beginning of a new one with the Apple even scheduled for tomorrow – heaps of speculation online regarding what will be launched followed by the usual ‘reading of the tea leaves’ with people analysing the marketing material in search of some sort of ‘hidden clue’ about what will be announced. For me I’m still waiting for the ARMv9 Apple computers to come out since it’ll include SVE2 which will have a big boost to performance so I might as well hold onto my Intel based Mac’s until that day arrives – when it arrives it’ll be pretty awesome to experience the massive jump in performance.

    The Pixel phone is going to be announced in the next couple of days and what I’ve decided to do is wait until I go over to Australia so then I can purchase it (along with a Chromecast with Google TV) while I’m over there rather than going through all the drama of trying to import it back into New Zealand – if I can purchase it from JBB Hi-Fi then that would be even better because I’ll be able to get support in New Zealand if I need to get it repaired under warranty.

    The competition appears to be hotting up in the ISP (Internet Service Provider) market with the big players adjusting given the rumour of Vocus Australia and the owners of 2 Degrees in discussion to merge (link) then maybe in the long run they’ll list the newly merge company on the New Zealand stock exchange. It’ll be interesting to see what the competition will be like with three really big players offering a nationwide mobile network, wireless broadband and fixed line internet. Chorus has announced that their 100/20 has been placed with 300/100 which leaves me wondering whether I should wait until December to see what is on offer – at the moment I am on 950/450 but I never flood my connection even when connecting my iMac up via an ethernet cable – at best I maybe hitting around 8-9MBps which is around 64-72Mbps (although that may change when Google open up a data center in New Zealand which should allow higher uploads to Google Drive).

    I’ve avoided talking about the COVID-19 situation in New Zealand because it is becoming frustrating that there are a small number of New Zealanders who can’t seem to grasp that no man is an island, that they’re a member of society and as a member of society they have rights but they also have obligations, they have responsibilities, that one should have sense of duty by virtue of being a member of society. When you do something stupid the consequences don’t impact just you but also all those who were dragged into it as with the case of the ‘influencer’ party up in Auckland on the North Shore (link). This isn’t the first something like this happened which is why COVID-19 keeps spreading, because people aren’t abiding by the rules, because people have convinced themselves that “but I’m an exception because I have a really good reason why the rules don’t apply to me” with the result is something that could have been containable has resulted in a lockdown going on for 2 months.

  • iCloud+ custom domain hosting, a chilly winter and Android updates for Samsung.

    I’ve been giving iCloud+ a go with the custom domain hosting – I love having an email address that is uniquely mine but it is rather frustrating that they’ve limited it to 3 email addresses per domain which ends up with me resorting to using using the ‘hide my email’ where an email made up of random words and numbers are generated. It maybe all very well and good but the problem is this – what happens if I want to apply for a job? giving someone an email address like nobbly_nipples09@icloud.com isn’t exactly a professional email address for applying for a job now is it. On Google Workspace there is 30 aliases per email account which is more than sufficient not to mention the fact that the spam filter for Google is so much better than what iCloud provides. I guess it is on of the benefits when you control the whole stack (Google) vs. relying on third party software (Apple) it allows you to create solutions specific to the needs of your customers rather than going out to licence software that does the job ‘kinda ok’ but never as good as a bespoke solution. It would be nice if Apple had maybe a Apple+ Premium that allowed for more than 3 email aliases – if they’re trying dissuade businesses not to use it then I can kind of understand but equally if you’re a business that you’re so super tight that you’re using a consumer grade email service then any problems you do experience is on your own shoulders – not Apple’s (maybe there is a higher licence fee for the software they use if the customer uses it for commercial purposes?).

    It has been pretty chilly for the last couple of days with some days even falling below 8 degrees celsius, I was hoping by this stage I wasn’t having to turn on my heater but it appears that the cold weather snap is still coming through. I’ve got my heater set to 18 degrees celsius so when I wake up tomorrow it’ll be a whole lot easier to get out of bed. I had a check of the 7 day forecast:

    Although the weather will improve for the next few days unfortunately the improvement will be short lived and the temperature will go back down.

    On a good side, there are some neat things coming up in the next week. On 18 October 2021 (US Time) Apple will be having a feature presentation (link), on 19 October 2021 (US Time) Google will have their feature presentation (link) then lastly Samsung on 20 October 2021 (US Time) will have their feature presentation (link). Lots of unknowns at the moment but I do hope is that Samsung announces a release date for Android 12 for existing flag ship phones, Google will announce a refreshed Chromecast with Google TV that’ll include an updated SoC so that it supports hardware accelerated AV1 playback and Apple finishes off rolling out the migration from Intel to ARM so that all that is left is migrating Mac Pro over to ARM along with giving a release date for macOS 12 and iOS 15.1 (unless they do something strange such as shipping the ARM based Macs with macOS 11.6.1 then not release iOS 15.1 and macOS 12 until November sometime).

  • Google embraces native iOS UI.

    It appears that Google is recognising that users may love Google devices but they want Google apps that run on iOS to behave like iOS apps rather than Android style apps that just so happen to run on iOS (link). I can see why they made the choice in the first place if one views It from the perspective of:

    1. Consistency over the platforms that they support – the same look and feel so that the same experience is provided on all platforms rather than having to deal with each platforms quirks.
    2. Not having to maintain two UI codebases – use the same Material for iOS framework for all Google applications then move the platform forward with all the applications that use it automatically inheriting the benefits (and the framework itself is updated with each version of IOS to take advantage of the improvements that particular version of iOS brings).

    Like many attempts by developers to abstract from the underlying platform, the experience ends up being subpar and the amount of man power saved doesn’t offset the non-native feel. For me, it is the reason why I’ve never been a fan of Firefox because it always feels as though as a Mac user that I was an after thought when compared to the experience Firefox delivered on Windows or Linux. Many years ago there was Camino which was a Cocoa frontend to the Gecko web engine but it never gained official support so it was always a project that struggle to build mindshare resulting in bugs not being fixed etc.

    Long story short, we’re Apple customers first and you provide us with the service and software that runs on out platform of choice so as a result it should look the part. If you want to try something different and innovative then that is what Android is for and if it means that certain features are only available on Android then that might act ass an incentive for people to migrate to Android in much the same way that iMessage is a ‘must have feature’ which entice people to the iOS platform.

    On a side note, Apple has released iOS 15.0.2 and it appears that the IOMbileFrameBuffer, graphics stack and kernel have been getting a good work out in terms of receiving bug fixes over the last few months (link). It isn’t surprising given that such an area is fraught with complexity resulting in nasty bugs appearing where you really don’t want them to appear. Looking forward to macOS 12 and I’ve still got it marked on the calendar that iOS 15.1 and macOS will be release around the same time – probably a week or so after the Mac refresh that is rumoured to be happening soon.