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

  • Feeling a lot better.

    I’m feeling a lot better than I did at the beginning of the week thanks to a combination of rest, keeping hydrated and getting plenty of fresh air. Tonight I took the bus down to the supermarket but decided to walk back then after arriving back I took out the butter for the fresh bread then went for an 11.6km walk so the total amount of walking today was probably around 16-17km. For dinner I had mushroom soup and some fresh ciabatta bread.

    Things are progressing in terms of my new years reset where I’ve made one small change then consistently done that change for a couple of weeks then adding a new task then doing the same. The idea is that rather than trying to make a whole lot of changes then feeling overwhelmed what I decided to is break down the change into smaller steps so then eventually each change becomes embedded into every life to the point that it eventually becomes muscle memory.

    It has been a week worth of consistent walking every night and my goal is to get some exercise every night even if it is on one of the nights when I come back from work at around 11am and I’m limited in how long my walk is the main goal however is to get some exercise. Although I have stuck to doing free weights regularly I have to admit that I’ve gotten a little lazy when it comes to exercise and I think that although 3-5 days per week would be sufficient I do think that having some exercise every night is a whole lot better given that the job I do doesn’t involve any physical activity so the need to regularly exercise is a whole lot more important.

    In the coming week I’m going to be focus on making sure I consistently get some exercise every day – it may not sound much but for me, someone who isn’t naturally inclined to exercise, I need to keep the motivation up. On my days off (Monday and Tuesday) I’ll eventually move to maybe going for a walk during the day then having another walk at night. I’ve found that if I do want to do more exercise I’m better off splitting it into two sessions rather than going for one big walk all at once.

  • Honestly, I just don’t care.

    This could be a TED talk in its own right but it is amazing the number of influencers who convince themselves that they need to create a narrative around the idea of the audience demanding they say or do something. No one is asking you for anything, stop trying to make out that you have some large audience who is terminally online and hanging on every half baked opinion you vomit on the internet. I watched a video on YouShop shorts that was reposted from TikTok – not a single person was asking them for their opinion on a given matter, it was entirely manufactured! it’s like influencers who start off their video with “..I keep being asked…” – no one asked you anything, stop trying to make out that you have an audience who cares enough to engage in the content you put out there.

    Oh, and don’t get me started on American influencers (they tend to be the who do this the most) talking about how xyz store is ‘iconic’ or ‘legendary’ or ‘an institution’- mate, it is a store that sells sandwiches and bottles of soft drink, it isn’t some cultural monument that people go on pilgrimages to. Oh, and while I’m having a whinge, people who say that they’re “not going to gate keep this…” – once again, mate, it is a store that sells cheesecakes and barista coffee, it isn’t some sort of secret store and that only those who are worthy enough can indulge in its delights or that some how you’re letting in the audience or some secret that no one else knows about.

    I always find it hilarious that the same people who complain about Trump and how he speaks do the exact same thing in their own life without the slightest hint of irony. Influencers having self-awareness appears to be like oil in water – they don’t mix.

    On a side note regarding AI and LLMs, I saw this video – when it comes to AI it reminds me of the song with the lyrics “don’t believe the hype” but it appears that far to many on Wall Street are believing their own hype – getting high on their own supply.

  • Getting there…gradually.

    I’ve been off from work for a few days so I thought it would be best to talk to my local healthcare professional to see if it was more serious but I was advised that I need to rest and allow the body to do its thing. I forwarded the medical certificate to my boss to give them a heads up on what has happened just so they know what is going on. I’m taking it easy, keeping hydrated, eating health meals with lots of the good stuff so my body can heal but unfortunately there isn’t an easy way to speed up recovery so I’ll just be taking it easy.

    Regarding Safari, a technology preview hasn’t been arrested but the one thing I do find annoying is an issue with Google Chat and having a notification in the tab that a message has been sent. If I am running Chrome or Firefox, when a message is sent and I’m not focused on that tab then where the Google Chat logo is there is a red dot to indicate that there is an unread message. The benefit of that is if I am on another tab such as writing up a blog entry (like I’m doing now) and I have a chat session open, I am forced to routinely check to see if a message has been sent because that notification doesn’t come up on Safari (I don’t want a system notification, just the dot in the tab).

    When I noticed it the first time when using Chrome but it not occurring on Safari I thought that maybe it was a Chrome only feature but then I installed Firefox and it had no problems showing that red dot. I’m still waiting for that functionality to arrive but I guess it’ll be one of those things that I’ll need to wait for Apple given that I’ve reported an issue with YouShop through the Apple bug reporting form and here we are over a year later and the issue hasn’t been fixed yet (the problem doesn’t occur on Chrome or Firefox).

    There has been comparisons regarding the hype around AI with many labelling it a bubble then comparing the current situation to the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s and early 2000s. I disagree with that analysis for two reasons. The first reason is the fact that there was actually useful technology that came out of it. The networking equipment, the build out of fibre optic backbone, the availability of broadband etc. may have arrived before there were services that could fully take advantage of it but what it meant is that when it did arrive the foundation had already been established (normally it is the other way around, a new product or service then having to wait for the technology to catch up).

    The second reason is the fact that many of the dot-coms were selling things people actually wanted rather than promises of abstract concepts of a plan that no one can nail down as to how it’ll help the average person their every day life. The whole point of many dot-com retailers was to have a massive warehouse with a lot more choice than what you would get at a store – want to find a CD from an alternative band? it’ll be there, want to find some interesting art prints? you can find it. There was a reason why people gravitated towards online retailers – there was the price (I would argue price is a smaller factor given that physical stores have the benefit of instant gratification rather than having to wait for an order to be delivered) but choice was, I’d argue, was a bigger factor at play. This is the reason why buy a lot of what I want online because physical retail stores have a limited selection where as online retailers almost have an unlimited selection to choose from.

  • It doesn’t have to be that way.

    I was watching a video on YouTube about ‘choice feminism’ and it reminds me of discussions regarding cultural norms that for many are treated as if they were something that are permanent – they always have and they always will exist.

    The more you study about history and anthropology the more you realise that, to quote a comedian whose name escapes me, “we just make shit up”, and then that is passed down from generation to generation with each generation convincing themselves that it has always been that way – some sort of universal fact that cannot be challenged because it has always been that way.

    Why does that happen? I think part of is due to a lack of intellectual curiosity and in part due to benefitting from the status quo so there is no incentive to investigate further. It is easier to just simply accept the way things are rather than to ask why things the way they are particularly if you’re of a group who benefits from the status quo. If you’re part of a group who benefits then why rock the boat when you’re getting so much from it? If you’re lacking in intellectual curiosity or maybe worried you may get an answer that you may not like then you’ll avoid the self reflection and go with the status quo – enjoying blissful ignorance over reality.

    I do think it is important to continuously ask yourself “why do I believe what I believe”, “why do I have the preferences I do? were they shaped solely by me, what influence does culture has, how did that emerge and embedded into the culture?” along with many, many other questions. That then expands out to larger questions regarding capitalism and the commodification of identity into something that can be acquired, the idea of masculinity or femininity can be acquired and reenforced through the purchasing decisions we make.

    Now, that doesn’t mean you cannot enjoy something but it does allow you to have an awareness regarding the origins of a given practice, aesthetic etc. but that being said it is also important to understand how we’re subtly influenced subconsciously even if we don’t consciously construct a justification in our head regarding why we like something or dislike something, why we find a particular thing attractive or unattractive. The whole point of challenging the status quo is to question whether the choices me make are choices we’ve made freely or whether we’ve had our consent manufactured.

  • Going to take Friday off.

    Feeling a bit better but not fully recovered. Tonight I went for a walk because I needed some fresh air and some exercise to get my body moving rather than just sitting around at home resulting in the inactivity making it worse. I have been making sure that I’ve had vegetables with every meal to make sure I’m not missing out on the important good stuff. Hopefully I’ll be all good to get back to work on Saturday because another couple of good night sleeps will help a lot with the recovery.

    I was checking the Webkit website today hoping that there would be a release of Safari Technology Preview 236 but alas nothing has arrived. It’ll be interesting to see what changes they have in store because it may give an insight into what is in store for 26.4 but we’ll only get confirmation once the 26.4 beta builds start being made available to developers. I’m still waiting for the DNR sub_frame issue to be resolved and I’ve asked for clarification from the developer taking care of it but I’ve received no response regarding it (link). I understand people can be busy but it is pretty lousy that 6 months after the issue was raised the issue still hasn’t been fixed in a timely manner.

    Labour New Zealand sent out a renewal so I got that out of the way pretty quickly. I’d love them to win but I am also aware that it a one term government is very rare so they don’t exactly have history on their side but that being said, if they can close the gap to force National to compromise then the second term maybe different. Another thing to keep in mind is the fact that for National the issue of privatisation is on the topics for discussion but given that NZ First maybe in a future National led government I don’t see it becoming anything more than just talk unless of course they end up selling the asset to itself such as ACC and the Kiwi Super Fund end up buying the asset in much the same way that NZ Post sold part of Kiwibank to ACC and the Kiwi Super Fund so then NZ First can say that it is still in the hands of New Zealanders.

  • It makes me wonder.

    I’ve watched a video and it makes me wondering whether the Trump administration has any sort of clue regarding what they want to achieve or are the 4 years going to be nothing more than grifting. I say this because there was a video recently where president Trump was asked regarding the value of the American dollar declining and what he thought of it, the only answer he could give was some incoherent rambling about being the ‘hottest economy’ etc. etc. If he just came out and said, “the America dollar is over valued for many decades which has hurt our manufacturing and other export related sectors, it is a much needed correction” it would at least imply there is some sort of policy at play.

    If the long term goal of the Trump administration is to rebalance the economy away from a heavily consumption lead growth model to one that is balanced between investment, exports and consumption then at leas there would be an message to he market that there is some sort of plan. So far what we’ve seen is the wild oscillations which gives the impression that there is no plan, that the only plan is to have no plan other than seeing it as an opportunity to use the presidency to enrich himself and those around him. Now, I have to admit, I generally subscribe to the maxim of ‘never attribute to malice that can be explained as incompetence’ but given what is happening with those connected directly or indirectly to the Trump administration it is difficult to ignore the fact that this is a case where incompetence is the distraction to hide the malice.

    Regarding the new Panther Lake series that Intel announced, it’ll be interesting to see whether the damage Microsoft is doing with Windows 11 is going to have a backlash on Intel sales. I say that because I’ve even seen normies push back against this tsunami of AI slop appearing in the operating system to the point that there are discussions online asking “how do I get rid of this crap”. This is the risk that Intel have played by failing to invest into Linux and making it a drop in replacement for Windows – getting Linux to the point that can install it on an Intel computer without having to deal with downing extra files such as firmware for Wi-FI or if you’re unfortunate enough to have an nVidia card the fact that you have to jump through firey hoops just to get support working.

    As so long as Microsoft know there is no viable alternative to Windows on the x86-64 platform then don’t be surprised if the enshittification continues. What Intel ideally needs to do is assemble 100 engineers to work with OEMs such as Dell and HP so that a big distro, Fedora being one that coms to mind, can work out of the box on Intel based laptops and desktops, that they work with nVidia and Fedora developers so that when the kernel is updated that the nVidia driver stack is updated at the same time to ensure that the installation doesn’t break and the end user is left with a computer that isn’t working.

    Then there is the bigger focus which is the development of Wayland – again, get another 100 developers and then get them to write up a list of features that exist in macOS and Windows display server, compare it to what is in Wayland, triage the missing features then start implementing. If your whole business of selling hardware is dependent on a single software vendor not screwing up then it doesn’t exactly give you much control over the future. There is an opportunity to at least setup a viable alternative, let’s hope that Intel make such an investment to hedge their bets.

  • Taking a day off work.

    Woke up this morning still feeling lousy, coughing all night, sore throat and runny nose – not exactly and enjoyable experience so instead I’m resting up at home in bed and maybe later on I’ll go for a small walk round the block to get some fresh air. I don’t know where it came from given that last week I was feeling good, no symptoms then suddenly out of no where it appeared which is strange because generally you get a sense of a cold of a flu coming on before it eventually hits. What makes it weirder is the fact that we’re in summer.

    I received an email from my mobile provider that they’re going to be turning off 3G by the end of March 2026 which raises an interesting question regarding what Spark (I’m with Skinny, which is a Spark sub brand and uses the Spark network) will do with the spectrum they’re currently using for 3G. The frequency I’m interested in is 850MHz and whether they’ll reform it for 4G or 5G but I have a feeling that it’ll probably be used for 5G given that the major carriers are moving their low traffic customers off fibre onto 5G – it saves the network operator from having to pay Chorus and make greater use of the spectrum they already have. I wouldn’t be surprised if we ended up seeing operators upgrade 4G modems to 5G modems then use 4G as a fall back in much the same way 3G was the fall back for 4G.

    Where I am located I am in a built up area with the closest tower having the following frequencies supported:

    700: 4G LTE
    1800: 4G LTE
    2100: 3G UMTS
    3500: 5G NR

    850: 3G UMTS
    2300: 4G LTE
    2600: 4G LTE

    An upgrade of 2100 and 850 to 5G would improve the 5G support particularly with the 850MHz implementation which would give a similar coverage that 700MHz does on 4G. There is also the rural connectivity which at the moment just as 4G connectivity (it was 4G from day one) but we may end up seeing 5G appear along side 4G – either sharing spectrum or utilising spectrum put aside in those areas (the three carriers piggy back on the rural connectivity network because it saves them having to roll out their own network to areas with low population density).

  • Heaps of updates.

    On Tuesday and Website here have quite a few software updates, the firmware for my U7 Pro Max has been updated from 8.3.2 to 8.4.6 – everything is rock solid at the moment, connected to my router on the 6GHz band on channel 5 with a connection speed of 2161 Mbps. On the UniFi Gateway front there has been UniFi Gateways 5.0.12 released to the early access channel – it makes me wonder whether we’re going to see a release soon – bug fixes and performance improvements are always nice.

    iOS 26.2.1 was released which adds support for AirTag 2 as well as fix a few bugs however there haven’t been any updates for any of the other platforms. Also today 26.3. beta 3 has been released with rumours of beta 4 or release candidate coming out in February. Normally the final release is around a week after the release candidate but then again that is very much up to whether there has been show stopper bugs. Then there is 26.4 which is rumoured to have Siri support using the Gemini model from Google – from what I have read it’ll be using an older version with the latest version coming with version 27 of Apple’s platforms. Keeping in mine that these are rumours from various online news sources but it is always interesting to hear about what maybe happening behind the scenes.

    I went to work today (Wednesday) however I felt under the weather but thought if I pushed through it (since Wednesday tends to be a pretty quiet day) I would be all good but I got to the Half way point and decided I needed to go home. I was coughing, sore throat, runny nose, and just generally feeling lousy which is all kind of strange because I’ve had a couple of good night sleeps so it isn’t as though I was burning the candles at both ends. I’ll look ensuring I have a good sleep tonight.

  • Back to work on Wednesday.

    I had a sleep in today then popped down to the shops after checking to see if JB Hi-FI had Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds album ‘Wild God’ in stock. I was going to buy it online but before I did the I wanted to see if I could get it locally as to avoid the horrifically expensive shipping costs to New Zealand. I popped down, purchased the CD (it has been a few years since I bought some music) then visited mum for dinner then came home to purchase a copy of dBpoweramp and PerfectTunes so I could rip the music to FLAC for backup purposes and then converted the FLAC to AAC for my iPhone and every day library. While I was there I also ordered an album through Discogs that I couldn’t get through any retailer online or offline – Much Les by Les McCann.

    Tomorrow I’m back in the office but I’m deciding what I’ll wear – I may as well make use of the exhaustive wardrobe of clothes I have because it seems a bit of a shame if I don’t make use of it. I am tempted to wear my Malik suit that bought recently. The clothes I bought online I was able to get adjusted and now they fit really nicely and they’re suitable for wearing in the office but then again the clothes I tend to buy are pretty conservative – nothing too wild or crazy.

  • A productive day to day.

    I woke up this morning and saw that Woolworths had dropped of my order in the morning, I put all the groceries away so I was all ready for the coming week. I put them all away along with organising my pantry so then it is easy to keep track of what I have and ensure that I implement good stock rotation so then the oldest is used first as to avoid ending up with expired food.

    Last night (Sunday) I took a frozen butterflied chicken out of the freezer so then by the time midday rolled around it was already defrosted. I put it into a preheated oven at 180 degrees celsius for 1 hour and 10 minutes then while that was happening I prepared some coleslaw along with a couple of fresh ciabatta rolls that were delivered today (I prefer having it with butter because I prefer the buttery taste). I had a bigger lunch and for dinner I just had an Up and Go. After enjoying dinner I then had a rest watching some television while completing some chores around the home and then I went for a 11.6km walk.

    While I’m my walk there was a bit of rain but it was just some light showers for 10-20 minutes and then it stopped so it was no major problem. I think my shoes has special water proofing because the insides of my shoes haven’t gotten wet when compared to the old shoes I had where the smallest amount of rain would soak through. I think that the weather is going to be crazy so I’ll keep powering on and worst case scenario I’ll have a look into maybe buying myself a light weight rain coat that I can wear.

    Oh, and uBlock Origin Lite 2026.125.1931 was released today and it was promptly made available on the iOS and Mac App Store which was nice. No regressions so far and everything is working pretty well at the moment. There are still rumours going around regarding version 26.2.1 for Apple’s platforms but so far nothing has materialised but then again I guess it comes down to how many beta releases Apple wish to put out for 26.3 and whether there is an urgent update that needs to be released to the public. I’m hoping that this week we’ll see the release of Safari Technology Preview 236 – maybe that’ll give an insight into what will appear in the 26.4 release given how updates tend to go ‘big changes’ followed by ‘small changes and lots of bug fixes’ then followed by ‘big changes’.