← 2022 August 2022
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“Hey honey comma oh this is a voice message sorry babe anyway” is how I start every voice message to my wife on my iPhone.
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Still waiting for Big Audio Dynamite III
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No-one’s singing in the streets again, Mackay, Mackay.
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100 ways to improve your writing
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Manyun Zou, Russell Goldenberg and Rob Smith have done the hard work on The Pudding to report on how The Big Bang Theory is censored in the People's Republic of China.
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This web app on Baseten was recommended to me to restore old photos and as you might be able to see with this ancient photo of yours truly, it works a treat!
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Sunrise on a Sunday morning from Cabarita Beach, New South Wales
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Someone was up at 4:30am and nothing would settle her.
Hint: it wasn’t Britt.
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Austin Kleon's Show Your Work, a summary:
- Share your thoughts and your process and your work, online, for free.
- You don’t need to be an expert to share your work - beginners can easily help other beginners.
- By sharing your work online, you’ll attract an audience of people who care about the same stuff you do - this can change your life.
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David Perell on the news:
"The paradox of news: By telling us to care about everything, the news leads to apathy instead of action."
I'm so unsubscribed from the news at the moment, it's so liberating.
If something important happens, please text me.
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Rob Hardy on non-coercive marketing:
"The key ingredient in non-coercive marketing is the golden rule. We should market to others the way we'd want to be marketed to ourselves. Non-coercive marketing places full authority and trust in people. It creates the conditions under which they can make empowered decisions for themselves, and do so in their own time. It doesn't seek to persuade, manipulate, or pester people into a decision that's already been made for them. It merely opens new doors, tells the truth about what's behind those doors, then surrenders the outcome, trusting that the right people will step through when they're ready."
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Introducing the next joshPhone. You can design yours on Neal’s website.
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Patrick Collison has assemblers a fascinating list of questions, like:
Why do there seem to be more examples of rapidly-completed major projects in the past than the present?
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Amelia Earhart:
“The most difficult thing is the decision to act. The rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process, is its own reward.”
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The guy who goes out of his way to hilariously grimace and loudly say ”good practice for your next marriage” at every wedding must be elated when he gets an invite.
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Forever amazed at what people wear to weddings. It must be so beautiful to do that last gaze in a mirror at home before you leave for the ceremony and think ”damn I’m hot!”
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"If he had known to say to the board some version of “Q2 deliverables were only at 10% of forecast, but because of our LTV:CAC ratio and percentage of pipeline in mid-market, we should see full quota attainment by Q4,” maybe his problems wouldn’t have been so serious."
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“In June of 1460, news reached Pope Pius II of an orgy which had recently taken place in the gardens of Giovanni di Bichis’s palace in Tuscany. To his dismay, it had been attended, and to some extent organised, by the vice-chancellor of the Roman Church, Cardinal Rodrigo de Borja.”
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the best part about travelling for work is coming home to a tribe that’s missed me
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I can’t believe no-one has been celebrating Digital Radio’s (DAB) 13th anniversary in Australia.
It’s like DAB doesn’t mean anything to anyone.
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It might seem like a surprise but nine years ago in Seminyak I started thinking about moving to Mexico after reading this compelling sign.
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Wow, I didn’t know this but you can use your $50 Qantas voucher like a power-up mid-flight so the flight attendant doesn’t smash into your elbows with the drinks cart, or to be allowed to push the seat in front of you back up when the passenger puts it down.
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Retro ‘Roo
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I’ve created marriage ceremonies in the coldest climates, through Californian deserts in winter, Iceland in winter, New Zealand mountaintops in winter.
Today in the Blue Mountains was the coldest I’ve ever felt, and in all those other weddings I wasn’t wearing a puffer jacket.
It cold.
Photo by my boy Zain Kruyer.
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Seeing the #SolidarityWithSanna posts reminds me of something that happened 10 years ago next week: Alan Jones and Barnaby Joyce on the radio proclaiming that "women are destroying the joint" 1:29 into this audio. Some people struggle with female leadership.
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I need to see Michael Heizer's City
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Get back to me when your wedding invite is a bottle of craft gin. This is an actual wedding I’m at in December.
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She watches her big sister (try to) do ballet all week
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As a person born in 1981, the greatest dilemma I face is whether I identify as Gen X or Gen Y.
I don’t like Gen Whiners, they don’t seem like my kind of people, but then I hear really old people identify as Gen X and I’m sure I’m not that old.
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I get itchy when I sit with a photo I've made for more than 24 hours, I couldn't imagine dedicating 50 years to a work of art.
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DJ Patil - former U.S. Chief Data Scientist - has the best advice on building: dream in years, plan in months, evaluate in weeks, ship daily.
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Nine years since I’ve walked through these doors
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Henry Luce, founder of Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated magazines:
“To see life; to see the world; to eyewitness great events; to watch the faces of the poor and the gestures of the proud; to see strange things — machines, armies, multitudes, shadows in the jungle and on the moon; to see man's work — his paintings, towers and discoveries; to see things thousands of miles away, things hidden behind walls and within rooms, things dangerous to come to; the women that men love and many children; to see and take pleasure in seeing; to see and be amazed; to see and be instructed.”
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Eve Peyser in Intelligencer on Mensa:
"Many of its members think of themselves as outsiders and feel like Mensa is a place where they can be themselves and connect with people who understand and appreciate them."
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B.D. McClay in The Hedgehog Review:
"The other great crime of whataboutism is that it solidifies the online sense that the appearance of paying attention is paramount—not actually paying attention."
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View the world through a series of incentives and you’ll find we’re doomed in every direction. Health departments want people to drink less. Tax departments want people to drink more.
NPR:
Japan launches a contest to urge young people to drink more alcohol
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How sunrise at Currumbin Rock looked this morning
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An update to the whole 'my photos were stolen and published in a book at Kmart" story:
Before beginning any legal proceedings I sent them an invoice for a "plucked from the sky" number to license my photos to them. $2,200 an image, $8,800.
The publisher freaked out, took the book off the shelves, and called me to apologise. They ended the phone call with a commitment to come back with a compensation plan, but so far nothing.
$2,035 to send a lawyer's letter on a hope and a prayer that they respond.
It'd be a lot more money to take it to court.
Sitting here wondering how to respond, so I sent a text. Thank god autocorrect softened the blow.
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My favourite kind of internet communication is when you write a joke then people comment with real advice.
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Sam Neil is bringing Jurassic Park down under!
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My mate Jay has made a documentary about remote knowledge workers, digital nomads, working around the Arctic Circle and I'm pretty damn jealous of those landscapes, the visuals, and the lifestyle! Check out the trailer!
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Temple & Webster bed: $450. Koala king mattress: $1039. I Love Linen sheets: $335. How Luna sleeps: priceless.
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The only correct way today can go in #auspol is if the Prime Minister does a press conference where he takes off an Albo mask and is Scott Morrison underneath.
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It’s weird when I hear about people watching the same TV show at the same time as other people because the antennas on a nearby mountain determined it so.
Its kinda quaint, like calling someone on the phone, or catching a bus cross-country.
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Running your own business is the most powerful vessel for learning. Theory actualises itself into practical, meanwhile, you've placed a bet, you've made a sacrifice, on the learning.
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An ever-changing and growing list of the top 50 life hacks at 50hacks.co
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Muppets magic.
"I'd save every day like a treasure and then again I would spend them with you"
Cover of Jim Croce's 'Time In A Bottle' as found on The Muppets in 1977. Also, weirdly, featured alongside another Muppet in an iPhone ad for the iPhone 6S and Siri.
Finally, how I feel about Britt. Love you xx
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Salon Tom Weston’s Five Rules of Being A Grown-Up:
- You must not have anything wrong with you, or anything different about you.
- If you have something wrong or different about you, you really need to correct it. You need to be able to pass under all circumstances.
- If you can’t correct it, or change it in any way, you should just pretend that you have. It’s not a problem anymore. Good news!
- If you can’t even pretend not to have corrected the situation, you should just not show up, because it’s very painful for the rest of us to see you in your current condition.
- If you’re going to insist on showing up, you should at least have the decency to be ashamed.
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How many fools you know that have specific global and Australian marriage law, rituals, traditions, and customs knowledge like this? Not many. If any?
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Outside our front door just now
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A solid opportunity to transfer some of your wealth to me and for me to transfer some of my art to your walls at www.joshwithers.art
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Y’all bringing your outdoor furniture inside after using it?
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As an old nerd I find it fundamentally offensive when tech podcasts publish a 404th episode instead of skipping it, or maybe publishing a no-audio audio file.
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Saturday morning coffee date
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I’d rather have no phone than an Android phone.
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Why is it ok for William Joel to be professionally called Billy Joel but it’s not ok for Joshua Withers to be professionally called Joshy Withers?
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Science says we can all just stay at home and the Titans will still lose despite a home ground advantage.
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Jerry Saltz is a gift to this generation, and his Vulture article: How to Be an Artist should be required reading for humans on planet earth:
"33 rules to take you from clueless amateur to generational talent (or at least help you live life a little more creatively)."
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Matt Ruby (plus every wedding photographer I know):
Your grandparents have photos in a shoebox, but we'll have nothing. Reminder: Just like every hard drive fails eventually, every business goes under eventually. Get a hard copy of anything you want to actually own and keep forever.
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I never knew I needed a Transformer that transformed into a Canon R5 until now. now it’s all I want in this life.
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A fascinating element of modern web design is that developing/producing for the open web has actually gotten harder, not easier.
I remember the promise of Microsoft FrontPage, Apple's iWeb, Macromedia Dreamweaver, that normal people could just make websites then upload the boring old HTML, CSS, and images to a directory on a web-facing file server and bam you're online.
But today you've either got Squarespace, Wix, Wordpress.com or installing Wordpress on your own server - but then shit gets weird. Like someone I know was all excited for Astro and I look at the website and in the hero image area is the instruction to "npm create astro@latest" and I have no idea what that means?
Where's the cool and hip web content creator of today?
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Never forget that time the two largest mobile phone software companies partnered together and the Australian federal government said, yeah nah, and instead blew $21 million on an app that found two cases and is being deleted today.
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Sunrise this morning from Snapper Rocks
Photos were created by me, on the sunrise of Wednesday, 10 August 2022, at Snapper Rocks and Greenmount Beach at Coolangatta, Queensland. Photographed on a Canon EOS R5 with a 70-200mm lens.
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Ok, this is cool: makemydrivefun.com
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Can confirm this is true. Please refrain from messing with me:
"I don't mess around with anyone over 42, they built different, their families had them formally trained in something by the time they were 2, they had keys to the house by age 5, could cook full meals at 7 and were pretty much self-sufficient at 9.
They left their house at dawn every Summer morning and didn't come back til nightfall and survived all day on water from garden hoses, they might get a sandwich on the off chance somebody's parents had went shopping, they spent three quarters of their lives by themselves with a parent maybe checking on them twice a month, most of them have evaded at least one kidnapping attempt, and, they know 15 different ways to remove blood stains from clothing. They the real fuck around and find out people.
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My favourite weekly email newsletter - Dense Discovery - just clocked over 200 editions. Give it a read and subscribe.
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You know what the most disappointing element of the Trump presidency has been is finally finding out that Area 51, aliens, werewolves etc, they don’t know. If they knew, then he’d know, and he would’ve blabbed by now.
Who knew that Trump would confirm that we’re all alone.
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Australian weather data on the iOS 16 public beta doesn’t look to be any better than previous incarnations. The leftmost app is Weathergraph which is using the Apple Weather API. The middle app is Apple’s stock weather app and it’s weirdly still using The Weather Channel (USA). The right most app is the Australian Bureau of Meteorology app, the arguably one true source of Australian weather data.
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Finally it's happened! Millennials are old too!!!
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Jideofor Onwugbenu on his Leverage Thoughts Substack wonders if doing a lot really does much:
In our world where the current zeitgeist is of being productive(hustle culture), where our calendars and hours are filled with events in the aim of succeeding, and where productivity channels have grown on mediums such as youtube, have we truly become productive?
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I found the 'Soon Horse' at The Ekka today
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“My children are vampires. I don’t mean that they are going to dress as vampires for Halloween. I mean that, like vampires, they cannot be captured on film.”
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I’ve been working on getting my Instagram account back to friends and family, after a decade of “better follow this account for brand and business reasons.” Turns out that unfollowing a thousand odd accounts over three days gets you locked out of Instagram for a week.
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Where are the most notable people on the planet from? This really cool mashup of Wikidata and Openmaps shows you, on a globe. Looks like I've got to do something pretty notable to knock my local celebrity off her mantle.
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TikTok Moderators Are Being Trained Using Graphic Images Of Child Sexual Abuse, in Forbes:
"Nasser expected to be confronted with some disturbing material during his training to become a content moderator for TikTok. But he was shocked when he and others in his class were shown uncensored, sexually explicit images of children."
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How annoying are cold fries
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Port Dougie this afternoon.
Port Douglas, Far North Queensland.
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Spain says no to nice aircon temps:
"A decree published on Tuesday morning in the official state gazette and scheduled to go into effect next week mandates that air conditioning in public places be set at or above 27 degrees Celsius (about 80 degrees Fahrenheit) and that doors of those buildings remain closed to save energy."
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It's the crocodile you don't see you have to worry about.
Crocodiles found on the Mowbray River, just south of Port Douglas in Queensland. Photographed with a DJI Mavic 3.
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Free business idea: Instagram, but for photos.
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Many think that "the elites" or "the media" are pushing an agenda. They're not, it's actually worse. They're just giving us what we want so they can sell it to us and become wealthier.
Heck, if I was them, I'd do it.
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz in Everybody Lies:
Many have viewed American journalism as controlled by rich people or corporations with the goal of influencing the masses, perhaps to push people toward their political views. Gentzkow and Shapiro’s paper suggests, however, that this is not the predominant motivation of owners. The owners of the American press, instead, are primarily giving the masses what they want so that owners can become even richer.
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“When you hit a wrong note, it’s the next note that makes it good or bad.”
– Miles Davis
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Brisbane on a Tuesday afternoon
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It was a good month for me on Unsplash. Zero dollars made, but millions of feel-good bucks.
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More Aussies - 18% - are going to be investing in crypto in the next 2yrs than real estate - 17% - so it's going to be a pretty good 2yrs for A Current Affair. In fact, I might invest in ACA, they're going to have some great li'l ozzy battler ripped-off stories.
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Tugun Beach tonight
