Interesting
- 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 canât correct it, or change it in any way, you should just pretend that you have. Itâs not a problem anymore. Good news!
- If you canât even pretend not to have corrected the situation, you should just not show up, because itâs very painful for the rest of us to see you in your current condition.
- If youâre going to insist on showing up, you should at least have the decency to be ashamed.
The genesis story of Apple computers
I’ve been thinking about this story from Steve Jobs, recalled in 1996 and told in the new book Make Something Wonderful, about how and why he and Steve Wozniak started Apple:
The reason we (Woz and I) built a computer was that we wanted one, and we couldnât afford to buy one. They were thousands of dollars at that time. We were just two teenagers. We started trying to build them and scrounging parts around Silicon Valley where we could. After a few attempts, we managed to put together something that was the Apple I. All of our friends wanted them, too. They wanted to build them. It turned out that it took maybe fifty hours to build one of these things by hand. It was taking up all of our spare time because our friends were not that skilled at building them, so Woz and I were building them for them.
We thought if we could just get whatâs called a printed circuit board, where you could just plug in the parts instead of having to hand-wire the whole thing, we could cut the assembly time down from maybe fifty hours to more like an hour. Woz sold his HP calculator, and I sold my VW Microbus, and we got enough money together to pay someone to design one of these printed circuit boards for us. Our goal was to just sell them as raw printed circuit boards to our friends and make enough money to recoup our calculator and transportation.
What happened was that one of the early computer stores, in fact, the first computer store in the world, which was in Mountain View at the time, said, âWell, Iâll take fifty of these computers, but I want them fully assembled.â Which was a twist that weâd never thought of.
We went and bought the parts to build one hundred computers. We built fifty of them and delivered them. We got paid in cash and ran back and paid the people that sold us parts. Then we had the classic Marxian profit realization crisis, which was our profit wasnât liquidâit was in fifty computers sitting on the floor.
We decided we had to start learning about sales and distribution so that we could sell the fifty computers and get back our money. Thatâs how we got in the business. We took our idea (for the computer) to a few companies, one where Woz worked (Hewlett-Packard) and one where I worked at the time (Atari). Neither one was interested in pursuing it, so we started our own company.
I’m interviewing newly appointed marriage celebrants for a podcast project at the moment and some don’t have a fire in their belly as to why they started. Their genesis story is missing some heart and soul. I think about them and whether they have staying power like the two Steves who just built computers because they wanted one. That early fire is valuable.
Netflix, One Tel, and me, a nostalgic love triangle
Britt and I are watching Netflix’s new show The Mole at the moment and as that guy who knows Queensland like the back of his hand I’ve been following the filming locations keenly. (If you know what that Daintree resort is, please tell me!)
So as the team reached “The Great Barrier Reef” aka The Whitsundays I immediately recognised the location as Woodward Bay, just a few minutes’ drive north of Airlie Beach. Visitors in the past include the King of Morocco, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, but most importantly for this story, the owner’s husband, Jodie Rich. Apparently, they all helicoptered in, but I just drove when I visited.
I’ve been brought in - pretty sure it’s 1999 or 2000 - to install two Alcatel PABX telephone systems, one that sits at the front gate, and another in the main compound, connected by fibre optic, to allow the main compound to make and receive phone calls, but also for the fancy new gate to be opened by phone call.
I worked for a local company called Business Solutions, and my experience there has always stuck with me. We were a one-stop shop where we provided actual business solutions, not just products. I still love doing that in businesses today.
Anyhow, I’m on this amazing property that Tom Cruise has just stayed at, and Japanese property developer, Kumagai Gumi, has just dropped $150 million on the property, then sold it to Jodee Rich’s wife for $2.5 million so that’s probably a totally cool and normal transaction.
The whole thing was out of reach of ASIC as One Tel went broke because the husband didn’t own the property that was attributed to him, but his wife did. That’s the kind of business sense that gets you places, like starting your own top-level domain (.CEO) and NFT.NYC, kill me now, this bloke has such an epic legacy of grifting.
Seeing the property in The Mole was cool, it looked so similar twenty years on. It is honestly a really beautiful property. Back then they allegedly had lasers across the bay to keep people out, and as a young bloke, it’s the nicest property I’ve ever stepped foot on. I remember being told that the coffee table was made from a door of a monastery.
Interested in staying the night? It’s only five figures a night.
And if you need a PABX installed in a weird situation twenty years ago, give me a call.
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!
Salon Tom Westonâs Five Rules of Being A Grown-Up:
Write one blog post every day that scares you
If you’re uncultured swine like me, you probably thought that Baz Lurhmann gave this commencement speech and it was released as a song.
The truth is far more boring and interesting at the same time.
Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young
Wear sunscreen.
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.
Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they’ve faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.
Don’t worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.
Do one thing every day that scares you.
Sing.
Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts. Don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.
Floss.
Don’t waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long and, in the end, it’s only with yourself.
Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.
Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.
Stretch.
Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don’t.
Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You’ll miss them when they’re gone.
Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else’s.
Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.
Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.
Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.
Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.
Get to know your parents. You never know when they’ll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They’re your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.
Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.
Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel.
Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you’ll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.
Respect your elders.
Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you’ll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.
Don’t mess too much with your hair or by the time you’re 40 it will look 85.
Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.
But trust me on the sunscreen.
"He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers"
We, we the people, reframe and view government as a god. Which is quite unhealthy. We position our prime ministers and presidents as idols, put them on a pedestal, and expect a lot from them.
Ultimately, those positions - from the top to the bottom of the organisation chart - are not gods, they are servants. They serve our community. We render a select number of social services to this service provider and ask them to look after them. We’re talking roads, border control, hospitals, those dinky little health brochures, and everything in between.
We essentially outsource all these things to the state, federal, and local governments. This is great because I donât want to be responsible for maintaining roads, bringing justice to situations, or manning the borders.
In doing this we are making the same choice the Israelites made when they asked Samuel for a king. So we get a king and we ârender unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are Godâsâ.
Not everything is the governmentâs job. They are not a god, or God and some things shouldnât be outsourced to the government.
Abortion, for example, I see abortion as a symptom of an unwell society. If abortion is occurring and it is unsafe then there should be safety regulations around it, but ultimately these laws or regulations are just bumper bars on the ten pin bowling alleyway.
When you are unwell, you donât treat the symptoms, you treat the cause.
What is the cause of abortion? Who are these people wanting/having abortions? Do they really actually want an abortion, or would they have a child if the circumstances were different, either residentially, financially, or relationally? Maybe if they weren’t abused or tricked, they would want to become a parent?
Maybe there are people who genuinely want an abortion. Perhaps the baby is the unplanned result of a sexual encounter, what life are they leading where they want this? Surely there is something below the surface? A pattern of abuse, sexual or otherwise, that lead them to this place? Surely if families weren’t broken, and if we were vulnerable with each other, if we had tighter communities, we wouldn’t be reaching this endpoint?
I’m a middle-aged white guy, so I’m sure I’ve missed a case for abortion, but I struggle to believe that anything more than a few people are genuinely out there “murdering babies” with murderous intent. I imagine that most, almost all, would be regretful and mournful but seemingly without choice and between a rock and a hard place.
Legislation, machine-learning, artificial intelligence, and even Ceasar (the government), donât know how to deal with complex issues like abortion, because they are human issues, with complex routing, complex incentives, responsibilities, and longterm effects.
But in his grace and glory, Christ does, and his ambassadors can. Let us render unto God what is Godâs.
This position will anger pro-abortion and anti-abortion people because it actually requires you to care, listen, and lean in. It might even require some of your money or your resources. People arenât ready to take personal responsibility for it.
But as Samuel warned the Israelites:
“These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen to run before his chariots; and he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his courtiers.
Kings can be real bitches.
“Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them”
If I can end on a real note, I really struggle when Christians get so excited about governments, electing the right governments, having the right kings, and Iâm like, you read 1 Samuel mate?
New data on how Americans drank themselves to death during the pandemic, by Christopher Ingraham
The Final Comeback of Axl Rose, by John Jeremiah Sullivan in 2006, referenced in the Rubesletter by Matt Ruby, today:
Axl has said, “I sing in five or six different voices that are all part of me. It’s not contrived.” I agree. One of them is an unexpectedly competent baritone. The most important of the voices, though, is Devil Woman. Devil Woman comes from a deeper part of Axl than do any of the other voices. Often she will not enter until nearer the end of a song. In fact, the dramatic conflict between Devil Woman and her sweet, melodic yangâthe Axl who sings such lines as Her hair reminds me of a warm, safe place and If you want to love me, then darling, don’t refrain and Sometimes I get so tenseâis precisely what resulted in Guns N’ Roses’ greatest songsâŠ
And what does she say, this Devil Woman? What does she always say, for that matter? Have you ever thought about it? I hadn’t. “Sweet Child,” “Paradise City,” “November Rain,” “Patience,” they all come down to codasâAxl was a poet of the dark, unresolved codaâand to what do these codas themselves come down? Everybody needs somebody. Don’t you think that you need someone? I need you. Oh, I need you. Where do we go? Where do we go now? Where do we go? I wanna go. Oh, won’t you please take me home?
In 2022 I want to be a lot more deliberate about my inputs. Garbage in, garbage out. I’m continuing to craft my newsletters and subscriptions, detailed on my inputs page. Plus I’m now documenting books I want to read, books I am reading, and books I have read.
Small atomic changes should put make sure I’m walking down the right track.
Dear Me,
If, in future years, anyone asks you to give advice to your sixteen year old self⊠donât.
Make your own unique messes, and then work your own way out of them.
See you,
Alan Rickman
I missed this New York Times piece on my hometown, Mackay in North Queensland, about how the mayor is almost single-handedly trying to turn the community around on climate change.
“Over the past year, Mr. Williamson, a fifth-generation Mackay local, has tried more outreach and education, meeting frequently with residents to discuss why the trees are needed, and whether a lighter mix of vegetation might be allowed for partial ocean views.”
If Mackay was going to be in the New York Times I always thought it would be because they ship about 100 million tonnes of coal out of the region every year.
Om Malik on the lethal and constant feeling of self-importance we walk around with:
“With all the conversation of breaking free from big social platforms, owning your own digital identity, and being independent, I have been asking myself: how can all of us who have slowly become online performance artists ever be post-social?”
Since March 2020 I’ve thought a lot about what it means for us to think we’re so self-important and what that means for us living in a community with a virus like the spicy cough.
I’m sure it’s not only me, but the moment a sense of self-importance enters my soul I start feeling sick. This photo of a chicken with a mullet often helps me get over myself.
âI used to think the top global environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought with 30 years of good science we could address those problems, but I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy â and to deal with these we need a spiritual and cultural transformation and we scientists donât know how to do that.â
â Gus Speth
West Philadelphia born and raised, and now rebooted, much more dramatically
Morgan Cooper made a fan-trailer of a dramatic reboot of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in 2019:
Will Smith saw that video and now there’s a real trailer and a real show!
That’s one of the best things about this new world without as many gatekeepers, and falttened lines of communciation and promotion. You can just have an idea, run with it, and see where it lands.
Reflecting on the original show, there’s obviously a darker storyline underneath the lighthearted primetime television show, but the 90s were never ready for that.
Will Smith talks about that idea in this video about the new reboot:
Mavic 3âs 1x versus 28x zoom.
"More evidence suggests that nature does something essential for our mental health"
“More evidence suggests that nature does something essential for our mental health. Specifically, we have learned that nature tends to result in reduced circulating levels of the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol, lowered blood pressure, blunted âperceived stressâ after stressful life events, and lower short-term levels of anxiety and depression. We also appear to ruminate less after weâve spent time in nature, a phenomenon distinct enough to appear as differences in neural activity during brain scans. One recent study selected 541 vacant lots across the city of Philadelphia and randomly allocated each to either receive no intervention; receive regular trash removal and mowing; or be turned into open pocket parks, with trees and a pleasant, short wooden-perimeter fence. Survey teams blind to the intervention were sent out to question residents at random before and after the great experiment, eventually interviewing nearly 450 people about their mental health. When the study was complete, its architects found that residents of neighborhoods where lots had been greened were much healthier psychologically than those whose lots had merely been cleaned. Around greened lots, neighborhood-level rates of feeling âdepressedâ dropped by 42%, feeling âworthlessâ by 51% and having generally âpoor mental healthâ by 63 percent.
Read the whole article in Outside via Kyle Westaway’s Weekend Briefing email.
Hey Siri, please remind me of this every day
“People hate their own art because it looks like they made it. They think if they get better, it will stop looking like they made it. A better person made it. But there’s no level of skill beyond which you stop being you. You hate the most valuable thing about your art.”
â Elicia Donze
As Brisbane goes into lockdown - 6pm June 29, 2021
