Hi! My name is Josh, this me blog.

The dance of pleasing the social media algorithims of the world’s biggest companies, whilst being beat to death by strangers with their comments displeased me so now I’m here.

I wish I were the kind of person who could just live without broadcasting. But there’s an animal inside me — right down in the marrow — that keeps asking ‘can you see me?’ and silence has never once soothed it.

  • Travelling with children advice

  • Cuddling Goldie after a late night diaper change and I was contemplating how she and Luna have slept under almost 37 roofs since we left home in September and we have seven left. Some kids won’t go to the bathroom outside of home, but these kids just take it all in their stride. I’m a proud dad.

  • Driving through Mondsee (Moon Lake)

  • Blue skies and tailwinds makes for a good day in the office/Mavic 3 at Drachenwand (in English, Dragon Wall).

  • I’m not sure I’ll ever feel an emotion stronger than what I felt when I saw this #iykyk

  • There's a campaign to update the Australian Marriage Act of 1961 and every letter to a Federal Member of Parliament helps move the needle on getting the legislation changed and updated.

    Your help is welcomed/begged-for.

    www.marriageact.plus

  • Views of and from and above Lake Wolfgang, near Salzburg, Austria

  • David Cain in Everything Must Be Paid for Twice:

    If you look around your home, you might notice many possessions for which you’ve paid the first price but not the second. Unused memberships, unread books, unplayed games, unknitted yarns.

  • I’m at a cafe in Pöggstall, middle of nowhere, Austria, and next to me are two elderly couples loudly discussing the issues of the world in German.

    After an hour or so of me having no idea what they’re on about, one, mid-sentence says “Netflix, Paramount, Disney, Apple, Prime” then sighs.

    Nice to know that monthly costs of streaming TV is a global, multigenerational, problem.

  • We flew into Vienna two days ago and didn’t even go into the city, but straight out into the hills, which despite their beauty, they are not filled with music. Unless I’m deaf?

    But they are filled with the most wonderful little Austrian villages, like Pöggstall.

  • An important note from a local store

  • Tonight’s AirBnb is 770 years in the making: Pöggstall Castle, in Lower Austria.

    Our 35th accomodation since we left home last August. Honestly thinking that Britt and I could bring some value to AirBnb consulting, there’s only a little bit of effort between a great Airbnb and a poor one.

  • Who wins the MS Publisher 2023 wars? Canva? The new Adobe Express? Microsoft Designer?

  • It must be lovely to be proud of where you're from

  • Our pilot wanted to give us the full Heathrow tour. Never go full Heathrow.

  • Adios, Heathrow

  • The Withers family has done London

  • David Whyte:

    The ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self, the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.

  • Does anyone want to start an Australian airline with me and ChatGPT?

  • Did you know that the Windows XP Bliss wallpaper was photographed in Sonoma? The same Sonoma this year’s macOS is named after.

  • People seeing the iMac, then iPod, MacBook, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, AirPods, and then Apple Vision, on day one: it's stupid, not for me, too expensive, I'll never buy it.

    People seeing the iMac, then iPod, MacBook, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, AirPods, and then Apple Vision, five years later: yes, please, shut up and take my money.

  •  Vision Pro

  • London is a fascinating place where Big Tea™️ has convinced an entire population that garbage water is a valid hot drink.

    Everyone speaks in a cute and fake-sounding British accent, whilst real people actually travel on the public transport which accepts the Apple Express Transit Card feature.

    AirBnbs are priced like Paris but unlike Paris, London is in England, which is far less fancy than France. Here, they drive on the left side of the road but walk on the right side of the path, and there’s this forced politeness in the air like if you’re not polite you’ll get stabbed. Who knew Jack The Ripper could have left such a lasting impression on culture.

    The people are quite proud of their flag, so much so that I could definitely imagine them sailing to other countries and giving them free British flags in exchange for the rights to the whole country.

    Despite their global shirt-fronting and general we-think-we’re-cool dispositions, the people of London either commute longer than they actually work, or they live impoverished and close to the famed series of Tubes, spending their final quids on beer or denying that Europe is a cool place.

    Brits have influenced more culture in my life than I’d care to admit, but I’m still not sure it’s better than their penal colony I call home.

    Long live King Chuck, God knows the bunting and signage stockists and manufacturers couldn’t handle the demand for at least another few years.

  • Mum to kid (about 4) trying to get him to do something: … or someone’s going to be very upset with you.

    Kid, loudly, in the sweetest British accent: well someone is a fucking idiot aren’t they?

    Every parent in the playground just bursts out in laughter.

  • I needed help planning the month ahead's travel, having not been off the beaten track too much in Europe, so I engaged everyone's favourite help, ChatGPT. Check out the chat transcript to see how I got to this itinerary.

  • British things

  • Come together, right now

  • Hey Britain, why did you all get so excited about leaving Europe but still walk on the right hand side of the footpath?

  • Everyone’s talking about augmented reality at WWDC but no-one’s talking about sharing bodily liquid movements.

    Come on Apple. Let me share more bodily liquid stats with my friends.

  • I'd like a 2023 version of Piano Man where Paul, the real estate novelist, upskills to writing prompts for ChatGPT, John the bartender starts a TikTok, and Billy Joel is sampling in Serato.

  • 185 million views on Unsplash, 19 million views on Pexels, and I've just sold my first photo from my print store. Don't rush and twist an ankle, there's no queue at https://art.josh.withers.co.

  • Don't tell anyone but the opening of track six on the new Foo Fighters album had me thinking that there was a Taylor Swift collab inside. It's ok, it was Nothing At All.

  • I made a Steve Jobs chatbot based on the book Make Something Wonderful and asked him how he would bring AR glasses to market.

    "... and we're calling it iVision!"

  • Luna’s following in my footsteps!

    By being a radio broadcaster to an unprofitably small audience.

  • Remember that classic scene from Notting Hill where Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts' characters meet at a travel bookstore and then get a doughnut from that Brisbane doughnut chain?

  • Overcast and 14 degrees Celsius and the Britts are so sure it’s good weather that there’s a kid at the park in their swimmers.

  • London things

  • WordPress just turned 20 years old, which means I've been using it for different projects for a smidge under 20 years.

    My memory is that I was about to use b2/cafelog for a project and someone told me to try this new fork, WordPress.

    Cheers for making the web better, WordPress!

  • Luna, who considers herself royalty, wanted to present at the king’s house

  • Someone call the fire brigade

  • Maggi Hambling:

    It is not difficult to make a work of art, the difficulty lies in being in the right state to do it.

  • Withers on film in Hawaii

  • Withers on film at the TWA Hotel.

    Man, I loved this hotel!

  • Withers in Mexico.

    I found an undeveloped roll of film from our time in Baja California Sur. Missing Cerritos Beach!

  • Withers in Paris on 35mm film

  • What is, and isn’t, AI/artificial intelligence?

    Is displaying the letter a on a computer screen, or printing it to paper with a printer, by pressing the a key on a keyboard artificial intelligence?

  • Every leg of this journey we drop a bag. We’re down three suitcases so far.

    At this stage when we come home to Australia in August we’ll be backpackers.

    Paris 🚄🚇 London

  • Bought Luna her first camera, the Hyundai Excel of first cameras: a Nikon point and shoot.

    I believe that my kids should save for their first Canon but I’m happy to pay for their potato camera.

  • She called us to the church house, gin house, school house, and outhouse. She called us to the Nutbush City limits from the wedding dance floors of Australia to a little old town in Tennessee.

    She was, simply the best dance floor filler.

    She is the Queen of Rock, the Empress of Soul.

    Here’s to the diva, Tina Turner.