For all intensive purposes words don’t matter, right?
I, for one, welcome our new unable to understand actual consent so we’re using a sexual consent app overlords.
PSA: Your kiwi fruit experience will improve once you realise you don’t need to spit out the seeds.
Just say, hypothetically, that you were married to a heavy rug user, what are some things you can encourage your partner to do to stop buying rugs and eventually kick that rug addiction?
Asking for a friend.
In the first two months of both our girls lives we’ve moved house. Oddly enough, into the same house both times. Tomorrow we’re out of the Palmy Crew and back into the Tugun Flight Path!
Police are now targeting a part of the people who misuse the word apart.
Did one person a million years ago cross their fingers and magically their situation changed for the better, or are we all just crossing fingers for feels?
It's not all men, but it's only men.
“It’s not all men, but it’s only men.”
Those are some tough words to read, thank you for sharing Damien Johnson.
It’s not all men, but it is all people who look like me, who identify like I do, it is people who I could be mistaken for, or more importantly, people who I don’t fear but are fearful to other people.
I was thinking about the time that Dale and Barney and I were bashed up by a bunch of guys only meters from the cafe strip in Broadbeach, that was the first and last time I’ve ever been scared for my life, and I’m lead to believe that so many women feel that level of fear a lot more than I ever have.
I believe that a real inhibitor in the conversation about all this
To my brothers who feel threatened by the current movement, my encouragement would be that if you’ve done no wrong, if you’re not abusing your position by suggesting or insinuating sexual motives towards women who you have no right to do so to, then we have nothing to fear.
Stand by our girls and let them know you’re sick of it to, because I sure am. We can’t go back from this, we can’t go around it, or over it, we need to go through it.
Girls, I’m with you, it is ridiculous that you should feel fear to be in public alone, for it to be our default position that you are not safe in the presence of unknown men, and even worse than that, for you not to be safe in the presence of known men.
It’s not all men, but it’s only men.
Most Aussie shop ever
Boooo
“Many of us don’t have enough stories of being taken advantage of or of having something stolen because we don’t take enough risks. Any time we love someone, we risk being hurt. But it’s worth the risk.”
Shane Claiborne.
Remember when internet things were called cyber?
Crypto is the new cyber.
Whenever someone says crypto it means we don’t fully understand it yet.
Someday in a few years we’ll call it by a different name and that’s how you’ll know it’s matured.
Shiver me timbers.
The latest Adobe Photoshop release which is Apple Silicon native just loaded in 4.13 seconds on my MacBook Air, and I’ve got heaps of other apps open etc.
I can’t wait to see what they do with Lightroom Classic, I might have to go back from Darkroom.
I remember reading about wireless networking technology in computer magazines in the 90s.
When they said wireless I didn’t think they’d mean on a 7mm thick glass & metal slab, 160g handheld touchscreen computer, travelling at 800km/h, 11km in the air.
Sitting next to a couple at the airport lounge who have just completed a whole photo shoot, different angles, poses, trying the different camera lenses on the phones, to capture the beauty of their free Qantas continental breakfast.
Years ago, when I was a younger man, you’d get your car serviced and they’d put air in your tyres for free, but I guess that’s how inflation works.
Life’s never going to be the same once you realise what the Barenaked Ladies song “One Week” is really about.
🏄♀️ Bells Beach
🐨 For once, the sign didn’t lie
Something not quite right?
I want the photographer that does the McDonalds menu photos to do my headshots.
Not many people know this, but Gotye’s Somebody That I Used To Know was actually written about Melbourne and I through 2020.
let’s fly jetstar tonight
After our year of “travelling” we’ve got our keys back. We’re going home!
Hey world, why are we giving kids middle names if every time - as a marriage celebrant - I ask one of my couples for the full name of someone, they don’t think the middle name is part of the full name?
You might be surprised to find out that Harry & Meghan are not the first people to get married before they got married.
I’ve married so many people who have wanted to take back their getting married moment from their family, then gone along with the family wedding weeks/months later just to keep everyone happy.
Kind of sad that family would impose so heavily, in my humble opinion.
“My interactions with Bartercard (Qoin) have not raised any red-flags, and as a blockchain tech enthusiast I appreciate its efforts to onboard many non-crypto users.
“We just wanted to get on Zoom with you to make sure you’re as much of a smart ass as you look like on social media”
I book the nicest couples!
Luna is a really coming around to this big sister vibe
First films
I for one am shocked to find out that the Colonialist White British Empire’s Royal Family is racist.
Goldie Grace Withers' birth
Britt and I are very pleased to introduce Goldie Grace Withers to the world. Just before 11am we were standing around the birthing centre cracking jokes, measuring and weighing everything, because Goldie was two weeks overdue, even talking about the possibility of inducing Britt. At 11am contractions started and by 12:28pm on the 2nd of March, 2021, Goldie was earthside weighing 4 kilograms and healthy as we’d hope for.
We walked into the hospital at 9:18am after dropping Luna at kindy for the day, and walked back out at 5:45pm. It was the perfect birth day.
We’re so glad that our friend Bec Zacher was there to capture it for us.
If you complain that you phone is listening to you, but use Google Chrome as your web browser, you’re a hypocrite - quite possibly innocently - but Google Chrome is becoming the least private web browser, despite already being terrible.
🌞
When Luna met Gracie
Let me introduce you to Goldie Grace Withers
No-one’s betting on a 2% chance of winning anything. If there’s a 2% chance of anything happening, that basically means the thing isn’t happening. Our doctor said there would be a 2% chance of us ever falling pregnant, and an even lower chance of us having two children.
But by God’s grace we’ve won that lottery twice now, so I’d love to introduce you to our little girl born yesterday, 4kg and healthy as you could ever hope for, please say hello to Goldie Grace Withers.
Thank you so much to our friend Bec Zacher for these amazing photos.
🌙
Funny looking Old Gum Tree there m8
I just picked Luna up from her trying to play with some rude kids who didn’t want to play with her, so in front of the kids and their yucky mother told her that “we don’t have to play with yucky kids.”
Parenting has really brought out my inner bitch.
What’s with midwives not going all the way and becoming full wives? Asking for a friend.
Luna, we’re taking a photo for mummy, just hold on for a second
I’m at the markets talking to a friend and Luna walks off, treks across the whole market, to go to the stall she knows has watermelon. She gets a basket, puts a watermelon in it, and a carrot, and goes to the cashier.
I think she’s ready to leave home.
I love how Mentos stubbornly believes that people at service stations know what “Chewy Dragees” are.
I know that worrying works because nothing I’ve ever worried about has happened
Saturday morning, February 27, 2021. Baby still going through customs.
Sounds like a Pearl Jam song
I would like to make a public statement regarding the most recent episode, number 175, of the Wedding Photo Hangover podcast.
If you listen to that podcast you may hear me say stupid and offensive things. Alas, that was not me. My voice was hacked. I was just dropping the kids off in the podcast. Jenny and I spoke last night and she said to me, you have to think about this as a Prime Minister, just say you were hacked.
This is a link to the episode I was in no way on - please do not listen.
Palm Beach Boardriders
The Gold Coast property market right now …
Use Vegemite.
If domestic violence killed as many men as it does women, and if it the threat was higher to older people, would we fight domestic violence like we are fighting COVID?
Or would we just keep on letting women get burned alive in Queensland?
You know you’re reading an article not for you when the first interview question is answered by beginning with “we millionaires”.
“We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.”
– Bryan White
Imagine having never heard Enter Sandman before …
If your preferred mode of transport is your Facebook profile pic, I live for your Facebook comments, keep them coming.
This story is my favourite story of today, plus, the update makes it even better.
“I accidentally created an army of crow body guards. Am I liable if my murder attempts murder?”
Minutes before this screenshot I was on the front page of Hacker News, which is all a nerd honestly wants in his life.
I can die happy, affirmed by the nerd community now.
Sometimes when I want to feel fancy I imagine my car is a private jet, but for roads.
Tap your phone at Gold Coast bus stops to access my website
My February 2021 Apple Fitness challenge is to walk 227km in the month. So I was out late last night closing in on the target when I stopped and looked at the bus timetable sign at a local bus stop.
That NFC tag piqued my curiosity. I wondered if it worked on iPhone?
So I tapped my iPhone 12 Pro up against the NFC logo and a website hyperlink notification popped up like when you scan a QR code.
And TransLink, the local public transport provider, had neglected to renew the domain name used in the NFC tag.
I now own the transl.in domain name and the people of the Gold Coast now have easy access to my website. 🤷♂️
As an example, a local bus stop links to http://transl.in/k_300428
Just checking because I don’t want to screw up this vaccine thing: Are we all supposed to wear the green and gold for our vaccination selfies? Did ScoMo wear his under his formalwear? Did he change? What’s the protocol here?
“People fall so in love with their pain, they can’t leave it behind. The same as the stories they tell. We trap ourselves.”
— Chuck Palahniuk
I’m titling this sad piece “July 2020, an infrequent flyer”
The Facebook news ban hammer fell on our training business a day after I posted an article on surviving a Facebook ban lol … you’re great Facebook, thanks m8
The Foo Fighters were AIDS denialists?
How has it taken 20 years for me to know that a) AIDS/HIV denialiam is a thing, and b) my favourite band - The Foo Fighters - were backers of the thesis & have never officially walked it back? Thank you to Martin McKenzie-Murray in The Monthly, John Safran’s Music Jamboree, and Goat
Who should be a politician and why?
I bet you have an opinion on politicians and who is a terrible one.
Do you think the incentives that used to exist to become a pollie/leader have evaporated while the work/accountability has (rightly) increased significantly, so less of the best people in our community want to stand up to lead today?
I’ve honestly considered serving in government, and aside from rabid imposter syndrome, and not knowing if I’m the kind of person that I think should be a leader in the community - like a MP - the incentive for me to stand up is ever reducing.
I can think of it now, journos or keyboard warriors scouring over my years of internet history. Past clients who didn’t like me weighing in on podcasts, and imagine if they started talking to my family about politics or even me. Like my first step-mother probably still thinks I’m a gay priest like I overheard her telling someone a few years ago. All whilst earning a less than corporate wage but not having the liberties to act like a corporation but instead, acting in the best interest of the electorate - not just those who elected you.
Dear DJI,
I’d like a new Mavic model please.
In late 2016, five years ago, you set my heart on fire. I’d been watching the Phantoms ghosting through the sky making aerial photography for three years. Your Inspire line had inspired me for over two. But the Mavic, the sweet little foldable package with a great camera, won me over, be still my beating heart.
That first relationship with the Mavic Pro was like the first time I drank whisky neat. I knew everything before then was wrong, and only this was right. I saw the Platinum and the Air taxi onto the UAV runways of our hearts and knew something bigger was coming.
And in late 2018 that Mavic 2 boarding call sounded. I fell in love all over again. With the choice between a Zoom model or a Pro model with that fat ‘Blad camera, I knew the Mavic 2 Pro was for me, and boy did we see the world. That Mavic 2 Pro and I, we travelled far and wide. Through America, New Zealand, Bali, Iceland, and all over my home that they call Downunder, we made photos and videos and had so much fun.
In Iceland in late 2019 my little Two Pro got a little bit confused - I think we were too close to the Arctic polar cap - and despite my best piloting, the compass wanted more, and she flew into the distance, and I’m guessing the side of a mountain about 25 minutes flight time away. Luckily for me, the DJI Go app data saved my bacon and a warranty-replaced Mavic 2 was in the mail.
In late 2020 the drone and my relationship had blossomed to the point where I felt like we could expand our boundaries and try new positions. On this one sunset afternoon one of us got a little too close to a wave, and then amidst the confusion, we got a little too close to a rock pool, and the rocks, and the pool, and things didn’t end well.
Alas, now I am drone-less.
I even received spousal approval for a new purchase as a birthday present last year.
But I look at the DJI product lineup and can’t help but feel like it’s missing a Mavic 3. In the intervening years new Airs and Minis have been released, so your passion for small has not waned. Yet the Mavic line of spectacular cameras, rocking some sweet sweet Hasselblad glass on a small and foldable aircraft, has gone wanting.
Please put a new drone into my hands, DJI.
Please don’t make me buy whatever Sony is selling.
“Why Josh was never invited back onto Studio 10”
A screenshot, circa late February 2021.
Note: First recorded use of the term PoN, an acronym for People of News.
What a beautiful time to be alive in Australia
James Clear’s 3-2-1 regular email is such a nice format, I have to recommend it. 3 ideas from him, 2 quotes from others, 1 question.
“I wish Australia would take Facebook’s rejection as a sign it should rethink its approach to media regulation entirely. It could just tax companies based on their revenues, for example.”
I’m looking for someone in a full-time, or maybe almost full-time, role as a content creator working almost explicitly inside Wordpress. They need to know Wordpress, writing, photo blogging, and have a personal interest in weddings and marriage.
So I’ve been thinking about this a lot.
There really aren’t that many songs about rainbows, and even less that would lead us to think about what’s on the other side.
Weird flex, Kermit.
Luna vs. Shark
Hanging out on ABC radio this morning
I’m (apparently) the celebrant you call when you want to find out if you have to have sex with your new spouse on the wedding night …
Everything you’ve just read here, and everything you’re about to read, including this, is a performance.
On a personal note, as of midnight tonight my borders are closed to people from the Greater Border Closing region. If you have closed a border in the last 14 days, you’ll need to quarantine for 14 years if you want to visit me.
Guys, I can’t stress this enough, real life snakes are nothing - I repeat, nothing - like Allens Snakes. Do not eat.
The most fascinating element of big tech is when a newcomer has such a good idea that it’s deemed stealable by the incumbents.
Twitter launches Spaces, a Clubhouse copy.
I’m looking for the cheapest possible prices to get ‘Make Poverty History’ shirts manufactured please.
Please forward all quotes and appropriate comedic responses to my inbox.
Butterfly on inside of the windscreen. Circa February, 2021.
Babymoon @ The Calile
Tuesday sunrise because sleep is overrated // Jolly’s Loookout, Mount Nebo
6:29am and the staff member at the hotel lobby bar & cafe says to the barista, “you know what I like” and smiles.
Yet the barista did not know what she likes.
Thankfully I said, “long black with cream, please” and then smiled.
“Must everyone like you?”
Hey, be real with me, do you guys ever wear your daughter’s dresses?
February 2021 would have to be the most visually pleasing month I’ve ever seen.
Sunrise
Jumping into Sunday like …
May, the EK
How good is it watching the elected leaders of the different Australian states squabble like children in a playground whilst they sink their states into financial distress.
Peggy
Fried chicken
Do we want our journos tweeting or not? NYT asks the big questions about bias and opinion
Running the numbers on great writing
“Hemingway, Morrison and Steinbeck, their best books, the ones that are held up and have the most attention on them now, are the books with the fewest amount of –ly adverbs.”
One Writer Used Statistics to Reveal the Secrets of What Makes Great Writing
What if I’m not smart enough to know if my thoughts are correct?
Not a 5G tower, bro, but cool birth story
🌈
What the hell is going on with guys who don’t tie up their shoelaces?
If there’s one thing the month of January 2021 has taught me, it’s that the Australian celebrant population (9000 odd celebrants) isn’t emotionally prepared to have received two emails from me in the same month.
On today’s business to-do list:
- Answer a complaint from the Office Of Fair Trading about a couple who changed their 2020 wedding date to a day I wasn’t available for, and then was available for but then they didn’t want me, and who weren’t eligible for a refund, but got a 50% refund any way and they’ve taken us to the OFT for the remaining 50%.
- Respond to a credit card chargeback for an elopement that was supposed to be in New Zealand last September but they moved it to April 2021 and just recently decided they wanted to get married now in Western Australia while the borders were closed.
- File another couple’s wedding cancellation.
- Freak out about the calendar for the rest of the year because almost every new enquiry I’m not available for because last year’s weddings are now in this year’s calendar unless of course they’re taking us to court because COVID ruined their wedding and they expect refunds from small businesses when even Qantas only gives credit vouchers.
- Apply to a court to actually hold a hearing regarding a refund complaint for a Brisbane couple who had booked us for a Western Australian elopement but because WA closed their borders we all couldn’t get there so instead of planning something in the possible they took us to court and the court didn’t hold a hearing it just ruled in their favour so I now need to ask them to set that ruling aside wtf?
- Take more photos of Luna.
- Get in-house legal counsel?
- Procrastinate on social media.
- Wonder if there’ll be a SanityKeeper? I don’t want your money, ScoMo, I just want to go to Hawaii whilst this bushfire burns.
🌙 Our two year old adult
That face when mum has moved your stash
You know newsletters are a thing when Facebook feels so threatened by them that it needs to develop it’s own newsletter product. Via the Techmeme via the NYT
I can’t help but feel that Margot Robbie in a bathtub would explain Gamestop better than most journalists.
Robin Rendle’s beautiful essay on newsletters and the original sin of the internet is that, beautiful, and inspiring. Please view the essay.
"To disrupt legacies of exclusivity, institutionalized racism, and complicity. To build a culture of inclusion and accountability."
This article by @mayags floated into my timeline today, challenging American storytelling gatekeepers to consider their gatekeeping position. It’s timely as Australia wrestles with its racist past.
Happy Australians-arguing-about-a-public-holiday-whilst-not-doing-anything-actually-good-for-the-country week! It’s a real invasion on my senses.
Sunsets // a new way of measuring each day until it’s gone
This is the kind of drone video I wish I made, one where a crocodile attacks the drone whilst making the film.
Install Hush on your Mac and iPhone/iPad to get rid of all those annoying banners, pop ups, distractions asking you to approve or accept cookies. Hallelujah.
I can honestly say the most exciting stage of parenting a toddler for me so far has been when she learned how to use door handles.
How cheap money and algorithms shaped the last decade and the opposite will shape the next
This is a powerful read for people trying to mentally tie a bow on the 2010s. Ranjan wraps it up saying that the cheap money thanks to near zero interest rate policies we’ve had since the GFC, and social media algorithms, are what shaped the last ten years of our lives.
“I’m incredibly excited about the coming decade because I am genuinely hopeful the two core trends I outlined will be reversed.
Algorithmically-optimized lying has prominently entered the conversation to the point our ex-President was kicked off. There’s simply no way money can remain this cheap for a prolonged period of time. What that unwind looks like is an entirely separate post, but there will once again be discipline imposed on the allocation of capital. Financial and technological regulation is far more imaginable than just a few years ago. Change is coming.”
10 seconds of pure iPhone exposure
With all the science, research, wisdom, and love in the world well never stop people dying. But we can stop people living.
The most misunderstood element of the internet is how you or I can just post things there and they become truth. At least that’s what I was aiming for when I created the internet.
Guy freaking out a little bit a disco: I should write a song about having a sense of poise and rationality.
Google threatens to block Google search from Australia!!!
A friend kindly and jokingly mentioned that life for us looked to be all fun going by social media recently.
And life is pretty fine, but …
So I thought I’d share what the first half of just today has been for me.
- 2 couples cancelling.
- 3 couples moving to new dates, two of those in different cities both moved to dates next to each other so that’s four weddings in a row that week in July.
- 1 couple who have had 2 New Zealand bookings with us already, and we’ve been working with them since November 2019 on their elopement bookings, are now fighting for a refund because they just want to get married now despite WA closing their borders again.
- 2 flights cancelled, with new tickets issued after a call to Qantas, but with one of the flights we now need to fly in a day earlier - so I’m not home for Britt’s birthday - but the accomodation isn’t available a day earlier so we need to get extra accomodation and of course, at our own cost because imagine if I asked the couple to pay for it because Qantas isn’t flying out of Gold Coast that day.
- 3 wedding enquiries replied to.
- 4 mentoring and support replies to Celebrant Institute members needing business support.
- Plus our home which we haven’t been in since March last year because we rented it out so we could travel to weddings and elopements around the globe for a year, has a pool problem so I’m on the phone with the pool company and the real estate trying to not spend thousands fixing a pool problem that wouldn’t have happened if we were in our home.
Which is all fine, seriously, this is just my job, and I’m doing it.
But this is simply four hours of a Friday morning in my life sitting in a Hobart Airbnb about to drive two hours to an elopement that was supposed to happen in Tuscany last year for the loveliest couple who I legally married last March when we were sure we’d be in Italy in July for them.
I’m honestly just really over it all.
It’s been 319 days since we were in our home and our business was 100% fun and I feel like we’re being forced to apologise for running a successful international wedding business.
“As the automotive brand with likely the highest name recognition across all demographics in spite of not having a new product in 40 years, we still believe that none of the above is insurmountable and believe that others will see value in it, as well.”
Via DeLorean
Thing I’m just casually dropping into conversation today then laughing: “more like QA-wrong, am I right?!”
Podcasting turns 20 today. @podnews tells the story with Eric Nuzum.
Luna, presented without caption
I don’t like to boast, but sometimes I use occasional chairs frequently.
President Trump has just pardoned my passing of gas that everyone’s been talking about. I’m a free man.
Podcast you should sample: Queens of the Drone Age
New podcast recommendation: Queens Of The Drone Age!
It’s a new podcast, two episodes deep so far, and it’s hosted by four Australian tech journalists/nerds in media.
It’s a well recorded and produced show, and really accessible. It might be about tech and the culture surrounding tech, but it’s not a nerd-show. It’s really accessible to listen to for people who might like and appreciate tech things but aren’t nerds like me.
Search for, or click through to, Queens Of The Drone Age.
What a time to be alive
Honestly, you haven’t lived until you’ve watched from afar as your daughter interrupts a beautiful little Instagram moment a mother is capturing of her own child. The mother looks around for an adult to take responsibility while I pretend I can’t see. It’s everything.
Luna (runs around the house screaming): Noo pooooo! Narrator: And yet there was poo.
7:30pm Queensland time tonight (GMT+10) I’m hosting my first @joinClubhouse room and it would be absolutely grand if my friends would join me for a chat. I’m hoping to record it as a podcast and drop it on The Rebels Guide Podcast as well.
With most new relationships being the result of algorithmic matching, does that mean computers are breeding humans?
The DJI Mini 2 couldn’t deliver the still images I was hoping for. Who would of ever thought that a drone lighter than an orange wouldn’t deliver great photos ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Thank god for the Apple return policy!
Have any M1 Mac owners recently tried to install an iPhone app .ipa file (circumventing the developer not making the iOS app available in the Mac App Store)? It worked for some apps when I first upgraded, but the iOS App Installer is erroring out now.
Let’s be honest guys, in this algorithm driven world, it’s only going to be a matter of time until the word ‘ducking’ is classified as a swear word.
This is one of those articles I think I’ll read a few times over the next few weeks.
“Everyone reacts, few respond.”
“McDonald’s Theory On How Best to Rescue Conversations” by Karthik Rajan
“Whenever you poo or pee, sterilise it for half an hour before flushing, this is to protect our city’s sewage.”
I’m two days deep Clubhouse and I’m feeling bullish about its potential.
It’s a powerfully personal medium, with deep accountability (live voice). It’s like the child talkback radio and social networking.
I’ve got one invite left if you’re interested.
Show me a more Australian meal than a Chicken Schnitzel shaped like mainland Australia, served with veges, chips, and gravy.
I’ll wait.
We brought a Peugeot to a V8 fight …
Feature request for iMessage, Facebook Messenger, Instagram DMs, and Facebook Page Messenger: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD LET ME SEE UNREAD MESSAGES SO I CAN “READ” THAT ONE UNREAD MESSAGE WHICH I CAN’T FIND ANYWHERE. Maybe a simple “filter by unread” or somethn?
Just googled “Is it ok to just leave the toys out spread across the lounge room floor overnight like does it even matter” in case I was wrong.
Homo sapiens won the evolutionary race because we were connected
Research shows that Homo neanderthalensis (otherwise known as Neanderthals, the species of people that didn’t survive where we did) was more intelligent and had a bigger brain than Homo sapiens, but Sapiens, Humans, were connected. We were social.
We won not because of our intellect but because of our sociability.
“If Neanderthals were a super-fast computer, we were an old-fashioned PC – with wi-fi. We were slower, but better connected.”
From the book I’m currently reading, “Humankind: A Hopeful History” by Rutger Bregman.
I’m speaking at the Wedding Business CEO Summit
Registration is officially open for the Wedding Business CEO Summit!
This summit is hosted by, and created by my friend Heidi, to help wedding business owners go from overwhelmed & overworked to streamlined & more profitable than ever.
I’m speaking along with 24 other incredible speakers with topics ranging from finances, pricing, integration, going full-time and everything in between. I’m talking about creating a meaningful and fun customer journey!
The summit kicks off on Australia Day and it’s going to be 5 action-packed days that you won’t want to miss!
Click through my short link josh.show/summit to learn more and get your free ticket!
When I’m president imma make it illegal for kids to crawl or climb up slippery slides.
How, in the 2021st year of our Lord, do we still need to go to two different huts for sunglasses and pizza?
You know what’s really underrated? Cookies.
I can’t help but feel that the rice must have had a really good PR team early on.
To go from “looks like dead maggots” to “most eaten food on the planet” is a grand effort.
record scratch freeze frame “Yup, that’s me. You’re probably wondering how I got into this situation…”
Today was the wrong day to want to legitimately want to buy toilet paper in Southeast Queensland.
Googles bidet
Little bit morbid there, Apple Photos
When Orange Hair says to his followers that their journey is “only just beginning” does that mean they’re all about to drink Kool-Aid before the alien space ship comes and collects them?
“(Trump) has refused to accept the basic bargain of democracy, which is to accept the result, win or lose.”
“Tech level determined using Qsin”
America, our love story, and how we fell out of love
19 years and four months ago today, when I was just 19, I woke up on the Gold Coast and discovered the United States of America.
Before the 12th of September, 2001, I knew of a foreign nation north of Mexico, south of Canada, where a few of my favourite TV shows, movies, and bands were from. I’d heard of ‘Bush’ or The White House', and between friends we’d joke about “not having sexual relations with that woman.”
Seinfeld was tied with South Park as my favourite TV show, and I thought I did a pretty good US accent for a gag.
But as Australia awoke on the 12th of September, 2001, we learned of the attacks on the USA.
I was glued to the TV news for days. I had a computer at home without an internet connection and couldn’t afford a phone line plus dialup Internet, but found out that Telstra offered prepaid telephone landlines and prepaid dialup internet, so within days had my own personal internet connection I could spend endless hours on (until my credit expired) discovering this ‘America’ that was under attack.
I subscribed to Time Magazine and started reading stories of the American people coming together, being together, joining together, in the days and weeks after the attack. I was hooked.
I wanted to know everything there was to know about these people, and this country, that was so united despite the terror that rained down on them.
Over the years I’ve been blessed to visit the ‘home of the brave’ many times. I’ve spoken at conferences there, and even married many couples in Hawaii, New York, Oregon, and California. I was even supposed to be there this week for a wedding in Orlando - but thanks to covid I’m here, home, in Australia.
In 2011 when Donald Trump questioned if Barack Obama was “made in America?” it was simply comedy fodder for an Australian on breakfast radio. We all laughed.
But in the nine years since that tweet, through to today where Trump literally encouraged mobs of people to storm the US Capitol, that America I idolised has changed so greatly.
America was a place I dreamed of ‘making it’ and a country I always wanted to explore. I dreamt of living there and building a life a-fresh in the land of the free.
Today however, it’s a whimper of the country I researched so earnestly in 2001.
Today it’s divided, angry, and ignorant of the plight of the persons of America, so heavily focused on the synecdoche America, so ignorant of the American.
Oh, say can we see, that America I fell in love with 19 years ago?
A shop displayed a sign announcing that they were “only excepting card payments at this time” and it’s really sitting with me hey.
Day one of Baby Drone making photos and we’re back into lockdown because of fear of getting wet.
Watching this wombat sleep today reminded me that the wombat is my spirit animal
👩🚀 I always wanted you to go into space, mannnn (photo not by Babylon Zoo, only the caption)
We can dance if we want to. We can leave your friends behind. Cause your friends don’t dance, and if they don’t dance, well, they’re no friends of mine.
‘Nice’ doesn’t sell ads
I’ve found the most quotable book I’ve read in a while.
“Imagine for a moment that a new drug comes on the market. It’s super-addictive, and in no time everyone’s hooked. Scientists investigate and soon conclude that the drug causes, I quote, ‘a misperception of risk, anxiety, lower mood levels, learned helplessness, contempt and hostility towards others, and desensitization’. Would we use this drug? Would our kids be allowed to try it? Would government legalise it? To all of the above: yes. Because what I’m talking about is already one of the biggest addictions of our times. A drug we use daily, that’s heavily subsidised and is distributed to our children on a massive scale. That drug is the news.”
Ruther Bergman’s book Humankind was recommended to me by my Aunt over Christmas as we talked about the light subject of saving the planet and bringing peace to planet earth.
Tracey recommended the book and in the first chapter Rutger is straight in for the attack on the news.
“I was raised to believe that the news is good for your development. That as an engaged citizen it’s your duty to read the paper and watch the evening news. That the more we follow the news, the better informed we are and the healthier our democracy. This is still the story many parents tell their kids, but scientists are reaching very different conclusions. The news, according to dozens of studies, is a mental health hazard. First to open up this field of research, back in the 1990s, was George Gerbner (1919–2005). He also coined a term to describe the phenomenon he found: mean world syndrome, whose clinical symptoms are cynicism, misanthropy and pessimism. People who follow the news are more likely to agree with statements such as ‘Most people care only about themselves.’ They more often believe that we as individuals are helpless to better the world. They are more likely to be stressed and depressed. A few years ago, people in thirty different countries were asked a simple question: ‘Overall, do you think the world is getting better, staying the same, or getting worse?’ In every country, from Russia to Canada, from Mexico to Hungary, the vast majority of people answered that things are getting worse. The reality is exactly the opposite. Over the last several decades, extreme poverty, victims of war, child mortality, crime, famine, child labour, deaths in natural disasters and the number of plane crashes have all plummeted. We’re living in the richest, safest, healthiest era ever. So why don’t we realise this? It’s simple. Because the news is about the exceptional, and the more exceptional an event is – be it a terrorist attack, violent uprising, or natural disaster – the bigger its newsworthiness. You’ll never see a headline reading NUMBER OF PEOPLE LIVING IN EXTREME POVERTY DOWN BY 137,000 SINCE YESTERDAY, even though it could accurately have been reported every day over the last twenty-five years. Nor will you ever see a broadcast go live to a reporter on the ground who says, ‘I’m standing here in the middle of nowhere, where today there’s still no sign of war.’”
With a careful note on journalism versus the news:
“Of course, by ‘the news’ I don’t mean all journalism. Many forms of journalism help us better understand the world. But the news – by which I mean reporting on recent, incidental and sensational events – is most common.”
And then he slides right into Facebook and Silicon Valley’s current obsession with buying and retailing our attention.
“This modern media frenzy is nothing less than an assault on the mundane. Because, let’s be honest, the lives of most people are pretty predictable. Nice, but boring. So while we’d prefer having nice neighbours with boring lives (and thankfully most neighbours fit the bill), ‘boring’ won’t make you sit up and take notice. ‘Nice’ doesn’t sell ads. And so Silicon Valley keeps dishing us up ever more sensational clickbait, knowing full well, as a Swiss novelist once quipped, that ‘News is to the mind what sugar is to the body.’
I believe that ‘Humankind: A Hopeful History’ by Rutger Bregman is required reading for anyone who’s upset, angry, our generally uncomfortable about the state of our people entering 2021.
In case you’d heard the outrage and you weren’t sure who he was, I just wanted to clarify: I am not the bean dad. I only make Luna wait her entire life for baked beans.
No-one is born with a passion, or a dream. Passions and dreams come from and are nurtured in our community, which is why we need to fight for and protect our common unities, our community.
The fact that Uber achieved the same growth in 10% of its $150 million as spend is one thing, the story of how they got there, that’s something else entirely!
How to overcome Phone Addiction [Solutions + Research]
“Phone addiction is one of the biggest non-drug addiction in human history. Studies show that excessive phone use is linked to procrastination, suicide (example), spoilt sleep, food and water neglect, headaches, lower productivity, unstable relationships, poor physical health (eye strain, body-aches, posture, hand strain), and poor mental health (depression, anxiety, stress). Some of these problems can be both causes and effects of phone addiction (procrastination, anxiety, unstable relationships, etc.).”
It’s cute to see New South Wales and Victoria playing a game of State Of Origin. It’d just be sad to see NSW lose at the Covid football version tho.
With many of us grounded, has anyone had a play of PC Globe to try and scratch that travel itch? You might need to upgrade to a 486 to run it well.
“Dadda, not Josh” is Luna’s new way of introducing me to strangers. She’s a weird Hype Girl.
The book 1984, but instead of Big Brother, it’s Facebook.
Guilty as charged
This American itch—that we must “DO SOMETHING” and “DO GOOD,” as Banfield put it—also fosters a psychological-sociological trap, wherein Americans take the view that society “could solve all problems if it only tried hard enough; [and the fact] that a problem continues to exist is therefore proof positive of its guilt.”
The Perils of “Doing Something” in City Journal
“A prank attempt went terribly wrong for a 14-year old boy from Boise, as he was raped by a 700-lb grizzly bear while walking around in the woods in a sasquatch costume.”
If you’ve been following for a while you might have sensed a tension between the joy I find in being online and the disappointment I find in news feed algorithims.
So I’ve been curating my own media diet for a while now and thought you might like a peek inside.
A podcast I first heard a year ago today still sits with me a year later, and I’ve listened to it maybe five times over. Cooking As an Art, With Jerry Saltz and Dave Cheng. It has almost nothing to do with cooking, or art, but more to do with life.
The future of music journalism is on (wtf) TikTok (sad face)
“TikTok music blogs have thrived during quarantine, and they’re helping to blow up new acts”
Simon Owens on 'the Substack problem'
“2021 will be the year that publishers start to form strategies to deal with the Substack Problem. By that, I mean they’ll need to find ways to discourage their star writers from leaving to launch their own Substack newsletters. In the most likely scenario, they’ll make deals with writers to launch the newsletter under the banner of the media company. They might structure the deal so the writer gets to keep their current salary and then some percentage of the subscriber income they generate – similar to the advances and royalties that book publishers dole out. This will be enticing to the writers because they get to maintain job security while also benefiting directly from their success. They can also grow their audience much more quickly with the help of the media company. It’s a win win for both parties.”
Simon Owens, on his Substack, which I highly recommend subscribing to
My issue with Spotify and Amazon muscling in on podcasting and how Apple has failed as well
Life on the internet, and in podcasting, is a game of middlemen (middlepeople?). The middlepeople actually really benefit from being in the middle, more than we imagine, and it’s an easy position to hold, one that most of the middlepeople hold in secret. Spotify is muscling it’s way into becoming the middle person between you, your favourite podcast, and the 246 companies that receive that data. Meanwhile big-spending Amazon is muscling it’s way into our listening habits, and even my podcast app of choice, Overcast, is a middleperson by design in that the Overcast servers know what podcasts I listen to, and those servers are continually polling the different podcast servers.
Spotify and Amazon I take issue with because they want to put a toll booth, even if it’s a free toll booth, on an already open road. Overcast is operating a booth on the road, but it’s not taking a toll. Whilst all of that is going on, the original champions of the podcast space, Apple Podcasts is - more than possiblly unknowingly - oversharing to the nth degree about who is driving on the free road, and I feel like that sharing needs to be reduced.
Have you played the hottest new web game of 2021? School or Prison
Much applause to the people behind Pentax cameras for this seemingly crazy idea to not go mirrorless. The unpopular route is often not filled with riches of finance, but it is full with riches of art, joy, and soul.
This is a fascinating story about an Australia man with an illness discovering horology
Algorithms are destroying our communities and what can we, or I, do about it?
There needs to be a better way to Internet
Maybe it’s because 2020 gave me many opportunities to think through the implications of which technology companies I’m quite beholden too, or maybe it’s because 2020 brought to light so many of the unhealthy business practices so many technology companies are embroiled in, but I’ve been trying to make big changes in my lifestyle in response to either, or both - because I believe that tech company algorithms are destroying marriages, friendships, families, and communities. I believe our privacy is important.
Social Media
I find so much connection and joy in the social elements of the web today, be it Facebook or Instagram, Twitter or YouTube, but I’m increasingly aware that anything more than a passing view into any of these portals is unhealthy for my soul, and an increasingly unhealthy place to “spend my data.”
I feel less and less comfortable with having my friendships, interests, politics, faith, and philosophy influenced by algorithms.
There’s a real tension here because I enjoy publishing and broadcasting stories - my own, my family’s, my friend’s, and the stories in my greater circle of life - plus I love listening to and reading your stories.
There’s just an inherently unhealthy aspect to a non-human deciding what you should hear about from your community.
Podcasting
I have a 25 year love story with the audio storytelling medium. It was 1996 when Paul McDermott, Mikey Robbins, and the Sandman were on Triple J for Breakfast and I feel in love with the idea of telling stories and entertainment purely through audio - no pictures, no words, no video.
As we skipped into a new millennium Dave Winer invented really simple syndication, RSS, and Adam Curry and Cameron Reilly started making podcasts, I witnessed the democratisation of audio away from broadcast radio despite forming and then walking away from a career in the artform.
Today as I witness Spotify and Amazon work hard at putting podcasts behind data-collecting, algorithm-driven, firewalls I honestly feel sad for the loss of the open industry of podcasting. I’m not saying all podcasts should be free. I personally pay for a number of podcasts, I’m just saying we should be able to access them without sacrificing personal freedoms, liberties, and without sharing excesses of personal data like what podcasts I listen to, which ones I listen all the way through, and the ideas algorithms can derive from that data.
Our entertainment and our information should be democratically available and curated by people, not by algorithms.
News, information, and articles
If you search on Google today for “The first podcast” you’ll see Google News articles for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s first podcast episode.
Our news and information, our thought-pieces and studies, our stories and anecdotes deserve better than being submitted to an algorithmic in the hopes that the mathematics decide they’re worth being read.
Communication
I don’t like the idea of the algorithms feeding me news, information, funny videos, and podcasts, to also be reading my messages and communications between people I love.
Photos
I have so much love for the art of photography. I would love you to enjoy my photos, and even more so I’d love to enjoy your viewport to the world. Maybe some of mine can hang on your wall as art, and vice-versa.
But I don’t want Facebook, Google, and Amazon to degrade that experience, and worse, abuse it for their own data-gathering needs about where we all were, and what we did.
Hardware
I don’t use Google Android phones because I don’t trust Google to run an operating system I could trust, and I use Apple computers because of the opposite, I enjoy knowing that my data is mostly processed locally - not in a data-overlord’s cloud. It’s an expensive choice, but until I know any better, I’m using Apple computers and mobile phones.
Entertainment
So many TVs today are selling our viewing data to advertising companies, and purely because Amazon and Google’s names sre in the product title, the Chromecast and Fire sticks are products I don’t trust.
The fix?
I’m leaning back into the open web, reading blogs on people’s own websites like mine where you’re reading this to hear my friend’s and family’s stories, listening to open podcasts that are available to whoever would like to listen to them, articles and news organisations. I’m communicating via phone call, iMessage, and email - not via comment fields and discussion boards, or if I am commenting and replying to posts I want to do it on a social network whose business model is clear and open, like Micro.Blog. Instead of waiting for entertainment, information, news, and articles to be recommended by an algorithm, I would like to see it in my RSS reader, or even better, see you link to it from your blog, and if I want you to read it, I can link to it from mine. I’m taking my photos back from Google and Facebook and sinking them deep into Apple Photos because I feel like I can trust them to be stored safely and enjoyed beautifully there.
I’m not insisting that my choices are the only and best, but with what I know today, and with the resources I have, and what I’d like to do and enjoy, I think these are pretty good choices.
Why should we care?
I’m writing all this so I might encourage you to come with me. I love the idea of us not talking over Facebook Messenger, and finding out about your pregnancy via an Instagram Story. I relish the idea of you listening to a podcast and thinking I might enjoy it so you share it with me. I dream of a day where local news and information is broadcast and published without fear of it not performing well in the news feed or without generating enough advertising revenue.
I hope for a day where the internet and our relationships live harmoniously - not in fear of each other.
We might never get there, but we can try.
Thriller idea: As the year 2020 is escorted from the courthouse to a life sentence in prison, after a solid 365 days of wrecking havoc on the earth, a terrorist group hijacks the cavalcade and releases 2020 back into the world with a new hairstyle and a different colour jacket.
We’ll call it “2020 Vision.”
In my almost 40 years on the planet, and most of them in Queensland, I’ve never kissed a stranger on NYE, or any other time. Am I doing life wrong or is the Chief Health Officer saying that sexually abusing strangers is the norm on New Year’s Eve?
Don’t let anyone tell you today is December 31st, 2020.
If you thought everything else that happened this year was scary, 2020 is going out with a bang with delightfully terrifying dancing robots from Boston Dynamics
Don’t even talk to her before her morning oat milk froth.
There’s a mum sitting in the conductor’s seat of the playground train Luna wants to drive. Do I have jurisdiction here or do I have to just sit here and let her ruin my kids day?
A new family and travel photo workflow
For my personal travel and family photos, I’ve started a new photos workflow, and I thought other people who are beginning their family photo journey like I have in the past few years might be interested.
The premise of the workflow is that photos begin on my iPhone, Britt’s iPhone, or my Sony A6400. They are processed, and then iCloud Photo Library is my one true family photo library.
I’ve put loads (months) of work into clearing and culling that library down to about 21,000 photos now, and just recently finished geotagging every single last photo in the library using Metapho.
Because I like the idea of capturing as much data as possible so I have wiggle room afterward, I shoot on my iPhone and Sony A6400 in RAW, and previously I’ve used Lightroom to process photos then export to Photos. Recently however I’ve moved processing to Darkroom. I wasn’t comfortable with paying for Lightroom CC storage, and then having to make decisions about keeping originals either on a hard drive, or to increase my subscription and size for Adobe’s Cloud, so I’m keeping them in Apple’s iCloud - a product I already use and pay for.
The workflow simply looks like this:
1. Import: I import the photos to my iPhone’s camera roll. If I’ve already taken photos on my phone, they’re there. I ask Britt to Airdrop her photos to me. For photos from my camera I have the Apple Lightning to SD Card adapter, and import the raw DNGs straight into the camera roll.
2. Cull: I delete photos I don’t think I’ll keep. They stay in the Apple Photos deleted items for 30 days, more than enough time for regret to realise itself, or for me to realise I never needed those photos anyway.
3. Process: I open Darkroom and because I’ve got access to my Photos library within Darkroom I can edit these new photos as I like. Darkroom has some great inbuilt presets and you can build your own as well.
4. Modify Original: Once I’m happy with the crop, straighten, clour grade, edit, and what-not within Darkroom this is the impotant step. In the top right hand corner is the share icon, and I choose “Modify Original” so that the adjustments are stored inside the image file. It’s actually not stored inside, it’s essentially a little zip file, with the .ARW raw DNG file from the camera, a .plist file with the adjustments made in Darkroom, and then a rendered .JPG which is the image we all see, share, and enjoy. This means that there is a package in the iCloud Photo Library which containts those three files, totallying 40.4MB, instead of maybe 15.2MB. I don’t know why this is important to me apart from my inner burning knowledge that once data is gone, you don’t get it back.
5. Location, location, location: Aside from the image itself, there are three pieces of metadata important to me. The first is the location, the geotag. I love how Apple Photos brings you memories inside the Photos app, and also on my homescreen using the new iOS 14 Photos widget, and those memories are often location related. So I use Metapho as discussed at the top to assign a geotag to every photo that doesn’t have one. Metapho is smart in that it looks at images shot at the same time and date and tries to help by pivoting off that data. Photos taken on my iPhone generally already have a geotag, and photos taken on my Sony might be geotagged if the terrible Sony Imaging Edge app was working that day. Images taken inside often have a slightly incorrect geotag as well, because GPS doesn’t work in the house, so I’ll correct those images.
6. Who’s in the photo?: This step needs some time, because your iPhone literally needs to be plugged in, and in sleep mode, generally overnight, sometimes for a few nights. The process is about allowing Apple Photos to read your photos and detect faces. This all happens on device and at its own pace. I’ll go back to photos and see what faces have been detected and I’ll assign, or re-assign, the person name to that face so I could then search for photos of someone and find all of those photos in once search. This also adds into the memories feature. If Apple Photos hasn’t detected a face after a few days and I’m feeling pedantic, I’ll open Photos on my MacBook and in the Get Info window you can add faces manually.
7. Captions and Albums: I’ll be honest, I have been lazy in this arena, but my goal is to caption photos accordingly, and if possible to also group them into manual albums based around events.
8. What if they’re professional photos?: We take as many opportunties as we can to have our photos taken professionally, and those photos are often delivered weeks later, often with not-correct date or time information, and with no geotag. I’ll import all of these photos to my Apple Photos app and manually correct date, time, and geotag using Metapho.
9. Backup: A final and important step is to make sure that Apple Photos on your device, and iCloud Photo Library in the cloud isn’t the only place these photos exist. You always need a backup. Mine is Google Photos - which I regret - and also in Backblaze. Ideally I’d have a physical backup but I’m just not there yet. A really good backup is to also print the photos. You’ll never regret hanging them on a wall or having the prints available to thumb through, like this photo of me as a toddler hanging at my aunty’s house.
I hope this helped you formalise some sort of photo workflow for your own family and travel photos. It might not seem important today, but I can’t kick the feeling that in 30 years time it will really matter.
Luna. Takes no bull.
An interesting thought exercise is to imagine that something was being introduced fresh today, how would we approach it.
Much like how COVID-19 was introduced fresh just over a year ago, and we reacted as we did.
How would we react to cancer-causing cigarettes being introduced today? Or worse, road-accident causing cars, or violence and abuse causing alcohol?
Money shot
Turns out the TARDIS gets it’s time travelling power from books. Important lesson for us all to learn, ya know?
Calling all true crime podcasters, I’m desperate to know the story of Henk and Lane and how the small Tasmanian town of Penguin got two IGA supermarkets next to each other.
2014 article on ‘Silicon Valley data’ being the new ‘Wall Street debt’
“Built by geniuses, both products end up being deceptively cheap, morally corrupting, and of questionable long-term economic utility.”
I try to avoid hot political issues here, but if Paw Patrol is a police officer, clumsy firefighter/paramedic, some tradies, & a pilot, how is it that they “always get the job done?” Surely they’d need a barista or a wedding celebrant or other assorted necessary type people.