Drove in Mexico for the first time today. I didn’t witness another car on the road in Los Cabos use it’s turn indicator.

I’m worried if I keep using the indicator the local news will do a story on me.

When asked at the restaurant what we were celebrating at dinner tonight I said “being alive!”

Now every staff member congratulates us on every interaction and I’m not sure if they’re being sarcastic or genuine.

The podcast series “Startup” was a thrilling listen as Alex Blumberg created Gimlet. It’s depressing to now read how Spotify has gutted that creation after acquiring it. Maybe Spotify isn’t podcasting’s darling?

I’m using the new Apple Translate app every day in Mexico, it’s pretty cool. Currently having a full conversation with my zero-English Uber driver, Jesus Angel (his name, not a prayer).

My only addition would be the ability to reverse/swap languages easier.

A day in the life of the Withers family: day four (13 October 2022) in Los Cabos, at the Instituto Nacional de Migración (the Mexican National Institute of Immigration), activating our residency visas.

Wednesday sunset

Patron saint of pioneers and travelers, Saint Joseph of the capes.

Or, in Spanish, San Jose del Cabos.

“Fish killer of the week story”

Teaching the Withers girls how to share margaritas

Episode five of Who’s Gonna Save Us with Saul Griffiths, paraphrased by Kai in Dense Discovery:

“A typical Australian suburb spends about $4m on petrol and diesel per year. That creates half a job at the local petrol station which is mostly selling sugar and tobacco anyway – that’s like three things that can kill you in one store! Anyway, if everyone is driving electric vehicles and producing their own electricity, those $4m will stay in the community. We know from spending behaviour that 55% of that money will be spent locally, creating a huge number of jobs. Not just energy jobs, but it’ll be paying for better bakeries, new classrooms, a fresh coat of paint for the sports club, etc. I don’t think we ever really thought about just what a screamingly good thing that would be for every community.“

Turns out that Cabo San Lucas is basically the Bali of the USA.

What a wild ride.

At first Jesus was coming to meet me and take us home.

Then Jesus cancelled on me.

I’m quite conflicted on how I feel about meeting Jesus in the future.

Mexican pests are chill AF

First Mexican sunset // Cabos

Driving from the airport to the hotel in San Jose Cabo and I’ve spotted my first guard in a watch house holding a gun. Despite the girl at immigration saying so, I feel like I’m really in Mexico now.

Mexicans really dislike BlackBerrys

This TSA agent at LAX is giving us a hard time

Adios, Australia

Sitting on a flight that’s migrating our family to Mexico and I’ve never been more terrified and excited in my life. With any luck that energy, and Bluey, will help survive a 13 hour flight with two toddlers. Godspeed, us.

One of these two people just vomited up a whole bloody watermelon on the Qantas lounge carpet

Targeted ad of the year award goes to this lot who just advertised at me, the bloke moving his family to Mexico tomorrow

Self portrait of a tired and weary man who isn’t working for the next six weeks

Will Sansom at UT Health:

“Could eating salmon, cod, tuna, herring or sardines keep our brains healthy and our thinking agile in middle age? New research makes this connection.”

I’ll take some salmon, tuna, and a nap thx.

Freya Stark:

"There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do."

Three days til the Mexican sabbatical.

This is so bizarre and weird to listen to: AI-generated Joe Rogan interviews AI-generated Steve Jobs. By podcast.ai.

“Your audience is just so different to the normal Apple user”

Finally found the band for me

Tim Burrowes reports on Rupert Murdoch's "remarkable" 70-year career in the media:

He created a newspaper empire which has shaped the culture of the English speaking world.

He made newspaper paywalls work when nobody else thought he would succeed.

He saw streaming coming and sold most of his TV and film interests to Disney at the top of the market.

I personally find the influence of News Corp and the Murdochs disgusting and intolerable, yet I can also look at that 70-year body of work and say it's remarkable, amazing and will most likely never be repeated in a similar scale. Which is most likely a good thing.

The world is starting to reflect on 2020-2022 and what everyone did, and how we reacted, and I'm not reading many pieces that are all in with their support.

This is from Dr Raya Leibowitz, Israeli oncologist, a scientist (MD/PhD) and the head of a medium-sized oncology institute in Israel:

"I am writing so not to forget the response of governments and societies to the COVID-19 pandemic over the last 2.5 years; responses that were, for me and many others, dystopian. During this time, Israeli society, as I knew it, has dramatically changed for the worse."

The thing I'm most interested in is how I even feel hesitant to share this piece because of the negative feedback I receive from my community for not being all-in on the response to the pandemic.

The article is a personal story of a doctor who held not-so-mainstream views and how her community rejected her. If the net effect of Covid is that you're alive but living with division in community, living with fear and hatred of others, I think I'd rather be dead.

7 Photographers on Finding Your Voice

I could quote Robin Rendle's post, 'Take Care Of Your Blog' forever:

"There will be blog posts that you adore that no one reads and there’ll be blog posts you spit out in ten minutes that take the internet by storm."

An interesting piece from Ted Gioia where he highlights something I'd missed, that music, and music reporting, as turned from being fresh and new, to nostalgic and old.

Six days to Mexico.

"We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us."

• Scholar, Joseph Campbell

Making wedding photos today

50 ways to be ridiculously generous—and feel ridiculously good by Alexandra Franzen.

38. If you have a colleague who is self-employed, encourage them to charge more. Tell them, “You provide incredible value. You deserve to be paid what you’re worth. I think you should raise your rates. If that’s something you want to do—I’d love to help you do it.” If they’re open to it, help them brainstorm, strategize, and figure out a plan to roll out the new (higher) pricing.

Rules for Online Sanity

Becoming a dad shrinks your brain. I'm not mad, I'm just stupid.

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but despite their ads this week, Optus wasn’t attacked.

They left the front door open and unlocked and a thief took the personal identity information of thousands of Australians.

The most horrible hotel in the world featured in Tone Knob by Nick Parker:

Then in 1996 they asked the new-kids-on-the-block agency KesselsKramer2 to help them sharpen things up – Which they did not by improving the hotel or doing a fancy re-brand, but by keeping everything exactly the same and proudly embracing how crap it all was. They started calling themselves 'the most horrible hotel in town'.

We called our Airbnb the Tugun Pause because a few times a day you get to take a one to two second pause in your conversations

How good is it when you just find The One

I call this one “Jetstar flight captured over Brisbane with a manual focus lens”

If you’ve ever wanted to use our dishwasher, TV, or closet? You’re going to love the tugunpause.com.

Are there any signs we should look out for to see if Goldie is being fed enough?

Ted Gioia’s predictions of the music industry in 2032:

“A legitimate musical counterculture will arise, with a cadre of new artists achieving superstar status while rejecting the roles of influencer and content provider. The motto “music comes first” will be a key part of their marketing message. The movement will have a name, but that word doesn’t exist yet.”

“Individuals who can identify rising talent will set up their web channels, and fill the role once played by the A&R department at a record label. But there’s one big difference: they can do everything themselves without a huge corporation behind them. If these talent scouts have a web channel with a few million subscribers, they will have more clout than Sony (which, by the way, currently has a pathetic 40 thousand subscribers to its YouTube channel) or most other labels. They can sign artists, showcase them online, and build their audience—acting as sole operators, but with the influence of a big business.”

Cam Wilson in Web Cam on crime reporting:

“There’s a lot of good criticism of crime reporting. It fosters systemic racism. Crimes are reported on because of the novelty factor rather than merit. A lack of follow-ups means articles rarely show the full story of a crime (including if charges are dropped). It tends to uncritically share the narrative of police, even though they are unreliable narrators. And above all else, it publicises one of the lowest moments of someone’s life and probably makes it harder for them to right the ship.”

Andrew Greene reporting on the Optus data thief (they like to call the person a hacker):

WARNING - do not click on latest link from alleged Optus hacker. IT security experts confirm it “tries to use drive-by and explicit download techniques to install executable files - this appears to be an attempt to capitalise on the publicity from the hack to setup a future hack”

Optus’ lack of leadership in this data crisis will be its legacy.