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.


  • Letters of Note:

    “In June of 1460, news reached Pope Pius II of an orgy which had recently taken place in the gardens of Giovanni di Bichis’s palace in Tuscany. To his dismay, it had been attended, and to some extent organised, by the vice-chancellor of the Roman Church, Cardinal Rodrigo de Borja.”

  • the best part about travelling for work is coming home to a tribe that’s missed me

  • I can’t believe no-one has been celebrating Digital Radio’s (DAB) 13th anniversary in Australia.

    It’s like DAB doesn’t mean anything to anyone.

  • It might seem like a surprise but nine years ago in Seminyak I started thinking about moving to Mexico after reading this compelling sign.

  • Wow, I didn’t know this but you can use your $50 Qantas voucher like a power-up mid-flight so the flight attendant doesn’t smash into your elbows with the drinks cart, or to be allowed to push the seat in front of you back up when the passenger puts it down.

  • Retro ‘Roo

  • I’ve created marriage ceremonies in the coldest climates, through Californian deserts in winter, Iceland in winter, New Zealand mountaintops in winter.

    Today in the Blue Mountains was the coldest I’ve ever felt, and in all those other weddings I wasn’t wearing a puffer jacket.

    It cold.

    Photo by my boy Zain Kruyer.

  • Seeing the #SolidarityWithSanna posts reminds me of something that happened 10 years ago next week: Alan Jones and Barnaby Joyce on the radio proclaiming that "women are destroying the joint" 1:29 into this audio. Some people struggle with female leadership.

  • I need to see Michael Heizer's City

  • Get back to me when your wedding invite is a bottle of craft gin. This is an actual wedding I’m at in December.

  • She watches her big sister (try to) do ballet all week

  • As a person born in 1981, the greatest dilemma I face is whether I identify as Gen X or Gen Y.

    I don’t like Gen Whiners, they don’t seem like my kind of people, but then I hear really old people identify as Gen X and I’m sure I’m not that old.

  • I get itchy when I sit with a photo I've made for more than 24 hours, I couldn't imagine dedicating 50 years to a work of art.

  • Time to get off the hamster wheel: interview with Spencer Howson
  • DJ Patil - former U.S. Chief Data Scientist - has the best advice on building: dream in years, plan in months, evaluate in weeks, ship daily.

  • Nine years since I’ve walked through these doors

  • Henry Luce, founder of Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated magazines:

    “To see life; to see the world; to eyewitness great events; to watch the faces of the poor and the gestures of the proud; to see strange things — machines, armies, multitudes, shadows in the jungle and on the moon; to see man's work — his paintings, towers and discoveries; to see things thousands of miles away, things hidden behind walls and within rooms, things dangerous to come to; the women that men love and many children; to see and take pleasure in seeing; to see and be amazed; to see and be instructed.”

  • Eve Peyser in Intelligencer on Mensa:

    "Many of its members think of themselves as outsiders and feel like Mensa is a place where they can be themselves and connect with people who understand and appreciate them."

  • B.D. McClay in The Hedgehog Review:

    "The other great crime of whataboutism is that it solidifies the online sense that the appearance of paying attention is paramount—not actually paying attention."

  • View the world through a series of incentives and you’ll find we’re doomed in every direction. Health departments want people to drink less. Tax departments want people to drink more.

    NPR:

    Japan launches a contest to urge young people to drink more alcohol

  • How sunrise at Currumbin Rock looked this morning

  • An update to the whole 'my photos were stolen and published in a book at Kmart" story:

    Before beginning any legal proceedings I sent them an invoice for a "plucked from the sky" number to license my photos to them. $2,200 an image, $8,800.

    The publisher freaked out, took the book off the shelves, and called me to apologise. They ended the phone call with a commitment to come back with a compensation plan, but so far nothing.

    $2,035 to send a lawyer's letter on a hope and a prayer that they respond.

    It'd be a lot more money to take it to court.

    Sitting here wondering how to respond, so I sent a text. Thank god autocorrect softened the blow.

  • Expo 88 is the reason I'm a nerd
  • My favourite kind of internet communication is when you write a joke then people comment with real advice.

  • Sam Neil is bringing Jurassic Park down under!

  • 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!

  • Temple & Webster bed: $450. Koala king mattress: $1039. I Love Linen sheets: $335. How Luna sleeps: priceless.

  • The only correct way today can go in #auspol is if the Prime Minister does a press conference where he takes off an Albo mask and is Scott Morrison underneath.

  • It’s weird when I hear about people watching the same TV show at the same time as other people because the antennas on a nearby mountain determined it so.

    Its kinda quaint, like calling someone on the phone, or catching a bus cross-country.

  • Running your own business is the most powerful vessel for learning. Theory actualises itself into practical, meanwhile, you've placed a bet, you've made a sacrifice, on the learning.

  • An ever-changing and growing list of the top 50 life hacks at 50hacks.co

  • Muppets magic.

    "I'd save every day like a treasure and then again I would spend them with you"

    Cover of Jim Croce's 'Time In A Bottle' as found on The Muppets in 1977. Also, weirdly, featured alongside another Muppet in an iPhone ad for the iPhone 6S and Siri.

    Finally, how I feel about Britt. Love you xx

  • Salon Tom Weston’s Five Rules of Being A Grown-Up:

    1. You must not have anything wrong with you, or anything different about you.
    2. 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.
    3. If you can’t correct it, or change it in any way, you should just pretend that you have. It’s not a problem anymore. Good news!
    4. If you can’t even pretend not to have corrected the situation, you should just not show up, because it’s very painful for the rest of us to see you in your current condition.
    5. If you’re going to insist on showing up, you should at least have the decency to be ashamed.
  • How many fools you know that have specific global and Australian marriage law, rituals, traditions, and customs knowledge like this? Not many. If any?

  • On distrusting Instagram
  • Outside our front door just now

  • A solid opportunity to transfer some of your wealth to me and for me to transfer some of my art to your walls at www.joshwithers.art

  • Y’all bringing your outdoor furniture inside after using it?

  • As an old nerd I find it fundamentally offensive when tech podcasts publish a 404th episode instead of skipping it, or maybe publishing a no-audio audio file.

  • Saturday morning coffee date

  • I’d rather have no phone than an Android phone.

  • Why is it ok for William Joel to be professionally called Billy Joel but it’s not ok for Joshua Withers to be professionally called Joshy Withers?

  • Jerry Saltz is a gift to this generation, and his Vulture article: How to Be an Artist should be required reading for humans on planet earth:

    "33 rules to take you from clueless amateur to generational talent (or at least help you live life a little more creatively)."

  • Matt Ruby (plus every wedding photographer I know):

    Your grandparents have photos in a shoebox, but we'll have nothing. Reminder: Just like every hard drive fails eventually, every business goes under eventually. Get a hard copy of anything you want to actually own and keep forever.

  • Answers to the 10 most common questions people ask about us moving to Mexico