A fascinating element of modern web design is that developing/producing for the open web has actually gotten harder, not easier.

I remember the promise of Microsoft FrontPage, Apple's iWeb, Macromedia Dreamweaver, that normal people could just make websites then upload the boring old HTML, CSS, and images to a directory on a web-facing file server and bam you're online.

But today you've either got Squarespace, Wix, Wordpress.com or installing Wordpress on your own server - but then shit gets weird. Like someone I know was all excited for Astro and I look at the website and in the hero image area is the instruction to "npm create astro@latest" and I have no idea what that means?

Where's the cool and hip web content creator of today?

Never forget that time the two largest mobile phone software companies partnered together and the Australian federal government said, yeah nah, and instead blew $21 million on an app that found two cases and is being deleted today.

Sunrise this morning from Snapper Rocks

Photos were created by me, on the sunrise of Wednesday, 10 August 2022, at Snapper Rocks and Greenmount Beach at Coolangatta, Queensland. Photographed on a Canon EOS R5 with a 70-200mm lens.

Ok, this is cool: makemydrivefun.com

Can confirm this is true. Please refrain from messing with me:

"I don't mess around with anyone over 42, they built different, their families had them formally trained in something by the time they were 2, they had keys to the house by age 5, could cook full meals at 7 and were pretty much self-sufficient at 9.

They left their house at dawn every Summer morning and didn't come back til nightfall and survived all day on water from garden hoses, they might get a sandwich on the off chance somebody's parents had went shopping, they spent three quarters of their lives by themselves with a parent maybe checking on them twice a month, most of them have evaded at least one kidnapping attempt, and, they know 15 different ways to remove blood stains from clothing. They the real fuck around and find out people.

My favourite weekly email newsletter - Dense Discovery - just clocked over 200 editions. Give it a read and subscribe.

You know what the most disappointing element of the Trump presidency has been is finally finding out that Area 51, aliens, werewolves etc, they don’t know. If they knew, then he’d know, and he would’ve blabbed by now.

Who knew that Trump would confirm that we’re all alone.

Australian weather data on the iOS 16 public beta doesn’t look to be any better than previous incarnations. The leftmost app is Weathergraph which is using the Apple Weather API. The middle app is Apple’s stock weather app and it’s weirdly still using The Weather Channel (USA). The right most app is the Australian Bureau of Meteorology app, the arguably one true source of Australian weather data.

Finally it's happened! Millennials are old too!!!

Jideofor Onwugbenu on his Leverage Thoughts Substack wonders if doing a lot really does much:

In our world where the current zeitgeist is of being productive(hustle culture), where our calendars and hours are filled with events in the aim of succeeding, and where productivity channels have grown on mediums such as youtube, have we truly become productive?

I found the 'Soon Horse' at The Ekka today

John Dickerson in Slate:

“My children are vampires. I don’t mean that they are going to dress as vampires for Halloween. I mean that, like vampires, they cannot be captured on film.”

I’ve been working on getting my Instagram account back to friends and family, after a decade of “better follow this account for brand and business reasons.” Turns out that unfollowing a thousand odd accounts over three days gets you locked out of Instagram for a week.

Where are the most notable people on the planet from? This really cool mashup of Wikidata and Openmaps shows you, on a globe. Looks like I've got to do something pretty notable to knock my local celebrity off her mantle.

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TikTok Moderators Are Being Trained Using Graphic Images Of Child Sexual Abuse, in Forbes:

"Nasser expected to be confronted with some disturbing material during his training to become a content moderator for TikTok. But he was shocked when he and others in his class were shown uncensored, sexually explicit images of children."

How annoying are cold fries

Port Dougie this afternoon.

Port Douglas, Far North Queensland.

Spain says no to nice aircon temps:

"A decree published on Tuesday morning in the official state gazette and scheduled to go into effect next week mandates that air conditioning in public places be set at or above 27 degrees Celsius (about 80 degrees Fahrenheit) and that doors of those buildings remain closed to save energy."

It's the crocodile you don't see you have to worry about.

Crocodiles found on the Mowbray River, just south of Port Douglas in Queensland. Photographed with a DJI Mavic 3.

Free business idea: Instagram, but for photos.

Many think that "the elites" or "the media" are pushing an agenda. They're not, it's actually worse. They're just giving us what we want so they can sell it to us and become wealthier.

Heck, if I was them, I'd do it.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz in Everybody Lies:

Many have viewed American journalism as controlled by rich people or corporations with the goal of influencing the masses, perhaps to push people toward their political views. Gentzkow and Shapiro’s paper suggests, however, that this is not the predominant motivation of owners. The owners of the American press, instead, are primarily giving the masses what they want so that owners can become even richer.

“When you hit a wrong note, it’s the next note that makes it good or bad.”

– Miles Davis

Brisbane on a Tuesday afternoon

It was a good month for me on Unsplash. Zero dollars made, but millions of feel-good bucks.

More Aussies - 18% - are going to be investing in crypto in the next 2yrs than real estate - 17% - so it's going to be a pretty good 2yrs for A Current Affair. In fact, I might invest in ACA, they're going to have some great li'l ozzy battler ripped-off stories.

Tugun Beach tonight

🌙

Another dose of inspiration for my family’s 2023:

Seneca:

“Everybody agrees that no one pursuit can be successfully followed hoping I by a man who is preoccupied with many things.”

Warren Buffett:

“The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.”

My 2023 goal in Mexico is to no longer know to do.

Wendell Berry:

“It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.”

May god save any of you who find this book in your family homes

Scott Rosenberg in Axios:

"Mark last week as the end of the social networking era, which began with the rise of Friendster in 2003, shaped two decades of internet growth, and now closes with Facebook's rollout of a sweeping TikTok-like redesign."

Taylor Lorenz on why you don't want the old Instagram back:

"It's tempting to think that if Instagram simply reverted to a previous design or reinstated a chronological feed, that would somehow bring us closer to the people we care about. But we don't forge personal connections by sharing or commenting on highly personal public-facing photos that are permanently displayed on a grid anymore. These days, intimacy is fostered through features like DMs, group chats, or ephemeral posts to Close Friends."

A fancy hotel in Brisbane is trying to engage the Streisand effect by asking that these photos be removed from my Unsplash profile. It's funny that brands are still trying to discourage user-generated content in 2022.

I might not be TikTok cool, but I'm Grammarly cool

Paul Ford in Wired mag might be onto something

Where is trust growing?

It's often remarked upon that trust is dropping. Trust in government, science, corporations, media, journalists etc.

But where is it growing?

I feel seen, @gruber

Where the hell is she?

One of the key elements to parenting is knowing whether to say “wow” or “no, don’t do that” when your kid screams “Hey, dad!”

The co-founder of podcast host Anchor has written about his perceived issue with podcasting in the Standards Innovation Paradox, and James Cridland has responded that it hasn’t remained stagnant in its 19/21 years.

The most prominent issue I see in podcast standards today would be in forming a distinction between a serial show, an episodic show, or a one-off show, like a feature story or a documentary. Serials and episodic shows are covered already in the RSS, but I could see a type of audio story that is a single “episode” of either fiction like a feature film, or a single story like a documentary.

Coffee. Coffee is what’s at the end of the rainbow. There, I solved it all for you.