Josh Withers, the group chat

Hey Siri, prepare an edit of the Richmond FC players singing So Long, Farewell to Elon Musk.

New month, new locale. Hello, Martina Franca, Puglia.

Is the future of TV, radio? Or the future of radio is TV? Either way, it’s almost 7pm and this is what Italians are watching on TV?

The number one indicator that you’re an old dad is when your cables and leads company emails “Let’s Catch Up!” and “We miss you!” as if you’re high school buddies.

As a family we travel with a MacBook Pro, iPad mini, two iPhones, Apple Watch, and a series of things that require either USB-A, USB-C, or micro USB to charge. We’ve chosen gadgets and utilities that are all USB-C, with exceptions where necessary.

My DJI Magic 3 drone batteries need 65W but my current travel charger’s 65W apparently doesn’t quite meet the needs the DJI three-battery USB-C charger, so the 96W Apple original MBP charger does the MacBook and the drone batteries.

For a family of four travelling globally for a year it was hard to figure out the exact right kit, but we got there in the end.

So my worldwide travel solution has been

• two Anker 543 Chargers (65W II), these have two USB-A ports, a USB-C 45W port and a USB-C 20W port
• my original 96W MacBook charger.

Each of these, including the MacBook charger, takes as an input the figure 8 lead. Figure 8 leads, or IEC C7 leads as they’re technically known, are very easy to procure locally, most Airbnb’s even have multiple devices already using them, they’re inexpensive, and they’re small to carry.

So I buy three IEC C7 leads for each region we’re travelling to. If we weren’t on a year long trip I’d hold onto the leads but suitcase space is at a premium. So far I’ve needed four different leads, a set for Australia, Mexico/USA, then the European kind, and finally the best of all - the British variety. The Brits don’t get much right but they figured out electrical points and plugs really well.

I also have this assortment of cables

• 4x Thunderbolt 4/USB-C cables about 25cm long. These suit most charging, data, plugging-in situations.
• USB-C lightning leads for the iPhones
• the Apple MagSafe travel dock for Watch and iPhone
• and the get out of jail free card is my USB-A to Lightning + USB-C + Micro-USB three-headed plug.

That’s how we travel the globe keeping everything charged and no stress.

Tonight we sojourn at the Tavignano Estate in Cingoli, Italy.

Was just driving and stopped at a red traffic light in a small Italian village and a civilian car drives up being me, looks around, and just overtakes me and runs the red light. I love Italy.

South Carolina, you go grrl

I just want to go on the record for being totally cool and not scared at all by the demonic kitten sound coming from the vineyard outside our Airbnb in Northern Italy. I am a big brave man and not scared by the feline calling out in the pitch black night.

Apple Reminders in iOS 17 is finally getting pretty useful

How Italians know whether to walk around shirtless or not

Our Italian Airbnb’s TV made me feel all nostalgic

I’m back baby!

Listening to an investor on a podcast today reminded me of how and why I do what I do. He was talking about advice that he had been given regarding his investment portfolio, and the person giving the advice said how well does that pie chart of what you’ve invested in reflect or match your interests, talents, and skills? The advice being that you should invest in what you know, invest in what you are passionate about.

So, after a solid sabbatical that has taken us through Mexico, the United States of America, and so much of Europe, I am proud to say that we’re coming back to Australia in August and I’m coming back to work as a celebrant.

It’s been a wild couple of years where I didn’t know if I’d ever want to create weddings anymore, but it turns out I just needed a few months off and some quality time with my girls.

I say all of that, to say this. There’s a book, and a principle, called the proximity principle, and it’s a simple principle. The idea is that the people that are around you, the people that are your community, are the people most likely to be able to help you.

So there are two things I would love some help with. Number one, when we get home we have to buy some cars, and buying a car today is terrible. If you or someone you know is selling your car, let a brother know. Secondly, we’re coming back to work and my calendar is wide open. So if you know someone getting married, anywhere in the world, let them know that your mate Josh is a pretty good celebrant.

Normally I’d say I’m looking forward to catching up with you when I’m home for a beer, but it turns - and I’ve researched this extensively on myself during this sabbatical - that beers make me fat and bloated and sick.

So instead I’m looking forward to an old-fashioned or red wine when I’m home.

See you soon!

Is there an AI tool around yet to help manage customer journeys? New client comes in, and the AI can take that journey on the pre-set rails we decide on in the business. Automation, but with intelligence?

Made our way into Italy today and caught the sun at it’s grandest, just before it goes to sleep.

I accidentally installed the developer beta of iOS 17. It’s mostly fine with a handful of annoying bugs you’d expect to see three months away from launch, but I’m so grateful for offline Apple Maps. Get me some offline Apple Translate and I’ll be set!

Whenever someone sees a photo of mine and asks me what iPhone I used my 25kg full ThinkTank camera bag weeps.

The thing that’s extremely visible throughout Europe is that there was a time that buildings weren’t just built but they were created, and created beautifully.

How did that art get lost?

A 360 view of the sunset on our last night in Liechtenstein from the Fürstin-Gina-Weg, or in English, Princess Gina memorial trail on the Sareis mountain ridge overlooking the village of Malbun which has been our home for the last week.

Snuck over the border to Switzerland to watch the sun set today

Striking images at the Lichtenstein national museum of a medieval Liechtensteiner teenager using his early-model iPhone

Weirdest thing I’ve seen in Liechtenstein award goes to …

How all men bathe

Hey, Europe. Why?

Despite being 450km from an ocean or sea, summer has hit Lichtenstein and the country’s beach is open!

Showed the kids what the early iPhones looked like at the Liechtenstein National Museum

Can you spot which country FIFA left off the list of countries that play football/soccer in the FIFA exhibit at the Lichtenstein national museum?

You should not open a door and see someone pooping. Srsly.

From the University of Berkshire Hathaway by Daniel Pecaut, Corey Wrenn:

Buffett also shared some of his classic bits of wisdom about growing wealth. Spend less than what you make. Know and stay within your circle of competence. The only businesses that matter are the ones you put your money in. Keep learning over time. Don’t lose. Insist on a margin of safety.

Be curious, not judgmental.

– Walt Whitman

I vividly remember all of my earliest computer experiences. I remember borrowing computer magazines from the school library that contained basic code, and then taking it to the Apple IIe in the back of my classroom. I would spend hours typing in code just to run another program. I also remember building a spreadsheet to help my dad run his business, and printing our own greeting cards with personalised messages on our black-and-white, dot matrix printer.

Even back in the 90s, there was talk of this coming artificial intelligence wave. Funnily enough, my entire experience from the very first day was about artificial intelligence. The simple fact that I could press the letter ‘a’ on a plastic keyboard and then see that letter appear on the computer screen in front of me, or even get printed out by a printer, was, in my humble opinion, a form of artificial intelligence. This might be an oversimplified view, but whether it’s displaying the letter ‘a’ on a computer screen or using ChatGPT, it’s all about computers computing.

In 1999, Bill Gates published a book called ‘Business @ the Speed of Thought’. I read it maybe a year later, and the foundational principles of “using computers for a real purpose” have stuck with me ever since. One idea was that a sandwich shop could use just-in-time ordering for sandwich ingredients based on previous order histories for different days of the week, taking into account seasons, weather, and trends - a task that a computer in 1999 could perform with some effort, but a task a computer in 2023 could handle effortlessly. This resonates with Steve Jobs’s idea that computers are like bicycles for the mind, an idea based on the fact that the fastest and most productive animal on the planet is not a human, but a human on a bicycle.

I think one of the things that really separates us from the high primates is that we’re tool builders. I read a study that measured the efficiency of locomotion for various species on the planet. The condor used the least energy to move a kilometer. And, humans came in with a rather unimpressive showing, about a third of the way down the list. It was not too proud a showing for the crown of creation. So, that didn’t look so good. But, then somebody at Scientific American had the insight to test the efficiency of locomotion for a man on a bicycle. And, a man on a bicycle, a human on a bicycle, blew the condor away, completely off the top of the charts.

This simple principle - that humans are more efficient on a bike, and that the human mind is more efficient when using a computer - has proven true in my life every day for the last 30 years.

Quickly replying to enquiry emails on my iPhone from a toilet cubicle at my last job before becoming self-employed was a key factor in my early success.

That’s my encouragement to anyone skeptical about the 2023 “AI wave”, including ChatGPT, large language models, transformer models, AI, generative art, etc. It’s just what computing is now. Embrace it and exploit it to your benefit. Whether it’s for play or for work, use these technologies to not only stay ahead of the pack, but to keep up with the pack.

A fellow wedding celebrant argued on a post of mine about AI that anyone using this technology should be de-registered. My counter-argument is that any celebrant (or entrepreneur) not using this technology will self de-register within a few years, sinking into irrelevance and inefficiency due to their refusal to adapt.

AI’s right of reply

As an AI developed by OpenAI, I’d like to add that I’m designed to assist and augment human capabilities rather than replace them. In the case of a wedding celebrant, for example, I could help with tasks such as drafting vows or organizing schedules. The idea isn’t to detract from the human element, but rather to enhance it, freeing up time for more personal interactions.

The notion of de-registering those who use AI perhaps stems from a fear of being replaced or a misunderstanding of AI’s role. AIs are tools, much like computers or smartphones, meant to assist humans in various tasks and should be seen as such. Adopting AI and other technological advancements can lead to increased efficiency and enable people to adapt to the fast-paced world we live in. It’s about integrating technology into our lives and work in a way that benefits us all.

View the chat thread with ChatGPT to see how ChatGPT helped me with this post.

I’ll always remember the day I met the late Gold Coast Mayor, Ron Clarke, and he called me Red Dog for no apparent reason.

In 2012 I was newly married. Britt and I had decided to take our wedding business somewhere bigger than 1-2 weddings a year, so we started marketing and building out content.

Every day was so exciting, going from nothing to something.

It feels the same at the moment, after having essentially dropped off the wedding industry map for a year, coming back in I feel like a newcomer.

So getting these kinds of emails is weird and beautiful and terrible and amazing.

Never change, wedding industry.

We’re taking the girls to one of the smallest countries in the world tomorrow, somewhere I’ve known about since I was a very young boy. My aunt lived in Liechtenstein and would send me books, toys, and Lienchtenstein paraphernalia every year for my birthday, I loved it! So, I thought I’d prepare for the trip by asking ChatGPT questions about the country and the journey.

Steve Jobs once described computers as a bicycle for the mind, and ChatGPT is the most powerful example of that so far.

Retiring now

I know that we have ye olde internet, but I think I’d still like to have a physical encyclopaedia at home for our kids. Check out this Ars Technica review, and the cost of a new set!

There’s no kangaroos in Austria.

You know what’s funny about our time in Austria is that I knew nothing about the country a few weeks ago, my main exposure being when I would be in America or Mexico, introducing myself a an Australian and they’d think I said Austrian and make some stupid comments about how they have always wanted to visit Europe. But thanks to a tip from a friend who recommended renting a car in Vienna because it’s cheaper than Italy, we’re exploring Austria and loving it!

Two more sleeps til Liechtenstein!!

I was asked recently about advice for travelling with young children.

My family including our now 4.5 and 2 year olds, left home almost a year ago and I have this advice: after about 37 accomodations and eight countries.

• Travel light. Lighter than you think. Bring as little stuff as possible.
• Lots of snacks. More than you think you need.
• Make iPad/TV shows a special treat. Fish out the special treat when necessary for sanity or social goodwill like in a line, stuck in a train or plane cabin, or a restaurant.
• Discipline your kids lovingly, positively, and well in private so they are awesome humans when in public.
• Teach your kids to be bored and look out the window.
• Figure out what kind of daily sleep/wake/activity routine or schedule works best for your kids and run with it so that all of you have a good day and you’re not dragging your kids through a hike they were never going to enjoy.
• Expect to see and do far less things than you imagined. If we do one travel or touristy thing a day that’s a win. Two is a big day. Three is a mistake.
• When in lines at immigration or other important things, and they’re really unhappy, just grin and bare it. It’s a few minutes of everyone’s life, we’ll all be fine, and all the other assholes around you have been expecting the tantrum anyway. If people look at us or comment on a tantrum, I just joke about it like “sorry, she just learned about taxes” or “sorry, this is my first abduction and it’s not really going well.”
• Teach your kids their names, ages, and your names so that when police come for you after you make a joke about abductions you can prove they’re yours. Make sure they know not to joke about who their parents are and what their names are.
• Bring extra dummies/soothers.
• We swear by the Phil & Ted’s Travel Cot version 5. Not sponsored. We’ve tried the rest, the Bugaboo is awesome, Phil & Ted’s is better.
• We also swear by the BabyZen YoYo and/or the Baby Jogger City Tour travel prams. The rest are not as good. Not sponsored. But come on guys, send us money.
• When boarding flights ask the staff where to “put the kids” as if you’re expecting them to not sit with you. Say it with a straight face, and kind of hold the child out toward the staff, gesturing that they can take them now.
• Book accomodation that is walkable to public transport and parks. Nothing else in your life matters more than a good playground. Also look for accomodation with cooking facilities, you’re going to want to cook at home.
• Whatever you order for them at a restaurant will not be good enough so share meals. Encourage them to try new foods. Our mantra is that you can’t say you don’t like something if you haven’t tried it yet.
• Almost all long queues can be skipped if you are a family, or if you accidentally go down the not-foreign-passport line, or if your kids has a tantrum. Turn that lemon into line-skipping lemonade.
• I’ve got VLC installed on my phone with a series of old school TV shows offline like Franklin the Turtle. Old school slow TV shows are better than the visual cocaine that modern kids shows are. Damn you, Paw Patrol.
• Take a million photos. Sync them with iCloud Photo Library so when you drop your phone in the Mediterranean Sea you’re not devastated. Buy disposable film cameras for the kids to make them feel involved.
• Each of our girls has a plush snuggle toy that has come with them the whole journey. When you’re changing accomodation every few days a common smell and feel is a godsend.
• I’m lucky to have travelled so much with Qantas that I have a Qantas Platinum status which gets us more luggage and airport lounges with OneWorld airlines worldwide, this is so good with kids. Everyone in the Oneworld First Class Lounge thinks they’re having a fancy aviation with champagne moment but then in runs my two year old ready to bring hell. It’s my favourite part of every flight.
• Snacks. Water. Lots of snacks.
• My kids like to play with tape so we have random coloured kid’s sticky tape for them to play with on flights. The water-painting kits for kids are awesome, they come with a water “brush” and it reacts with the board, so they think they’re painting but it’s zero mess apart from some water. So many books as well, we’ll buy, read, and donate books regularly.
• Sleep. So much sleep.
• There’s no greater experience than allowing your kids to sulk in different cultural settings.
• I use the Anker 4-port chargers and buy the figure 8 lead for the appropriate country, then make sure everything we own is USB chargeable.

These experiences and memories will be priceless. Be in the moment for them all.

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?

I imagine it would feel rather nice to be proud of the part of your story that you didn’t really have any choice in. The country you were born in, the state, the region. The people group you were raised in. Parents and the generations that preceded you, your family, your heritage, your culture.

I imagine that if you were so blessed to be of good stock, then you’d probably be delicate and defensive when that story comes under fire - whether it’s comedy or outright slander.

I imagine that’s why I’ve upset friends and lost social media klout this week after joking about the UK and how it didn’t meet the hype, in my ever so humble opinion.

Friends and strangers let me know how they felt about it, and it honestly left me stunned. But as I watched the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace yesterday it all fell into place for me. These people, Brits, people who like the Brits, people who love London and the UK, all this pomp and bullshit from the royals to the status quo is an essential part of their story. It’s who they are this external force of nature.

You dare make a joke about London, and you’re attacking their identity.

I see myself as blessed because I know exactly who I am. I’m the Gold Coast born, Central Queensland raised white boy born with colonial blood, entering the world not into the lands of my people but someone else’s land. Born of convict blood, sent from England to the stolen land down under generations ago. I’m the abandoned son, a homeless teen, who got by the only way available to him, working.

My birthplace, my country, my people, they don’t know me. There is a small group of friends and family who stand with me, but we could fill a minivan. If I was to die tomorrow my funeral would be a lovely occasion for the small group attending. They’re a good lot.

But my culture, my family, my tribe is a single generation old, my generation. With my wife I have drawn a line in the sand and said it ends with me. Britt and I, we’re starting new.

I also know how few people read my words or see my art. I’m no Shakespeare or Monet.

I have nothing to be precious of but my wife and children, my work, my words and my art, my relationships and my reputation.

Make a funny joke about them and I’d probably push back hard as well.

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.

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.

AI is genuinely exciting and terrifying but most of us nerds have been thinking about it and talking about it for 30 years.

This is Steve Jobs in 1983:

…when the next Aristotle comes around, maybe if he carries around one of these machines with him his whole life—his or her whole life—and types in all this stuff, then maybe someday, after this person’s dead and gone, we can ask this machine, “Hey, what would Aristotle have said? What about this?” And maybe we won’t get the right answer, but maybe we will. And that’s really exciting to me. And that’s one of the reasons I’m doing what I’m doing.

If you ever want to hate yourself you should try writing a book, then editing the book, and then reading it.

AI is super interesting to me

This is beautiful and terrifying

A terrifying argument for paper voting in voting booths from Ready Player One:

Besides, now that everyone could vote from home, via the OASIS, the only people who could get elected were movie stars, reality TV personalities, or radical televangelists.

Do dogs understand elevators or are they just like ‘Ok it’s time to get into the world changer’?

(via @ronnui_ on Twitter via the Dense Discovery email)

Those good family dinners, they’re no accident

Hawaii versus Paris

I

Imagine being as big as a failure as Yahoo

Dan Shipper in The Unreasonable Effectiveness of 1-1 Learning:

One of the most famous studies in educational psychology found that students who learned through 1-1 tutoring performed two sigma—98%—better than students who learned through a traditional classroom environment.

Just found out that Metallica played a concert across town last night and there were tickets available. I had Australian tickets for their Covid-cancelled concert. This is the most disappointed I’ve been since we left Australia!

Film’s not dead.

On arrival to a film lab at 3pm on a Friday in Paris there’s like seven people ahead of me and three behind me pretty quickly.

If publishers paid as much attention to how their articles were experienced by readers as newspaper editors used to, maybe they wouldn’t be going broke?

“Non-smoking Garden of Eden”

As Moses wrote in the book of Genesis, the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food except for tobacco.

A mum playing Frozen on her phone for her daughter at the playground is super confused as to why every other kid at the playground is up in her grill right now.

Watching 1980s Inspector Gadget with Luna this morning and I never realised how much Gadget influenced my life. All I ever wanted was Penny’s computer book, Gadget’s computer watch, and being accepted for being basically useless in society saved only by the woman by your side every time.

Sitting in a park in Paris watching my kids play I was struck by the idea that at age 41, married for almost 11 years, with two children, that I’m possibly an adult now.

Which probably sounds weird to anyone familiar with the concept of becoming an adult in our society somewhere between puberty and 21.

But I think we lack something in modern society - I know I lacked it in my childhood - that would not only help the 41 year old so know that they’re adults but also help all of us take ownership of our lives. Help us understand that you can either make your life or let someone or something else make it for you. Help us take responsibility for our lives, our families, and our futures.

It’s ceremony.

We shy away from it, not wanting to celebrate birthdays or anniversaries in public, or for some of us we even deny our age. We minimise weddings and engagements saying we don’t want to be the centre of attention - and this is even worse in Australia where tall poppy syndrome rears its ugly head stopping us from celebrating our achievements in life. I even hear it from people who, when they find out I’m a wedding celebrant, proudly tell me how they just went to the registry office and didn’t have a wedding.

For hundreds of generations we have celebrated milestones and achievements with ceremony and feasting.

It’s how we know where we have been, where we are, and where we’re going.

I believe ceremony is important. It’s why I’m a marriage celebrant.

Good ceremony is where we stop, collaborate, and listen. A moment for us to speak truths, smile, laugh, draw near, and share.

I hope you find the time to stop and celebrate something this week.

Evidence that the world’s first mobile phone was probably French

Excited to share another chapter of the book today:

I still distinctly remember the day after getting engaged and Britt’s aunty called with thoughts on which horse-drawn carriage company we should use for our wedding. This was odd to me because in 2012 I had been creating weddings for over two years yet I had not even conceived of the idea that once I asked Britt to marry me that we would then proceed to a wedding.

None of the current large language models/artificial intelligences understand the concept of months, or calendar months, or leap years.

So I’m sure everything is going to work out just fine.

Look, AI is great and everything, but I think we’re going to be ok

What a wonderful time to be alive: malicious-content.zip

Photos I made yesterday in Paris

I stacked a Lime scooter an hour ago to make this photo of this local tower in Paris so you better like it or share it or comment or something so my aching shin is healed by the algorithms that control our emotional well-being.

The not her damn of paris - still under construction

The Brisbane Story Bridge of Paris is what they call it

Parisian things

You’ve heard of the final mile. This is the final metre.

Up until 1791 they’d been measuring things without any care for a standard, much like the USA today, but then the French astronomers Delambre and Méchain measured 10 millionths of the distance from the North Pole to the Equator through a Paris meridian, and then the government of the day installed 16 demonstrator metres around the city.

This is the last one in its original installation. There’s one other that’s been moved so who even knows if it’s legit ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Milton Glaser:

You feel differently towards the world when you make things.

I think this is the great pyramid of France

Introducing, an eye full tower.

Built for the 1889 World’s Fair only to be upstaged 99 years later at 1988 World Expo by the Brisbane Sky Needle.

When you order an americano with ‘some cold milk on the side’ in Paris

Stumbled into a second-hand-camera/new-Leica store in Paris and accidentally left with a Leica film camera after swiping my credit card. Oops.

Play

Luna Withers, art critic

I stumbled across and subsequently visited an NFT art gallery in Paris today whilst walking the streets with Luna and trying to escape the rain. The art curated inside was wild and beautiful, and a joy to take in, but I also had the opportunity to talk to the curator who shared openly about their business model and passion for showcasing, sharing, and encouraging art.

They typically curate the pieces showcased but they have open weeks where creators can buy a spot on the wall, and other weeks creators can rent the whole gallery.

I’m still trying to figure out how my art works and matters in the world - besides giving it away for free on Unsplash and Pexels - but after visiting the gallery today I’m convinced that NFTs will have life and purpose long after the cryptobros move their hype engine somewhere else.

I even picked up a piece that Luna loved.

It would be amazing to see my photos on a wall like that.

The playlist in the French cafe I’m sitting in just went from contemporary hits to one of the songs from Star Wars. Wild taste here.

12 Ancient Greek Terms that Should Totally Make a Comeback

Aidos was actually the Greek goddess of shame, modesty, respect, and humility. Aidos, as a quality, was that feeling of reverence or shame which restrains men and women from wrong. It also encompassed the emotion that a rich person might feel in the presence of the impoverished, that their disparity of wealth, whether a matter of luck or merit, was ultimately undeserved.

Bluesky lovin

If you see my travel photos and think they’d look cool on your walls, I sell fine art prints, framed fine art prints, and canvas wraps in my online store.

Please buy a print so Luna and Goldie can afford the good croissants in Paris this week ahead, not the cheap ones dad thinks they should have.

44 hours door to door, Kona to Paris. Godspeed, us, with a four and two year old.

Ever since Twitter started falling on its face I’ve tried so many contenders, Mastodon, T2, BlueSky, Nostr, and I’ve been on micro.blog for years already and love if there, but Wavelength is the only place I’ve seen community, engagement, joy, and fun.

This is a lovely click for today

I can still remember my ICQ number 25 years on (49739400) but I can’t remember the joke about remembering my ICQ number

Why Nick Cave is attending the King’s Coronation:

I am not a monarchist, nor am I a royalist, nor am I an ardent republican for that matter; what I am also not is so spectacularly incurious about the world and the way it works, so ideologically captured, so damn grouchy, as to refuse an invitation to what will more than likely be the most important historical event in the UK of our age. Not just the most important, but the strangest, the weirdest.

The Withers family in the island of Hawaiʻi

🗿

🔱

Some feelings of the Big Island of Hawaii, or the Island of Hawaiʻi, or Hawaiʻi Island, or Big Island, or Kona, or Hawaii County, or just Hawaii. I don’t really know how to refer to this landmass tbh.

Unkept looking bloke who’s loudly mumbling to himself and is scaring the parents at the playground he’s circling because he looks like an addiction that hasn’t showered in a few days, says to me “weird day man, weird day” and gives me a cheeky grin.

Weird day.

If you’ve ever been the first guy to map parts of Australia and New Zealand, to witness the transit of Venus so ya bois in the lab could figure out how far earth is from the sun, or named an Aussie state, then this memorial marks the place some Hawaiians murdered you because they don’t take kindly to colonisers here.

Lusting after the new Teenage Engineering microphone

Sitting in a Starbucks in Kona just now and a family of four Brits fresh off the Quantum of the Seas cruise ship which just arrived in town. That’s the ship that lost a passenger overboard 1400km south of here. Apparently the person’s nickname/codename onboard the ship is “Old Mate”. I guess this is what it feels like to be a minority.

Harry Belafonte finally met Mister Tally Man and had his banana’s tallied.

James Tylor and Matt Chun in the ANZAC Myth:

The Australian government has fabricated a nationalist mythology around the invasion of Gelibolu Yarımadası (Gallipoli), telling a story of heroism and sacrifice.

The saddest part about Elon Musk screwing up Twitter and Twitter Blue is that the Internet needs to install a values system where we understand things have a cost and Twitter shouldn’t be free.

But now paying $8 for Twitter is a meme, not an exercise in human betterment.

I’ve been saying crap on the internet and into microphones connected to radio and TV towers for 20 years next year, it’s a miracle that the most scandalous thing I’ve done is MAFS series one.

I need help with panoramic images made with my DJI Mavic 3 drone. The camera itself stitches the images together but the stitch is never great. So it saves the 25 individual images, but Photoshop and Lightroom can never deal with them well. What software can help with this?

For Polkadot Wedding’s Planning Issue this month I wrote an article on choosing a wedding reading and also how you don’t need one so if you have one, let it have purpose.

Well, count me surprised and dumbfounded /s that this weird crap is happening on Spotify.

Stumbled across this fascinating story of Little Richard being in Australia in 1957, seeing the Russian satellite Sputnik in the sky and thinking the world was going to end so he takes the stage to preach the gospel at his concert instead of performing so the promoter offered refunds.

I’m working on a new business that is a web service - a mobile/desktop web app with video and audio upload components + email. I’ve never directly hired devs for this kind of project before. What kind of web dev language and tech should I be asking for in 2023?

I was moved to hear of Father Bob’s passing. I’ve never met or talked to a crankier, lovelier, old bloke who was thoroughly and passionately focused on loving and caring for humans without personal gain or agenda.

When I think about being Christ-like, I think of Bob.

Many publicly-known priests and ministers are loved by church leadership whilst being in the news for scandal and crime, while Bob was hated by church leadership whilst in the news for loving the outcasts of society.

I’d rather die a man lambasted by church leaders and known as a friend to outcasts, the downtrodden, the forgotten, the least of our society. That’s who Bob was.

Shared my nerd bio in my NerdyBio interview

I have a theory: today in 2023, we have a Batman because terrorists flew airplanes into the World Trade Centre towers in New York City, a.k.a Gotham City.

My premise is that timing of My Chemical Romance’s Welcome To The Black Parade’s release influenced Robert Pattison’s Batman at an influential age and made him the Bruce Wayne portrayed in the 2022 film, The Batman.

The 2022 Batman was born in 1991 or 1992, making him “about 30” when the movie was released.

The Batman’s parents died in 2001 (possibly 2002), the year that terrorists flew into the World Trade Towers and changed the world forever. One such change being that Gerard Way formed the band My Chemical Romance in response to the attacks. The other obvious infliction point here is that the death of Thomas and Martha Wayne is the motivation for young Bruce to become Vengeance personified.

In 2006 when The Batman was about 15 or 16 ‘Welcome To The Black Parade’ was released. Bruce is still rattled by his parent’s murders, growing up a young boy trying to figure out who he is and what his purpose is.

Your teenage years and the music you listen to through those years are formative to who you are and the music you love.

Look at some of My Chemical Romance’s lyrics from the Black Parade:

When I was a young boy, My father took me into the city, To see a marching band. He said, “Son, when you grow up, Would you be the savior of the broken, The beaten and the damned?” He said, “Will you defeat them? Your demons, and all the non-believers, The plans that they have made?” “Because one day, I’ll leave you a phantom…

Cut to 2022 in film, The Batman

“They think I am hiding in the shadows, but I am the shadows.”

Bruce Wayne is the Batman we know in 2022 because of 9/11.

Goldie, who just turned two, just buckled up her own airplane seat and is patiently awaiting takeoff whilst playing peek-a-boo with three different strangers and babbling to her neighbour.

So yeah, I think she’s doing ok developmentally.

Nashville, Tennessee ✈️ Phoenix, Arizona ✈️ Kona, Big Island of Hawaiʻi

Reckon we could get the ChatGPT guys to spend an an afternoon working on spam filtering?

Once all the adults admit that they don’t know what a conservatory is we’ll finally get world peace

Bad news for plastic kitchen good lovers, Tupperware is about to go broke. Turns out they were about seven decades too early on the influencer marketing trend.

Never forget the French dancing plague of the summer of 1518.

Charlie Munger on how the world actually works:

Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.

The worst sin committed by the news media, today is using synecdoches, helping simplify stories, fitting complex stories into headlines or a tweet whilst not representative of reality. People act, not synecdoches. Don’t dehumanise people, reducing their acts to those of the many.

Complex stories deserve gestation time, time for us to understand an comprehend them.