“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.
Am I a man or a muppet?
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
Fourteen
The 14th of May is my celebrant anniversary and today in 2023 I begin my 15th year creating awesome marriage ceremonies for adventurous couples who really really like each other and believe that getting married matters.
They say time is the best teacher so with 14 years a wedding celebrant, 41 years 5 months a human, 10 years 8 months a husband, 4 years 6 months a father, 3 years 1 month a silver fox, 32 years 2 months a computer nerd, 6 years 1 month a Qantas Platinum Frequent Flyer, 7 days a Parisian, and 24 years 10 months as best kitchen cleaner home medalist in my home state, ask me anything.
Paris’s final metre
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.
Apple Shortcut for recording photography metadata
I’m passionate about making photos, but I have a sub-passion in recording good metadata around those photos as they enter my iCloud Photo Library so the photos become more useful as they age. Whether they are used in Photo Memories, like “Paris 2023” and “Early Mornings with Luna”, or whether I want to search on the Photo’s “Places” function to find that photo I made ten years ago, the metadata is important to me.
When I shoot on my iPhone, the metadata is collected (normally), and if I have remembered to force quit and re-open the Canon Camera Connect app that day, when I shoot on my Canon EOS R5 the metadata is recorded, but if I shoot on Britt’s Fujifilm digital camera or my Leica film camera, no metadata is recorded by the camera.
In the before times people used notepads with pens, which is a lovely prospect, but I have an iPhone in my pocket and a Watch on my wrist. So I made an Apple Shortcut that will record the metadata in time and in place for later use, either with an EXIF editor or my personal go-to app, Metapho on the iPhone. (If you know of a Metapho competitor I’d be keen to hear it, I like Metapho but it feels forgotten by the developer and is sometimes buggy)
So these shortcuts will simply make a new Apple Note for the day if there isn’t one already and record time and place, or if you use the second shortcut that dictates a note, also that text note.
Record photography location Shortcut
Record photography location and notes Shortcut
I activate them either by tapping the home screen icon which is easy, or by asking Siri to “Record photography location”.
Feel free to use, edit, mix, re-make, and share as you find useful and beneficial for the art of making photography.
Much gratitude to Kyle Lines in the Automators Forum for helping me get the shortcuts over the line and useful for the greater population.
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.
