I can’t stop looking out the front door of our new home in the Huon Valley, so now I’ve got to show you. Plus a photo of the door because it’s potentially the cutest way a house has ever been presented at settlement.

They say that when you have kids you enter your second stage of life. This is me entering my third stage of life.

John Green on happy marriages and feeding the content machine that is 2024 and the internet

Call me a conspiracy theorist, call me crazy, or call me stupid, but I get a feeling that TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Twitter, LinkedIn and honestly any algorithm-driven social network isn't the place for deeper thinking, intellect, and non-viral-bs-business ideas. So I'm investing what little business-intelligence capital into my own blog and email. It's called Aisle Authority, I write it every day, and it looks like this. Read it and even subscribe like a madman at aisleauthority.email.

The aurora australias, the southern lights, were a spectacle to behold last night aroundd Hobart, even with lots of cloud cover.

My first taste was a seeing pulsing of lights from behind the clouds. It was the most surreal thing I’ve seen.

I can't stop thinking about this Boox Palma

I could work for a million years, doing the best jobs, making the best things, writing the most eloquent words, delivering the best service, or creating the finest art, and still, I would pale in comparison to the eternal and beautiful legacy left by any mother, especially Britt.

Do you ever just do something, then regret it, then feel awesome about it? That's how I felt when I got the domain name theinternet.com.au this afternoon

Brought wedding-ready two pairs of pants and three shirts to Queenstown for three weddings here this week with the full confidence that one of the pairs of pants would serve double duty.

Both ended up in the snow mud, and I think I’ve cracked my ribs.

It’s now 10pm at a laundromat.

This is the exciting life of a travelling adventure elopement celebrant.

I've realised that I am not equipped enough to manage replies to my actual Mastodon account - @withers@social.lol - and my Micro.Blog account, @hello@joshwithers.blog - so I'm totally migrating my Fediverse life to the omglol kingdom. This is the way.

This reporting on the mysterious 777 Partners and it's Australian investment in airline, Bonza is a good read and good reporting by Ian Verrender and the ABC.

Virgin Blue executive Tim Jordan, claimed from the outset that he needed 10 aircraft to make the new operation viable. When he called in administrators this week, he had just four.

The large Boeing 737s are arguably the wrong fit for Bonza, flying second and third-tier routes, and appear to have been used as a means to soak up the US backer's fleet and provide it with income.

Happy Star Wars Day!

I saw Episode 1 at the cinema this week and I’ve got a hot take.

Jar Jar Binks is an important character and the people that hate him, hate him because they see their clumsy selves in Jar Jar and they need to talk to their therapist about it.

Also, adding midi-chlorians to the Star Wars canon was weird. Welcome to my TED Talk.

Weird week to be running an airline

The parable of the prodigal traveller:

“For this budget traveller of mine was dead to me and has now returned to life. He was flying Bonza, but now he is found.’”

‭‭Jetstar ‬15‬:‭24‬

Wedding photography is about to evolve in two ways.

1. After a century in the closet, Sepia is about to come into fashion
2. The wedding content creator is only a temporary role in the industry, the wedding photography market will splinter, with some wedding photographers moving down market to push the content creators out, and some will move up market, and all will need to reconcile the fact that no-one is hoping their wedding photographs and films take weeks or months to colour grade and process.

An update:

Post by @hellojoshwithers

View on Threads

One day, when I grow up, I'd like an Apple Jonathan please

I honestly didn't know that public speakers like comedians, Arj Barkers, and wedding celebrants were allowed to have opinions on babies being in the audience.

I hereby request that all babies at weddings I'm officiating in the future would share their snacks with me, or they can leave.

The internet’s all upset at my latte/flat white comments while I’m over here drinking a fat white, a long black with a dash of pouring cream

What's the word for when something is a hilarious joke but also very true? I also own and recommend whichever Brother printer you want, I got the MFC, because I needed to scan things.

This reminds me of the internet I grew up and I love it so much: After The Beep.

As March 2024 almost comes to a close I’m reminded how it’s four years since my life fell apart.

Four years on I’m seeing a therapists and building a new life in Tasmania, basically starting a-fresh, it’s like 2012 all over again, the 100% brand new kid on the block.

Still tens thousands of dollars behind.

Still mentally scarred quite bad.

But I turned a corner recently. I was encouraged to understand that no-one from any government or any group is going to come and apologise and I need to forgive, and move on.

I was so busy holding on for dear life that I never even realised that I was the one holding myself back. Covid wasn't my fault, but letting it dictate my mental wellbeing in March 2024 is, and it's never too late to see a therapist and to talk honestly with friends.

I heard you could install Linux on an Apple Silicon MacBook Pro ... so I did it ...

I have no idea what I'm doing, I'm like a toddler flying an A380.

Found this old piece of pretty poor writing by me on Medium, about podcasting from 11 years ago.

The thing that will bring our society to an end is our compulsion to insist that things are other people’s problems

You might have noticed Kate Middleton has been a bit quiet on the socials lately. Well, let's just say Tasmania now has two princesses. Tasmania's Queen of Denmark Queen Mary, and me, the, Josh Withers, the Princess of Photoshop.

Naval Ravikant, on the modern struggle:

Lone individuals summoning inhuman willpower, fasting, meditating, and exercising...

Up against armies of scientists and statisticians weaponising abundant food, screens, and medicine into junk food, clickbait news, infinite porn, endless games, and addictive drugs.

Finished reading: Extremely Hardcore by Zoë Schiffer 📚 what a terrifyingly odd account of one of the richest men alive today.

Palmsy is amazing.

A cute little social network just for you with fake likes and notifications from your friends.

We should all tell our parents that this is the new Facebook.

Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing. I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused. I hope everyone celebrating had a very happy Mother’s Day. J.

If this photo I made ten minutes ago excites you, you're going to love this real estate listing for our home.

A lovely Qantas flight attendant yesterday asked me if I was Josh Withers, at which point I prepare myself to say yes and have a chat to her about a wedding of mine that she attended or how she saw me on TV, like the D-Grade celebrity fool I am.

But no, she goes on to say how my wife is lovely and amazing. The flight attendant was planning to get married and was considering eloping so she ends up on the phone with Britt talking about eloping with The Elopement Collective.

Anyway, Britt really is all that and more, you know.

I was planning on singing her praises today anyway but I’ve opened up the old social media today and found it to be International Women’s Day, so it’s an even better reason to scream her name from the rooftops.

Not only is she the best person in my world, plus she made me a father of two of my other favourite humans, but Britt also spends countless hours each week counselling the brides and grooms of Australia about getting married, whether they should elope or not and whether or not we’re the best place for them to do that.

I’ve always said the thing about being remarkable is that remarkable people are easily remarked on, you are able to remark on them because their talent, beauty, smarts, intelligence is so easily witnessed.

You’re remarkable, Brittany Withers.

Prediction: Wedding photography is about to undergo a massive change.

The people who hold cameras like Fuji/Sony/Canon/Nikon need to figure out how to get their JPEGs right in camera.

They might still deliver a cull of 30 odd photos a week or three later, but the expectation is moving to fast turnaround.

The lovely iPhone holding kids - content creators - will fade away as professionals figure out how to deliver in minutes instead of months. Or maybe they don’t fade but they take up the bottom end of the marketer.

The added benefit is that because of the increased efficiency, wedding photographers will be able to take on more work. Where a wedding might have been five to ten days work, so you would be limited to maybe 30-40 weddings a year, accounting for seasonal influxes, now that same photographer might take on double the work to achieve same pay, effectively reducing the price of wedding photography because it requires less energy and effort.

I’m fast realising that my only real talent in this world is being the member of the conversation who can provide the comedic exit of the conversation before we play a guitar riff, the station call sign is aggressively voiced by an older male, then five minutes of ads is played whilst the listener changes radio station.

I asked readers of my Aisle Authority daily letter to the best celebrants in the world what they thought about the length of the daily email letter ... the winner was the third of the Goldilocks bears

New favourite website: fontreviewjournal.com

I'm thoroughly convinced that email can be a meaningful method of communication, relationship, community, and entertainment in the future. I've always been proud of what my friend @james@bne.social is making at @podnews.net so reading this article by Guy Tasaka encourages me in my little prophetic thought.

I have a deep appreciation for newsletters. They say everything old is new again. Today, with an almost overwhelming amount of information we must sift through on news sites, social media and third-party aggregation sites, like Apple and Google News, it’s nice to have information curated and summarized for me and delivered to my inbox. That kind of sounds like a newspaper.

The CEO of the biggest supermarket chain in Australia is stepping down because no other news media dared question an advertiser.

This is the strength and power of listener/reader supported media, and the strength of publicly funded media.

You can't lose an advertiser because you asked good questions, because you aren't reliant on, or don't have, advertisers.

Our reluctance to individually fund good journalism are part of the reason our groceries are so expensive, that and because we're too lazy to shop around, or better, buy local food from local producers.

Matt Ruby on metadata:

"Is metadata really that powerful?"

"OK, let's say there's a guy who texted a girl 5 times without getting a reply. Would you need to actually read the messages to know what's going on there?"

"Nah, I 100% get what happened."

"That’s the power of metadata."

I find reading the news depressing but I still want to get an idea of what's happening in the local news so I made an AI bot that writes the daily Tasmanian news headlines as a poem: tas.lol.

Hobart sunset - high res download for any Apple Vision Pro users, and direct link to the 360 photo on Panoraven and direct link to the 360 JPEG in case it works?

It would be super cool to see how these photos can be interacted with and enjoyed on an Apple Vision Pro.

Levelling up in nerdom is running your own AI/LLM on your own hardware.

A unified theory of fucks:

The theory goes like so: you are born with so many fucks to give.

I’ve just found out - through hearing it - that the Disney cruise ship horn blows the tune “When you wish upon a star” in port and now I feel all magical and whimsical.

Tracy Chapman & Luke Combs at the Grammys singing Fast Car

10 issues into my new daily letter to the best wedding celebrants in the world, Aisle Authority, and it's feeling good.

Shoutout to my Swede and Hong Kong readers!

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