Withers Without You

If only all of us queued for hours at airports had let them know we were coming. They need some kind of air travel ticketing system so they’re not surprised like this.

Patrick O’Shaughnessy on the power of audio:

“Audio feels to me like a secret hiding in plain sight. Everyone loves to learn, everyone loves content and loves consuming it, and it seems as though no matter how much great content is created, there’s not enough of it. I find myself all the time without a great piece of content to consume. And the demand-supply thing just hasn’t reached an equilibrium yet, maybe it never will. And audio is unique in the sense that it is at least 10 times easier to create an unbelievable hour of audio for me, and my format’s interview, interviewing someone great like David. That episode between him and I took an hour and a half to record. It will probably be listened to, my guess is, millions of times by the time it’s all said and done. An hour and a half for millions of listens. And people will listen all the way through, and they’ll consume it all. If you translated that conversation into text, it would be about the length of a short book. If we wanted to create a book of similar quality, it would take a year, probably. I mean I’ve written a book, it took me a year, and my book was not nearly as good as that conversation with David was.”

It all started when I read this May 2019 Daring Fireball article and fell in love with a little gadget I’d only just heard of.

I subscribed for updates straight away.

Passing through Heathrow Airport the next month allowed this Aussie to buy a copy of Edge Magazine and read the beautiful review.

The rest of 2019 occurs, 2020 is dropped on us like an atomic bomb and I’m left waiting, ever so patiently.

Then, at the end of July 2021 I got a pre-order in, a few hours after the rest of the fans in USA timezones did, so I got to Group 3.

2022 arrives and we as a family decide to go on sabbatical, pack up shop in Australia, hit the road and travel around Mexico.

Two weeks before our flight, I get this update.

October 3 is remarkably close to October 10 and I have remarkably low faith in the postal system delivering at any time that would suit.

I’m guessing that my Playdate is going to spend some time in our PO Box at Tugun.

George Bernard Shaw:

“The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them.”

Rattling the Cage by Rhian Sasseen:

For years, I was the person whose job it was to keep you clicking, to keep you scrolling.

Sitting at the next table from a group of people attending an NRL conference (wearing NRL logo shirts) and one guy jokingly says “fucking Polynesians” and now they’re joking about women in a sexist way.

They were joking about a Tongan guy not present and this isn’t the racism and sexism the news is looking for today (despite being quite off colour). But, I reckon every single human inside our national sports codes needs to understand that they’re getting a pretty bad reputation for their racism and sexism and maybe a hotel foyer bar isn’t the place for it. Maybe the entire globe isn’t, but let’s start with whilst you’re at work?

Hey, big apologies if I die in the next 24 hours. My 18 month old just sneezed directly into my open mouth and laughed.

Good advice for people who have been Optus customers since 2017, I have been one, is to enact a credit freeze. IDCARE has a fact sheet on freezing your credit.

A credit freeze means no-one, including you, can apply for credit in your name.

Talking about caring about identification, an Australian institution like that not using a .au domain name is a little triggering IMHO.

What do sensors know? - Om Malik:

Did you notice: That we have not heard a peep from Elon Musk about why Chinese regulators haven’t approved Tesla’s FSD for use on local roads?

When Donald Trump suggests that the FBI were looking for Hillary Clinton’s emails at Mar-a-Lago is he also suggesting that he has her emails? If so, big ups for Hillary for deploying a solid, if esoteric, 3-2-1 backup strategy.

Why Coles is getting out of the servo game, asks Tim Burrowes:

“In a time when corporate social responsibility has given way to environmental, social and governance & actually made its way onto board agendas, getting out of the fuel game removes a future headwind for Coles.”

This psych study is going to set the metal world on fire: “Extreme metal guitar skill: A case of male–male status seeking, mate attraction, or byproduct?”

“there is evidence that playing music increases male attractiveness”

“Extreme metal is a genre that is heavily male-biased”

“musicians in this genre heavily invest their time in building technical skills (e.g., dexterity, coordination, timing), which raises the question of the purpose behind this costly investment”

“This study explores the idea that heterosexual male metal guitarists are motivated to invest heavily in getting good at guitar to primarily impress other men.”