Hi! My name is Josh, this me blog.
The dance of pleasing the social media algorithims of the world’s biggest companies, whilst being beat to death by strangers with their comments displeased me so now I’m here.
I wish I were the kind of person who could just live without broadcasting. But there’s an animal inside me — right down in the marrow — that keeps asking ‘can you see me?’ and silence has never once soothed it.
Lady at this cafe in the Huon Valley is working on an 11” MacBook Air running one of big cat OS X operating system releases.
It would have to be more than a decade old at this point wouldn’t it? It’s still such a beautiful machine. Honestly, I think it would be my favourite computer I’ve owned.
I'm researching for project in Tasmania and I think, to the best of my research and knowledge so far, this is the oldest and first photograph of Tasmania. The photo is of the south-eastern-most tip of Tasmania, Cape Pillar by James Backhouse Walker onboard the Beagle with Charles Darwin, enroute to Hobart on February 5, 1836.
My greatest fear in life is that Jaycar could go broke and shutdown
If you talk to anyone in the destination wedding industry they have their bucket list of places they want to work. Mine is remarkably weirder than most.
I've been lucky enough to create marriage ceremonies all around the world in places like Iceland and Italy, New York and New Zealand, Croatia to Canberra, Fiji to Vancouver.
But my favourite places to travel are the weird places, more likely to be featured on Atlas Obscurer than Lonely Planet.
My destination wedding and elopement bucket list:
- North Korea because I want to fly Air Koryo and live to tell the story.
- Saudia Arabia and Qatar because a Middle East desert elopement would be wild! Plus I'd love to be the guy that delivers personalised and fun wedding ceremonies in the Middle East.
- Tuvalu, Bora Bora, Tonga, Samoa, and The Cook Islands because I've got big Pacific Island energy.
- Bhutan where Gross National Happiness is a real thing they measure.
- Kazakhstan because of Borat.
I think it would also be cool to do a wedding in Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch in Wales because writing that name on a marriage certificate would be fun.
Tuscany versus Amalfi
When I first started as a wedding celebrant in 2009 you’d write some blog posts, build some SEO, and maybe attend a wedding expo to promote yourself as a celebrant and earn a living.
Now, however … things have changed.
Lord knows if it’s for the better? ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Turns out hope might be good for the soul.
Emily Brown in Relevant Magazine:
Gen Z has been fairly vocal about their struggles with mental health, but according to the American Bible Society’s recent report, “The State of the Bible 2024,” young adults who read their Bible regularly report being much happier than their peers.
Why are the Vatican guards dressed like clowns?
Orrrr why are clowns dressed like Vatican guards?
iPhone hack: when your iPhone 14 overheats in Rome, get a drink from McDonalds and melt the ice on the phone until it cools down.
Professor Giuseppe's Grand Hotel Tritone and its 1000-odd steps to the beach.
Some frames I have a captured on the Amalfi coast this week
When you're hot-headed and your Ray-Bans stage an intervention
Why did they call it the Amalfi Coast when they could of called it the Stairs Coast and it would’ve been far more accurate
My favourite thing to do whilst in Italy is to pretend to not be in Australian then surprise traveling Aussies with a big “G’Day, mate!”
Apple Health: You’ve been on tour through Asia and Europe for four weeks.
Flighty: Your journey home begins in nine days.
Me: This is going to ruin the tour.
I was trying to to get to the Metro Linea 2 in Napoli, I saw this series of lines, and let’s just say that things escalated quickly
Pictures of steak I ate in Florence
Some things I looked at in Roma, Italy
You don’t like to see that other person neglecting their homework when it comes to growth through intimacy so you take on the curriculum yourself.
Some frames from Tuscany this last week
Do you ever see someone else's project and realise that everything you've ever done in your life is meaningless? That's for me dropofahat.zone
Colours of Toscana
May the API bless you, Threads humans
Scopello // Sicilia
Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage, in 1981:
What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.
Fortunately, because Apple is delaying Apple Intelligence and these other new features in the EU, all of the thriving EU-based smartphone and OS makers can jump in and compete on merit now, without Apple the gatekeeping bully in their way. As Vestager reiterates throughout the interview, competition is the European Commission’s north star.
Posted from the EU.
When you're watching Instagram Reels before the Zoom meeting begins and the AI Zoom Meeting Summary takes it as fact
Pentax has made a portrait-orientation, made for sharing on modern social media, analog film camera in the new Pentax 17.
The Pentax 17 has a 25mm F3.5 lens which works out at 37mm equivalent, and derives its name from the horizontal width of the 17 x 25mm frames it captures. The company says the vertical format makes it similar to images shot by smartphones.
What a time to be alive.
Jamstack websites terrify me.
I feel technology often takes a backward step as it advances.
I used to make the most powerful small business, single use case, applications in Microsoft Access for businesses. To do the same today is so much harder. It's the same with websites. Jamstack is exponentially more complex than Wordpress and its PHP brethren.
Our Imaginary Brother Only Watches PBS by Eileen Donovan-Kranz
What happened next made sense only to my mother: She created an eighth child, a three-year-old she named Joe.
Thanks for the link, Scotty.
In the spirit of Zuckerberg renaming Facebook in honour of what's coming up, please no longer call me Josh. Only refer to me as my new personal brand identity in honour of the next big thing: Sleep.
Everyone has their different social media celebrities they get excited about meeting. Today I meet mine.
12 years ago I shared this infographic about the data being transferred around then. Here's the 2024 version on my daily letter.
Little pleasures in life is your laptop remembering the password and automatically connecting to the wifi at your cheap Rome airport hotel
Yes, hello, is this Qatar Airways? I’d like to collect my prize money.
Qatar things
When I make photos I like I share them, and because of the way the world is today (i.e everyone has a camera, algorithms rule the world, photos don't get as much airtime as videos, plus no-one knows who I am) most people never see my photos, so I upload them to Unsplash and Pexels.
Something I find super interesting is how even on those two sites the per-photo statistics vary so wildly.
The Sunday night commute to work 📍 Beachcomber Island, Fiji
Easy like Sunday Melbourne Airport morning
I like writing, I like reading, I enjoy running a sustainable and fun business, and I like getting email letters on the topic, so I made one called Aisle Authority.
My pitch is that it’s a short daily letter to the best wedding creators in the world.
The stats say that most people scroll on, but I’m hoping maybe one other person who likes reading encouraging daily things about being a wedding creator might like it too - read today’s letter and subscribe.
