Recent content in Writings on Josh's site
As we’re in the Christmas season, and as 2025 comes to a close, I’ve found myself thinking about all I have to be thankful for this year. The biggest one by far is that Kami and I have had our first year of marriage. It’s been beautiful, and we’re so thankful for it. Today, I wanted to share a card that we had written for our placemats on our Colombian wedding. We had this…
Daniel Manary recently interviewed me on his podcast, Artificial Insights . We talked about some of the ways we at Waha have been able to deploy AI tools to save our non-profit literally years worth of work as we pursue our organizational goals. It was a great chat! The episode is available on YouTube and on whichever podcasting service you use! Leave Daniel a review and let him know I sent you!…
Last week, in anticipation of COP 30 , my wife and I were invited to talk about climate change at our house church. This has been a topic close to my heart for many years now, but I had never talked publicly about it before. So, I was excited to share. I also wanted to share some of those same thoughts here. I hope you find it impactful. If you don’t accept climate change, this post…
Everyone is just 2-3 decisions away from a completely transformed life. I read this idea years ago and it’s stuck with me. It almost feels too simple to be true; but more and more, I find myself agreeing with it. The word decision comes from Latin roots, meaning “to cut off.” The picture is that of severing one branch or path, so you can put all resources into another.
Dopamine is powerful. It has been exploited in a hundred different ways to addict and enslave us… But, it is also something that drive us to pursue what we want to pursue. It can be abused in order to trap, or harnessed to express freedom. The cool thing is, the choice is ours ! We can choose what we give our time to. We can choose where we put our focus. We can choose what we spend our…
I was recently asked to teach a small session on using prompt engineering to get the most value from AI tools. These are the notes on that class. 😊 👷🏼♂️ What is Prompt Engineering? By this point, most of us have used some kind of LLM chat bot, such as Deepseek, ChatGPT, or Claude, at least a few times. (Some of us use them basically all, day every day 😅) And most of us have also had a similar…
This past week I’ve been listening to Ryan North’s audiobook, How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler , which seeks to provide instructions for how to invent every major technology required for a thriving civilization. The idea being, if you were to travel back in time tens of thousands of years and wanted to majorly short-cut how long it took humanity…
I’ve continued to have people reaching out wanting to know more about the Interlinear Audio Bible tool I created last year! So, here are 2 quick announcements and updates about that! 1. Code is now Open Source! I’ve put a version of the tool I created on GitHub, where it can be used by anyone to create their own interlinear audio chapters, whether for scripture, or otherwise… in…
Did you know that you have access to resources that increase the more you spend them and use them? This feels counter-intuitive. If you spend money, you will have less money. If you eat food, and you will have less food. If you use an eraser, you will have less eraser. Most things decrease when we use them or spend them. We rarely think of the resources that you and I have that increase the more…
Simon Willison has a rule and belief I think I want to adopt: “I believe that the price you have to pay for taking on a project is writing about it afterwards. ” I LOVE THIS! Another way he puts it : “I recommend adding ‘write about it’ to your definition of ‘done’ for anything that you build or create.” I want to work towards adopting this practice,…
Two years ago, on February 6, 2023, two massive earthquakes hit the south eastern region of Türkiye and the north western region of Syria. These earthquakes ended up being responsible for over 60,000 deaths. As I wrote about and gave video updates about, I and a number of friends drove to the earthquake zone, and started providing aid within about 72 hours after the quakes hit. We continued to…
“If you want to change the future, start living as if you’re already there.” ~ Lynn Conway (via James Clear )
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
A few years ago I came across Steph Ango’s 40 Questions to ask Yourself Every Year . Since then, I’ve made it a practice in the last week of the year to work through those questions in my Bullet Journal. I’ve really loved the practice. I love the last few days of December every year — the closing of one chapter and the opening of a new chapter feels so hope-giving to me.
I’m a fan of the idea behind /now pages, /uses pages, and /hello pages. The basic vision behind each of these is that there’s a place on one’s personal websites where visitors can go to see interesting, noteworthy, and useful things about the site’s owner. So, /now pages are where you can go to see what that person is currently up to. A /hello page is a quick introduction,…
I want to hear about how you got into “Your Thing” . You know what I mean — the thing that you’re passionate about. Maybe the thing that you’re known for, or just the thing that you care a lot about. It might be something that you consider to be part of your identity… The hobby, or skill, or job, or passion, or style, or drive, or commitment, or affiliation, or…
A couple posts back I shared an experiment I was doing with some machine learning models, to make a novel tool for language learning. Specifically, I was interested in creating an Interlinear Audio Bible , where each verse in the Bible is read in two different languages — first in the listeners’ native language, then in the language they’re learning. As I explained in that post, the…
Yes, it’s much better than the path we’re currently on. Sustaining the current state would definitely be an improvement over reckless, endless extraction and destruction. Parking a car is also an improvement over barreling it off of a cliff. But that’s not the goal. Or, at least, it shouldn’t be. The goal isn’t just sustainability but Regeneration . Not just,…
If there was a way to use dozens of enterprise-grade cloud software tools (that can each cost hundreds of dollars a month) for free (or nearly free ), that would be worth exploring, right? Well, let’s explore it! Every couple years I come to a new appreciation for self-hosted software . For the uninitiated, if you have a spare computer sitting around that you’re willing put to work as…
The story of a workflow I developed to rapidly create alternating-language audio bible files in potentially 1,100 languages.
A few years ago, when I wrote a post about the history of Smallpox , I… got a little obsessed. I went DEEP down the rabbit-hole, learning everything I could about how smallpox affected people, families, and civilization. In the event that you and I had any long conversation during that time, I almost definitely spent some of that time talking your ear off about it. (sorry, not sorry) I…
Do you litter? Probably not. Or, at least, probably not often. Not a lot of people actively try to use the planet as their personal trash can… Yet, often it seems like so many public spaces are a MESS. İt’s interesting to ponder why… İmagine for a moment that 1,000 people walk down a clean street, and just 1 out of 10 of them drop just a single piece of trash onto the street.
There exists a well-known relationship between identity and action . So much of how you and I navigate our lives comes back to identity . If, in your internal world, you think of yourself as someone who is passionate about fitness, you will be more likely to get to the gym or go on that run. If you think of yourself as an effective and persistent problem solver, you’ll eagerly jump into…
I heard this piece of advice recently: Never let a day pass without doing something that will serve you 10 years from now. I LOVED it! I want to make a habit of that. But, it got me pondering, why stop there? What if we never let a month pass without taking tangible action to make life better for our great grandchildren, 100 years from now ? How would your life look different if you were regularly…
A few years ago, I found myself in a bit of a culinary rut — whenever I would cook for myself, it was usually the same 2-3 meals. I needed to expand my horizons a bit! So, I gave myself a challenge of trying 20 new recipes over the course of the year. (For many people, that might be a small number. But for me, it seemed a fitting target.)
I recently joined the executive leadership team at the non-profit Waha , as their Localization Director . I have committed to work with them for the next 3 years with the goal of shipping their app and curriculum in 80+ new languages during that time. This has been a role I’ve been really loving. It has been stretching and demanding in all the ways I love. The role requires a high degree of…
I have been pretty outspoken on my love of RSS as a replacement for social media feeds. It’s a recurring topic on this blog. There have even been a number of people who found my post How to Subscribe to Mailchimp Newsletters With RSS through a random Google search, and later ended up reaching out to me and thanking me for writing it because they found it useful. (If you’re one of those…
I’ve had lots of experiences over the years of looking forward to a new movie or TV show being released. In some cases, that excitement for an upcoming release would last months or years. The year-long wait for Endgame after Infinity War came out comes to mind. Lately, though, I find movies and TV shows to be much less the focus of my anticipation. I can’t currently think of a new…
“Imagine what would happen if we had as much courage for peace as we have had for war ? What if we had as many monuments and holidays designated for the heroes of peace as we have for the heroes of war ? What if we channeled all our incredibly gifted minds to devise ways to de-escalate violence rather than crafting new drones and bombs and guns ? What if we were as willing to die for the…
Have you ever logged onto public WiFi, but when you try to open a web page that you already had open, it just won’t load? Sometimes this is because the WiFi is simply not working. In cases like that, it’s probably better to just pull out a book and read, instead of fighting a hopeless battle with bad WiFi. 🙃 Other times, however, the WiFi is actually indeed working, but it’s…
Today marks 2 years to the day since my dad passed away. Dad was an amazing man, and the last 24 months without him have been more of a challenge than I would have ever expected. Today I wanted to share the eulogy that mom, brother and I wrote in honor of dad after his passing. The recording of Dad’s Memorial Service is below, and the reading of the eulogy starts at timestamp 55:50.
Sometimes it’s easy to fall prey to the dual lies that 1) we’ll have our loved ones in our life more-or-less forever, and 2) that love is something that we can give too much of or run out of. It can be easy to withhold a kind word because we think we might not be creative enough to top it or live up to it later… or we might decide not to give that gift, thinking that maybe it…
I’m dabbling with an idea, and testing whether it’s a good fit for work and life. Thus far, I’ve been liking the fruit of it. Basically, the idea can be expressed as follows: If I find myself doing the same (or a very similar) task 3 or more times , it’s worth starting to look closely at that task and to figure out a better system for it. After doing a given task a few…
I recently published my 100th post on this blog. An exciting milestone! After passing the big 100, I’ve found myself pondering why I’ve been doing this. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the process of blogging. But it is a time consumer. It is effort. That effort made me spend some time thinking about the classic and vital question that should be regularly asked about any endeavor we…
I’ve done my fair share of manually creating subtitles over the years. It can be quite a tedious and time-consuming process, so for a while now I’ve been on the lookout for a way to make that process faster. Over the last few days, I’ve also continued to be playing around with Whisper, which I wrote about before. While playing, I found a workflow that I wish I had had access to…
A note to my future self (and to whomever else this may concern 🙃): When you chew on questions like “should I go to the gym?” or “should I go for a run?”, almost always there’s at least some resistance you encounter which makes answering with a “yes” challenging. Often the inner monolog goes something like, “that’s too hard”, or…
This morning, on day 8 of the 2023 Israel—Hamas War , my amazing girlfriend is mediating a dialog/debate between a Muslim and a Jew, about the Israel-Palestine conflict. Last night, she was studying in preparation for the discussion, and we ended up talking a bit about the history of the conflict. I mentioned that a few years ago I had listened to the “Fear and Loathing in the New…
Triggers are not to be avoided . Triggers are instead designed to highlight those places in our hearts where we still are in need of growth , and where we still need God to walk with us towards healing . Don’t avoid triggers. Study them. Learn from them. Walk, grow, and heal through them. ~ Adapted from Debra Fileta
There’s an quote often attributed to Abraham Lincoln that goes something like: If I had five hours to cut down a tree, I would spend the first four hours sharpening the ax. While it’s doubtful he actually said this, I find the implications of the quote to be useful, especially when it comes to thinking about self-development and self-care. There are countless tasks, challenges, and…
Download Audio Blog It’s often pointed out that, in contrast to a majority of other religions and faith systems, the emphasis of the New Testament is what God has done for Humanity , instead of what Humanity needs to do for God . With rare exception , the idea of “striving” is basically not present in the exhortations of the Christian scriptures. Instead, the emphasis is on…
I’ve been thinking about scarcity and abundance this week, and wanted to share some of those thoughts! To start, I’ve been slowly listening through Bible Project ’s 15 hour course about Genesis 1 . One thing I noticed come up a few times is the idea that, in the creation narrative on page 1 of the Bible, Elohim forms creation with a goal of setting up a place for humanity to…
I don’t want to be a part of an “us” that makes a “them” of the world’s most vulnerable people. ~ John Green in Why Are Poor Countries Poor?
TL;DR: Those SMS authentication codes SUUUCK when you’re an expat who doesn’t always have access to the same phone number. TOTP is a fix to that, allowing you to access your accounts without needing to be able to receive SMS texts. The tutorial video below teaches what TOTP is, how it works, and how to use it. I use and recommend a paid Bitwarden plan for less than $1/month to manage…
I just wanted to quickly highlight a really cool thing that happened in the world this week. Whether you know it or not, there’s a pretty decent chance you have come across something created by brothers John and Hank Green at some point. They are insanely prolific siblings, both having written several books, running several companies, building educational content that is being used around…
“You don’t need to catch up. You just need to show up. ” ~ Ryder Carroll , creator of the Bullet Journal
The Project 📹 A couple years ago I got connected with Andrew Case , the co-creator of Aleph with Beth , a YouTube channel with the goal of making top-quality Biblical Hebrew educational resources available to everyone who wants them. They’ve created hundreds of really well produced videos — lessons, practice stories, quizzes, songs, and more. Their videos are designed so that anyone , of…
I love personal websites and blogs. The idea of having a little chunk of the internet that is wholly yours , where you can post , and create , and make completely on your own terms is really cool to me. I’ve loved creating content that way the last few years. And I’m also finding that I really like consuming content from people who create that way. A blog on a personal website tends to…
I subscribe to a LOT of email newsletters. I haven’t counted specifically, but I’m guessing there are roughly 40-50 newsletters that I’m purposefully subscribed to and actually want to read (not just spammy marketing emails that I haven’t yet opted-out of, but actual, real content I’m interested to read and consume). Because I don’t consume traditional social…
When it comes to communication, there’s two extremes we can take: We can hope that those we’re interacting with just magically are in tune with us; we can communicate as little as possible, hoping that they’ll fill in the blanks with what we meant … or… We can put in the effort to be crystal clear about what we mean to say. To say things that we might think are…
A friend showed me this video yesterday. I really, really appreciated it. Seems like a reminder that’s needed in a lot of places around the world in this season.