evilstevie @evilstevie@mastod1.ddns.net

management

You could have asked any landscaping expert for a comment. Respect to the reporter who went to Four Seasons Total Landscaping. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/06/22/trump-supporters-company-pledges-1-million-fix-white-house-lawn-after-ufc-event/

Hwæt! The first victim of propaganda? Grendel. I bet the only reason he attacked Heorot was because King Hroðgar & his #AngloSaxon warrior-tech-bros displaced Grendel and his mum from their own land, then demonised them, just so that they could build an AI data centre.

#Beowulf #OldEnglish

What are they feeding that farm cat?!

535) Stimbot. This robot has so many clicky buttons and stuff! Even its limbs have a satisfying amount of resistance and make a nice little sound when you bend them. #SmallRobotsRemastered

Me in 1768: I dislike the new Prime Minister and the Steam Machine is still too expensive.

Me in 2026: I dislike the new Prime Minister and the Steam Machine is still too expensive.

Okay I'm a teacher so let me explain this to you in as simple a way as I can.

Let's say you're hungry for a sandwich. So you go to the local deli. You walk in the door, and your credit card is immediately charged $1,000. In return, the deli guy hands you a sandwich ticket - good for one sandwich. You don't get a say in this. You are required to buy this sandwich by law. What's more, there were no signs outside the deli, you received no text message, nobody called you. There was absolutely no warning that by simply walking through the door you would be forced to buy this sandwich.

The deli owner gives you a ticket and tells you your sandwich will be out soon. You don't care. You didn't want this sandwich. But you're not allowed to say no. Besides, you already bought the sandwich. So you take a seat at a nearby table and wait for your sandwich to be delivered.

You sit and watch as every person who walks through the deli door that day is automatically made to buy one of the expensive sandwiches, handed a ticket, and told to wait. Hundreds of people. The deli is starting to get crowded. Because of the demand on the sandwich, you watch as the deli owner starts raising the price of the sandwich throughout the day. It goes up to $1,150 per sandwich. Then $1,500, then $1,900. Before long, the price has skyrocketed to well over $2,500 per sandwich. And you still don't even have your sandwich. The deli owner informs you with pride that this is the single most expensive debut of a sandwich ever.

Finally, after several hours, the deli begins to close. You ask for your sandwich and the deli owner informs you that you won't actually receive it until tomorrow. Today was for BUYING the sandwich, he says. Not selling it. The selling part happens tomorrow. Again, you have no choice in this. This is just how it works. It's the law. Oh well, you think, at least once you have this really expensive sandwich, maybe you can recoup some of your $1,000 by selling it at the current price, which is valued now at almost $3,000.

So you go home, hungry, but with a sound financial plan to try to recoup your money. The next day, you're first in line at the deli. You have your ticket in hand. But before the store opens, the deli owner lets in all the employees. You notice some of them are carrying sandwich tickets of their own. Some of them have a lot of tickets. Some of them are hauling in tickets by the wheelbarrow. You try to get in, but you're not allowed yet. Again, it's the law. Inside, you can see the employees of the deli trading in their sandwich tickets for sandwiches. And because there are so many sandwiches going out the door, the price of the sandwich starts dropping again.

After the first hour, the price has dropped to $1,500. Then back to $1,000, and then, to your horror, you see it dip to $750. Then $450. Then $100. Finally, the last employee turns in their ticket and leaves. And the price of the sandwich has settled all the way down to $50.

THEN, the deli owner opens the doors and lets the general public in. You turn in your ticket, which you paid $1,000 for, and receive your sandwich, valued now at $50. Don't feel bad, the deli owner says. You came here for a sandwich. You're getting a sandwich valued well above market value. Why, that sandwich from any other deli would only be worth $20, he says. You should feel good about this! You basically made $30 today!

You look at the gigantic stack of money in the corner, from all those thousands of enforced buys yesterday. There must be trillions of dollars there. Yes, the deli owner says with pride. I am the world's first trillionaire. And I did it all just selling sandwiches. Doesn't that make you feel great? What's wrong? Can't you just be happy for me? I worked hard for this money.

Congratulations, now you understand how Elon's SpaceX IPO made him a trillionaire, and who that money came from. It came from you. On July 1, SpaceX will get two things that no other major IPO in history has ever been granted. First, they will be automatically added to the NASDAQ 100. And because of that, every single person with a retirement account, or student savings account, or mutual fund, will be forced - not asked, not suggested - required by law, to buy SpaceX stock. And you'll do it at SpaceX current July 1 prices. This will skyrocket the value of SpaceX stock through the roof. This isn't theory. This is basic supply and demand. The chair of the NASDAQ 100 said this will happen. Then, the second half of the trade will happen. Two weeks later, every employee of SpaceX who have been up to now paid in SpaceX stock, will be allowed to sell up to a fifth of their shares. They will do that at July 15th prices. This will flood the market with stock. And again, this isn't theory. This will drive the value of SpaceX stock down. Basic supply and demand Economics 101. The more supply there is, the lower the value. Then, and ONLY then will you, the general public, be allowed to liquidate any mutual funds or IRA accounts, that were forced, by law, to buy SpaceX. And you will do that at August 1 prices.

Elon isn't becoming a trillionaire from selling rocket ships. No more than that deli owner got rich from selling sandwiches. Elon is becoming a trillionaire because he rigged the game. He is forcing you, yes you specifically, by law, to purchase shares of a company that he, and every single other person from the CFO on down admit, in writing, in their IPO prospectus, that they are going to immediately devalue as soon as they can. It's a classic pump and dump con. And you're the mark.

OK, something a bit different. I noticed a couple of weeks ago that people were boosting some Infrared (IR) photographs around the Fediverse, which looked absolutely amazing. This pinged a deep memory that I did once buy a digital IR camera, but it was towards the end of my film photography phase so wasn't what I was interested in, and also around that time I just .. stopped taking photos for a while - I think I'd run out of creativity. If you know me, you'll have realised that of course I still have the camera, but I never really got to grips with it.

It's a Fujifilm Finepix IS-1 which is a very weird thing, it was a super-zoom "bridge" camera from 2007, with a 10.7x zoom and a 1cm macro (!), a 9MP sensor but no IR filter. Apparently it was designed for specialistic forensic and medical use? I have no idea, I bought it secondhand sometime about 12 years ago, shot a few very bad pictures with it (I had no idea about IR photography!) then totally forgot about it.

Anyway, I saw those IR images and thought, maybe I should have a go? So I grabbed the camera, stuck a 590nm filter on it and kept it with me all weekend. I probably should have done a bit more research/thinking but hey, life is short. If I had, I would have set the camera to take RAW pics, and I would have spent more time worrying about white balance, but hey ho, here we are, with some slightly overcompressed JPEGs.

As you might be aware, without changing the white balance, they come out of the camera *very* red, and you have to swap channels and mess with levels and balance to get anything decent out of them. I've not rescued many of them yet, but this one (of St John's church in Swalecliffe) seemed to come out OK I think.

#infrared #ir #photography #fujifilm #is1 #church

In this time of political instability and uncertainty, just a note that Larry has now outlasted six prime ministers.

#cats #catsofMastodon #UKpol

If your org would like help with this sort of thing, to invent guard rails, to come up with a feedback-loop the way I did, please drop me a note - dan@phobos.io - this sort of work is really fun to whiteboard, and having someone thats been in these trenches before is extremely valuable because they can help you point out where all the landmines are.

Taken from the hilltop village of Romanyà de la Selva while looking out from under a mulberry tree arbor, a post-sunset view of the waxing #moon, #Venus, & #Jupiter hanging over the #Catalan countryside.

#photography #TravelPhotography #Catalonia #Spain

The only reason I can think of to require passports for using computers (or social media or whatever) is to create an apartheid society where undocumented people are removed from any way to participate.

Plus it’s super convenient for a right-wing takeover, just take away citizenship from immigrants and descendants of immigrants.

What the fuck is everyone doing?

534) Noveltyflyingdiscbot. A robot that is a non-branded novelty flying disc. Has a great time. #SmallRobotsRemastered

hi #fedihired i'm looking for part time/contract work (remote/sydney). i'm most interested in embedded systems, linux driver dev/porting and game dev, but i can do many things with computers. absolutely no ai. i like working on things that spark joy and improve the lives of people, especially if it's open source. for the last year I've been working with MNT doing a mix of web development and driver porting for the reform, to give an idea of what i've been doing lately. boosts welcome. ty! :3

its because you dont pay out

I forgot to tell you, but I meant to tell you

that there was this group of kids at camp

ages like 6-8

and I overheard one telling the group

"We are going to be kind this year, because bullying is cringe now"

I really hope that's a new trend among the children.

We're being kind now.

Join us.

#Sunday