Nick
@nick@shore.me.uk
179 following, 253 followers
Needed some new number plates for my car. Went from the office door to the local motor parts shop, a 3 minute walk.
Around four years ago, when I last bought numberplates, they did not do the green ended ones for EVs. Surely they do today?
No, ladies and gents, they do not.
So I walked back, and placed an order with a faceless (but DVLA-registered/approved) online company.
Why are some bricks and mortar businesses failing? Because they aren't fucking trying.
Interesting footnote. I have had the dispatch notification from the plate company (again this is a road-legal DVLA registered firm). That's odd because I provided no ID, no v5/v778 etc. I am sure an in-person shop would have needed all that stuff. Oh well, I know I'm legit, but it's interesting that it would seem that no checks were done in at least my case.
@bloor I'm sure there will be a note somewhere that they have sold you "show plates" which magically require no paperwork whatsoever
@interpipes No, I actually chose this firm because of their "no show plates" approach. Essentially "every plate we sell is road legal". And that they're DVLA registered.
@bloor just because they are compliant font/layout wise for use on the road does not mean they are not selling using the show plates exemption if they're not bothering to ask for documentation
@interpipes @bloor I never got around to reading the legislation. But it always seemed to me that if what they sell does not meet the full legal requirements to be a number plate then it is not a number plate, just some printed plastic, and making random printed plastic does not have to meet special legal requirements. Ie it must be a circular definition: I may be wrong.
@revk @bloor this is precisely the "exemption" under which "show plates" live.
But afaik you can get something that is compliant with the rules for road use from a company that produces them while using the "show plate" exemption, as I do not *think* a road legal plate and all of it's various requirements is, in of itself, a "protected" design
@bloor Do they have the means to confirm the vehicle is registered at the address they're shipping to? (I have no idea how much info they can check at the DVLA but that might make sense).
@nav I mean I guess I was thinking perhaps DVLA makes that functionality available to them, when they become a "DVLA registered" plate maker ? IDK.
@bloor I've often found they don't check at all.
It's possible they actually check against the DVLA database that the address is the same, but I doubt it.
@tony Ah, so, OK, so my V778 for this plate is at my address, maybe they do have a way to check that?
@bloor bought my boyfriend some fancy (but legal) plates online for his motorbike a few months ago, can confirm, did not have to provide anything at all.
@bloor last time I bought plates, I accidentally responded to their request for documents with an entirely unrelated PDF from the same directory - nothing identity or car related. They thanked me and shipped the plates, presumably without ever having opened it.
@m0vfc @bloor Last year I bought plates as I'd put the /original/ number off my old car (which happened to spell out my surname, I got this by pure chance) on retention - didn't think DVLA would allow that but they did!
I got those online from the West of England as none of the local companies could confirm their 3D gel plates were legally compliant - the company did ask for me to submit the V778 which I did, although the plates arrived that quickly I'm unsure if the documents were even checked.
They did send me a certificate showing they had been tested and would correctly read on an ANPR camera (as if they do not you are very likely to get pulled over round here)
@vfrmedia @m0vfc @bloor I guess it's possible they have some system that correlates the purchasing info (name, address) with the registered keeper info (name, address) and only check the documents if those don't match.
DVLA and DVSA both have APIs (I use them for https://carfarts.uk) and an online seller is already operating in the digital API world.
I'm probablly being too generous though!
@bloor Could they check the registered keeper & their address online?
I don't think the public can do that here (I think they can in some countries, Norway, Switzerland???) but maybe if they're DVLA registered…
@edavies In my case no, though, because this plate currently is not allocated to a vehicle. But the V778 is like a v5 in the sense it has an address on it. Which does/did match.
@bloor You can order a number plate with anything you like on it.
This turns out to be useful when the name of your holiday cottage fits on a number plate - you can have a name sign for the house which, due to the reflective nature of number plates, is clearly visible in the headlights of the approaching guests on a dark lane at night.
@TimWardCam in theory though DVLA approved plate companies should do ID and vehicle checks though I think
@bloor Maybe they don't if you actually tell them "I want a name plate for my house that will be visible in headlights in the dark".
@TimWardCam @bloor "show plates" which are not intended (nor legal) for road use do not require ID/vehicle checks.
I'm looking for temporary covers for number plates, not for any dodgy/illegal purposes but simply so I can put pictures of my car on social media without doxxing myself - might just get a blank set from EBay and use industrial blu-tak to keep them on when I am taking photos..
@bloor Meanwhile, I don’t have a parking permit for our neighbourhood because I can’t be ar&ed to find my V5. I live in a different world, of my own. 🙄😜
@bloor why do you want the green bit to begin with? Curious?
@vikki because I have a car that at a glance very much doesn’t look like an EV. But it actually is an EV.
@bloor why do you need people to know though?
@nick @vikki @srtcd424 @neil I did not buy it new, the first-owner depreciation is savage. But I no longer fear buying an EV "not new" because MG's warranty is long and was hassle free one the one single minor issue I had with my MG4 (charging flap quirk).
I do feel qualified to comment on how it drives because I have owned a Lotus Elise 111R and a BMW M4 Convertible before.
1/2
@nick @vikki @srtcd424 @neil 2/2
Firstly it is a heavy car; almost 2000kg. But it does not feel it. And yes it's large-ish, larger footprint than the MG4, and I did worry about this, but in practice it is fine honestly. It fits in carparking spaces.
It is very quick, and it handles well, it's not precise and as nimble as the Lotus. But I didn't expect or want it to be. It is a very comfortable, quiet, peaceful thing to drive. Very relaxing. But still extremely quick when you want it.
@vikki I don’t need them to. I quite like the idea they’d be surprised, though.
So far I’ve been asked twice what the car even is, in less than a month, by people in cars next to me at traffic lights. That’s never happened to me in any other car I’ve had before.
@bloor fair enough. I wondered if I’d missed some reason it mattered or was necessary
What pray tell be it?
@vikki it is an MG Cyberster GT. Terrible name. Good car, so far.
@tautology @greem @vikki @zymurgic @neil and that point speaks directly to why this time I vaguely care. My old MG4 was boring and ordinary. No surprise … an EV.
But at a glance the new one is not obviously an EV. So I quite like the “wait, what?!” potential.
@vfrmedia @neil @vikki it borrows/steals from a load of stuff in addition to old MG. Definitely some Jag/Aston, interior seems heavily influenced by Merc SLK.
It isn’t quite the same as any of the “superficially comparable” cars I’ve had - Lotus Elise 111R, BMW M4 Convertible, etc.
I love wafting along in silence. Smelling the grass, hearing the birds. And it is very very fast.
@bloor I wanted to get some strimmer fuel and tried a local listed supplier - they basically said oh I haven't got around to doing an order yet, might get some in July maybe.
Given I'd rather do some work before then, I'll buy it online then...
@bloor what are you like? My car is 14 years old on the original number plates! Meanwhile it has debadged itself, both front and rear Skoda badges have fallen off…
@theolodian I’m like a wanker who changes cars more often than would be fiscally optimal, and also has a private registration mark.
@bloor @theolodian MG4 gone then?
I had to get my original green stripe plates replaced with Green Stripe + UK Mark. Either that or endanger my paintwork.
@bloor If you look into the constant regulation changes, you'll find why small outlets might not keep stock of the components. Doesn't help when the government makes much of your stocks obsolete when they changed GB to UK with almost no notice, for instance. A lot of suppliers just omit the badges entirely for simplicity.
@zymurgic I mean... The green bit on the end of a numberplate, cost price, what? 50p? This is a firm who on some level probably don't want to acknowledge EVs exist, so don't even bother to order the bits to actually make sales to EV folks. Moreover, I literally asked them 4 years ago "do you have the green EV bits?" and they said "no", so I went without. They knew at least one person wanted it 4 years ago.
Ok. This is isn’t the most fun thing to write. Got a phone call from a mate earlier. He’s been given a terminal diagnosis. He’s an amateur photographer and asked me to backup all of his photos from different places both online and off. Wants them all indexed and easily retrievable. What do I suggest? A NAS and Darktable?
#AskFedi #Photography #PlzRT
Shelf complete and installed.
@bloor An eBay/Etsy seller offered 3D printed battery holders, I have one fixed by my Dyson mount (Dyson mod’ed to use Dewalt batteries).
(In other matters, met with an Openreach installer this morning to assist in resolving some confusion. As I left he called out, ‘just getting the W3W ref for the premises’. Confusion explained)
LMFAO:https://forum.mikrotik.com/t/v7-23rc-testing-is-released/269915
dhcpv4-server - added "add-dns-entries" and "add-dns-entries-suffix" properties for creating local DNS entriesAfter I just spent an evening working with a dhcp-> dns script
@njumaen@chaos.social I'm gonna give it a shot when I get home, then simplify my script because I still want to create the matching AAAA records What does it do if no hostname is found for a device?
New version! #MikroTik RouterOS 7.23 is available in the Stable channel https://mikrotik.com/download
#MikroTik online help documentation has moved. It’s now on a new platform located at https://manual.mikrotik.com/
@nick Guess it’s early days? It only went live at 8am yesterday. I do now need to add it as a new seed url into my “MikroTik only” YacY search engine though. 😀
Temperature check for some on-prem #selfhosting training.
Please nerdboost.
| I have a static IP at home: | 55 |
| My IP at home changes: | 108 |
| I don't know: | 14 |
@JulianOliver @Dragon honestly I'm not sure. Also I don't particularly care as most services I use via tailscale.
@sldrant @JulianOliver It doesn't really bother me that much either, but the ISP i'm with just provides it as standard so...
@Dragon @JulianOliver I feel like mine probably does too, but also it's not enough of a concern for me to actually have made a mental note of it
🆕 blog! “UK Government Kicks Out Palantir”
The UK Government, for all its faults, is pretty good at publishing contracts it has awarded. That's why I get depressed when I see rage-bait nonsense about how companies have been award "Top Secret" deals.
Right now you can go to https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk and search for whichever bête noire has you riled up. You …
👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/05/uk-government-kicks-out-palantir/
⸻
#government #OpenSource
@Edent ouch. "Software bad enough the *british* government thought it was worth rewriting in house"?!
Damn
@Edent at first reading your headline I thought a desperate Starmer finally made a sane decision to save his job, but they only kicked out in one small place Palantir probably forgot they even had, and it wasn’t a ministerial decision. Palantir are still gorging on the NHS and intelligence services like a tick. The level of corruption involving Mandelson, and the fact their local office is run by Oswald Mosley’s grandson is just staggering.
Not to minimize the achievement, of course. Every bit of rebuilding state capacity helps and compounds over time.
@Edent as to your footnotes, but I love the blog
1) the civil service’s distaste for Palantir is an open secret, only you don’t get the SCS (or equivalent) opining pseudo-anonymously about how much they hate it
2) I often stumble over MHCLG and often just end up with “the department formally known as deeluck.”
3) MHCLG understands the benefits of federation very well recently despite abandoning W3C-standards backed approaches to dissemination. I’m not surprised they managed this, regardless.
@Edent 😁 at least some good news for the morning, thank you. But is it true what Fazal Majid states; "Palantir are still gorging on the NHS and intelligence services like a tick. The level of corruption involving Mandelson, and the fact their local office is run by Oswald Mosley’s grandson is just staggering."?
@connynasch
If people have evidence of corruption, they should report it to the relevant authorities.
I also believe we should judge people based on their actions, not their ancestors.
@Edent Wow it's amazing how many chocolate contracts the government and universities have. (Looks like Univ of York have a full chocolate manufacturing line as well - which makes some sense)
@Edent Seems to be a lot horse/stable door. They will already have had their mitts all over our data. Irrespective of any contractual obligations or assurances, Palantir uses the data in their control for unsavoury purposes, and support/are under the thumb of the current US regime.
#latvia
She's been told gestures are good, do more gesturing, hasn't she. Pointless hand waving.
Ouch. Out of tune.
Now I'm no singer, musician, sound engineer or whatever, but if I can hear it's out of tune there has to be something wrong.
Like the "Ooooooh-aaaaaah" bit. Don't like the rest.
#eurovision
#denmark
Yawn. No substance. More screeching. Loud, beaty but feels pointless.
#eurovision
It strikes me that this is a very weak semi - not heard a single song I could say, hand on heart, is a winner. Tuesday's SF1 was much better.
#australia
It's a song. It's definitely a song. That's about the only positive thing I can say.
Does it have meaning, depth or a point? Sadly, no.
Oh, and she missed a note there too.
#eurovision
I didn't set out to be so negative this evening. Maybe I'm just not in the mood for it.
#eurovision
#ukraine
The best voice of the evening. And bonus points for singing in tune. Well, apart from one wobble.
I quite like the song too. Blimey, first one.
#eurovision
Watching an Austrian interview an Austrian in Austria... in English and remembering when Eurovision did everything in multiple languages. English has taken over.
#eurovision
#unitedkingdom
The only song I've heard multiple times. Loved it, hated it, loved it, hated it...
Have come down on the love it side.
Staging looked a little clumsy.
#eurovision
#albania
Hmm. Creepy. Wondering if his relationship with 'mother' is similar to Norman Bates's.
A bit Carmina Burana, but nowhere near as good. No. Not for me.
#eurovision
#malta
The start of this could be a Bond theme.
The middle of this could be from the love-making scene in a Bond movie.
OK, I really like this.
#eurovision
Nice to have my Bond thoughts validated by #rylan #eurovision
#norway
Nothing bad to say about this. It's not my thing, but it seems to work.
Getting visions of the #frankiegoestohollywood #relax cover art.
#eurovision
2 part poll:
Do you consider yourself "a young person" relative to how you feel about the rest of the Fedi?
| Yes: | 1 |
| Probably average?: | 15 |
| No: | 17 |
May Likes Toronto [Any Pronouns] » 🌐
@mayintoronto@beige.party
I feel like the Fedi skews much older than me. I'm getting late in my 30s and I still feel like the kid around here sometimes, as you can see from my age range post (nice.)
But then add in the layers of pretty ridiculous life experience, chronic illness, and idk occasional wisdom I guess, I fit in perfectly well with the older crowd often.
I think it's lovely that we can hang out with the older people who've lived so much life, and just have conversations!
Would love to see more young people on the Fedi. I think that'll take time.
@mayintoronto the age range has shifted loads since 2017 - when I first joined Fedi I felt like I was one of the older people on here and many others were Gen Y / Millenials - but since about 2022 there have been more older people joining (I regularly interact with folk old enough to be my parents). (this is a credit to efforts made to improve accessibility!)
A lot of these older folk are increasingly *not* from tech backgrounds but with arts/creative/nature interests and progressive activism..
@vfrmedia One of my fav things about the fedi is the collective commitment to accessibility and inclusivity.
We got you, pals!
Well I've had my current EV for just over 3 Years now so I thought I'd do a roundup 🧵.
I currently have a 2018 Nissan LEAF, 40kWh top spec Tekna.
I still find it a nice car to drive, I am tempted and still pondering upgrading as I would like more range and faster charging (one of the limitations of the LEAF) but when I've compared against newer they lack some features too.
In the 3 Years I've done 13,305 miles. I've spent a total of £1,013 on electric, working out at around 7.6p per mile. Petrol would have roughly cost £2,117 instead so around a 50% Saving.
Why isn't it an even bigger saving? Well at a rough ballpark I would say a third to a half of my driving is long distance of which rapid charging is much more expensive. (I think around £700 of the £1k was Rapid).
Along with that I saved about 2 years worth of VED (£400) but this year and onwards pay for it.
I have paid for servicing over the last 3 years to keep the warranty in tact, I think this was roughly £700-800 in total.
The first two I had done at Nissan, the third by Cleevely Mobile who I'd recommend and will likely use next time.
Whilst not required I did opt for the gear reduction oil to be changed on the last service which is in the £800 total.
Other maintenance has been wiper blades (I almost do this yearly now just for best performance) and two 12V Battery replacements.
I did have to get a set of tyres early on, and the new ones I have also have now developed the same issue of cracking. I'm not sure if this is an EV issue or modern tyre issue but my previous PHEV also had it too.
Future maintenance wise I think I need a piece of suspension replacing, I'm not sure on the cost yet but I'll look into it when my service is due.
Overall it's been pretty cheap motoring, and the LEAF is an enjoyable car to drive.
I find it's got just the right balance of snappy speed but not too much either.
Being a tad older it's also got a nice balance of buttons to screen ratio, some newer ones are too much screen for my liking.
Will I keep it to year 4 of ownership? Not sure, usually I've changed car by now.
@Ryanteck probably better to get rid of it before it is 10 years old, if you don’t plan on keeping it forever. 10 years is a big psychological barrier, probably even more so with EV batteries.
We don’t change cars often ourselves. We plan to keep our 2012 ICE for 6 more years until it is 20 years old. If we get an EV before then it would be a 2nd car.
@theolodian I've found already based on trade in prices that 8 Years is the psychological barrier as the battery warranty ends then.
Which is just in a few months for mine.
@Ryanteck @theolodian The depreciation hit is because we paid "too much" in the first place, us early (or earlier) adopters definitely took one for the team! It's a thing of the past now there's more or less price parity at the C-segment level. Same second-hand, a 2018 LEAF is comparable to a 2018 Ford Focus now, so I guess they've found their level. Although I think a 2018 LEAF is going to be much more reliable than a Focus, frankly. (My neighbour's Focus dropped to bits. He now has a LEAF!)
@greg_harvey @theolodian Funnily my first EV actually appreciated!
I expected some, but not quite this much. Then again that's also why for an upgrade I can consider Teslas and such in the budget as they've had significant depreciation too.
@Ryanteck Wow! The only car I ever had that *appreciated* was my Volvo 940 estate. I ran it for nearly 20 years and got quite a lot more for it than I paid in the first place, because it was considered a collector's item by then! 😂
What EV was it?
@Ryanteck FWIW I'm in a "will it stay or will it go" debate over our MG4. There's a year to run on the lease, so I have some time to decide. On paper I can't really get a better car for the money, and I don't see anything coming out that would change my mind. There are advances, but only in cars well out of my price range, all the tech in comparable cars hasn't actually changed since 2023. The only thing that tempts me slightly is the Kia EV3 Long Range:
@greg_harvey Tbh the MG4 is also one I'm still pondering.
It's not often but around once a month I do a 250 mile or so round trip, currently it requires 3 rapid charges totalling close to an hour and a half.
Changing to most newer options reduces it to just one charge at half an hour or so.
But, outside of that I don't have an issue so it's a lot of money (e.g another £10-14k) to change to something that resolves just the once a month journey.
@Ryanteck @greg_harvey maybe chat to @Dragon who had an MG EV.
@CenturyAvocado @Ryanteck @greg_harvey @bloor bloor might be better for the MG4
I had an earlier model MG5 which had some issues with certain rapid chargers (e.g didn't like Tesla ones) but otherwise was decent enough.
Android auto/carplay on the prefacelift was slightly iffy at times as well
@Dragon @CenturyAvocado @Ryanteck @greg_harvey happy to answer any MG4 questions you have yes
@bloor No major questions really, I guess primarily how have you found it and what's the real range like?
@Ryanteck had it just under three years. First EV. And as that, I’d say a very good introduction to EVs. Basically a surprisingly nice car. I have never found the range a problem, but like all, YMMV literally.
One downside is it does not have a heat pump in the UK meaning winter range is slightly worse than it might be.
The furthest I have ever driven it without charging on the road is 216 miles. I still had (iirc) 6% left. Mix of fast motorway and town driving.
I’ve been very happy.
@Ryanteck one thing I would say is that I bought it new, and its value has plummeted. I’d say this would make a very amazing value 2nd hand car, if that could fit your buying plans.
@Ryanteck oh, one other thing, maximum speed charging I’ve ever seen on that car was 131kW. Which is mind boggling to me.
@bloor Sounds pretty good, I have pondered them for a while.
I have just seen they've launched a refresh and whilst I've not really considered brand new it might be the first time I do.
The 64kWh I think is looking the better choice due to the refresh being LFP too.
And yeah 100+kW charging would be very nice. Currently I get a whopping 40kW on a good day.
@nick @Ryanteck I bought the MG4 new because it was my first EV and I was green and a bit hesitant so warranty and stuff felt important. Perhaps more important than it should have. But live and learn. The car was 31k I think. Today I’d get 11k maybe. On a good day. So yeah. Doubt I’ll ever buy a new car again.
@bloor Hmm I forgot about heat pump. Interestingly I'm seeing less newer EVs include them than earlier ones. Maybe due to just bigger batteries?
@Ryanteck unsure if the “no heat pump” is the same in the new models tbh. Maybe it has one now.
@Ryanteck I think we are seeing “price engineering” at last in EVs. It’s actually a good thing as EVs become cost viable to more people. If you only need a maximum of 100 miles ever, there is probably negative value in having a heat pump factoring in the extra complexity and cost.
@Ryanteck @bloor try and find real world curves as well.
Manufacturer figures are somewhat "optimistic"
Yea we got that speed at 10% on a 23c day after a motorway run when the wind was south westerly at less than 5mph it wasn't raining and the battery was at just the right temp.
Also it requires 3 foxes to be playing nearby and a Tuesday. (Ok it's not that specific but often you do need ideal conditions)
Strange how the revised @tindie #tindie made sure the “taking money from customers” worked. But they did not make the “paying money to suppliers” worked.
How the fuck is that not a SCAM at this point?!?!?
PAY US NOW FOR THE DISBURSEMENT OR FACE LEGAL ACTION.
This is not complicated really.
Please boost, this is a major new story and impacts a lot of sellers.
Updated to Fedora 44, and discovered pretty quickly that middle click is disabled. 🤮
Not a big fan of Jordan Petridis right now. The attitude in his pull request was not awesome. Next I expect GNOME will remove the ability entirely with the excuse that "nobody uses it" since that was also used as part of the excuse for disabling it by default, calling all of us who use it a "nobody" which is kind of disrespectful.
They didn't even add it to settings. The repair is not particularly discoverable.
For everyone else caught by this mess, the incantation is:
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-enable-primary-paste true
🆕 blog! “Android now stops you sharing your location in photos”
My wife and I run OpenBenches. It's a niche little site which lets people share photos of memorial benches and their locations. Most modern phones embed a geolocation within the photo's metadata, so we use that information to put the photos on a map.
Google's…
👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/04/android-now-stops-you-sharing-your-location-in-photos/
⸻
#android #geolocation #geotagging #google #OpenBenches
@Edent so you sustain that the timing of this and the Google-owned abuse of geodata to gain a competitive edge is a coincidence?
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/pokemon-go-delivery-robots-niantic-b2939449.html
Sorry, couldn't hold myself from linking the dots.
@Edent I have gone back to putting the location literally on top of the image. I usually use OpenCamera. It works if it's a small group of contributors.
Like this
@Edent I use Material Files, mostly because Syncthing-Fork recommends it when you want to open the synced folder directly from the Syncthing-Fork app. Suits me well enough.
My wife and I run OpenBenches. It's a niche little site which lets people share photos of memorial benches and their locations. Most modern phones embed a geolocation within the photo's metadata, so we use that information to put the photos on a map.
Google's Android has now broken that.
On the web, we used to use:
<input type="file" accept="image/jpeg">
That opened the phone's photo picker and let the use upload a geotagged photo. But a while ago Google deliberately broke that.
Instead, we were encourage to use the file picker:
<input type="file">
That opened the default file manager. This had the unfortunate side-effect of allowing the user to upload any file, rather than just photos. But it did allow the EXIF metadata through unmolested. Then Google broke that as well.
Using a "Progressive Web App" doesn't work either.
So, can users transfer their photos via Bluetooth or QuickShare? No. That's now broken as well.
You can't even directly share via email without the location being stripped away.
Literally the only way to get a photo with geolocation intact is to plug in a USB cable, copy the photo to your computer, and then upload it via a desktop web browser?
Because Google run an anticompetitive monopoly on their dominant mobile operating system.
Privacy.
There's a worry that users don't know they're taking photos with geolocation enabled. If you post a cute picture of your kid / jewellery / pint then there's a risk that a ne’er-do-well could find your exact location.
Most social media services are sensible and strip the location automatically. If you try to send a geotagged photo to Facebook / Mastodon / BlueSky / WhatsApp / etc, they default to not showing the location. You can add it in manually if you want, but anyone downloading your photo won't see the geotag.
And, you know, I get it. Google doesn't want the headline "Stalkers found me, kidnapped my baby, and stole my wedding ring - how a little known Android feature puts you in danger!"
But it is just so tiresome that Google never consults their community. There was no advance notice of this change that I could find. Just a bunch of frustrated users in my inbox blaming me for breaking something.
I don't know what the answer is. Perhaps a pop up saying "This website wants to see the location of your photos. Yes / No / Always / Never"? People get tired of constant prompts and the wording will never be clear enough for most users.
It looks like the only option available will be to develop a native Android app (and an iOS one?!) with all the cost, effort, and admin that entails. Android apps have a special permission for accessing geolocation in images.
If anyone has a working way to let Android web-browsers access the full geolocation EXIF metadata of photos uploaded on the web, please drop a comment in the box.
In the meantime, please leave a +1 on this HTML Spec comment.
#android #geolocation #geotagging #google #OpenBenchesI didn't realise but the new Workers Rights' bill passed in December
It revoked the Tory restrictions on striking
This month it also enabled employee protections from day 1 instead of year 2, which is really convenient as I just started new job
@Baa also statutory sick pay from the first day of illness! https://www.business.gov.uk/campaign/employment-changes/employee/statutory-sick-pay/
Checked in to Shaftesbury Theatre, 210 Shaftesbury Ave, United Kingdom
Please can someone remind me what the Internet is for? #AvenueQ
https://swarmapp.com/user/56367/checkin/69d54be54b853466c21c2968?s=LsMltRJ5xTC3zC4pNb3Qu9oH6Q8
@Edent Oh, classic! The Internet is basically a giant, chaotic playground for information, cat videos, and arguments you never knew you wanted to have. More seriously, it’s for connecting people, sharing knowledge, entertainment, work, and, occasionally, helping you remember why you walked into a theatre in the first place.
Some delightful updates to #AvenueQ in London. Most sensible, some shocking, all hilarious.
If you've seen the show before, you already know which bit got the biggest cheer of the evening.
@Edent Is Gary still in it or was that one of the changes?
@rbairwell Gary's still in there. They've changed his introductory song and tweaked a few other bits. But basically still the same.
The search engine seems to have been removed from our corporate intranet. Normally this kind of thing would annoy me, but in many ways this is an improvement on the search functionality we’ve had for the past 20-odd years.
@kerryb I don't think I can remember a single occasion where I've found it useful. Amazing.
@JigsawPieces It really was a triumph to keep something so useless going for so long. And for a solved problem that we take for granted in the real world.
Have you ever...
| Used a telephone book: | 7670 |
| Spoken to a (human) telephone operator: | 4588 |
| Reversed charges on a call: | 2953 |
| Made a call from pay phone / phone box: | 7292 |
| Received a call on a pay phone / phone box: | 2862 |
| Used a phone card: | 6032 |
| Dialled from one exchange to another to route a call: | 1049 |
| Used a rotary dial phone: | 7197 |
Closed
@neil hah
/actual way back when #PhonePhreak checking in
Dialing from one floor to another routing the call via Japan gave a nice two second delay.
@neil I grew up in a house with a rotary phone long after most people already had button phones. It confused the heck out of my friends when they tried to use it. :D
I not only spoke to a telephone operator, I WAS one (at a car dealership). So was my wife - that's where we met.
@neil all but the phone card and exchange
@neil wait does the phone card one mean the type for payphones, or does it include cards used to top up PAYG mobile phones? cos I definitely used the latter.
@neil Most of these. Not sure about the phone card. I don't *think* so, but I'm not entirely sure.
I've talked to operators but I don't think been routed from one system to another, unless this includes dialling 9 to dial out, or being forwarded by a receptionist?
Never received a phone call in a phone booth, but used to use them regularly to call parents as a child and teenager.
int%rmitt]nt sig^al. ...~!...) [Use the ones that correspond to how you percieve me.] » 🌐
@nrmacdonald@mastodon.social
@neil
My auntie was a switchboard operator on a joint operations air base during The War, she had to speak English AND American.
@neil I have also used a pay phone on a train.
@ColinTheMathmo @neil 100% on all of them. I also remember the loud "cuckoo" tone on inbound calls to a payphone (to prevent reverse charge calls being made via the operator), also during late 1980a if you tried some calls on level 1 such as 16 (Dial a disc) and another one (it was some number like 159) you would just hear a loud cuckoo sound from *inside* the phone box and the call would be abruptly cleared down (presumably this is because a metering pulse had come down the line but you hadn't put any money in)
@neil I am curious what it means to dial from one exchange to another.
I probably only called local numbers as a kid and dialing other areas when I was older was always just preceding the number with a 4 or 5 digit area code, did it work differently before?
@neil Yes to all, plus for a summer I actually was a (human) telephone operator. Those overnight shifts were something else.
if you said yes to more than two of these, you're overdue to schedule your next colonoscopy... :)
(which reminds me...)
@neil Most I'm not sure what "Dialled from one exchange to another" means specifically, maybe a UK thing?
I did buy this bad boy new in box from my local thrift store last week. I have a Bluetooth dongle in my house so that I can make calls with it. Fake dialtone and everything!
@neil when I was a teenager, we all used to hang around at a park on a corner by a phone box. Our mums all had the phone number of that phone box so they could ring us and let us know when it was time to come home for tea.
@neil I've received a call on a pay phone exactly once. It wasn't for me, the box was just ringing so I answered it. The caller asked for Sarah. I said "sorry, nobody carried Sarah lives here" and they rather surprised me by asking "are you sure?"
Garrett Wollman [I use he/him (or il/lui when I try to write French) but they (or iel) is fine too.] » 🌐
@wollman@mastodon.social
@neil I still have the last phone book that was delivered here, maybe 15 years ago now. Probably not much good for anything other than holding up a potted plant.
All but one of the above. I never did the exchange thingy. But the rest, yeah, in my early teens.
And only reverse charged my parents, with their agreement in advance!
@neil All of the above!
I'd also throw in "Used a payphone for free using a tone generator" and "avoided long distance fees using a DISA system" 😀
@neil
Never reversed charges because always had emergency 2p/5p/10p/BT phonecard to use. #BePrepared
@neil Proud to say yes to every single one. ***And*** made long distance calls when they could only be connected by a human operator!!
Bonus points - a two-party phone line!!
@neil We had no phone for quite a while. When the phone line came through the valley, we were on party line with a few households on it. The phone was a big black thing; no dial, just a crank on the side. We were two longs and a short. Anyone (or everyone) in the group could listen to any conversation. For numbers outside the group, we did one long ring and asked Mona Ingram to connect us...
@neil There's a bell-curve graph here with age as the X-axis. The younger you are, the fewer of these things you've done. As you get to older folks, there's more and more things they've done. And then as you approach even older folks who can't remember which of them they've actually done, the graph curves back down towards 0.
@neil My grand parents refused to stop using their rotary dial phone untill the Dutch telecom operator (the now defunct PTT) gave them a dial tone phone because they kept crashing the local exchange that couldn’t handle the ticking anymore. Resulting in a cascading failure.
I remember that I had this plastic card with information from a phone operator
I could go to a pay phone and
* Call a central
* Input a long customer number
* Input a code
* Input a phone number I wanted to call
And the charge of the call was sent to my parents phone bill.
@neil Also, I’ve used Mondex to withdraw cash onto a cash smart card using a pay phone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondex
And I’ve made a call TO a pay phone/phone box.
Real life story: I was a student and on my way for a job interview. I got lost and ended up in at the bus terminal. There was a phone box there so I tried to call the potential employer but when I put a coin in the hole, about 30$ in 25cents went out! 😆
I'll never forget the winning sensation... 🤣✌️
@neil The Olympic marathoner Don Kardong, in his later career as a reporter, once failed to gain access to the press truck at the Boston Marathon. He compensated by going out the day before the marathon and writing down the numbers of a series of phone booths along the course, then calling them from his hotel room during the race and, if anyone picked up, asking them to describe what was going on. The resulting article was titled "Thirty Phone Booths To Boston".
@neil specifically, I made many calls *to* public phone boxes, because it was the only way to make a call to my girlfriend, who was living in a student home in eastern Germany end of the 90s. They didn’t have phones in the student home, but two public phone boxes that could be called in front of the building. For roughly 150 students. Fun times! We often scheduled for past midnight because that was a „low traffic“ time…
@neil The only rotary phone I remember using was at the YMCA . This was long after we had push button phones but those black rotary phones were indestructible
@neil I remember when we were camping in France with a boy scouts group and made reverse-charge calls home to Germany from a phone booth in Bretagne. We were half a dozen boys in a row and there was a single operator I think and at some point she asked how many more of us are still waiting in line 😁
#80sKid
@neil Oh boy, do I have an audio clip for you! https://othermindsrecords.bandcamp.com/track/border-dissolve-in-audiospace #LiamOGallagher (not to be confused with Liam Gallagher)
[×] Did literal cut and paste work to make camera ready telephone books ("yellow pages")
[×] Can "dial" rotary using the hook button when faced with a dial lock
@neil You missed one - have you ever used a phone that had NO dial, where an operator connected all calls? Yes, I have.
@neil
I got ⅞ and I think I'll never have the opportunity to get that last ⅛. 💔
I was unsure about "Dialed from one exchange to another…", so I looked it up and I've definitely done it.
@neil Should have added Used a party line to the list. Each house had its own special ring so you knew if it was for you or not.
@neil my friend used to make collect calls to her mom (which her mom would decline) to let her know it was time to pick us up after school.
@neil Here (Belgium) you couldn't call pay phones AFAIK, they didn't have numbers printed on them and didn't show any caller ID. So it was always surprising to me as a kid to see people calling payphones in movies.
@neil apologies if someone already said this, but I remember dialing "popcorn" to find out what time it was. (US thing)
@neil These results make no sense; seems that the only respondents are old gits who seldomly needed to get in touch with their electricity or gas providers.
@neil
I wonder if I used a phone card and I don't remember it. I never had a cellphone, so it seems likely.
@neil
i never wanted to use internet, it was imposed on me, so I will be disrepectufull, so the answer is fock off and die.
diehttps://youtu.be/cJLq2W7fvqU
What does "Dialed from one exchange to another to route a call" mean ?
Until a teenager, there was only 5 numbers to dial. To dial out of town we had to prepend a 2 digit area code. Out of State I have no idea what was needed. If that area-code is "another exchange", then I should have said yes on that one too.
@neil The real question is, have you ever, when you where ten, decided to do prank calls on random numbers in the phone book based on their names, and then crossed out the entries you'd pranked with your frie^Wno, that was me on my own.
And then got discovered by your parents because of your meticulous prank call records.
Note: this was in the late seventies.
@neil I'm 60. Like others here, I'm not entirely sure what "Dialled from one exchange to another to route a call" even means... but I've done all the others.
Thanks for making me feel twenty years older than I am. :-|
@neil Alright, I don't feel old :) (because I marked options with high percentage; or maybe that means I'm old) anyway, good pool 👍
@neil Occasionally I'd hear a pay phone ringing with no one nearby. I'd pick up the phone and say "Hello, Frank?" Usually I'd just hear a click.
You forgot getting calls for free by tapping out the number on the receiver rest of the old black public phones with buttons A and B.
@neil when I was a teenager living in Luxembourg, I got locked out of my house. I walked to the big shipping arcade to find the French-English dictionaries, and looked up "locksmith" in it. Then I walked home, and asked our neighbour to borrow their phone book, so I could call a locksmith on my Nokia 3210.
@neil I don't think I ever had a need for reversed charges, but I used to do price required calls weekly to my girlfriend when working away and staying in a small town hotel.
@neil Heck, I've used a payphone like a month ago. They still exist here, though not as numerous as in the past. Is that unusual?
@neil I'm Hungarian, in our phone booths a special coin ("tantusz") was used, which made a metallic "CLONG" sound falling down, when the line got connected. We still have a saying "the 'tantusz' has fallen" (leesett a tantusz) if someone understood something. Stories From Ancient Times ^.^
It's not related to the phone but raise your hand if you ever used a toothpick to rig a cable box to get free extra channels? 🤚 My family did this for years, until the cable company charged us hundreds of dollars for stolen cable after they found the toothpick we broke off inside the box. We told Mom not to buy the cheap toothpicks but she didn't listen!
@neil On the last one i have a fond memory from my uni days:
There was a department that was always locked. The put a phone next to the door so you could call to be let in. It was a rotary phone. This was in the 2000s.
The number of students who had absolutely no idea at all what to do with that phone, trying to press the buttons and nothing happened was astonishingly high. 😂
@neil My grandpa used to collect phone cards, until the mid 2000s even. Germany is strange. My (other) Grandma had a rotary dial; *my* first (landline) phone was buttons, but still pulse dial. but my parents had a stand alone dial tone generator, intended to be used with mailboxes. so weird.
@neil Fuck, fedi really does skew older, huh. Rotary phone and phone book was because I was at my grandmother's place and she still used those. And while I'm not old, I don't think most would call me young.
@neil Yes, I remember the days when my mom knew I was at the pool and got a collect call from "Stevisdun Kumnow" which she would then decline....
@neil i used a rotary phone i think once, maybe.. and my grandparents used a phonebook as a booster seat for me when i was very small. but i would have voted "none of these"/empty vote, if i could, lol
@neil was waiting for the "you could be entitled to compensation" or "time to get your prostate checked" punchline.
@neil (almost) all? In rural Poland in the 90s. The whole village had only 99 phone numbers, you'd call the human operator to dial out of the village. On holidays we had reserved time slots, because only one connection to the "outside" was possible. Rotary phones were the usual thing. Phone booths came later with an electronic phone station and longer phone numbers. Many phone cards had cool designs and we were collecting those. Manipulating the remaining credits as well. Fun times!
@neil @nina_kali_nina You missed the option "dialled from a payphone for free by battering the hangup switch" but I'll let you off with that since it was rare that people knew the trick and they did fix it eventually 😉
@neil also trying to call my girlfriend from a music festival I'd hitch hiked out to, where the only pay phone ate your money without registering it, I tried to reverse charges via an automated system that gave you a few seconds to record your name. No one was home at her place but their answering machine message was the same length as the robot operator's blurb, so I smuggled my message through the reverse charge system.
@neil Guilty as charged on all counts, but not admitting to additional crimes.
Re dialling from one exchange to another; do you mean the dodge for multiway group chats? Call person A, put them on hold, call person B on a distant exchange, put them on hold, etc. until you’ve got the whole family on the call? (all the charges come to the first phone, so pick that carefully)
@neil Have also served as a switchboard operator, with the hot patch cables and the physical switches...
@neil Yes to all of them. It's not all that long ago I took a Pi out of a rotary dial phone (Google Assistant via a Pi with an AIY voice hat). You picked up the receiver or dialled any single digit number to activate it.
I don't know if I'll ever use the rotary dial phone or not but it was fun to make while it lasted.
@neil I ticked all 8. Do I get a prize? Btw, I worked at Directory Enquiries.
@neil 6/8 of these are possible in my house.
I have more phones and phone exchanges than any reasonable person…
but so far no phonecard equipment, and no metering (so reverse charge calls aren’t really possible)
@lpbkdotnet @neil nice collection! This is all I have left of my old PBX now. It sits on top of the cupboards in my office as a reminder 😀
@WiteWulf @neil ahh the venerable 5422 line tester!
Absolutely essential bit of kit for testing the wiring between the exchange and the phones! A skilled operator could tell by the way the meter responded to the line capacitance how far away the fault was
I used to have one in my living room, as a fireplace ornament. I sadly had to rehome it when I got a log burner 😢
@lpbkdotnet @neil it’s crazy to think that our modern Ethernet switches have TDR circuitry built into the ASIC that’ll do that for you, now 😎
@neil I worked at the directory enquiries of the Deutsche Telekom in the 90s (which apparently ran till 2024).
@neil thank you for making me feel old, I ticked all but the exchange routing one 😂 hope you have an awesome day! 🥰
@neil
I have used a rotary phone before. It was in a museum. And what are phone cards and reverse charges?
@neil I'm missing the "Vierteltelefone" which seems to be an Austrian special. 4 households sharing 1 landline having there own phone.
@neil does "Will you accept a collect call from «MomItsTimComePickMeUp»? No? «click»" count as reversing charges on a call? 😆
@neil
the reverse charge service we used allowed a few seconds of audio to record your name. Relatives would get calls like "Do you want to accept a reverse charge call from «HeyImComingHome30MinsLaterBye» or «OutOfCreditPleaseCallMeBack»?". Those "names" were transmitted at no cost, the requests were never accepted, and people would just call back at normal rates if needed.
@neil quite a few of these are US things... We never had "phone cards" here in the same sense. What might be called that were prepaid cards for public phones.
@neil I wonder if the using a phone book needs clarifying as using it as a phone book, and not as say a door stop or monitor stand... :p
@neil I will add:
- Dialed a four digit number to reach someone in the same town
- Given my number as COpley 7-3892
@neil Used to be able to dial any number with good accuracy by clicking on the hook switch on phones that had locks on the rotary dial.
@neil in a larger area, the same thing might be said about area codes ...which still work in the usa in some circumstances
@neil Anyone else used to give "three rings" to let someone know you got home safe? It was a way of sending a message without paying for the call, which never connected because the receiving person was expecting your call and would not pick up until they heard the fourth ring.
Have you ever had a Hot Cross bun? (And what country are you from?)
| Yes, many times!: | 11 |
| Yes, just once: | 1 |
| Meh: | 0 |
| I don't think so: | 1 |
| Never: | 4 |
| A what?: | 1 |
@nick My wife and I were definitely under the influence of the Bad Idea Bears while we were in Czechia. #YouShouldBuyBeer #AvenueQ
@nick Well, it •was• close to St. Patrick’s Day, so green beer works. We did the beer spa in Plzen, which was a fun experience.
@nick I’ve got the extended range Ford Mustang Mach-E, which has 500 km of range in the summer and around in the winter. I thought the range would be a consideration when I got it, but so far it hasn’t been.
@ghostinthenet @nick we’ve been 100% EV for the last few years and it’s incredible. Installed a great level two charger in the garage and no worries about gasoline costs.
@Kletskous @nick i'm here 😁🐈
@Kletskous @nick nearly all my followers are latvian, our main mastodon server is toot.lv - check that out for other accounts. If you are interested, also check out my Latvian nature hikes webpage dodies.lv and the historical maps site vesture.dodies.lv
@Kletskous
I think, the liveliest Latvian server is Toot.lv. Scroll through the public timeline, maybe someone catches your eye.
@Kletskous I am based in Hailuoto which is an island in the most nortern Bothnian bay on Finland side
@poemproducer Thank you and welcome. Had to look that one up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hailuoto
Very interesting and happy to follow back! 😺
@Kletskous I live in Slovenia and am new to mastodon.art so looking for new connections!
#FollowTheMoney 🧵34/n #ClimateDiary
We had a veg box for 12 years from Hankham Organics; 3 weeks ago we suddenly had a note with our box that they were closing, as it wasn’t working financially any more. 😢😢😢
And a fish merchant who we got smoked salmon for Christmas from closed this year too, for the same reasons. Plus Goldsmiths’ woes of course (#AcademicVenting). So many good, small organisations struggling and ending.
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 36/n Here a positive, progressive use of money flows:
1400+ Columbia University alumni from its 20 schools have pledged to withhold all “financial, programmatic, and academic support” until school meets demands related to divestment, student discipline, and community safety.
Group website says over $63 million of donations at risk. #Gaza #studentprotests
#FollowTheMoney 🧵37/n
Even though all of us living in the UK know that homelessness is terrible (and has grown exponentially since 2010), it is still shocking to see this graph.
(There are notes on methods: all countries included both rough sleeping and invisible homelessness).
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 38/n
A rare silver lining to severe cuts in local council budgets: for the last few years Eastbourne have stopped spraying our streets and I love this time of year, flowers reclaiming the streets everywhere. #Rewilding #ClimateDiary
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 39/n
Have to add this here. The last 14 years summarised in 4 images #UKPolitics #GE2024
EDIT: here link itself too as images in screenshot i complete
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 40/n haven’t added anything here in a while - but this needs to be posted!
Trump’s victory adds record $64bn to wealth of richest top 10
Share surge increases Elon Musk’s fortune by $26bn in a day as Jeff Bezos, Sergey Brin and Bill Gates also benefit
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 41/n Ok so the reason for the long pause in this 🧵 was being made rdundant in July, by my lovely (not) employer of 13 years, Goldsmiths University. You can read all about it in this long #AcademicVenting 🧵, tracing the whole sorry saga from first rumblings in Nov ‘23 to the bitter end. But of course, #redundancy is all about money, and I think about money all the time now (I have to), so really should write it about it all here a bit
#FollowTheMoney 🧵42/n Firstly, I am conscious of my own #redundancy being very much part of the wider hollowing out, draining out of both public services and professional, creative industries everywhere (see many posts ⬆️). I am really scared about this - it’s strange how this is happening but not really talked about; no #unemployment crisis narrative at all, as of course most people, like me, end up not being “unemployed” but doing smaller, precarious jobs; very few of us on benefiso no stats
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 43/n Now of course Elon Musk - having made 2/3 of Twitter staff redundant - has been hired by Trump to head the new “Efficiency Department”. i find this prospect alone deeply, deeply scary - both in terms of public services disappearing and the 1000s who will lose their jobs. As you all know: there is absolutely nothing “efficient” about these kinds of cuts whatsoever. They are deeply destructive, nothing else.
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 44/n but also: #Redundancy has made me think deeply (of course!) about the role of money in personal decision making. I may be wrong but it feels like this is something we don’t talk about much, and yet it is is so central to everything! I DO want to talk about it, even if I have nothing insightful to say actually. Just a few observations.
1. Money was at core of my decisions around redundancy. I have two teenage children and a high mortgage.
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 45/n
I could not go for lovely 0.5 offered, or for tribunal; I had to opt for enhanced redundancy. If had chosen tribunal route i would have probably been able to keep my job as the 12 who did (who were able to do so due to different financial circumstances) were all reinstalled in an even lovelier deal btw management and union. (The 64 of us eho accepted enhanced redundancy by deadline did not know this would happen).
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 46/n
2. Money is now also so core to all my decision-making in how to spend my time, what jobs to go for - and balancing the need for money with wanting to do good, environmental work, and things I enjoy and am good at. It is quite strange, I gave a lecture at SOAS in Feb this year on “Doing Work You Believe in and be paid for it”, on the very day the Goldsmiths mass redundancies were announced (will see if I can upload recording here)
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 47/n
This was a combination of two papers: one on unpaid Eastbourne climate activism, one on sustainability professionals in the palm oil sector. It is very strange that I gave that lecture and wrote that paper - this is me now! I am out here in the wilderness, having to make a living, and yes, doing consultancy work. Which, of course, as I am rapidly learning, does not have to mean “selling out “ - my current work for the RSPB is really rewarding.
https://journals.librarypublishing.arizona.edu/jpe/article/id/4717/
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 48/n here also a link to the other paper on Eastbourne climate activism, i’ve shared it before but doing so again as it has a brief section on what kind of work is rewarded by high salaries, and what isn’t. I still feel this is an incredibly important topic and not really talked about enough in #ClimateAction circles. Maybe we can talk about it more together here?
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 49/n Anyway, just to end for today: a huge, HUGE shout out ❤️ to everyone on here who works “freelance”, going from one projec to another (more on “projects” and projectification later - so important in itself). I am now realising the immense privilege of a secure job (not secure in my case, as it turned out), where you don’t have to think about where your money will come from in 6 months or whatever. It is a fundamentally different state of being. Everything now existential.
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 50/n Today adding this excellent video by @RichardJMurphy on how “the City” is not our “Jewel in the Crown”, as Rachel Reeves put it, but a parasite extracting huge amounts of money for self-enrichment. It does not add any value to the economy.
So important to see the City for what it is.
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 51/n Richard’s video has spurred me on to do a few posts now on #PrivateEquity. Long overdue here, because private equity is at the heart of how our world works!
(Just to state again: i am not an expert, just someone who is trying to make sense of our world by #FollowingTheMoney, in an eclectic 🧵)
To start with basics: what is private equity? I like this clear definition by Justin Robertson
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13563460903288270
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 52/n
The amount of wealth and assets held by private equity is vast. The biggest private equity firm of all is of course #BlackRock, founded by Larry Fink in 1988. Here is a lovely Statistica chart showing how its “assets under management” grew from $1.31 trillion (i mean, not bad) to $10.41 trillion in 2024. Bloomberg predicts they will hit $15 trillion in a few years
https://www.statista.com/statistics/891292/assets-under-management-blackrock/
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 53/n I have to go now but over the next few days just want to talk about what this means: it means that so much of the world around us - restaurants, care homes, appartment blocks, student accommodation, etc etc, is all owned by private equity; that there is no escape.
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 54/n
This article is hard to stomach for all those of us currently looking for work, and not finding anything suitable, or anything at all. But it’s good that at least rising #unemployment is recognised now.
My own #redundancy last year and subsequent struggles have made me so alert to all these wider structural changes; I am really scared that this may be just the beginning. Terrible combination of AI and money going only to the rich
#FollowTheMoney 🧵55/n
“Keri said her father had been “powered by unconditional love” but he felt the government took advantage of the nearly 6 million people like him who care for a loved one, saving the taxpayer at least £162bn a year.”
This reminded of a thought I had a while back: how salaries/wages are directly negatively correlated with love.
When you do something you love, or out of love, this is instantly punished by capitalism.
Carers, nursery workers -
#FollowTheMoney 🧵56/n
- nurses, art gallery workers, conservation NGOs, academics, etc - all these jobs that people do out of love for something/one are poorly paid. Love is exploited. More love = less money.
Only love of money itself and nothing else is rewarded with money (high salaries, bonuses, etc). Maybe not surprising - what do you expect in capitalism - but not much honesty about it. All that neoliberal motivational #Passion talk (“my work is my passion”) - exploitative bollocks.
#FollowTheMoney 🧵57/n
This LinkedIn post resonates … wanted to share here just in case there are others who are in this situation too.
Also one reason I hardly ever add to this 🧵any more is that, of course, I am literally trying to #FollowTheMoney, or rather, divert some from somewhere to my bank account😄 #JobSearch #FediHire
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 58/n
I think so much about middle class-ness at the moment. More research in news this week how it’s the top 10%, those with incomes over £36,000, who are largely responsible for CO2 emissions; but it’s even more than that; middle-class aspirations shape everything. So conscious of this now as I am so driven in finding work so as not to have to sell our (nice, middle class, highly mortgaged house). Then a friend just sent me this - must read. #ClimateDiary
#FollowTheMoney 🧵59/n
Meanwhile our lovely king..
Meanwhile also, as I am listening to the radio as I am typing this: yet another horrific attack in northern #Gaza. Another 50 killed, after yesterday’s 80. This is our world.
#FollowTheMoney 🧵60/n
“The wealth of the world’s 3,000 billionaires has surged by $6.5tn (£4.8tn) in real terms over the past decade, according to Oxfam, equivalent to 14.6% of global output”
Capitalism is shit.It is by the rich for the rich and destroys everything else in the process. Let’s keep saying it!
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/jun/26/billionaires-wealth-oxfam-report?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
#FollowTheMoney 🧵61/n
Just adding this here. A little poll I did a while back!
#FollowTheMoney 🧵62/n
A key dimension to capitalism’s destructivism is, of course, its complete intertwining with warfare. Here more than anywhere it’s crucial to #FollowTheMoney, as Craig Murray does beautifully in this piece.
Dystopia UK: Genocidal RAF Squadron Targeted by Palestine Action is Owned by a Hedge Fund
#FollowTheMoney 🧵63/n Excellent article by Tim White on how across Europe #privateequity has been buying up significant proportions of housing and driving up rental prices. A key dynamic in growing inequality that contributes to alienation and rise of far-right.
Everything is about #Assets.
#FollowTheMoney 🧵64/n The article made me think once again about Monopoly, and how perfectly it captures what the world is like. Originally called “the Landlord Game”, it was invented in 1903 by left-wing feminist Lizzie Magie who wanted to expose how rentier capitalism works through a game. She more than succeeded but - this being capitalist US - never got the credit for it. Interesting piece about it all here.
#FollowTheMoney 🧵65/n
Why is the FTSE 100 at a record high? Could it be that the markets love war, chaos, the prospect of building concentration camps and more? Is the City rubbing its hands in glee at the prospect of making profit from oppression?
#FollowTheMoney 🧵66/n Have to add this here, too. As Takei says, always follow the money!
Soencer Hakimian: I have good reason to believe that somebody knew the copper tariffs were coming and traded the news ahead of time, and made an ungodly amount of profit.
Trump announced his new 50% copper tariff at 12:58 PM yesterday.
But as my charting shows, the price of copper began spiking at 12:56 PM.
#FollowTheMoney 🧵67/n
Forgot that this post should havev been part of this thread, really! 😊
#FollowTheMoney 🧵68/n Have been reading up a bit on Elbit Systems, the Israel military corporation that has been a key supplier in rhe genocide, that Palestina Action protested about, and that the UK government may shortly be signing a £2billion contract wirh to train UK military. Was wondering whether UK pension funds may be investing in Elbit Systems - and yes, they are!
“good returns”
#FollowTheMoney 🧵69/n I then looked up whether USS (the university oension scheme) invests in Elbit, and of course, yes, indirectly , they do
#FollowTheMoney 🧵70/n and THIS is the USS statement on this - really worth reading. #Gaza
Financialisation is so evil.
#FollowTheMoney 🧵71/n Great to see Zack Polanski use “Follow The Money” as a political slogan - so it should be! (apologies for sharing an X post, tried to find the video elsewhere, failed) #ZackPolanski
#GreenParty #UKPolitics
#FollowTheMoney 🧵72/n “Vice like grip” - nice.
“In 2025 you can still buy advantage, massively increasing your chance of getting into the most powerful roles in the country. This is grossly unfair, and a waste of talent on a huge scale. If we want a fairer country and a stronger economy, employers and policymakers must take responsibility for levelling the playing field, where privilege is no longer a passport to power.”
#FollowTheMoney 🧵73/n
American billionaires have reached $7.6 trillion of personal wealth , up $4.7 trillion (or 160%) in the less than eight years since the first Trump-GOP tax law was enacted in December 2017.
Most of that wealth increase has never been taxed and may never be under current law.
Number of billionaires grew from 551 to 905. But the top 15 - each worth over $100 billion– have seen their wealth grow by more than 300%.
https://americansfortaxfairness.org/billionaires-7-trillion/
#FollowTheMoney 🧵74/n Just finished listening to this 2part #TheDig podcast interview with Melinda Cooper about her book “Counterrevolution. Extravagance and Austerity in Public Finance”, and really cannot recommend it enough. A really excellent, grounded and stimulating account of the neoliberal “counterrevolution” as a deliberate project carried out over several decades by different political actors making fiscal choices that reshaped economy, values and politics
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-dig/id1043245989?i=1000729326228
#FollowTheMoney 🧵75/n what i particularly appreciated:
1. Disaggregating each decade - how assets became the key focus of economic over time
2. How this links to a conservative political project - the family the key unit for multiple reasons
3. How asset economics the material basis for far right populism
4. Brilliant focus on changing construction worker politics,property speculators (Trump) and homeownership - construction such a key sector in all this
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-dig/id1043245989?i=1000731213819
#FollowTheMoney 🧵76/n i have just ordered the book (Counterrevolution) - i really feel it’s so important to get a grounded understanding of how this world that we now all live in was created - and, as Melinda Cooper brings out so clearly: none of this was inevitable, it was all done, bit by bit, on purpose. This doesn’t make it any easier to undo necessarily but understanding all this is surely a first, key step.
Here also Katrina Forrester’s review in the LRB
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n12/katrina-forrester/i-appreciate-depreciation
#FollowTheMoney 🧵77/n This piece really chimes with Melinda Cooper’s analysis ⬆️ (74-76) and many previous posts: it’s about how asset capitalism (and AI) is hollowing out the middle class, with a small number joining the elite, the rest working increasingly on close to minimum wages. Also speaks to my own recent experiences… and many others too, I imagine. Especially recent graduates. The whole university>white collar job>decent salary model is crumbling.
#FollowTheMoney 🧵78/n #ZohranMamdani’s win has to be logged here - for three reasons!
1. This 🧵 all about the #oligarchy, the way it structures our world, and Mamdani taking it on directly, talking about it, making us all #SEEtheoligarchy is just 🔥
Mamdani condemns ‘oligarchy and authoritarianism’ in speech directly talking to Trump
#FollowTheMoney 🧵79/n
2. Melinda Cooper’s brilliant #Counterrevolution (posts 74-76 ⬆️ ) describes how #NewYork was the place that the neoliberal counterrevolution began - where fiscal policies redistributing money towards the rich, assets and property (Trump’s world!) were first tested and then taken elsewhere.
So exciting that New York is now the place where a different, socialist politicsl economy is emerging! Go New York! Let this spread everywhere from here, too!
#FollowTheMoney 🧵80/n #ZohranMamdani
3. Lastly, I am also super excited that the son of an anthropologist is now Mayor of New York! Of course it’s wrong to claim Mamdani for anthropology- he is own person, and his mother is brilliant too - but I want to just do this for now. Anthropology, as David Graeber said, is about possibilities, - this is what Mamdani is showing us all now, too. I see so much of anthro in what he is doing I will shamelessly share this 🧵
#FollowTheMoney 🧵 81/n From Foreign Correspondent to Uber Driver
This is an incredible, moving personal perspective on this system that we are all entangled in, that shifts money to the few away from the rest of us at accelerating rate.
Having also experienced #Redundancy not too long ago and still very much in the doldrums of short term, part time jobs, this resonates deeply. So many are going through this, we need to help each other. #Precarity
New #blog post: Adding A Balcony #Solar Install to our garage
We've had solar for nearly 3 years now, but our easterly exposure has been niggling at me: output starts waning around lunch so the afternoon feels wasted (particularly after a cloudy morning)
So, I've added some west facing panels to the garage using a plug-in solar kit
This post talks about the install, setting up monitoring with #telegraf as well as results in the week since
https://www.bentasker.co.uk/posts/blog/house-stuff/adding-plugin-solar-to-our-capacity.html
@ben Can those microinverters implement an export limit themselves if you had enough to get near the limit?
@ben ooh, nice. I have a similar issue with afternoon sun as my panels face south east.
I might well be using plugin units to help with this when they are legal.
I wonder if I can add these as I have already got 4kW peak installed? Does this not break G98 regs?
@ben Thanks - this is really useful.
I've been eyeing up a garage roof installation in addition to the existing panels.
The maximum export gotcha isn't something I was aware of. I'm wondering if it might be possible to feed a battery on the sunniest days so as not to exceed the maximum export - but of course, as you say, batteries are much less cost effective.
@ben Loved the bit about the confusion with the waste-paper fire. Aren't those misleading co-incidences annoying?
“The maximum output listed on the back of the inverter is 3.7A. However, 800W at 240v is around 3.3A so I decided to flag if it went much above that.”
Note, though that 800W at your warning level of 3.4A is about 235.3V, still well above the nominal 230V in the UK. OK, in practice the voltage is usually closer to the “legacy” 240V in most places but I wouldn't be bothered until the current gets a little bit higher than your limit.
@edavies thanks! fair point on the voltage/current.
In practice, we've stayed some way below peak so (depending how summer looks) Im toying with dropping the alert further