@stgm@aus.social

StephenM @stgm@aus.social · Jul 30, 2026

Replying to @phocks@bne.social

@phocks@bne.social About 10 years ago I worked on a website that processed credit card payments but we never had any need to store a CC number. We simply bundled up then encrypted the details of the payment and sent it off to the payment gateway provided by the CC bank. They sent back a Yes or No for success or failure. So I would be amazed if any company is stupid enough to store clients CC numbers.

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StephenM @stgm@aus.social · Jun 08, 2026

Replying to @kaiserkiwi@corteximplant.com

@kaiserkiwi@corteximplant.com @matt@oslo.town I do remember those swing top bottles of Grolsch. You could take them back to get 10c for the bottle. But they were expensive and I didn't particularly like the taste.

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StephenM @stgm@aus.social · Jun 07, 2026

Replying to @matt@oslo.town

@matt@oslo.town What about beer bottles? Are their caps now connected too? Or is metal not a problem?

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StephenM @stgm@aus.social · May 03, 2026

Replying to @TheBreadmonkey@beige.party

@TheBreadmonkey I think that you should organise a festival that combines traditional arts with a series of light humorous plays that rely on exaggerated, improbable situations, physical humor, and misunderstandings. We need a Festival of Arts and Farces.* *apologies to that great British comedian Ronnie Barker from whom I stole this idea.

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StephenM @stgm@aus.social · May 03, 2026

It's really ironic that you can only discover that your roof leaks when it's raining. Because it's too wet to climb up there and fix it. It's dripping right on top of me as I sit at my PC. Time to sit in my lounge chair and browse that other smaller internet that lives on my phone.

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StephenM @stgm@aus.social · Apr 27, 2026

Fascinating short video about Copper nanotubes by Dr Hannah Fry
This could video could benefit from alt text as it displays an image without explanation.
The thing is that nanotubes is generally abbreviated to NT. The symbol for Copper is Cu. Bear in mind that English is not the first language of the Chinese scientists who wrote this paper. They could have abbreviated Copper nanotubes to NTCu, but instead they decided to put Copper first. So we now have CuNTs as the abbreviation.
https://youtube.com/shorts/vUnPBKAFFI4?si=Srji2Annd6YvyrN7
#Science #HannahFry

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StephenM @stgm@aus.social · Apr 26, 2026

Replying to @ewen@social.ewenbell.com

@ewen She came back again and she stayed. Just perched on a cold steel rail for a couple of hours now. I suspect that she has a health problem or maybe just getting too old to find her own food and has come to rely on hand feeding. I did race down to the local supermarket to buy some bird food. I have previously seen packets of Kookaburra food but all I could find today was millet sprays. She was totally uninterested. She didn't want the cheese either. Maybe she just likes me for my personality.

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StephenM @stgm@aus.social · Apr 26, 2026

Replying to @thinkl33t@chaos.social

@thinkl33t Kookaburra. Sometimes called the laughing Kookaburra because of it distinctive call. A variety of Kingfisher but is just as happy hunting insects. An omnivore.

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StephenM @stgm@aus.social · Apr 26, 2026

Boosted by

Kevin Karhan @kkarhan@jorts.horse

I had a visit from this feathery boy. Or maybe she's girl. Just sat patiently while I got very close for the photo. I suspect that they were waiting for a snack. Lots of people in my street like to feed the birds. But I had nothing suitable and there was no way I was sharing my hot buttered raisin toast. #Birds #Wildlife

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StephenM @stgm@aus.social · Apr 25, 2026

Replying to @jon@gruene.social

@jon In 1987 I did a trip like that except I started in Rome. But why stop in Finland? I remember continuing across to Narvik in Norway. Does that train no longer run?

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StephenM @stgm@aus.social · Apr 25, 2026

This is my happy place. After working in the yard I love to sit in the shade in that chair late in the afternoon sipping a beer. I can hear the faint hum of traffic down in the valley but mostly it's just the birdies and the wind in the trees. It's just so peaceful.
#MyHappyPlace #Gabion #Sheds

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StephenM @stgm@aus.social · Apr 20, 2026

My neighbour has taken up bee-keeping. A few weeks ago he bought over some honeycombs. I left it sit on my kitchen bench for a few weeks. Occasionally I would open the container and scoop up some honey with my fingers. But today I started googling how to separate the honey from the beeswax. Unless the neighbour starts giving me a lot more it probably won't be worth too much effort. I think I ended up with about 200ml of honey. And I know for certain that there is no added sugar, unlike those supermarket brands .
#Honey #Bees

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StephenM @stgm@aus.social · Apr 20, 2026

Replying to @phocks@bne.social

@phocks Serious question: How is Cost of Living different from inflation? Aren't they the same thing? I would love to hear your answer. My opinion is that conservative politicians and media have popularized the phrase Cost of Living Crisis simply because it cannot be measured. It's sufficiently vague that you can just scream it into the air and everyone will agree that it's terrible. They can't blame the government for Inflation because Inflation is precisely measured and the numbers show that it is low in historical terms. Which raises the question that maybe the data that feeds into the official measures of inflation needs to change. Because if a Cost of Living Crisis is occurring while inflation is low then what use is the official measures of Inflation?

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StephenM @stgm@aus.social · Apr 11, 2026

I heard that the crew of the Artemis saw lots of cows when they were looking at the moon. That was because they were looking at The Far Side.
#Joke #GaryLarson #Artemis #NASA #Space #Humour #Science

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StephenM @stgm@aus.social · Apr 11, 2026

Meanwhile in Gaza the IDF keeps on murdering children.
https://www.democracynow.org/2026/4/10/headlines/9_year_old_palestinian_girl_shot_dead_in_front_of_classmates_in_gazas_beit_lahia
#Gaza

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StephenM @stgm@aus.social · Apr 10, 2026

I have just had a bizarre retail experience. I went to a camping store to buy a jump-starter. For those of you who don't know what that is: it's just a lithium ion battery powerful enough to jumpstart your car if you have a flat battery. I got caught out in a remote campsite with a flat battery recently and the guy who helped had a jumpstart pack. They're like a bigger phone power pack but with cable connectors to do the job of a car battery. Anyway, it worked perfectly so I decided to buy my own. Much better idea than a pair of jumper cables because you don't need another car to connect to. I recommend them to everyone. For $AU80 they're easy to use and better than waiting for roadside assistance to turn up.
My battery went flat because after returning to camp because I decided to play some music. That involved opening the rear door of the 4WD and turning the ignition key to accessory. I forgot that the car air con switch was still on. So while sitting around the fire, drinking a few beers and screaming "No way, get fucked, Fuck Off" to Doc Neeson's question of "Am I ever gunna see your face again?" my air con was draining the car battery.
So, upon returning home, I went to this shop to buy the thing. I saw them on display for $75 so I grabbed one and took it to the counter. I was ready when the sales clerk tried to up sell an LED headlamp. I didn't really listen to his spiel, I just declined and repeated that I only wanted the jump starter. He then said that it would be cheaper if I took both. Finally he just went and got a headlamp and told me that both together were cheaper than the one single item. Effectively they were paying me $5 to take this bloody LED headlamp. I already have two at home. I pointed out that this business strategy seemed likely to end in bankruptcy but he shrugged because he was just an employee of a huge retail chain and DNGAF.
#Camping #LED
Maybe the purpose is to get the customer to take away excess stock. The headlamp itself requires an AA battery. It doesn't have any built in Li ion battery with USB. So it's probably not a big seller. Everything is Li ion with USB recharging these days.
It reminds me of another interesting story of the time I had to go over to Shelby ville. I was wearing an onion in my belt which was the style at the time ...

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StephenM @stgm@aus.social · Mar 26, 2026

After an eye appointment to check for cataracts I had to wait around until those eye drops wore off and I could see properly again. So I decided to spend that time in a nearby public library.
I grabbed a newspaper which turned out to be The Australian. And I have great news to report from Australia's most authoritative journal of record.
Firstly the IDF says that they have almost completely destroyed the leadership of the IRGC. The IDF also reports that Iranian soldiers are refusing orders to get up out of their bunkers to launch missiles because they are afraid of being targeted. There was no mention of damage to Tel Aviv or southern Lebanon so things must be going great there.
So, if that's the case then the war should be over by tomorrow. Isn't that great? Maybe I should start reading Murdoch's newspapers more regularly. Fantasyland is a much happier place to live.
#IranWar

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StephenM @stgm@aus.social · Mar 26, 2026

@publicnewsfeed@mastodon.social Shouldn't we first block the nations that started the war like the US and Israel?

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StephenM @stgm@aus.social · Feb 22, 2026

Boosted by

Charlie Stross @cstross@wandering.shop

Replying to @ploum@mamot.fr

@ploum@mamot.fr @cstross@wandering.shop I am reminded of a line from a William Gibson novel "And, for an instant, she stared directly into those soft blue eyes and knew, with an instinctive mammalian certainty, that the exceedingly rich were no longer even remotely human."

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