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mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze") wrote:

Captured with the Rodenstock 23mm/5.6 HR Digaron-S lens (@ f/6,3), Phase One IQ4-150 back (@ ISO 50), Phase One XT camera (1/25 sec exposure).

This unassuming cylindrical tower, at first glance perhaps a grain silo or water tower, was part of a secret "continuity of government" microwave communications network. Built in the early 1960's, a network of similar towers located around the capital region linked the White House with critical sites such as Camp David, Raven Rock, and Mount Weather.

mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze") wrote:

"CARTWHEEL" Tower, Fort Reno, Washington, DC, 2020.

All the pixels, with a secret bunker buried under each one, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/49576247768

#photography

NfNitLoop ("Cody Casterline 🏳️‍🌈") wrote:

How do you become the whitehouse press secretary for the worst president in history? There should be an SNL skit of soulless people competing to tell bigger and bigger lies without flinching.

fribbledom ("muesli") wrote:

Day 1: "Yesss sun!"
Day 3: "My thighs have fused together."
Day 5: "I miss clouds. I miss grey. I miss who I was."

pzmyers@freethought.online ("pzmyers 🕷") wrote:

Today we learn that you cannot engineer peace while sitting on a toilet, and that Truth Social is not a good source of information.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/06/24/truth-social-is-nothing-but-self-serving-lies/

jscalzi@threads.net ("John Scalzi") wrote:

Ahhhh, I see the ceasefire is going as well as anything that fumbling nitwit has ever announced

cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen") wrote:

EndBOX: Boot straight to a BASIC environment running on top of NetBSD:

https://www.endbasic.dev/2025/06/unveiling-the-endbox.html

An interesting alternative to a BASIC running on the metal. Get the advantages of NetBSD's features with the constraints and focus of a BASIC environment.

(Based on my... less than happy experiences building embedded Linux systems, I've also been pondering how well a BSD system might work instead for things like this.)

Boosted by jwz:
ANARCORAXA@todon.eu ("☆ ANARCORAXA ☆") wrote:

Good morning / afternoon / evening / night dear birds of a feather! 🏴

Attachments:

• video: Another funny version of the scene in which Richard Spencer is punched in the face, repeated several times and accompanied by music. There are a lot of houses and people in the background, journalists walk past.

Boosted by jwz:
agiletortoise ("Greg Pierce") wrote:

Let that be your battlefield.

Boosted by jwz:
jmcrookston ("Jonathan") wrote:

I can't get over this sentence no matter how often I read it.

"Women showed no effects when told they were masculine; however, men given feedback suggesting they were feminine expressed more support for war, homophobic attitudes, and interest in purchasing an SUV."

Boosted by jwz:
lain@cyber.ms ("Lain Iwakura Bot") wrote:

📺 Serial Experiments Lain

🗓️ Season: S01E08
🎥 Episode: Rumors
🎬 Directed by: Shigeru Ueda
📅 Release Date: August 24, 1998
⏯ Frame: 0212

Boosted by jwz:
loosenut@genart.social ("sɹɐʎA xɘlA 💻➡🗑") wrote:

#TilingTuesday

Attachments:

• gifv: an animation with 6-way symmetry

fribbledom ("muesli") wrote:

My to-do list is now a historical document of things I once thought I had the energy for.

fribbledom ("muesli") wrote:

Just hurt my neck yawning. Not skydiving. Not wrestling a bear. Yawning.

This is how I find out I'm old 😭💀

adam@social.lol ("Adam Newbold") wrote:

This began as a fun little diversion tied to the authentication system that I’m building for omg.lol, Neato, and other stuff. Now it’s become its own entire grown-up side project. 😅

Attachments:

• gifv: A gray plastic device with an LCD display that takes up most of the front surface. In the top left corner, a stylized "NeatPet" logo appears, followed by some decorative lines. In the top right, the text "PIXEL ENTITY TERMINAL" appears. Below the display, on the left, there are three buttons labeled INTERACT, A, and B. On the right is one additional button labeled ON / OFF. The LCD screen has a digital version of the same stylized neatpet logotype, with a circular rotating loading animation below, the word "Booting..." to the left, and "Press B" to the right.

fribbledom ("muesli") wrote:

Modern video games are less "interactive entertainment" and more "unpaid internships".

You boot up a new title and suddenly you're harvesting digital turnips, micromanaging a medieval tax system, and crafting 37 different types of leather boots just to unlock the privilege of being mildly entertained for 15 minutes.

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
BorrisInABox@fwoof.space ("Patrick Perdue") wrote:

#AudioMo day23:

Did you know that there is hidden morse code all throughout Mike Oldfield's 'Tubular Bells' album?

Somehow, probably during the two-track mix-down stage of the album, the CW from a powerful, very low frequency transmitter about 37 miles north of the studio in which this album was recorded found it's way to tape. It's centered at 16 kHz, and so low in the mix that you can't actually hear it... at least, not without some help.

This is a very short, not particularly comprehensive demo using two different methods -- a pair of stock Reaper plugins and an SDR package to mostly isolate this morse transmission, which is heard throughout the entire album.

References:
Hidden Morse Code in Tubular Bells https://madpsy.uk/link-between-the-soundtrack-of-the-exorcist-and-amateur-radio/

The Hidden Signal Inside A Platinum Selling Album - Tubular Bells https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3UJAfuvniI

Attachments:

• audio: Demonstration of uncovering a morse code transmission that went undiscovered for three decades in the album Tubular Bells. Includes examples rendered by two different methods, and touches on the difference between pitch shifting and frequency shifting.

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
alice@lgbtqia.space ("🅰🅻🅸🅲🅴 (🌈🦄)") wrote:

More pretty flowers to brighten your Monday 😊

#BloomScrolling #AlicePics #Flower #Photography

jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

#If I Tell You I Love You by Melody Gardot

https://pandora.app.link/WtC2FUhSrUb

jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

ahhhhhh

I'll Take Care of You by Gil Scott-Heron

https://pandora.app.link/1ByszLERrUb

jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

You Know Who I Am by Leonard Cohen

https://pandora.app.link/3qt37ZfRrUb

jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

yessssssss

A Case of You by Joni Mitchell

https://pandora.app.link/uQlNTnVQrUb

jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

Ol '55 by Tom Waits

https://pandora.app.link/gKLVZ5yQrUb

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
deborahelizabeth.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy ("Deborah Elizabeth Finn") wrote:

In addition to protest marches and rallies, we have many other options for peaceful resistance to the authoritarian regime. These two web sites outline many nonviolent strategies. You can choose the ones that work best for your community.beautifultrouble.org commonslibrary.org

Beautiful Trouble

jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

oh yah…

Someday (feat. Mark Knopfler) by Eric Clapton

https://pandora.app.link/lKShtDMPrUb

Boosted by mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze"):
mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze") wrote:

The rapid decline of local content on the mediumwave bands has considerably reduced the romantic mystery of tuning around and seeing what you find. It's mostly now a sterile mix of mass-produced, syndicated right wing talk, sports, and so on. But there are still a handful of stubbornly local stations producing their own programming.

Boosted by mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze"):
mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze") wrote:

AM broadcast is a technically interesting and somewhat endangered medium. The low frequencies mean that signals routinely travel well beyond their local coverage areas, especially overnight in winter. So there's a bit of mystery in tuning around the dial late at night; you never know what you might pick up.

Sadly, industry consolidation and the growth of higher bandwidth media (FM, satellite, podcasts) has greatly reduced the variety and local focus of programming. But it somehow hangs on.

Boosted by mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze"):
mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze") wrote:

Note, important safety tip: you can get closer to this tower without clearly trespassing or jumping fences than most other 50KW broadcast antennas I've encountered. I measured a field strength of over 80V/m a bit outside the tower fence, which is an incredibly strong signal (though still within OSHA limits at the frequency involved).

Resist any temptation to jump the fence and climb the (energized) tower. You'd be electrocuted as soon as you touch it.

Boosted by mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze"):
mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze") wrote:

The antenna field is in the final approach and takeoff flightpath for SFO airport's runways 28L/R (and 10L/R), and so the site has special markings to warn pilots of a collision hazard. In addition to the usual tower lights and red/white paint, 3-dimensional "HAZ" warnings were installed around the field. These are easily visible in areal photos; see, e.g., https://earth.google.com/web/@37.5471204,-122.23429544,0.73120256a,577.14725587d,35y,0.01179999h,0t,0r/data=CgRCAggBQgIIAEoNCP%5F%5F%5F%5F%5F%5F%5F%5F%5F%5F%5FwEQAA

Boosted by mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze"):
mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze") wrote:

This distinctive stacked dual antenna arrangement is used to lower the radiation angle of the antenna, concentrating transmitted power to the "ground wave" and reducing energy that would otherwise be sent upward into the sky.

The smaller (300 foot) freestanding mast in the background left is not in current use. It can be used as an emergency spare antenna for KNBR during maintenance of the taller main antenna.