iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Billfred Leverette is tired @billfred.com · 03/09/2026

@mermaidzippy.com In case you were looking for additional opportunities, Singapore does seem to be looking out for the merfolk. (Also, hi from Singapore)

Picture of a pink transit billboard featuring a mermaid on a pink chair. The

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Billfred Leverette is tired @billfred.com · 19/11/2025

@nebula.tv HECK YEAH THIS IS WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT RIGHT HERE. An occasional roadmap to what and who is new on Nebula makes discovery so much better than guessing at thumbnails (or on hard mode, channel icons) in the app. @dwisk.us, give all involved a cookie.

Screenshot of the top of the New on Nebula email that hit my inbox, with Scav as the featured series (rightfully, it’s fun).

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Billfred Leverette is tired @billfred.com · 10/11/2025

A reminder for people eyeing the Mega Millions: the expected value of a ticket only reaches the $5 ticket price when the jackpot is at $1.125 billion. At the current $900m, the expected value is $4.22. I know, I know, gotta be in it to win it. But it's important to know the score.

Chart explaining the math. The probabilities of each multiplier for non-jackpot prizes works out to 3.0149. Given the stated odds of winning each prize and the expected multiplier, the expected value of non-jackpot prizes is $1.13. The jackpot, which is not subject to a multiplier, has odds of 1 in 290472336. $1.125 billion times 1/290472336 is $3.87, bringing the expected value to $5.00.

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Billfred Leverette is tired @billfred.com · 19/10/2025

Now that I have both: yeah, you're right. I see college kids around campus that walk around with them, but they don't play nice with my hat. And when you have a solar panel up top like I do, hats are mandatory in midday sun.

Me, wearing a comically large tan sun hat about twice as big in diameter as my head. In the background is the main square of Charleville-Mézières, France, but that's beside the point--this happened to be the best photo of my hat on my head.

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Billfred Leverette is tired @billfred.com · 30/08/2025

Get a picture of a well-fenced British television landmark. You have five minutes. Your time starts now. #Taskmaster

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Billfred Leverette is tired @billfred.com · 19/08/2025

The kids I mentor pick things up quick. Steered them right through the Onshape work to bring these up to 2025 and slicing it up for printing. The result is sick. #omgrobots #3dprinting #columbiasc

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Billfred Leverette is tired @billfred.com · 04/08/2025

My entry point to the album was “You Wanted War”, but then I hit this walking to lunch and it was just perfect for today’s mood. Coward. #subskeet

Lyrics from Canadian band Sum 41’s song “I Can’t Wait”:

I just hate / all the time with you that now seems wasted

I will break / All that matters, ‘cause you make me sick

One thing I know is that I’ll be alright / I know that everything will be just fine.

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Billfred Leverette is tired @billfred.com · 02/07/2025

But you should see the other guy.

My opponent's weapon disc after the same fight from the previous post. One hit on my wedge made it shatter. Reportedly, the glue used to assemble it made the polycarbonate brittle.

A fight from 2018, where I set my opponent (same guy from the broken disc, actually) on his side and he lacked a righting mechanism. His robot looks like a lampshade with flails. Mine looks the same wedge concept as usual. It's facing backward, with the team name "SOUTH HECKIN' CAROLINA" on the back panel in Sharpie. My coworkers used to meme all sorts of made-up Carolinas as a gag, so that's where the team name came from.

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Billfred Leverette is tired @billfred.com · 02/07/2025

You'll notice I haven't even touched on the fights themselves. I was never great at that. Think I reached the round of 8 once? I generally played the control bot meta to take advantage of the "active weapons may be plastic" rule. I was up against much better engineered competition.

My 2020 robot, The Pun-Slinger V: Dum Spiro Spero, on display on a hotel room floor. It uses a white Sam's Club cutting board as the front wedge. A bit of plaid duct tape is visible on the sides, and a blue wheel peeks out from the corner. The robot name and a crudely-drawn depiction of the South Carolina state flag are on the top of the wedge in sharpie.

An example of my level of engineering: a corner joint on the robot using four layers of corrugated cardboard glued together. Wood screws with washers are driven through the cardboard into a small wood block.

A picture of the side of the robot repaired after the first fight. More duct tape has been added, and a chunk is missing from the wedge. I captioned it "MINT."

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Billfred Leverette is tired @billfred.com · 02/07/2025

When the world ended in 2020, it was moved to an empty warehouse and used as a "how do we do robots responsibly now?" test.

A sparse warehouse with several teams all spread out about eight feet from each other, with a pipe and black drape stand blocking out space. Everyone is wearing masks.

A group of people in lawn chairs eating out in open air under an awning. A line of cars is parked behind them on grass, with trees and blue sky (hey he said the thing) behind.

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Billfred Leverette is tired @billfred.com · 02/07/2025

What started as an internal office tournament for fighting robots made out of cardboard became A Thing. Folks would come from hundreds of miles away (me included, after I left and moved away). City streets were shut down in Kokomo, Indiana for it.

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Billfred Leverette is tired @billfred.com · 02/07/2025

I took this pic six years ago. To some, it's a moving box. To a certain group of people, it was the start of a strange bonding ritual: Fight Night.

A new, flattened U-Haul moving box propped up against other U-Haul moving boxes.

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Billfred Leverette is tired @billfred.com · 17/03/2025

I’m truly mystified by this Blade helicopter spam. I’m almost to the point of wondering if this is some other date night company trying to Mrs. Doubtfire me.

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Billfred Leverette is tired @billfred.com · 05/03/2025

“Another one.” —DJ Khaled —Me

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Billfred Leverette is tired @billfred.com · 06/02/2025

Someone want to explain why Blade (the helicopter transport company) has Reddit shills that keep pinging one single post where I mentioned a hotel in Manhattan? Four in about a week, and it's just plain as day. Do better.

Screenshot of a Reddit notification where u/Classic_Spring2425 replied "A short Blade helicopter ride around Manhattan at night can totally level up a romantic weekend. It’s quick but memorable, especially if you’re celebrating something special."

Screenshot of a Reddit post where user u/PositionMother3384 writes "A short Blade helicopter ride around Manhattan at night can totally level up a romantic weekend. It’s quick but memorable, especially if you’re celebrating something special."

Screenshot of a Reddit notification where user u/Cool_Ad6850 posts "My go-to move is a Blade helicopter flight around sunset, then dinner somewhere fancy. It’s a killer combo for a short but sweet getaway."

You guessed it. u/Ege37muzsever3000 wrote "My go-to move is a Blade helicopter flight around sunset, then dinner somewhere fancy. It’s a killer combo for a short but sweet getaway."

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Billfred Leverette is tired @billfred.com · 24/01/2025

THE ROBOTICS SHOP IS MOVED IN AND SOMEWHAT ORGANIZED SO WE MIGHT CAN BUILD A ROBOT IN THERE. NOW TO GET IT READY FOR THE OPEN HOUSE NEXT SATURDAY BECAUSE WE NEED TO GET MORE KIDS DOING THIS ALSO DO WE ALL CAPS THE ALT TEXT ON HERE IDK

Wide shot of a robotics workshop in a modest state of organization.

Shot of a less organized part of the robotics shop with three robots and one hard-fought blue winner’s banner on display

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Billfred Leverette is tired @billfred.com · 29/11/2024

Drop the Lock Screen Sometimes you just need a small stuffed goat on a sunny day.

An iPhone Lock Screen where the wallpaper is a small white stuffed goat wearing a red cape on a grassy field with trees in the background. Or as the goats say, a heck of a breakfast buffet.

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Billfred Leverette is tired @billfred.com · 27/11/2024

show me a picture on your phone that has your energy but isn’t a selfie

A picture of two competition robots with elevator lifts loaded with game pieces on a field. The one on the right is badly tilted by its goal looking like it will tip over (it did), while the other is upright and ready to score.

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Billfred Leverette is tired @billfred.com · 26/11/2024

Good! (Gah that robot was such an absurdity. Finished it maybe 45 minutes before I had to be at the venue, flipper motor held on with gaffer tape, and still somehow it reached the quarterfinals before running into the eventual winner. Yes, all of them were made out of cardboard.)

Interior shot of the fighting robot made out of cardboard. The motor that drives the active flipper is held in place with gaffer tape. The blue flipper plate is lifted, with "AVOID THE RUSH HATE CLEMSON EARLY" scrawled on with a marker.

A picture of the same fighting robot after its last fight. The cardboard frame is in at least three pieces, the flipper plate is badly gouged and bent, and one of the wheels is sitting detached.

Another angle of the robot after its last fight. The flipper plate is sitting on the wrong end of the robot, the drive wheel is missing, the sides of the frame are badly gouged, and some of the electronics are hanging out of the robot

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Billfred Leverette is tired @billfred.com · 25/11/2024

Quote with your art that shows a blue sky as a welcome to all the new artists/creatives on blue sky~💙🦋 My art is robots and that’s a painfully indoors thing, but one time I did politely set an opponent on its side out on a patio and that counts, right?

Scene from the end of a robot fight out on a concrete patio on a sunny day. There is a large crowd around the arena, and one robot (my opponent) is on its side about to lose by knockout.

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