iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Sheddi @sheddi.mstdn.party.ap.brid.gy · 08/10/2026

@ret you could base it on this genuine poster.

Lidl Parkside advertising poster. Arnold Schwarzenegger wears a green collared shirt while holding a Parkside battery-operated drill in front of a green background.

Slogan: PARKSIDE Control your smart tools

Sheddi @sheddi.mstdn.party.ap.brid.gy · 04/08/2026

I'm pleased to announce the latest product from Shoddy, er, Sheddi Industries - the plyPhone! An artisanally-crafted piece of plywood, hand finished in black spray varnish, with a dashboard disc lovingly glued into place by one of our expert epoxy-smiths. It […] [Original post on mstdn.party]

A fairly close-up photo of the top of the dashboard on a VW UP! (the exclamation mark is part of the model name).

Attached to the dashboard is the original VW cellphone holder. Inserted into the holder is a roughly phone-shaped piece of plywood, painted black, with a black plastic "dashboard disc" glued to it. Glue is visible around the disc suggesting it was done sloppily and/or in a hurry.

Suckered onto the dashboard disc is the mount for a late-2010s TomTom satnav. The photo makes it look as though it's at a jaunty angle.

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Sheddi @sheddi.mstdn.party.ap.brid.gy · 23/07/2026

Whatever the pink flowers are, the bumblebees like them! (I realise this is a terrible angle, the bee was busy going about its own business and didn't want to cooperate.)

A clump of the same pink flowers from the previous post, this time with a buff-tailed bumblebee enjoying their nectar and spreading their pollen around.

The bee is facing downwards and it's a terrible angle; I'm a terrible wildlife photographer!

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Sheddi @sheddi.mstdn.party.ap.brid.gy · 23/07/2026

My motorcycle passed its MoT test (annual inspection) so I'm celebrating with lunch at Costa. These blackberries were growing in the car park. They seem to have had a good year - lots of sunshine and sufficient water - as they're huge, by the standards of wild blackberries.

A clump of wild blackberries (aka brambles, briars). The fruit are varying in ripeness, but most are black (a very deep purple) with others being red. They're also larger than I'd expect.

Behind the berries you can see green leaves and brown stems. There are also some pink flowers which I don't recognise but they're nothing to do with the blackberries!

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Sheddi @sheddi.mstdn.party.ap.brid.gy · 15/07/2026

@simon_brooke I'm not expert but I think you've made a false assumption. You say: "The typical daily high humidity in England in July is around 90" ... and I'm happy to take that at face value. However, the highest July humidity is when the temperature is […] [Original post on mstdn.party]

A temperature and humidity chart for the 9th of July 2026, showing that the humidity was around 80% at 7am. At that time the temperature was around 18C.

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Sheddi @sheddi.mstdn.party.ap.brid.gy · 13/07/2026

@ret Very nice! My curves are a similar shape (also SSW) but about 1/3rd the size ...

Screenshot from the Solis Cloud app showing a plot of solar generation on 11th July 2026.

The main body of the plot, from about 9am to 8pm, is a nearly perfect hump. Before 9am there's a small but growing sliver of generation from diffuse sunlight while the sun makes its way around the end of my house until it finally shines on the panels.

Total generation for the day is 15.6kWh, equivalent to 5.74 hours of nameplate output.

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Sheddi @sheddi.mstdn.party.ap.brid.gy · 25/06/2026

Good news - I ate'nt dead. (Apologies to Granny Weatherwax.) Related good news - the portable split aircon is doing a decent job of keeping most of my house in the low 20s Celsius (low 70s F). Bad news - the red weather warning now extends into Friday.

Another UK Met Office red weather warning, this one from 0000-2100 Friday and covering England south and east of Oxford. This includes all 6 million people in Greater London.

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Sheddi @sheddi.mstdn.party.ap.brid.gy · 22/06/2026

There's now a RED warning of extreme heat for Wednesday and Thursday. weather.metoffice.gov.uk/warnings-a…

UK Met Office screenshot showing a red warning of extreme heat for central southern England overlaid on an amber warning of extreme heat that's covering the rest of the visible map.

Text below the map reads:

An exceptional spell of hot and humid weather is expected across the region, with impacts to the general population highly likely.

What should I expect?

Population-wide adverse health effects not limited to those most vulnerable to extreme heat, leading to serious illness or danger to life.

The list of effects continues if you were to scroll the screen (which isn't possible with a screenshot).

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Sheddi @sheddi.mstdn.party.ap.brid.gy · 21/06/2026

I'm running out of superlatives and am wondering whether I can join @fratermus in the desert.

Another of these Met Office screenshots looking at the forecast for Monday to Thursday of the coming week.

Monday: high 32C, low 18C, sunny
Tuesday: high 36C, low 19C, sunny.
Wednesday: high 40C, low 20C, sunny.
Thursday: high 39C, low 19C, sunny.

All four days have amber "weather warning" symbols.

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Sheddi @sheddi.mstdn.party.ap.brid.gy · 21/06/2026

Dave The Hippy says "Happy Solstice!" (Original art by @AmandaBates )

Selfie photo showing a white t-shirt decorated with an illustration of Dave the Hippie. Being a selfie (and me being a terrible photographer) it's a mirror image.

Dave has long brown hair, a green shirt, blue trousers, round spectacles and a moustache.

He is holding a bunch of yellow flowers in his right hand (but on the left, as it's a mirror image).

Hod hands are yellow and C-shaped since Dave is apparently a LEGO-style mini figure.

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Sheddi @sheddi.mstdn.party.ap.brid.gy · 21/06/2026

Reader, it gets worse. 39C is 102F.

Another screenshot excerpt from the Met Office app.

Monday: high 33C, low 18C, sunny.
Tuesday: high 36C, low 19C, sunny.
Wednesday: high 39C, low 21C, sunny.
Thursday: high 36C, low 18C, sunny.

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Sheddi @sheddi.mstdn.party.ap.brid.gy · 20/06/2026

It's not getting any better, is it?

Extract from a UK Met Office weather forecast.

Sunday: high 29C, low 19C, sunny spells.
Monday: high 32C, low 18C, sunny.
Tuesday: high 36C, low 18C, sunny.
Wednesday: high 35C, low 20C, sunny.

Monday and Tuesday both have amber alert warning triangles.

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Sheddi @sheddi.mstdn.party.ap.brid.gy · 19/06/2026

This Met Office "amber warning if heat" just popped up on my phone (I have their app, this isn't some sort of nationwide push message). If you're in the UK, it's going to be hot next week. (Rest of the world: this is mid-30s C, so 90s F. By UK standards this is unusual, even in the summer.)

UK Meteorological Office "Amber warning of extreme heat" from 0100 Monday to 2359 Tuesday. I guess the Meter Office don't approve of using 2400 to signify midnight at the end of the day.

Text of warning: A developing hot spell is expected to peak on Monday and Tuesday and lead to widespread impacts on people and infrastructure.

Likelihood: Medium. Impact: Medium.

The map shows an amber blob labelled "Amber: Extreme Heat" covering the south and east of England, excluding Cornwall.

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Sheddi @sheddi.mstdn.party.ap.brid.gy · 31/05/2026

As it seems almost everyone else on my timeline is posting photos of their weekend DIY projects, here's mine. The water butt stand that I made 20 years ago finally began to rot away, so I've been busy making another one. In those 20 years I've gone through a […] [Original post on mstdn.party]

An outdoor scene.

In front of a red brick wall, three 200-litre water butts ( the left one one dark green, the others black) sit on a raised wooden stand.

To the left of the photo some red terracotta planters can be glimpsed.

To the right, a black plastic compost bin intrudes into shot, with glimpses of tall grass and a green metal shed beyond.

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Sheddi @sheddi.mstdn.party.ap.brid.gy · 26/05/2026

Top heatwave tip: don't leave your fridge door open 😭

Photo of a fridge thermometer on a glass shelf (in a fridge) with plastic food boxes behind it.

The thermometer reads 18.1 degrees C - that's the mid-60s F.

That is not an appropriate temperature for a fridge!

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Sheddi @sheddi.mstdn.party.ap.brid.gy · 04/05/2026

Not exactly the sort of "guerilla solar" installation that @smallsolar and @balkonsolar encourage, but here's a 2.4kWp PV art installation in Vienna's Museum Quarter. Eight 300Wp glass-on-glass panels, Enphase IQ7X microinverters. "converter:" by Judith Fegerl.

An angular sculpture made of galvanised box-section steel tubes, supporting eight solar panels in groups of three, three and two. Below the panels, tubular lamps are attached which, during darkness, are said to emit purplish light.
The sculpture is called "converter:" and is the work of Judith Fegerl.

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Sheddi @sheddi.mstdn.party.ap.brid.gy · 12/04/2026

Great juxtaposition on my feed. Almost like it was planned!

A screenshot from Mastodon showing two unrelated toots.

Lower (earlier toot): a report from Steve Herman on DJT's latest unhinged rant about Iran.

Upper (later post): a toot from the John Peel Band Names automated account (which posts procedurally-generated indie band names, on the style of the late-night DJ) saying "here's the new one from Ill-Tempered Conmen".

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Sheddi @sheddi.mstdn.party.ap.brid.gy · 27/03/2026

I needed some noodles and was getting slightly bored of the usual Lidl ones so I ordered some fancier ones online from Tradewinds Oriental Shop. tradewindsorientalshop.co.uk Ordered late on Tuesday, delivered today by Royal Mail. Just sneaked under the […] [Original post on mstdn.party]

An open cardboard box. The box is full of packs of Nongshim Shin Ramyun noodles.

Clearly visible are:
Red "hot and spicy" noodles.
Purple "tom yum flavour" noodles.
Gold "gourmet spicy" noodles.

The red noodles are in K-Pop Demon Hunters-themed multipacks.

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Sheddi @sheddi.mstdn.party.ap.brid.gy · 30/11/2025

Today was as good as it gets for solar PV at my latitude; clear blue skies all day. But with only eight hours of daylight and a maximum solar elevation of 17 degrees, there only so much that you can expect. Next door's conifers don't help, either - they're why […] [Original post on mstdn.party]

A chart showing solar electricity generation from a rooftop PV array. Generation begins at 0900 and peaks around 1200, before falling steeply just before 1500 and finishing completely by 1700.

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