Justin

@justin@tacoma.community
149 Followers
283 Following
3.5K Posts

A human living in Tacoma, WA with my partner and our two dogs.

Enjoy cooking, crafting, hiking, an occasional run and I’ve been known to ski down a hill now and then.

I have recently have gotten into pottery and sewing as new hobbies having taken local classes recently in Tacoma.


Diversity and inclusion matter!

Oh, I run Tacoma.Community!

#Pottery #Sewing #Tacoma #TacomaWA #EBike #ElectricUnicyle #YouAreNotAlone #MentalHealthMatters #CommunityBuilding #NativePride

pronounshe/him
locationTacoma, WA

This lady who has an interest in #pottery and local clay found my blog posts and got in touch with me. She’s a 3rd generation Floridian and grew up believing that there’s no #clay here, which is a very common misconception.

She came by to visit yesterday and brought a couple of clay samples she’d found. I offered to test fire them for her because she doesn’t have a kiln yet. I just placed them in the test kiln and I’m excited to see what happens. Will post results tomorrow! #WildClay #Florida

yo what the hell there was a 1973 arcade game adaption of the watergate scandal break-in???

"Watergate Caper stimulates the larceny in all of us [?!] to see if we can break in and not get caught"

[ https://flyers.arcade-museum.com/videogames/show/3107 ]

Does anybody know of an alternative to #BeMyEyes that has a better privacy policy?
I'm looking for a place to volunteer.

Looking at this, they reserve the right to send whatever video you share with them to third parties for research. Maybe their intentions are great, idk, maybe everyone they share with is great, but it seems really bad to be telling people who can't see to be careful what they point their phone cameras at.

https://www.bemyeyes.com/privacy-policy/

Disabled people deserve privacy too.

Privacy Policy

Be My Eyes

Hello everyone, how's it going? I'm tired but I'll get by. I was able to print out some simple labels for my small jars. I'd have higher quality stuff but I wasn't really planning on having any honey this year. Next year I'll try for something more refined.

Well, same label just glossy and crisp. My work printer is color but for drafting print offs, not pictures.

Have a good evening! We're going to sit down to dinner.

#beekeeping #HarpHives #honey

I must have picked twenty #tomatoes from one #plant over the past two weeks. I wish I had someone to #share them with, because they're perfectly ripe and super flavorful.

My great-great-grandfather grew tomatoes for #survival money after he immigrated from #Sicily. The #FarmersMarket he sold them at is still around and one of my favorite places, but it's in a different place. It turns out that the local #DSA chapter meets near where it used to be.

#Gardening

#BloomScrolling #PNW #biketooter
Bike ride in the Skagit Valley today past many huge fields of potatoes in blossom (also, lots of cabbage and spring wheat). This one was on the loop to Samish Island.

Imagine if we had investments like this into clean energy, infrastructure like fast trains or into healthcare.

Instead it’s all set on fire for bullshit autocomplete.

local restaurants I love you but please have a website that isn't your instagram profile and has your hours of business on it. kthx

The National Weather Service is forecasting dangerously high temperatures across parts of #Washington this week. #Heat advisories are issued for several counties statewide for much of the week, with dangerously high temperatures both during the day and overnight and close to 100 degree highs expected Wednesday in some areas.

More at https://doh.wa.gov/newsroom/heat-get-ready-high-temperatures-across-state-week

The heat is on – get ready for high temperatures across the state this week

For immediate release: July 14, 2025   (25-088) Contact: DOH Communications

Washington State Department of Health

I touched some grass today

#bloomscrolling

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NBC reporting on a guy on Vermont refurbishing payphones and setting them up on cell dead zones for free. I kinda want to give him all my money. Thats is fucking awesome.
Good News: Vermont engineer restores payphones for community use

YouTube
@Sempf very cool. Have you seen https://Futel.net yet?
futel.net

The Futel website

@michaelcoyote I hadn't but someone mentioned it. I guess there are a few, so cool!

@Sempf

I'm so glad people are doing these kinds of things to keep public telephony alive.

@Sempf I've met some truly odd duck engineers in Vermont in the best possible way. POTS is how I got my start and it's awesome to see people continue driving this.
A Vermont engineer is bringing back to life a staple of the 50s and 60s | 100.3 WHEB | Lend A Helping Can

Patrick Schlott fixes up and installs old payphones in Vermont communities where people need to place calls—after making a key modification to remove the need for coins.

Lend A Helping Can
@Sempf hey that guy is from my town, I can confirm he is very cool and the project is neat.
@Sempf actually I'm assuming he's the guy I'm thinking of. It's entirely possible there's more than one. This is the one in my town. https://randtel.co/
RandTel

Welcome to RandTel

@Sempf That. Is. Awesome.
@Sempf Wait. So he’s putting a cell radio in pay phone boxes then sets them up to make calls for free? That’s wild!
@chartier They didn't get into the tech details, but it looked that way to me from the video of him working. Arduino, I think. Dunno why he wouldn't use a raspberry pi but you use what you know, you know?

@Sempf @chartier

Looks like these are being setup in libraries/stores/etc where cell service is bad, so I dont think hes using a cell modem.

I'm betting hes connecting to the local buildings wifi and routing calls that way via VOIP, voice over IP. So these look like a simultaneous donation, his payphone/tech/effort and the locations power/internet.

@Sempf @chartier he may use an Arduino to control the power/signalling to the payphones and other linked equipment.

He appears to be using as much of the original tech as possible - payphones need various extra signalling on top of standard analogue lines - and maybe some other type of ATA (analogue telephone adapter) for the VOIP end (a commercial off the shelf one would be easiest way of dealing with things like battery and ringing voltage, and I believe some of the Grandstream ones even handle loop disconnect (pulse/rotary) dialling).

@Sempf love this and can attest: VT has more than its share of cell dead zones
@cthon1c In populated areas too! Last time we were over there we were shocked at how many places we couldn't get a signal
@Sempf There's another org doing this too: https://futel.net
futel.net

The Futel website

Home

Building an amateur payphone network in Philadelphia.

philtel

@Sempf

So great, and I'm not the least little bit surprised. This is so on-brand for VT right now. People here working outside the capitalist economy to support those around them and provide necessary goods and services.

@anne Can y'all spread some of that helping other people shit around to the rest of the country? Vermont is small but mighty.
@Sempf that is amazing! does he just hook them up to power lines?
@bun It needs internet of some kind.
Plain old telephone service - Wikipedia

@sb Copper is expensive, dude. No, really, two of the elders I care for are ex Ma Bell folks in their 70s And they both absolutely insist to have a POTS line in their house. The local phone people hate them horribly. It brings joy to my shriveled little soul.

@Sempf

I recently emailed him about the payphone here in #ThisOldClownHouse!

Nice guy, directed me to a more geographically local project for help. :)

@Sempf
We also still have a few of these Millenium phones in our town.
Engineer Fixes and Re-Installs Old Payphones, Provides Free Calls to the Public - Core77

Payphones "were the only things that were built to last for decades and be out in the elements," says electrical engineer Patrick Schlott. He should know; as a hobby, he buys secondhand payphones, rewires them, then asks local businesses in rural Vermont if they'd let him install them. His goal

Core77
@jeridansky @Sempf Definitely that is my guy! So funny, I've swapped a ton of email with him and even talked on the phone but I didn't know what he looked like. Meanwhile, my FUTEL zine just arrived today!