Hey guys.

There's a highway that connect the coast to inland, and without it drivers have a 4-hour detour. It has been closed for the past month while a forest fire has been fought by lots of fire crews. It's been burning since August 15th, so over a month now actually.

They've finally mitigated the fire enough that they are temporarily re-opening the highway, however it's remaining closed 8am - 4pm Mon-Fri so that the firemen are not blocked by congestion. When it's not closed between those hours, only 1 lane is open and traffic is led by patrol cars. There is no ETA for a full re-opening.

I went to go apply a condition, when I realized that no one had actually closed the road in the first place. So I added something like "conditional=no @ (Mon-Fri 8:00-16:00)" (I forget the exact syntax).

A day later, someone came in and reverted the change saying "the consensus is that only changes lasting 3 or more months should be made. There are people who download these maps for offline use. So no temporary closures."

But, the DOT of both states this fire is affecting are begging drivers to stop using GPS to the coast on this route - people are driving into active fire zones.

Does concession for offline users actually supersede safety?

I bought my son a Mindstorms Inventor set back in like February 2021 thinking we'd be able to buy cool expansions for like at least a decade. But, he was a little too young both to build and program, so it's collected dust since then.

He recently expressed interest in it again, and so we built one of the 5 robots. But, he doesn't want to disassemble it to make anything else. So I was just going to buy an expansion set.

Well... I just saw that the whole IP was discontinued like a year ago... So I'm trying to find parts that are compatible with the hub, so I can see about getting them individually.

When I look on lego.com and open listings for individual parts, I see "Connect to the 88016", but I'm wondering if other parts will work (such as Color and Distance Sensor 88007, which says it's compatible with the 88009 Hub, but not explicitly the 88016 large hub).

So I guess two questions:

1. Are every motor/sensor with male plugs that physically fit into 88016 compatible with it (and with the Scratch software)
2. Is there a master list of compatible motors/sensors for 88016

Edit / Follow-Up: are the Spike parts compatible? (45678)

So first off, here's my lane balancer. As far as I know this allows 100% throughput (just a bit big).

And here's what I'm calling a 2-Belt Overflow Balancer. It will keep the inputs on their output belt (top stays on top, bottom stays on bottom), and will only actually balance between the two if either are backed up.

And lastly, here's two lane balancers, followed by the overflow balancer:

To clarify; I have not yet sprayed anything into the dial mechanism.

This used to be a light switch, but my son kept leaving it on. So I swapped it out for one of these dials about 2 years ago. Now it seems to be getting stuck around the 10-min mark and being left on all day.

I'd prefer not to replace this dial again; the house is old and the wiring in that receptacle was already pretty hard to work with. But I mean I'm not going to burn my house down in an effort to save myself 10 minutes and $10.

Is it safe to use a silicone based spray on it?

I couldn't figure out how to message the mods (or even individual users) on my app. A space to discuss the survey and your post would be nice.

Edit: Got mod approval to keep this up

I'm seeing this on sale at the moment. I don't care about bleeding edge speed; I'm used to SATA SSD speeds. Is this thing decent?

I feel like there's a catch.

There's a specific comment I'm trying to reply to in the lemmy.world/c/games community, agreeing with how much I love a game they mentioned. But after drafting the message, on mobile it just acts like I haven't pressed the button. On desktop, there's and endless loading circle.

I tried posting the comment before bed, and again this morning, same issue.

I was able to make a top-level comment in another post.

I did post something controversial so maybe they blocked me (although it doesn't look like they commented on my controversial post). But I don't even know if that limits replies.

The only other thing I can think of is they're a kbin.social user.

Does any of this explain why I can't reply? If they did block me, would I expect to see some sort of error message? Or should I expect the endless loading circle?

Hey guys. I admittedly am mostly a layman to the Fediverse as a concept. So I am coming into this post with the knowledge that I don't understand the technical intricacies of it.

I fully expect that Meta will act in as bad of faith as possible, that is something that I think we all agree on. But from what I understand about the Fediverse, I'm just having a hard time understanding how we would not be shooting ourselves in the foot unless we at least try to federate with Threads.

I am aware of Embrace, Extend and Extinguish.

Here are my understandings of the goals as a non-corporate fediverse:

1. We love decentralization
2. We love privacy
3. We love self-reliance
4. We would love to see the non-corporate federation grow

With those understandings, here are my questions:

Doesn't the fediverse have an inherent protection and/or immunity from corporate take-over?

As I mention above, I am aware of Embrace, Extend and Extinguish. But, how is that a risk for the Fediverse?

QOL features, and gimmicky capabilities can be replicated.

The only thing we may not directly be capable of are 1st party Meta acct/apps integrations.

Aren't we protected?

Threads requires effectively all personal data from its users. But only their users. We are not forfeiting any personal data by federating with Threads; we are isolated to, and protected by, our individual instances.

Is there anything currently stopping Meta from scraping the Fediverse for our content?

If even anonymized privacy is a concern, why do we think that defederating will protect us? We're all posting our content on private servers which are wide-open to the public.

Won't we grow & educate?

If we keep corporate instances in the federation, isn't is safe to assume that the non-corporate instance will grow massively? Connecting with Threads and others will allow us to proselytize the benefits of moving off of threads, and improving their digital wellbeing. If we are not connected, they will largely remain oblivious to us.

EDIT: I think this is a benefit because the people who want off of Threads and into the Fediverse are the people who strive for Freedom. This atricle claims the fediverse is not looking for growth, but we do want it to grow with people who agree with its goals, right?

Aren't we worried we're forcing an ultimatum while the Fediverse is still in its infancy?

If we disconnect now, we are telling everyone "choose the shiny new Threads, or the clunky up-and-coming Fediverse". This affects prospective users, and existing users.

What's the harm in pulling the ripcord if we try it, and it's truly not a good fit?

If we pull the ripcord now, we allow Threads to grow in their walled garden.

If we pull the ripcord later, we make an informed decision.

If we never pull the ripcord, we allow Threads to pull the ripcord if they ever so choose. That encloses them into their walled garden, which is exactly where they'd be if WE pull the ripcord now.

"What about an influx of low-quality content?"

This is a whataboutism I've heard. What's stopping individuals from blocking their disliked communities?

"What if Meta doesn't moderate well?"

This is another whataboutism I've heard. I personally think that Meta has a vested interest to moderate Threads enough to stay out of the news. As a publicly traded company, it's in their best interest to not scare off their advertisers and shareholders.

If some low-quality moderation does persist though, we still have the ability to block users & communities.

Thanks for taking the time to answer any of these. I will likely have follow-ups, and if/when I do please understand I am asking them in a good-faith effort to try and clarify/understand.