The battery pack wouldn’t be amongst the crushing section of the truck so the fires wouldn’t be much worse then the 900 litres of diesel and 150 litres of hydraulic oil that could go up in a regular rubbish truck.
The fire could actually be very much worse. A fuel/oil fire is Class B, which can be extinguished with CO2 or with foaming agents. You can add foam to a regular fire hose and lay down a layer of it to smother the fire. A battery is a Class D (metal) fire, which can’t be extinguished with anything common.
Metal fires are some scary shit to be around. It’s risky for firefighters to even use a fire hose to cool a burning electric vehicle because lithium releases hydrogen gas and heat on contact with water. Usually you have to just wait for a metal fire to burn itself out.
As long as the battery’s undamaged it’s not an issue, but a burning garbage truck?
“Hard” science fiction usually means that the futuristic concepts and fancy technology are based on (and limited) by our current understanding of the physical universe - if you had enough engineering ability, you could actually do the things presented in the story. This is in contrast to things like Star Wars and Star Trek, where the things they’re able to do are basically fantasy dressed up with a technological skin.
I want to highlight the first sentence of this article:
All the incidents involved took place outside of Gaza before the current war.
This is relevant to current events because it shows that Israeli military has a history of such behavior, but it’s not actually directly relevant to the current fighting in Gaza, it’s really only tangential.
A lot of people in the comments seem to be assuming that this represents the US being slow to come to a conclusion about Israel’s conduct in regard to Palestine since last year… but in fact no such judgment has been made, this has nothing to do with the current conflict (still waiting on that).
Well, it’s basically a human rights violator accusing someone else of being a human rights violator.
This is true… but well, do you know of a government that hasn’t committed human rights violations? And I’m not asking that to try to deflect from the US’s complicity in this, but to point out that in basically every case where a government accuses another of human rights violations, the accusing party will also have some such in its past. But it’s still necessary to make the accusations, on a public stage. Nothing will ever change otherwise.
One doesn’t care what the international court of justice says, the other doesn’t even recognize it. While at the same time the one accusing keeps on delivering guns to the accused so they can continue violating human rights.
Politically, the US will ignore the international court, but realistically US foreign policy is absolutely affected by public opinion. If this were not the case, then the weapons deal for Israel would never have been tied to the one for Ukraine in congress. If support for Ukraine were not an issue, then Israel probably wouldn’t have gotten anything.
I will point out that in the past decades there would never have been a question of whether the US would give military support to Israel, it would have just happened. Things have changed substantially over the past 20 years. For the US State Department (the foreign affairs office of the executive branch) to make such a public accusation, in the current situation, is a stronger signal than I think most people realize. As this article says:
The announcement is the first determination of its kind for any Israeli unit by the US government.
It’s basically saying “get your shit together”. I think the reason they made this statement based on events from 2022 and prior (rather than anything since October 2023) is that it’s verifiable and thoroughly investigated - Israel can’t just dismiss it by saying “you have no proof” or otherwise claiming that it was a necessary act of defense.
This is speculative and might go a little too far into reading the tea leaves… but there’s a fair amount of political intrigue here. Biden didn’t make the statement about Israel’s actions himself, which allows him to continue acting friendly with Netanyahu in person (rather than devolve into finger-pointing), but the State Department is directly responsible to him so this still carries the weight of the president’s authority. It’s the political equivalent of a backhand slap. The timing is too coincidental with the passing of the new foreign aid package.
It’s a strange world we live in.
It’s a… complicated world we live in. It always has been, really. Anyone pushing a simplistic take like “the US is evil for continuing to support Israel” or “Palestine is a terrorist state so it’s ok for Israel to do whatever it wants for security” or anything like that is either an idiot or trying to manipulate you. Context matters, and everything is connected. We haven’t even talked about the influence that Iran has over the US’s decision making with regard to Israel - but you know as long as the US-Iran relationship is adversarial, the US won’t completely stop supporting Israel, the strategic position is too important.
Putting your finger on the upvote/downvote scale in any way amounts to censoring the community’s collective voice. If the intention is to create an open, impartial forum for discussion and community interaction, then no such action should be taken.
Enforcing a “positive” trend in voting might create the façade of a seemingly friendlier community, but not a genuinely friendlier one. It might also create toxic positivity.
Do you think users that contribute downvotes more than anything add to the community interaction and help create open discussions? I personally think they inhibit that and discourage others from sharing.
It really doesn’t matter what I think, or what you think, about such users, because any such opinion could only be a generalization, and therefore not a good basis for making policy decisions.
I do not anticipate a net negative effect.
I don’t think you’re putting enough thought into unintended consequences. Censorship is sometimes necessary (the classic example of yelling “fire!” in a theater) but always problematic. It should never be implemented in blanket policies but only in specific cases to drive specific outcomes (not to create a generally more positive atmosphere) - hence moderation and reporting.
If you were to implement a policy like this, what you are doing is saying to the entire community, “I don’t trust you to express your opinions without guardrails, and so I am putting this filter on you to adjust them.” It’s a very parental idea, it seems motivated by a desire to control the conversation on a broad scale.
Well if they don’t want to talk then they shouldn’t get a vote.
It’s just my personal opinion, but this seems too exclusionary to me. Just because someone doesn’t want to talk doesn’t mean they don’t want to participate at all, and I don’t think that excluding someone just because they don’t have a specific statement to make will add value. Perversely, it might encourage low-effort commenting (first!) just for access to voting.
If this had been a dodge I would’ve just moved on without explaining why what I think doesn’t matter, which I of course immediately did in the same sentence.
I don’t think its a generalization
And yet, your conclusion has no specific examples or support of any kind beyond your own impressions and feelings… so it is generalization.
I think its inherently perpendicular to the goals of the platform
Interesting. What are “the goals of the platform”?
The existence of moderators suggests we can’t be trusted to say anything we want.
The existence of moderators suggests that moderating conversation between humans requires contextual, circumstantial, individual and specific decision-making. That is, it requires human attention on each instance rather than broad conversation-affecting policies.
but orients people to encourage more which engages users.
Does it? Do you have any data to support this conclusion?
If there’s one thing we’ve learned from social media companies, it’s that nothing drives user engagement like negativity. Now understand, I’m not saying this is good or that the outrage-surfacing algorithms are something to emulate, I am only saying that your statement here isn’t supported by available evidence.
And yes, I think trolls who spam downvotes need parenting.
I’m pulling this statement out of order and out of context because I want to emphasize it specifically. In my opinion lemmy is not an appropriate place for this nor are you (or anyone here) the appropriate person to try to parent other people who you have only interacted with via lemmy (unless someone directly asks you for mentoring in some way). Again, I think this reveals a desire to control the way that other people express themselves.
Censorship is sometimes necessary (the classic example of yelling “fire!” in a theater) but always problematic. It should never be implemented in blanket policies but only in specific cases to drive specific outcomes (not to create a generally more positive atmosphere) - hence moderation and reporting.
And from just a moment ago:
YIj54yALOJxEsY20eU@lemm.ee >The existence of moderators suggests we can’t be trusted to say anything we want.
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub > The existence of moderators suggests that moderating conversation between humans requires contextual, circumstantial, individual and specific decision-making. That is, it requires human attention on each instance rather than broad conversation-affecting policies.
I suspect the reason you see users declining is because there isn’t much content or interaction.
I’ve seen quite a few people saying this recently, but it doesn’t match my experience. I’m having more interesting conversations with more people than a year ago, and I see new content every day. Maybe your instance has defederated with too many others?
Eventually it will become either a niche or just die off.
Do you mean lemmy as a whole? I don’t think so, it’s definitely been growing. I think people forget how small reddit was for such a long time. It used to be a joke there that you wouldn’t get new blue links until 8am on the US east coast.
It seems like you entire argument is that I do not have any objective data on subjective goals.
Actually, my argument is that the motivation to control user interaction in a broad way like you propose is inherently flawed because it comes from a desire to control people.
And yes, the presence of moderators and community/platform rules also reveals a desire to control the way people express themselves.
The difference, again, is that moderator actions are individual, specific, contextual, and limited to a specific point in time, and also logged. Removing a particular comment or banning a particular user is very different from adjusting the balance of voting wholesale. Moderation is better because it is limited and flexible to each individual situation.
its to get the conversation started on the problem (that you refuse to acknowledge) of users who predominantly leave downvotes.
No, I am not refusing to acknowledge the problem, I am saying that your proposed solution (1) won’t address that problem effectively and (2) will create additional problems that (long-term) will be worse for the community. The cost/benefit doesn’t work out.
I comment on your lack of data because I think your conclusions about what will or won’t improve community interaction are emotional and anecdotal. And frankly, I think the track record of social media demonstrates the opposite - people engage with controversy. Enforced positivity turns people off, it kills meaningful conversation. It’s like Disneyland - nice for a visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there.
Ok, there’s no reason to assume that a recent downward trend means a long-term downward trend, just as there was no reason to assume that the upward trend from last year would be long-term. Variation is normal.
If you want lemmy to be more active, make it more active. If you want users to engage more, then give them something to engage with. Every user is part of what happens here, even more than on reddit.
Are those gears meshing properly when you spin the handle? It sounds like they’re skipping, and just from the brief part in the video it looks like the blade isn’t raising steadily.
I didn’t tell “someone”, I told you… did you mean to post this comment from an alt account?
I didn’t say “looking for excuses”, I said “looking for reasons”. There’s a difference, and I used the word I meant. “Excuse” implies that the basis for the anger is illegitimate, and I am not saying that, it may very well be legitimate.
There will always be a reason to get angry, but getting angry is a choice that you make. You can make different choices.
If you just live in a state of outrage, you interpret anything that isn’t overtly positive as critical or “transphobic”, and you take that as support for your impression that “There is rampantly unchecked covert transphobia”, but this is confirmation bias. This point of view lacks nuance, it divides everyone that you interact with into a binary good/bad category.
Electric garbage truck trialled in regional Australia drives 'like a limousine' (www.abc.net.au)
Tractor-trailers with no one aboard? The future is near for self-driving trucks on US roads (apnews.com)
Here’s your chance to own a decommissioned US government supercomputer (arstechnica.com)
House Democratic leaders say they would help save Speaker Mike Johnson's job (www.nbcnews.com)
trapped! (mander.xyz)
FTC fines Razer for every cent made selling bogus “N95 grade” RGB masks | Ars Technica (arstechnica.com)
A little girl said monsters were in her bedroom. It was 60,000 bees (www.bbc.co.uk)
Belarusian authorities are preparing children for war with the EU (texty.org.ua)
Cross posted from: feddit.de/post/11596841...
US says Israeli army units violated human rights (www.bbc.com)
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Is this normal? I repaired a DW745 Table Saw (youtu.be)
I’m not sure where the right place to post this would be, but here goes....
The Tech Baron Seeking to “Ethnically Cleanse” San Francisco (newrepublic.com)
cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/14962209...
This goes out to my homies on the .ml instances! (lemmy.world)