As someone who used to cycle Dartmoor a lot, I have a technique for normal cattle grids.

Speed up at much as possible, grip the top tube with your knees, cling onto your hoods with white knuckles, close your eyes and pray to any gods you can think of. It's always worked so far.

In all honesty though, stop pedalling, hit them at 90⁰ and do not turn the handlebars and you're fine.

I can't hear the word eddies without thinking Hitchhiker's Guide

"Eddies," said Ford, "in the space-time continuum."

"Ah," nodded Arthur, "is he. Is he."

I just set up a Lemmy site and am basically posting here to try out how federation works! Other than that... stressy meeting-filled work week!

I'm old enough to remember when Facebook Messenger was compatible with XMPP (as was Google Hangouts, then called Talk). You could talk to people on there from your own server, you could use whatever open source client you wanted. It was great.

Then they cut off the federation. Then they cut off the API.

They'll do the same again. Once enough of your friends and family are on their network they cut of federation and you have to move to them if you don't want to get cut off with it.

Here's a community for Greater Manchester: !manchester@mcr.town

Having to listen to everybody else moan about hayfever!

Seriously, though, it really does feel like everyone except me gets it these days.

Day off today because US company I work for has given everyone today's US day off!

After a traditional trip to the tip I've got on the tram to wander about random places. First the Viaduct Garden at Castlefield. Now I've ended up at Media City for no good reason other than that's where the tram line goes.

Not so sunny now!

If you're interested in a Manchester based group, btw, I've set one up at !manchester@mcr.town

Yeah, I run a Mastodon instance for the my city. It only has double digits of active users but that suits me because it's not too expensive to run and I want to prioritse the user experience over growth for growth's sake. I'd like to do the same thing with this Lemmy instance.

I think it's one of the real strengths of the fediverse that you can be on a tiny, friendly instance and still play a part in a huge community.

Got a long weekend since the US based company I work for has given us all Juneteenth off. This means I will be heading for the pub as soon as is socially acceptable!

If it does rain, by the way, it's my fault. New patio set arrived last night.

And tomorrow, yep, more Tears of the Kingdom will definitely be happening!

It's great, isn't it? I was having a conversation with someone on here the other day and didn't realise they were on Mastodon. I'd shared the original post there and replies turned up in Lemmy and vice-versa. It's very cool.

The only thing I wish could be improved is the having to manually go back to your home instance and search for a community on another server. It feels even worse than the same process on Mastodon, which already feels clunky.

It was always going to happen. Big companies like this make unpopular decisions for business reasons. In some cases there's an outcry, and for social media sites that outcry is amplified by the simple nature of the site, but it always dies down.

Most people simply don't give a shit about this stuff and Reddit will make more money from the 90+% of people who remain then those who left anyway.

My only hope is that shearing off of some customers is enough to make this a sustainable community here in the same way that happened for Mastodon.

I think the power of the fediverse is in there being more, smaller servers. It makes moderation easier and should scale better. It prevents one person or group getting control over the whole network.

The advantages of having your own server are about having control over the instance. I can choose which servers I do it don't federate with. Also I know my data isn't being misused. Plus, to be honest, I've got lots of experience running this sort of thing and I like the idea of offering the benefits of that to the community.

In my case I decided to base my Mastodon server and Lemmy server on my local area. I like the idea that the local timelines and local posts would be relevant for that geographic community.

Running your own server isn't for everyone though. It takes a certain amount of commitment and money. I get some donations - which are lovely - but I'm still basically funding it out of my own pocket.

My wife and I are currently rewatching all of The Good Fight, which is still my favourite thing ever on the telly. We're also rewatching Ranganation, which totally got us through lockdown.

Tunes wise, I'm working through the 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die using https://1001albumsgenerator.com/ - today I've got If I Could Only Remember My Name by David Crosby which, if I'm honest, is not doing it for me.

Hey, have fun in Manchester! You might be glad to know, I'm looking out my window and it's a bit overcast but doesn't feel rainy yet.

The Apollo's a great venue but I'm always disappointed by the lack of pubs nearby.

There's a word I had to look up and will now annoy everyone with as much as possible!

Also stirred a memory of a Terry Pratchet book from a scarily long time ago!

Funnily enough, we got a new mattress recently (it's amazing after the ill-advised rolled up foam one we've been using for years) and also had a crap experience with Dreams. We ended up at Benson's and they were great

I grew up in a seaside town and I've never heard of a lemon top. Is it just a NE thing?

Weren't Gitea working on this?

I agree, but I wouldn't undervalue how much that simple human connection can mean to people who really need it.