In my admittedly limited and likely biased experience, progressives and further left tend to be more critical in the way they approach authority figures. The GOP is just pissed they can't as easily indoctrinate younger generations into fighting against their own interests.
I've heard it said several times, the GOP tends to say the opposite of what they mean. "college kids are being indoctrinated" = "umm, guys, we're having a hard time indoctrinating the college kids..."
Thanks, I don't think there are any external settings for the power supply, but it does provide a few more volts than I strictly need. Toggling a single relay hasn't caused me any issues in the limited testing I've done. A momentary drop to as low as 5V should be perfectly fine, although, looking over the specs for my components, I see I'm getting dangerously close to the upper limits for the power supply's current rating. I'll have to look into connecting 2 supplies in parallel (or getting a larger supply) I suppose.
I haven't worked with battery backups yet, so I was thinking it would be best to keep that element simple to minimize potential issues like a trickle charge draining the battery unexpectedly, or damaging the battery from overcharge. The minimum requirement is just to ensure the hardware (a motorized ball valve) returns to a closed position if power is lost. The battery needs to provide at least 9V to power the motor, so I could use a 9V (or a few smaller cells in series) to keep it below the 12V supply.
With your solution using a diode on each voltage source, would there be any risk of a trickle charge draining the battery unexpectedly if the battery? If so, in that configuration I'd need to do more research and figure out how to use a BMS, rather than an externally recharged or disposable cell.