As a Kyiv resident: no, you don’t want power outages. It’s less fun after the 10th time in a week.
10 times a week are rookie numbers
Yeah but check out my thick beamshots
Doesn’t every modern phone have a built in flashlight?
Pffft. Those suck so hard compared to my edc flashlight.
Not nearly enough lumens compared to actual flash lights. I’ve got a rechargeable light that’s 6000, 3000, and 1500 lumens in the 3 modes. A phone is about 150 at best.
6000? Damn
I’m happy to lend a flashlight to somebody. I’m not giving them my phone.
I’ll honestly say that I thought flashlights were flashlights for the longest time. Like, sure, some are brighter, whatever. I finally picked up one from a recommended thread and when I got it I was floored at the quality difference. I immediately went and bought a 2nd one that day.
Where did you get it? I want to talk about it
That depends. Are you a guy?
Almost exclusively
Wurkkos fc11. Nothing super crazy by flashlight enthusiast standards, but it has the Nichia led variant which came highly recommended.
Where’s this recommended thread?
Edit: Found it https://lemmy.world/post/52339818
The original I saw was back in reddit days about 3 or 4 years ago. But that one you posted is similar. I think the fc11 got an update and is now the fc11c
That’s not a store, it’s a screenshot of the latest indie horror game /s
Ahh yes, Dark Quiet Death.
Provide a means for people to charge their phones = Instant Hero.
I guess I can’t compete. :(
…oh, wait, what’s this in my pocket? A brand new pack of gum!?
How the tables have turned. ANYBODY WANT A PIECE OF GUM?
“It’s your time to shine.”
“Other people will look up to you and will be able to tell the time.”
“An enlightening experience.”
“A bright idea, if I may say so myself.”
“With great brightness comes great visibility.”
“Your ability to illuminate a situation is truly outstanding.”
“You are the light at the end of my tunnel.”
“Don’t take this lightly when I say you’re brilliant.”
Werid that guy is carrying around an actual flashlight. Modern people just use their phones.
But the flashlight of your phone doesn’t have the ability to take down a fighter jet when pointing at it.
The flashlight/phone debate reminds me of the multi tool/knife debate. Do one thing well, or 20 things okay…
Modern flashlights are bright AF in a decently small form factor. This isn’t a 5D-Cell Maglite he’s hauling around.
There’s always a trade in EDC for practicality, reliability, weight, size, etc.
A decent modern flashlight with an 18650 battery is a nice pocket sized light that’s streets ahead of anything a phone could do, and a lot of them can also be used as a USB power bank, so you can get some other use out of it.
There’s even little (tiny) lipo rechargeable ones these days that are stupid bright. I’ve got an OLight OClip on my backpack that’s very small and way brighter than I’d ever need for simple “find something in the dark” purposes
I’m having trouble thinking of something to compare it to size wise … Maybe 5cm x 2cm x 2cm?
I don’t carry the 1200 lumen surefire edc2 around anymore because I just don’t ever need a mini sun.
… Shit, am I a “flashlight guy”?
Shit, am I a “flashlight guy”?
The flashlight/phone debate reminds me of the multi tool/knife debate. Do one thing well, or 20 things okay…
I have a tool bag with a nice flashlight in my car for bigger jobs, for random quick stuff my phone and Leatherman cover 95% of what comes up. Best of both worlds. Not that I’m really going to debate anyone about the shit they carry around. If someone present has a better tool for the job I’ll applaud their preparedness. I just don’t personally find it worthwhile to carry the extra items on me all the time. I’m still more prepared than most with just the Leatherman.
I carry a Gerber Dime, just right for a quick little fix on something, and a Kershaw Brawler because I find the knife on the Dime frustrating for anything besides cutting tape on boxes.
Just having a bottle opener makes you more prepared than most people nowadays.
It has been banned for years. Because Reddit.
People with hobbies are cool
Ive said it before: do you want to be the grumpy, antisocial prepper that eats beans in his (yes, almost exclusively his) bunker until radiation poisoning finally gets him?
Or do you want to be the hero of the neighbourhood, who has a solar-powered stove to heat up the baby milk for cute single mother next door?
You’ve hit on my bugbear with most post-apocalyptic fiction: pretty much universally humans have shown that they will tend towards co-operation when placed in situations of hardship. But most writers, game designers and preppers want you to think that when civilization collapses everyone will be like “there’s no rules any more! I can murder whoever I want and take their stuff!”
I have been in a flood that turned the land into a lake, horizon to horizon. Densely populated. Utterly devastating. The railway was elevated enough to get between two mid-sized cities, and on the 12km trek I saw an amazing amount of compassion, mutual aid, and casual, natural-feeling grassroots organization to just get on with life.
I have been in a few crises and minor disasters, come to think of it. I think generally, most people like banding together and helping out when shit gets crazy.
I think this might be one of the reasons zombie a apocalypses are so popular because it gives a plausible reason for why large groups could be just as failure prone as small groups, as well as a plausible reason as to why the survivors don’t just immediately restart society considering the infrastructure, power stations, and factories don’t just disappear but require the knowledge and logistics to run or maintain them and some essential people might have been turned into zombies, plus the risk of attacks while doing maintenance or going out to run it.
There’s a Cory Doctorow short story, “The Masque of the Red Death”, that’s exactly this: a bunch of rich, ultra paranoid preppers get together in a bunker after societal collapse. They’re all incredibly selfish and eventually turn on each other. Meanwhile, everyone else cooperates and gets along just fine to survive.
Is that a modernization of the Poe story by the same name or am I confusing titles?
Just looked it up, it seems to be a direct hommage to poes story
I think technically it’s a parody of Poe’s story?
Beans beans beans! I will always choose beans!
Don’t use my love of beans against me
Don’t use my love of
beansbeams against me
Alright, who here has a hanklight and/or has the Anduril 2 firmware button press combinations memorized?
My wife thought it was dumb when I picked up a lockpick set to play around with. Didn’t think it was so stupid when we accidentally locked our keys inside when house sitting and I actually managed to pick the lock.
I’m a firefighter\emt. I’ve gotten to pick Sooo many door locks over the years and it’s saved a lot of people a lot of money and headache for it.
Anytime someone has “fallen and can’t get up” in their locked house, but says they aren’t injured, I’ll pick my way in, instead of us having to break a door or window just because they need help off the floor.
You start picking locks like that, what the hell are you using that lovely Halligan tool for?
Lol. That’s for the fires or a particularly strong door on a med call that’s an actual emergency. Most of the time a smack or two with the shoulder will knock open a locked door.
… And that’s how I got your mother to subscribe to the lockpicking lawyer.
Double edged sword. I was into lock picking as a teen. When my family found ourselves in the same situation, I leapt into action and got the side door open in no time.
My mother freaked out at how easy it was to get into our house without a key, and went on an anxiety fueled journey of kitting the house out with extra security. It wasn’t a bad idea to up our security, but I felt horrible for stressing her out by trying to do a good deed.
That is definitely a thing. When I got into it I repinned all our locks with a difficult bitting and added spools/serrated pins.
… All the while knowing that a burglar is just going to smash a window or kick in the door so I really just made it harder on myself ; )
Congratulations, you’re now “the wizard who can open doors” forever. It’s really nice to be able to help people with something that isn’t that hard (for most locks) but appears as magic to so many people.
I was once at a wedding at a lodge type place in the middle of nowhere with rooms that auto locked like a hotel. Opened the locked closet that held the tables/chairs when the owner had accidentally left it locked and was two hours away. … Then three rooms for drunk people that locked their keys inside… Then somebody who rented a cabin 30 min away drove me out there to let them back into the cabin they’d locked themselves out of (hopefully I didn’t just break into a random cabin for them… But the keys were sitting on the counter just inside the door, and they knew exactly where they were, so probably not)
Plus, it’s just fun.
What picks do you use?
How heroic and badass did that feel? I need to learn to lockpick. And get a wife. And lock her out.
I built what is basically a smart plug, but it uses 4G connectivity instead of my standard WiFi. The idea is that if my home network screws up and I need to reboot my router and modem, I can still do that remotely. There have been 2 times in my life that I really wished I had this set up because my Plex server was down while I was traveling. The ideal scenario is that I never have to use the thing, but whenever I see this flashlight post, it reminds me that I kinda do want to need it just once.
I’ve always wanted a backup network connection, no matter how slow. But i cant find anything cheap enough to be worth it. What service do you use?
It’s not a fully redundant backup network. It’s a microcontroller called a particle boron that has a 4G antenna. I bought it because there’s no monthly connectivity charge within a certain usage limit, and I’ll never go anywhere near that limit with this use case.
I learned about it from this cool YouTube video where a dude uses one to build a pizza compass.
Excellent find, thank you
Dude, this is sooo cool! As a Ninja Turtle, I LOVE this!
Only works in North America :(
Really intrigued about the particle boron with no monthly fee.
I bought mine years ago for around $40. I think they still sell it but it costs a bit more now. They have cheaper boards, but I don’t know if those have the no monthly fee thing. It’s a very cool little dev board, but be warned! Unless they changed it, there’s no reverse polarity protection on the battery connector! It uses a regular jst battery connector which can physically only plug in one way. I foolishly assumed this meant that it couldn’t be plugged in with reverse polarity, but it turns out there’s no established “correct” polarity for that connector and the battery I had fried the first board I bought. If you buy one, make sure you double check the battery polarity!
It looks very useful for it’s intendes use case. I found these guys, some of the details are the same. It could be the same back end. I’m looking for a backup connection with something like a gl inet Collie.
Can we bring this kind of energy to Lemmy? Pretty please?
🔦
I got the Olight Ark Pro ultra in limited edition Zombie color as my edc light. I absolutely love that thing. Gets more use than my pocket knife. It’s just the best.
Honest question: how? When?
I use my phone for light, some times the screen alone, since it’s enough.
Same with the knife, I almost never find myself needing a knife…
The thing about a small knife and a little flashlight is that you don’t actually think about how many times it would be nice to have one of those things “right there right now” until you start carrying them. But a cheap little $15 flashlight that can clip onto your pocket and give it a try for a couple weeks, and you’ll start to notice how convenient it can be every time you want to check something in a darker area. It’s faster, brighter, and smaller than the light on your phone. This “WARSUN T7PRO Pocket Flashlight” is only $10 on amazon. It’s not the greatest but you’ll get the idea of always having instant light.
My everydaycarry is a Fenix AA, about 10 years old.
Uses today included: checking on the henhouse, and going out back to smoke a joint, and I stuck it in my mouth to hang the hummingbird feeder. Before dark, I used it to help me vacuum in a hurry before guests arrive (lay it on the floor to highlight everything needing a cleanup), to look into a corner of the car trunk, to poke around in the storage room briefly, and at work to better look into the guts of a computer.
My swiss army knife got used a few times today, too. Different blades and tools. I’m semi-rural so dont leave the bedroom without those two items.
Fenix AA / E11 crew 🙌
https://lemmy.world/post/53212824/26380191
They’re very small, adjustable brightness, tough, last years on a single AA, and “just work”… forever.
EDIT : Also - Chicken crew 🙌
I’ve had an OClip Pro on my backpack for a couple of years (and another stuck to the side of the fridge for checking on chickens in the dark) and it’s been great. I’ve been considering the Ark Pro for a year or two but the only thing that held me back was how long it is and thinking it might be awkward to keep on me… but I suppose I could just slot it into the backpack as well.
Do you find the size awkward or is it generally “fine” for keeping in a pocket or storing in a pack? How long does the battery last for you (and usage pattern)?
I was hesitant to switch to rechargeables because I want something that can sit unused for years and “just work”. Having an extra alkaline AA/AAA on hand is no big deal (easier/smaller than a battery pack or small solar charger). That said, the OClip on the fridge has been there for at least a year with short intermittent usage and no recharge - still showing “green” when I flip the selector so it seems to have little to no passive drain.
Though, I could also argue that the OClip is brighter than I ever need (mostly use the red mode) so I probably don’t need the brighter Ark but…
I just keep mine clipped inside the outer edge of my back pocket and the only time I ever notice it is when in sitting in a car. The length has never bugged me. I’m not sure how long it will last before dying aside from what they advertise it as. I’ve never had it run out on me, but I usually always charge it when it gets to like half.
Olight is a Chinese company, but they have real warranty\sales offices in other places. There’s one in the US, for instance. Which is nice, because their arklights have a lifetime warranty, and that includes the battery. Obviously, the battery will eventually go bad and need to be replaced.
