Being able to smugly utilize the thing that people always ask why you carry around is one of the best feelings there is.
When the early bright white LEDs came out (not the ultra-packages) I got my father a photon keychain microlight.
He was working dozer/fire duty with a coworker. They were back deep in the woods investigating. Their regular flashlight bulb burned out. It was after midnight, completely overcast, no moon, rural, Dark AF. They stumbled in the dark trying to get back to the truck. It was the early 2000s, they didn’t carry cell phones or pagers. Dad remembered he had a keychain light. “We came out of there, about five miles, with that little light, we took turns smashing the button. both our fingers hurt, but we made it out” Yeah, dad, they have a little lock on the front, that holds the button down if you need that :)
I had an assortment of those types of things back in the day, both the genuine article and myriad knockoffs of varying levels of quality. Photon was the big name brand for those at the time. These days it’s astonishing to think that LEDs used to be an “exotic” technology at least for the purposes of illumination and not just being indicators on things, and they went through a period of being deemed neat but inferior in performance to their analog counterpart in almost exactly the same way that LCD screens did for a while. Which is an interesting but irrelevant parallel.
Anyway, the best one of those I ever got my hands on is one that I still have, which is an “Inova” branded Photon knockoff which among its admittedly rather short list of features included a sliding switch that would keep the thing powered on for you without having to pinch it the entire time.
Those little jobbers were and still are powered by a pair of CR2016 coin cells which the LED is extremely unkind to. There are no active electronics and also no current limiting resistor. The sum total of the light’s components consist of the casing, the batteries, and the LED. They’re switched by just mashing one leg of the LED into contact with the batteries, and the current draw of the LED is so immense compared to the couple of milliamps that the coin cells expect to be faced with that they’re literally incapable of supplying enough current to damage the LED. As a result of this their battery life is famously awful, and their full brightness runtime is probably less than two minutes. They’ll continue to illuminate in at least some capacity off of extremely beat batteries, though. I unearthed my little Inova light the other day and it still turns on, albeit not at a terribly useful brightness, on its original batteries. Which are probably from 2004.
I was honestly expecting that story to be a romance
This evening on /r/fleshlight, a night of romance
Two dads, one Fleshlight
Edit: oh my
Great reminder to not just carry gear but be familiar with it before we need it.
I’m in Tokyo right now, got a limited EDC since no firearms/knives at the moment, but it felt nice to have my ifak and flashlight when the (false) earthquake warning popped up on my phone.
They called me an idiot for spending $20 on a tiny Sofirm flashlight but then I clip it on a cap’s brim and work in the darkness while the mortals must rest
one of the major beefs I have with sci-fi is just how crappy the torches are both in what’s meant to be the modern day and the future
Much as I have always loved Star Trek: TNG and its take on future tech, every time they beamed somewhere dark and pulled out their scifi flashlights all I could think of is how tired their hands would quickly get in the unnatural position needed to use those things.
The second I got a flip phone I turned the flashlight on and held it by my shoulder like these stupid squares
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?
Don’t use my love of beans against me
Don’t use my love of
beansbeams against me
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 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?
I think technically it’s a parody of Poe’s story?
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.
“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.”
Provide a means for people to charge their phones = Instant Hero.
I have a whole electric generator and I would prefer not to own it. Where I live, electric service can be iffy at times due to falling trees. And it can sometimes a day or more for the power to come back.
The LAST bloody thing I want is for that generator to come and run. It costs real money when it does come on and that cost sucks. The only thing that costs more is freezing the house up when it’s -30 outside.
You have an electric generator? Is it self sustaining? Where can I get one?
It self sustains as long as I keep the LP tank full.
MF living in Siberia
Close. Northern Minnesota. Though thanks to the upcoming el Nino, we are to expect a warmer winter. I would really like to save some money on my heating bill this year.
As a Kyiv resident: no, you don’t want power outages. It’s less fun after the 10th time in a week.
Yeah but check out my thick beamshots
10 times a week are rookie numbers
I wish r/fleshlight was this wholesome.
Power outage at the grocery store. Big day for me.
Beamshots.
That moment where you pull out the fleshlight and it makes you a hero. People, almost exclusively other guys, will ask you where you got it and you get to talk about it. This. Is. Your. Moment.
Not gonna lie, it was the highlight of my day haha
Edit: one too many has. It’s important to accurately quote.
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.
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?
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 ; )
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.
MFW the roofers came to inspect a leak a couple of weeks ago and the kid turned on his phone’s light before climbing into the attic.
Me after lending the kid my 3000 lumens pocket flashlight.
There’s an entire horror game about having only your phone flashlight during a power outage.
Actually, it looks like there are a few.
There’s an entire horror
gamegenre about having only your phone flashlight during a power outage.
I get excited when my solar/battery setup seamlessly deals with short power outages. That $35k I spent years ago really pays off so I don’t need to wait 5 mins before browsing memes.
The memes must flow.
I can get a battery/inverter set up in about 10 minutes that’ll last from dusk until bedtime that’ll run my entire server and network and TV.
The trouble is that the power usually comes back as soon as I switch the inverter on.
Hardware loadout for a curious prospective battery buyer?
The Ionic GenBox looks good but I don’t have one yet so I can’t say from personal experience. Basically a portable battery with built-in UPS, DC-to-AC inverter, and MPPT controller for solar charging.
They come in a range of sizes up to 2400W continuous output, which is probably more than you need for a server but it could handle things like an electric kettle or a portable induction stovetop.
The portable power station I have now is a Tenergy but it’s only rated up to 500W. It’s good for what it is, but can’t really handle a coffee maker. Perfect for charging laptops and stuff though, and has a built-in MPPT controller so it is solar-chargeable.
Werid that guy is carrying around an actual flashlight. Modern people just use their phones.
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.
I carry a skeletool. It’s only slightly larger than the folder I replaced with it and it works great for everything I use a knife for while also having the pliers, screwdriver bits, and bottle opener. There’s also an extension for the screwdriver that makes it a little more useful but I don’t keep that on my person and honestly most times I’ve used it I haven’t even bothered putting it into the tool. I did get a Milwaukee Fastback when I was doing a lot of box opening to preserve the blade on the skeletool, but otherwise I’ve been using it for everything for over a decade. Probably one of my favorite possessions.
