Used to work at a brewery, they had flashlights around a lot of places. I bought my own (which was much better than the ones they had). So many times when the power would go out people would ask me to come with them or borrow my flashlight.
Surprisingly powerful for something the size of one of those old mini M&Ms tubes.
I wish r/fleshlight was this wholesome.
Power outage at the grocery store. Big day for me.
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.
The customers at the sperm bank: 😱
People, almost exclusively other guys, will ask where you got it
I’ll let them have it. I’ve got three more at home.
From either Hank, Jackson, or Simon, iykyk
Beamshots.
Fleshgenerators on max power.
It’s plenty holesome.
I mean, looking into it (you can thank me later), it seems like a great support group!
Very little friction to speak of. I’ve seen some communities that just felt like a square peg in a round hole and this one definitely doesn’t have that vibe.
Dunno, seems more like a circlejerk to me.
It can be both
It will not work here:
“Sir, This Is A Wendy’s”
but maybe here:
“Anyway, this is a Walmart”Me, too!
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
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.
Being able to smugly utilize the thing that people always ask why you carry around is one of the best feelings there is.
Beamogging the darkness-cels
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
I put mine in front of my eye and pretended to be a Borg 😆
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.
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.
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.
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?
… And that’s how I got your mother to subscribe to the lockpicking lawyer.
How heroic and badass did that feel? I need to learn to lockpick. And get a wife. And lock her out.
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.
Can you add a UPS switch to your setup so it switches on automatically before the server even knows it lost power?
It’s just a bare 100mah battery and inverter. it’s a setup half built for camping so it was never intended to work as a ups. I’ve just got quick at dragging it out of the garage and plugging my server ups into it.
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.
Wow, reasonably priced too – thanks stranger!
No problem! Definitely check which model you choose to see if it does pure sine wave function on the AC output. I think the 800W model and up do it.
It might not be necessary for every use case, but there are some things that probably require it. If you’re running a computer/server off of it directly (i.e., not charging a laptop battery), then I think you need pure sine wave.
Must be a small server. ;-)
Did you see the old “follow the light” post from /r/flashlight? It’s a classic
Mine unfortunately has a 3s delay before it cuts over to battery when grid synch is lost. Too long for servers to stay up. So I went and bought a lithium power station, and put it online in UPS mode. Now when the grid goes out, the UPS kicks in, the house battery kicks in, and I have 16kwh (plus whatever solar is coming in) before I need to start turning off servers.
Assuming your ISP and the equipment between you and them didn’t got hit by the power outage …
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?
Grumpy antisocial prepper here.
I have rice as well. 🖕🏻
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 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.
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?
Just looked it up, it seems to be a direct hommage to poes story
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.
“A paradise built in hell” by rebecca solnit is a great book about spontaneous co-operation during disasters
Beans beans beans! I will always choose beans!
“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.”
Can we bring this kind of energy to Lemmy? Pretty please?
🔦
I get it. This summer I bought a battery bank and portable solar panels so I can a) take some load off a circuit that is overtaxed in the summer and b) be able to very slowly charge the car in the event of an emergency.
A month after getting it, we got a notice on our door that they were working on poles and our power would be out for 8 hours. I kept my whole homelab, and refrigerator running the whole time and the entertainment center running most of the time. Any thought that I spent too much, given the probable utility, immediately disappeared. I wouldn’t call it pride in my decision, but it came damn close.
People will ask you where you got it and then you get to talk about it!!
That happened in other responses!
You can charge your car with a powerbank?
Yes. you need a grounding adaptor, though.
You have my exact use case energy wise (homelab + fridge). Can I ask what battery and panels you got?
I was able to get a good deal on a lightly used 3.6kWh EcoFlow DELTA Pro and this ZOUPW 480W panel. I got 380 - 395W through the July afternoon, but I’ve since learned I didn’t have the panel at a good angle given my latitude and time of year.
How do you run into a battery like that lightly used if there isn’t anything wrong with it? Seems weird that someone would get rid of it to me?
Friends of my mom were planning to do RV life for a year or two (while wait-listed for a retirement community) but they decided to rent one for long vacation to be sure. The husband bought the powerbank while it was having a sale, sure they were going to buy an RV as soon as they got back. By the time their vacation was over they vowed to never set foot in an RV again, and he sold the powerbank and AC to me for $400 less than he paid for it. He also hadn’t accounted for the Delta Pro being 100lbs, and they had trouble getting it up and down steps.
That’s my problem with EDC. I love the idea of being prepared for any eventually, but all my realistic eventualities boil down to how I’m going to pay for something, or how sunny it’s going to be.
Having paper currency as part of your EDC for when electronic payment goes down feels great until someone starts calling you unc for having a wallet. Trust me.
Heavy is the ass that carries the wallet. 😞
The man who sleeps with a Machete is a fool every night but one.
Ever try it? At any normal store the clerk is going to say they cant do anything without the register connected to the network
The issues could well be with my bank or their payment provider instead of the store itself. For the same reason I’m trying to have one Visa card and one MasterCard in my wallet.
The youth are against wallets now?? What am I going to do, shove every card I could conceivably one day need into my pockets like I’m deranged?
Kids just put their cards on the NFC function on their phone.
I’m in the middle with a ridge wallet
That wallet stays at home. 99% of the time all you need is drivers license and Apple pay. Though I can’t seem to not take my credit card and bank card.
You wouldn’t do well where I live. We do have card readers in almost all places now. But you ain’t getting far with apple pay. Very, very few stores have that feature activated.
You either pay cash or swipe. And cash is still much appreciated.
Sigh. You still don’t need a wallet to carry a whopping two cards.
Those don’t always work well all the time either. My cards can have problems about a third of the time. So I’m always carrying cash just in case.
It must be nice when you can assume it all works all the time every time.
The blind reliance on technology is staggering
Why would I not have a wallet? I would never trust tap pay on my phone, I don’t even have full access to my email on it
You’re weird.
Anybody worth the trouble is at least a little weird.
P
I love skipping ahead in line when card payments fail, absolutely worth it.
Rarely happens nowadays though, and a lot of people still carry at least some cash in Germany. So it only really happens at grocery stores, when people do their big shopping trip.
I keep my cash between the pages of my pocket notebook.
I got a black titanium Ridge wallet and it fits in my coin pocket. I love it.
Look at this, and be enlightened:
At least some version of this, mine is a lot more compact, 3 cards and space for some bills or papers/tickets and the like.
E: I guess this photo doesnt show the fact its a phone case very well after all. Be moderately illuminated then instead🫠
I could never be comfortable with a combination wallet and phone case. If my phone is ever lost or stolen, the first thing I’m going to need is my wallet. If I lose my wallet, I’ll immediately need my phone. If they’re both the same thing I’d be screwed.
Valid point, though i personally really like having just two things to keep track of when outside. Phone and keys.
I am mostly really paranoid about leaving my stuff behind so actually forgetting it is not that much of an issue for me. Though i must concede if i were to be robbed that would be really inconvenient to fix.
To really throw you for a loop, that’s what my dad uses.
I’ve tried them, but they’re not for me. I have something similar to a ridge, and am learning to live being unc to the younger guys.
I swear I was a young guy just the other day. Time flies
It took me way too long of concentrated thinking to figure out that EDC meant every day carry have associating the acronym with Electric Daisy Carnival for so long
If I leave my house, my edc flashlight is on me, and I literally have a use for it every day. I used it probably 4 different times today. It’s kind of astounding how many times you could use a lil extra light real quick, even if you could sort of not need the light. Like when I was checking under my car seat today. I could sort of see under there without a light, but since I had the light right there in my pocket, I used it, and it made it way easier.
Same. I change out my EDC every few months to account for the weather. And obviously if I need to pass a security checkpoint, I’ll leave some stuff at home.
One thing I haven’t regretted yet is keeping spare medication in my bag. The number of times I’ve left the house and realized I forgot my antidepressants is frankly embarrassing.
I feel naked without my Spyderco Delica 4 and AAA light clipped in my pockets.
A small AAA pocket flashlight with a magnetic base comes in handy surprisingly often and can be clipped into a tiny jeans pocket for carrying. You can even use it from there if it’s angled.
You’re not going to save the day with it but it’s pretty neat to have on hand. (That’s pretty much as far as EDC goes for me.)
I carried one for a couple years and found that I never used it. The few times I needed a flashlight, it was easier to reach for my phone than my keychain.
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
Hat clips are great! I got a small Olight just a few months ago, and I’m still amazed at how much I use it. So handy.
I was walking at a festival around 2010, maybe 20m behind a group of kids who had flashlights and headlamps. I wanted to have my light going in case they turned and walked a different path or whatnot. I turn it on normal-beam and they all stop and exclaim to each other about how crazy the light behind them was. I felt sooooooo happy! They all wanted to check it out and were astounded it does so many things. I felt like the coolest gurl in the land!
