My wife would beat you like a mule if she saw that……and she stills annoyed that she has to learn….ramp up, flash, ramp down on the Q8.
If anything, I would be guilty and many of us would be guilty of not having as much patience or sympathy for not understanding what to us is a simple thing. You wrote earlier that we need something simple and to be honest, I agree with you 100%.
A few weeks or so back, I started a thread about emergency flashlights. You participated in it. One of my “criteria” of an emergency light would be that it should have a simple interface. Click to click ramping, 3 at most and if you held it down 5 seconds, flashing. That is the high limit of the bottom end of usability.
It was even more apparent to me that is has to be a requirement when I gave my wife the Q8 without instruction. She just kept pressing buttons for a full minute and told me the light was broken. This is from someone who used Coast 14 at work at least a hundred times. Thousands of times in her lifetime. Who also has zero fear of big machinery or technology.
So yes, to the vast majority of people, our hobby is probably on the scale of advanced hammer technology. It’s not because they can’t, witness modern cell phone and the amount of knowledge it takes to interface with them, but because it’s just a hammer flashlight.
My father had a running joke about the coke maker (feul) who became a millionaire. Back in the old country, back then, there was a coke maker somewhere in the county turning wood into coke (feul). This coke maker won a million dollars…but could not help himself from looking at a pile of wood and thinking……what a great pile of wood to make coke from.
Same thing with me. Over the years, I have a collection of Coasts. Not as a hobby, but of need. Not great but neither was my standards of what I expected from a flashlight.
I think some people just go into over protection mode when they don’t get it, but if you want it to ramp you suss it straight away, if you don’t its such a stupid peace of……
The car I have has the battery in the back. I wanted to carry flares but if there is a water leak, I don’t want a surprise of what a battery discharge can to to a flare. Having said that….it’s been a looooong while since I looked at flares.
Is there such a thing as being too careful and anticipating the worse? Maybe…but it’s only tiny money to begin with.
I’ve had those friends and acquaintances, they all have one habit in common, any light will do…besides, they knick mine because theirs are real crappy, but, it’ll do me… i dont need to see with a light lol…cringe… guess they’re borrowing mine hu?
I still got and carried in my old car a 20mm ammo box. About the size of a toaster-oven if stood on-end. Kept all my flammables in there, including/especially fluids. Also had huge bungee cords and ratcheting tie-down straps to hold it in-place so it wouldn’t turn into a rather heavy projectile in case of a wreck.
People’ve said I carry more “emergency” crap in my car than most cops have. Yeah, sounds about right…
you’ve heard of the SHTF scinario? i’ve learned by trail and error to STFU when i’m in a store hahaha…else it can be when the SHTF… sad innit.
a little diverse but, some woman i was seeing was having a tizzy fit at the checkout, it seems there were kids running about all over the place ffs!! no parent supervision or anything, i made the mistake of pointing its a kiddies toy store……fff yeah… lol.
There are people who hate it. I have three, two which are at work. They have been through hell and back and still work. Dropped? I dropped them on concrete floors at least a dozen times over the years, my guys probably used them for bats.
In the end of the day, I think she probably bought the Coast and probably went to Ikea. Ikea was like a bingo reaction and she was holding the Coast when I left her. In hind sight, maybe it was her “big male” defensiveness that kicked in inadvertently. Maybe I over reacted to what may have been her throwaway comment.
ALL my cars……Always annually check to make sure the emergency kit is intact. Two folding 4” knives. 15’ tow rope. 50 feet of 500 lb rope. Start up cables. 2 flashlights. Two yellow jacket (wife/helper). $100 in $10 bills. Small blanket. In winter, ski mask and gloves.
When I travel, extra phone, extra glasses, heavy blanket, folding shovel and full spare tire. On the road, water.
My car in Europe, same thing.
Stupid? How much is a life worth? Mine or the person I (or you) may save?
ahh yes the torch coast… my versions the SH 98 i think it is, but in the 26650 version, that’s if you can find them any more, they look like these but bigger.(theres a Q8 version on 1 AA, and 18650 and a 26650 version, the AA is a pocket version lasting 20 ish minutes with a 50 yard throw on full zoom, the 18650’s an hour at best on full for a 100 yard zoom, but the 26650 out throw’s and outlasts by another hour and has been battered dusted and oiled up well under cars,in bush’s n ditch’s…lol pocket fluffed for 2 years too).
I tried helping two American women in the UK once, they were stopped on a three lane main roundabout with a flat tyre, now over here you limp the vehicle off of the roundabout, at worste some one will help push it out of the way, because it’s pritty dangerous sitting there with cars wizzing past at 50mph plus negotiating the roundabout and other audi drivers.
ermm ouch! they were very insistent i go copulate with myself in some other area because i was going to mug them. The look my face must have been priceless!
Helping woman needs caution, helping children needs a truck load of caution.
Country side road and as drove by, there is a woman sitting in her car. Stopped, asked if she needs help, showed her my licence and told her it’s okay to take a picture is she is concerned. She said her car just stopped. was waiting for her father to help her. I said fine and drove away.
Never needed to help a child, but oh man, unless there is imminent danger, I would call 911 and keep 50 feet away. Cell camera running all the way.
It’s sad that in our society, man have now become dangerous if not predatory animals that have to be looked at with caution. heck, there have been instances where the reward of a good deed was a lawsuit.
I’m not so sure giving a stranger a photo of your license info is such a good idea… but I guess it’s better than her large male accomplice that jumps out of the bushes when you get out of your car to help, and…. well, you’d better hope he’s afraid of bright lights.
I’d just offer to call a tow truck… if I had a mobile phone, which I don’t. So, I guess I’d just honk and laugh and drive on.
Here’s exactly what I do. I go to Home Cheapo regularly for work. Every 3 months or so I buy a 3-pack of Defiant flashlights. They’re OK, with an OP reflector that masks the horrendous LED. I swap them out with my go-to emitter, XP-L HI, which seem to work in most everything I can find to put them in. I keep one as a spare EDC because you never know. When I whip out my hot rod S2+ with XHP 50.2 and freak someone out on turbo, that starts the conversation about flashlighs. I then proceed to give the person the Defiant light. No problems teaching them the dangers of Li-Ion, not bright enough to cause eye damage right away, yet bright to impress. And maybe I made the world a slightly better place because of it.
