Aloha Bryan! Where in the US? Just curious.
Edit: Nevermind, I just checked your acct.
Sorry Pete......yes you guys are part of us.....so how the hell are you doing.
Thanks brted! That's the experience that we're aiming for on BLF. Glad you are enjoying it, and thanks for your help and expertise too.
Good question. You prompted me to take a look at the site stats system, and this is what it tells me:
Countries
| Countries | Pages | Hits | Bandwidth | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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United States | us | 2582 | 17884 | 214.31 MB |    |
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Great Britain | gb | 857 | 8834 | 81.44 MB | |
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Spain | es | 346 | 3115 | 29.17 MB | |
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Russian Federation | ru | 236 | 475 | 9.97 MB | |
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Germany | de | 228 | 3142 | 23.32 MB | |
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Malaysia | my | 204 | 980 | 15.09 MB | |
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Netherlands | nl | 177 | 218 | 7.71 MB | |
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Ecuador | ec | 165 | 2384 | 15.37 MB | |
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China | cn | 126 | 427 | 7.36 MB | |
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South Korea | kr | 126 | 284 | 7.81 MB | |
 |
Ukraine | ua | 110 | 140 | 4.77 MB | |
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Australia | au | 80 | 726 | 7.07 MB | |
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Canada | ca | 60 | 462 | 4.55 MB | |
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India | in | 54 | 1043 | 8.69 MB | |
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Denmark | dk | 53 | 79 | 2.97 MB | |
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Singapore | sg | 48 | 481 | 4.29 MB | |
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Poland | pl | 47 | 478 | 4.55 MB | |
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Luxembourg | lu | 22 | 64 | 1.17 MB | |
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Greece | gr | 20 | 425 | 1.69 MB | |
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Finland | fi | 18 | 322 | 2.20 MB | |
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Croatia | hr | 18 | 387 | 1.92 MB | |
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Argentina | ar | 17 | 126 | 1.62 MB | |
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Romania | ro | 16 | 44 | 1.10 MB | |
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Italy | it | 15 | 200 | 1.53 MB | |
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Japan | jp | 14 | 114 | 1.39 MB | |
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Sweden | se | 10 | 177 | 1.44 MB | |
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Estonia | ee | 9 | 82 | 657.82 KB | |
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Portugal | pt | 8 | 226 | 1.35 MB | |
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Israel | il | 7 | 36 | 341.59 KB | |
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Thailand | th | 7 | 7 | 198.49 KB | |
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Latvia | lv | 6 | 6 | 122.07 KB | |
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New Zealand | nz | 4 | 75 | 492.90 KB | |
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Unknown | ap | 3 | 3 | 129.86 KB | |
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Austria | at | 2 | 67 | 351.82 KB | |
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France | fr | 1 | 33 | 189.85 KB | |
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Indonesia | id | 1 | 29 | 187.77 KB | |
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Hong Kong | hk | 1 | 33 | 157.63 KB | |
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Lithuania | lt | 1 | 30 | 188.02 KB | |
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Switzerland | ch | 1 | 29 | 187.73 KB | |
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El Salvador | sv | 6 | 61.92 KB | |
|
| Others | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
||
Here's one from a guy complaining about how long it takes for his posts to appear but instead of an apology they just close the thread. Poor guy.
Poor guy, indeed. He was even trying to be sort of funny so it wouldn't sound like a rude complaint.
I know right?
Fluff - Thread closed. :D
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=267791
Some serious self-righteousness going on there. More for the ignore list.
Really don't know why I bother any more - the general level of obnoxiousness is incredible.
Thats funny that you posted this, since i was reading it last night. I wanted to post something and should have but the Z monster kept kicking my arse.
It sucks now that it only takes a few people to get the thread closed, when theres really nothing to argue about at all.
And completely the wrong people got castigated.
The argumentative @£%$^%$^& who called in DiM51 was the one needing kicked hard. Which is why I rarely bother reading and have a very long ignore list on CPF. Some of the moderators are those most deserving of being permanently ignored.
My patience with this sort of heavy handed nonsense is nil. Where I work, behaving like that gets staff badly hurt - and IMO they richly deserve it.
Sadly, Wikipedia is horribly prone to the same sort of nonsense which is why it will never be taken seriously.
Thats why i have'nt really posted on cpf all too much......why, its like the next time i check the post its locked, lol.
I think the same as yours.
There, his moderation have become sick by following a clearly commercial patterns.
It seems that brands that do not pay them, are things to extinguish.
Besides, if lights costing $1.57 (Postage has gone up by 9c) are actually useful, what point is there is $500 lights? I can understand why people like such things, my Varapower cost me around $300 by the time I had paid import taxes but it is brighter than just about anything else. But it is the makers of multi-hundred dollar lights who pay to advertise on CPF...
Just like Wikipedia, you have to be aware of the agendas of those controlling it.
Surefires are good at what they do well, and poor at what they dont. People have their own personal preferences. individuals make up their own minds what strengths they want to pay for and how much they are willing to shell out for them. Its really that simple.
I seldomly agree with the way CPF is moderated, but it hasn't gotten severe enough for me to want to walk away.
I have walked away. More than once.
However, there is still a lot of very good information there. And nothing will stop that - that place is very, very useful but participation in it is less and less fruitful.
Agreed, it is a matter of personal preference - I don't value what Surefire offers for the money they cost. Others differ - and there's nothing wrong with that as long as the fans agree to differ with me. Problem is, they and the moderators don't. Surefire fanbois annoy me a lot - and most of the moderators on the other place agree with the fanbois.
The bias on CPF against all non american are a pain in the ...
I take it that members want good solid information no matter if the item is made or sold from Timbuctu, The North Pole
China, US or whatever. Some moderators doesn´t seem to agree on this.
To me the sheer amount of information and membership makes the policies there tolerable for me. Obviously I don't agree with most of them there, but it's not going to stop me from posting there and usually almost all the things I've said there haven't gotten me into any trouble there. I will agree there is a certain level of snobbery (sorry I know that's not a word, but you all know what I mean) there and I've been very civil with my posts that are against that kind of behavior. I've managed not to get into any real pissing contests with any of the snobs over there. As for Surefire, I can appreciate their flashlights and I do own quite a few. After all, we do have Surefire to thank for their awesome C/P format that many Chinese flashlights have managed to clone...I love the interchangeability of it, love the P60 format and love the flashlight lego concept. I am also one who's been able to get one of those highly recommended P60LED dropins in the Malkoff Devices M60/M61 on many occasions and while they're not cheap (and a challenge to get most of the time), I would agree that they're the best P60LED dropins on the market. Their reliability, functionality and build quality on them are just not matched by the $8-$15 generic ones you get from places like DX. As a flashaholic, I can appreciate the value the cheap dropins give and I do own a few myself and as a flashaholic I can also appreciate the cheap and expensive flashlights alike. I've owned $500 custom ArcMania flashlights before and I thought they were great...though ultimately when I was bored with them, I just sold them and got back at least 80% of what I paid for them. Anyway, that's my 2 cents on this debate of snobby website versus friendly website, expensive versus cheap discussion. Ultimately I say to each their own.
I agree with a lot of the points here. CPF was ironically what got me interested in budget flashlights from DX and the like, particularly the budget thread. Basically I was looking for a new bike light. I had 3 of those 56 LED bike flashlights (with 3 AA). I found their light output good enough for my purpose but they were too heavy & bulky for the base, which kept slipping down so the light would end up pointing too far down. (While I largely cycle on the road, because of my lack of confidence in drivers and other things, I tend to use footpaths particularly for crossings so go sometimes go off the curb to get back to the road leading to a bump ride which doesn'thelp) Further, they would sometimes come off the base. In fact one or two of the bases broke. And of course when they do come off the base they hit the ground and the battery hold breaks. 2 got broken, one got accidently thrown away with 3 of my Power rechargable batteries (at least I think that's what happened).
So I was wondering what to buy (this was early last year). It occured to me that may be getting a more ordinary flashlight and attaching it to the handlelight may work better and in particular perhaps with one or a few bright LEDs rather then a large number of dim ones so the thing wasn't so bulky and would be less likely to fall off... Trouble is, how do I know if the light is any good, there's not much point trusting the eBay sellers brightness claims. And I didn't even know anything about the different LED types (the only name of bright white LED manufacturers I knew was Luxeon). From a bit of searching I came across DealExtreme and CPF, particularly the budget forum. However I never really got around to buying anything. It was only in the middle of this year I started to look again. It was then that I started to notice the snobbery (which is a word BTW) and disdain shown for anything budget. Of course I quickly came across Jayki and by that time the budget subforum existed. And DX's internal forums are also quite useful. I now know a resonable amount although most of it did come from CPF combined with DX's internal forum, so do agree desite CPF's problem it is a useful resource. I have started to come around to the idea of an 18650 light (I already have use of a NIMH charger and AA batteries and was also a bit concerned about li-ion batteries blowing up so had been planning to stick with AA). Of course I still haven't bought anything. Now of course I've this forum which I somehow missed until now (well I haven't yet really looked into reviews of specific flashlights that much outside of DX, had planned to start checking into that on Jayki and CPF when I really started to consider which specific light to buy).
Give my requirements for a decent budget light (probably under $35) and similarly for accessories i.e. I have no desire to spend $50 on a charger or $18 per battery, the stuff recommended on CPF in general have little interest to me. I don't have the money. When it comes to li-ion batteries, I did get some cheap Ebay batteries+standalone charger for my phone from China (which I didn't end up using for long as the phone died, the flex cable broke) and while the phone has internal regulation and should never excessively discharge the battery, I did use the charger once or twice. The first time I charged it I did worry a bit but it didn't seem to bulge or anything (in fact my genuine Panasonic battery was the one that bulged and I also dropped my phone a few times, often the battery would come out but ) and didn't really give it that much thought afterwards. So ultimately if I trust these batteries and charger which no one had review, why not the 18650 batteries and charger where I can get user experience who found that whatever model is generally okay, probably combined with manually monitoring the batterymah. I actually wonder how many people get AW 18650 and expensive charger because they're worried about them blowing up yet have no problems with getting cheap li-ion batteries and chargers for their phone or camera or whatever. And since I don't live in the US, things in the US tend to be expensive shipping, better to get it from HK/China. It also means I have no great reason to love US products (quality matters but location not), or feel they are more deserving of my money, often somewhat of the opposite (particularly since I'm originally from Malaysia). There are obviously people who do have the money and desire for better flashlights and are reasons why you might want an expensive charger and batteries and I fully understand that but that isn't me and it is annoying how many people at CPF don't seem to understand that...
You're going to fit right in. Glad to have you here.
Wow you had a lot to say.......like Ted put it your going to fit right in. Part of a forum is being able to really talk about anything, a budget light is a light after all no matter what the price is.