I will check out that link when I have a bit more time to devote to reading it carefully. 5am comes too early.
I don’t want to get rid of my phone all together. I just want to simplify. It’s gotten all too easy to confuse virtual reality with actual reality, if that makes sense. I just want something simpler that will force me to think before I leap. A text or meme is far too easy. A phone call, to a real live person, is something out of a science fiction novel for some people now days. I don’t want to get soft relying on technology that will allow me to celebrate my laziness. Most of the time I forget my phone at home in all honesty. I normally don’t remember I left it there until the wife or kids ask where it is. I am the guy that strikes up conversations with people while in ling waiting on something. The wife and kids? Heads buried in their phones worried about something that hasn’t happened yet.
You are absolutely right. I don’t really care what a tool looks like as long as it functions flawlessly 100% of the time.
I carried a P38 on my key ring for years. I know exactly where it is and tomorrow morning it will find it’s way back onto it. I am not particularly musically inclined but I do have a few juice harps that I like to play. Not sure if playing is the right term for that device. It’s design and use has been around for many many years and is not entirely to difficult to make yourself. I enjoy some of the technological advances in ham radio yet, more often than not I am using a very small low powered radio I built myself and use morse code exclusively. When I have to correspond with a teacher at the kids school I never email them. I write a letter, in cursive. Hard to find kids in the US that know that anymore. They don’t teach it in a lot of schools. I taught mine though.
I think it all boils down to I am part of a generation that I don’t understand. Or maybe I am just becoming a grumpy old (47) man.
Hey, um, before we get any further into the fine details of deeply political terrorist manifestos, this might be a good time to take a look at BLF’s rules:
Very good thread…I think about it also.Consumerism…we are also in it…Do we really need thounsands lumens flashlights for usually daily use?The more we have,the more we want…But we give also a job to many many chinese people,i think also…I personally try not to buy…I like this lifestyle…Its much more freedom in it…My only maybe senseless hobby is this…In the 90s i survived also with Maglites:)This is also reason i can live more quiet life.Not so hurry…No money,no flashlights:)And try to by zero waste if i can.But there are still more and more people.They need work…We have to buy!
It’s very important follow Arts like paint,write what yout think on paper,play an old instrument,visit Ancient city,and also contact with nature.
These are effective primordial remedies against technological invasion and consumeris that empties the spirit of peoples creating anxieties and negativity sometimes not recognized.
Men seem to be pre-disposed to collect things. I guess it is an evolutionary trait from when resources were scarce, you had to hoard food and supplies for the winter etc.
Now you can buy food from a store, but we are still driven to hoard and collect. So we substitute stamps, baseball cards, coins, video games, flashlights, knives… there are probably very few men who do not have a collection of something.
I have fallen into the trap of consumerism and collecting in the past (and present … ). I try not to, I try to keep it present in my mind. Sometimes successfully. Other times I find myself falling back into old habits.
You start a conversation
You can’t even finish it
You’re talking a lot
But you’re not saying anything
When I have nothing to say
My lips are sealed
Say something once, why say it again?
Psycho killer, qu’est-ce que c’est?
Fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, far better
Run, run, run, run, run, run away
Oh-ho-ho
Psycho killer, qu’est-ce que c’est?
Yeah, maybe thinking Uncle Ted’s spiel is Gospel might not be the best medicine. Pyschobabble
Todd, I know exactly what you mean. There is beauty in the human condition, personal growth occurs when a person suffers, the same way muscles grow after stress in exercise. But because pain is something that most people avoid, the benefits of personal growth are stunted. And the younger generations think "this is life" while your prior life experiences tell you "this is life!" because they missed out on experiences that shaped you that either don't exist or warped, although imbued with mostly the same desires.
TK, I hoped that we could separate the work from the person, a certain person accused of crimes against women had a lot of media that may stand on its own, another who was convicted carries their likeness in the media, a dead songwriter with many pieces of popular music is still in court, a dictator's laws were all revoked aside from one on animal rights. If it matters, I did not see it as politically divisive because it has been embraced by many on the political spectrum. It probably doesn't really belong here if it creates too much conflicts, the neo-luddite and the anti-consumer are not the same.
vresto that is a good point. I grew up with maglites and rarely used them because the batteries were not rechargeable, and when they were, they sucked. Many people did not grow up with them, or did not have a baseline. I think of mine as based in the 90s, same with some prices that I remember being way lower. It is not your moral prerogative to buy things you don't need so others have a job, they can work on things that others will buy! Because so many people don't have older references, it is a problem where they buy more and more thinking that the next one will be even better.
Sari, yes! Doing things is healthy, just buying them and not using them is bad!
Varbos, we are still at our hearts, mostly carnivorous apes that have not evolved significantly for thousands of years. In order to fight some evolutionary dictations, we have evolved a society, a melding of the public consciousness, and hope to live in harmony with one another. But if you don't fit into it or see its ills or how what benefits society as vresto said, may not benefit you.
Hey Lick, thanks for the kind words. This happened in 1999. I’m pretty much over it, but i have some cognitive deficits, and maybe this is part of it. It’s kinda like having a limp. You get used to it. I’m still a genius, but it’s a challenge putting my brain to prolonged use, such as using Boolean logic to solve tensor equations. I don’t have the concentration necessary anymore, as my attention span lasts about as long as the flip of a light switch. Then again that’s all i need to make me happy. Until the next hobby
I’m a bit disappointed in myself for even reading past the “quote” in the opening post. Luckily I didn’t quit until I got to the unabomber stuff
To me the first line of the quote looks like somebody tried to sneak in the part about left-leaning, as in “big left leaning city dweller”.
Bad sentence… should have been left-leaning big-city dweller. Ted K was a nut-job; brilliant, but with a pile of mental issues.
I read most of Kaczynski’s manifesto when it was first published. It is nonsense. His long diatribe about “oversocialization” was simply an exercise in making up elaborate excuses for his anti-social behavior. That is not admirable, or original, thinking. Looking at that in the most generous light possible, it could be a reflection of his illness. Or, maybe he was just not a very nice person.
Many of my predictions have come true, also - but that doesn’t make me an expert on technology and social-psychology. I also don’t think it particularly admirable that Kaczynski was successful in making his writings popular through his acts of terrorism. Adolf Hitler was successful in making Mein Kampf popular in the same way - but I don’t think that work has anything of insight to offer us, either.
I don’t admire people who make excuses for acting in ways that harm others. I admire people who try to follow the Golden Rule and act in consideration of how their actions affect others, without of course expecting perfection from themselves.
These threads are usually posted by new members who can't seem to get their heads around people with lots and lots of flashlights . They imply something is wrong with you if you have lots of lights .
Experience comes at a cost and no one knows good from bad without it .people show up everyday here wanting to buy the perfect light straight away . Life is not that simple . A "good light " is subjective .Experimentation is about trial and error .Everything costs something ,even your mistakes .Whether it's time ,effort ,energy or a dime. Collectively our knowledge has value because of the price paid by members .
Here's one reason to buy a bunch of lights >> https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/35760
Just denouncing consumerism is painting with a wide brush .
If you choose to say some people are screwed up ...I'll agree with you wholeheartedly
When I die ...my friends and family will shake their heads at the big pile of lights and each take a half dozen home with them .....then some months later they will pause and look down at the light in their hand and say .."damn that's really an exceptional light ". In the end I win .
If you're here on a quest to change peoples minds and attitudes then .... maybe you need to get a hobby .
I enjoy technologies that extend or improve on my natural senses or abilities.
In my personal and professional life the need to see in dark areas is constant. At work it would’ve required getting a 50 yr old “trouble light” that needed an extension cord and convenient AC power, AND a working light bulb. They worked that way forever. They HAD flashlights but the batteries would be dead when they went to use them and then they would scramble around looking for fresh ones. This is not an exaggeration. I ended that quickly. My coworkers were excited when I gave them some of my old budget flashlights but would let them drain to nothing and then come to me for my light. You’re either a flashoholic or you’re not. There’s always a flashlight clipped to my right pocket.
The left pocket always carries a Victorinox Deluxe Tinker. I’ve tried different knives through the years and finally settled on this one. Started with the standard Tinker and worked my way up. My fingernails and teeth are limited in their utility and too fragile to count on for rough work so I improve on them with the Vic.
My voice doesn’t carry very far and my ears have gotten old so my phone allows me to scream great distances and hear responses from just as far. Thousands of miles!
There are binoculars and reading glasses to give me amazing vision, vehicles that let me travel faster than a cheetah, and clothes to allow me to live in a climate that would otherwise kill me.
I am quite happy with all of my technological solutions listed above, but the flashlight world has really got it’s claws in me. I really enjoy soldering and swapping emitters, flashing drivers, and tweaking things. I realized it’s just a waste of time and money because the light that usually rides in the pocket is a Zebralight SC64w. I have set some limits regarding annual purchasing quantity, and that has helped my wallet, but the love of cool flashlights goes back to childhood and will probably be with me to the end.
“Pathological” flashlight/torch buying seems to me to be as much about the impossible search for perfection as about being successfully manipulated by the commercial sphere.
The perfect product never exists and there’s always sales and discounts, new products being released, an endless ocean of different manufacturers etc.
Once the initial resistance to making a purchase is overcome, suddenly it’s a lot easier to make additional purchases and a spending spree ensues.
To quote the Buddha “want what you have and you’ll always get what you want”. Making an effort to appreciate the torches we already have rather than researching the next purchase might diminish the materialist compulsion.
Great to see a Boatsinker cartoon on this forum of all places. An anonymous author in the 1930s predicted by what methods society would be reengineered, this excerpt resonates when I think about how we are awash in cheap yet low quality products: “to lower ideals of craftsmanship and abolish pride in handicraft; to encourage greed for “profit,” and the standardisation of the cheap and shoddy;“.
Boaz, do you really think a good use of flashlights is to make a giveaway? It sounds like a good way to remove flashlights rather than buying them for that purpose. It isn't that I am a new member or don't understand, it is that I want to understand the motivations, and that predatory commercialization has an effect on our purchasing, although to what degree we don't know, and to understand would help to make better purchases rather than a larger amount of them.
Bansuri, the human mind and hand are at the cutting edge of our understanding. We feel for improvements with our mind, and then we do it with our hand. But when you have a device that is better than the ones you modify, it is little more than spinning wheels in practice, for instance I like fixing computers that are worst than mine but I would end up maxing them out only to never use them over my better computer. I wonder if there is more information on it. I have started using other electronics forums and hope to do more than stay with flashlights. Perhaps you would be interested. https://www.eevblog.com/forum/index.php that and SDRs are something that can be cheap and easy to start if you would like to transfer some of your skills. Microscopes and the types of light for the specimen will be more complex and has more to do with lens but its also another consideration. https://invidio.us/watch?v=FyH-b_LDlSY
CL, I somewhat agree. The ZL SC62w was known as the epitome of a good light, but it was too expensive for me, and I lost a lot of flashlights. After stopping buying them, I did appreciate my lights a lot more. I think a lot of flashlights are not shoddy but not quite good enough. We don't really know what good enough is, but the endpoint for one probably would be something that is customizable or good enough for most of us. I think the lowest point is biscotti, which is cheap, useful and very good for most uses. But there are other uses that need different firmware, and the ramping is one of them. A lot of companies don't make a light that is seen as an endpoint, just barely good enough for you to want to buy their stuff again.
I have known myself to collect things without using, but it never sat well with me in the long term. Whether it be flashlights, fountain pens, watches, etc… the most important thing to collect is knowledge on the subject, which is useful to me so long as I record and remember it. I always try and keep my collections small, manageable, and useable on a regular basis. If I don’t use it, I sell it. The knowledge part is a major component as well. By educating myself on a niche, it becomes harder and harder to satisfy my wants or needs to the point where I begin to look to ways to do it myself. As such, I gain skills along the way instead of just throwing money toward a chosen goal that is, by any rational standard, a waste of effort. I have 4 fountain pens I use regularly and 3 mechanical pencils. Wood case pencils get used often enough that they are one of the few places I can try something new regularly as old ones get used up quickly. I have 2 watches: one for daily use and one for special occasions. I currently have 11 personal flashlights going on 12 with the advent of my BLF contest winning. Each of the larger flashlights is used regularly, while the smaller ones are used as high CRI and tint references for photography and emergencies.
For fountain pens, I taught myself how to modify feeds and nibs, with the feed modification requiring an understanding of fluid mechanics and the nib modification a physical skill. For mechanical pencils, I taught myself how to manufacture some small brass parts to replace worn ones in pencils with parts not readily available. I improved my dexterity when sewing through the small quantity manufacture of custom wood case pencil cases. With flashlights, I’m slowly working on improving my programming and electrical circuit knowledge so I can make myself a driver that suits my needs perfectly (this one’s a way off though).
I appreciate what I have and the journey is even more important than the goal. Putting in your own self stops or just trying to find a different way to enjoy the hobby and its community is important for long term engagement and psychology shows that, without the high of a new item, appreciation of what you have will set in when you are forced to interact with a said item more frequently instead of knowing that you’ll get a new one soon in the future.
