Yeah, the modding community kind of did the research and development for what lights could be… and those things made their way into pre-made products – often by direct engagement and partnerships between the community and the manufacturers. A big part of that is the idea of giving the buyer a lot of choice of what parts they want, so it can be “modded” by the manufacturer instead of the buyer. Hank does that particularly well, with a store designed for buyers to specify exactly what parts to use on a per-light basis.
Mods are still needed, but not as often as in the past. There’s a shrinking gap between what people want and what is commercially available. And we have modders to thank for most of that.
Also, with easily-updated and easy to modify firmware (thank you @ToyKeeper ) combined with the wide LED choice, it sort of shifts the focus a bit - when the firmware already does what most people want, and there’s no shortage of lights with a choice of LEDs, so together, a lot more people can just order something that meets their use case directly, and over time that’ll probably keep happening as what’s the bleeding edge today in terms of specs, firmware, etc. keeps advancing as the work already done filters down to lower levels of involvement.
Plus, it just makes the really interesting mods more impressive. I have a couple of interesting potential future projects, but some of them are going to need a lot of time and effort.
That’s pretty much the course for any hobby, the modders and enthusiasts push the envelopes, it grows more popular, and once ideas have been proven companies start implementing them and everybody has better options at lower prices. Now with most companies adopting fancy emitters and more advanced drivers, all that’s really left to mod is in the firmware world.
Modding is more about the journey than the destination for me. Modding lets me enjoy tinkering, learn new things, even just get my mind off other things for a while. It’s a great creative outlet and it’s fun.
I haven’t accessed Reddit since the App-calipse, but this is hard to understand. Someone is selling Reddit accounts?! WTF for, besides the usual ‘nefarious’ uses the link mentioned (“market research”, etc)?
Anyway, I’ve found BLF to be a great, welcoming place, and that’s where I’m staying, at least for now.
A lot of modders just got old. The eyes and hands don’t work the same anymore and flashlights are generally small. I know my soldering ability isn’t what it used to be and strong reading glasses and bright light are required to see small things. Not that I did much modding to begin with.
The problem is that I got really pissed off with Reddit and all the crap they dumped on us users and moderators, and specially the way they responded to the fallout.
I wasn’t affected directly as I never used any apps to access Reddit, just plain old browsers – but when they basically said ‘my way or the highway’, I choose the highway – and then walking along it I met BLF, of which I had been a part well before joining r/flashlight, and decided to stay, and haven’t regretted it since.
My thinking is, I don’t negotiate with terrorists – nor give them the chance to put me over a barrel ever again. And what Reddit did (and again, the way they responded) amounted to little else besides.
Ok I understand now. I use always the app but I don’t appreciate the day they cut off r/flashlight.
Where are my post?
Where are all the post of other people?
I wait for some days and now it’s ok but is not good what they do.
I use all the forums so I hope BLF is eternal.
I know CPF change administrator and is not like the past but I use it. A bit here, a bit there and a little bit in Italy with CPF Italy.
Ok don’t write to Reddit
I’m in the same boat!
What happened with Reddit didn’t affect me personally at all.
I joined the multiple day boycott to support the moderators.
After Reddit’s responses I decided I’ll never return.
I do miss the Monthly BST greatly though!
The Buy and Sell posts here are few and far between.
It’s rough that the reddit has such great search engine discoverability (IF you’re trying to avoid it). Yesterday I noticed that 3000k was available for skilhunt h150 and m150. Searched “h150 3000k” and the top result was an hours-old reddit comment noting the same. I still posted to Lemmy but there’s still a lot of interesting conversations happening on the “R” site (BLF is awesome also) so I get a little bit of FOMO.
The BST thread was not a great loss for me as I rarely used it. But I do miss some of the great folks that I used to meet there and don’t seem to be in BLF, at least not yet: u/emissary_of_light and u/Sakowuf_solutions, to mention just two.
Ya here’s a Reddit story. Someone asked a question about an old episode of Married with Children. The one where Al Bundy was trying to figure out the name of a song. I responded with the name of the song which I got from ChatGPT-4. I thought it would be good to cite that as my source of information and believe it or not I got banned from that subreddit.
“ Do not use AI generated answers in this sub - Rule 14
AutoModerator • 23d
AI generated answers tend to include made up sources which are irrelevant and waste time.
Do not use AI generated answers in this subreddit. Rule 14”
There are many things wrong with reddit. However, that list doesn’t include communities forbidding some types of AI-generated posts. That’s a community decision, not a reddit corporate thing… and it’s generally a pretty good policy.
It’s fine to ask the AI for help, but you need to vet the sources yourself and confirm the answer is actually correct. If you cite a text imitation machine as the source for factual information, and don’t actually confirm the answer is correct, it’s not much different than citing your own imagination.
) combined with the wide LED choice, it sort of shifts the focus a bit - when the firmware already does what most people want, and there’s no shortage of lights with a choice of LEDs, so together, a lot more people can just order something that meets their use case directly, and over time that’ll probably keep happening as what’s the bleeding edge today in terms of specs, firmware, etc. keeps advancing as the work already done filters down to lower levels of involvement.
