Picked up the latest incarnation of the ubiquitous MagLite today. This is the new LED MagLite (~$35). Its major difference from the usual MagLites is that it uses a 3-watt LED lamp rather than the krypton or incandescent bulbs we normally use. Advantages are increased battery life and a much, much greater resistance to shock. (We’ve all had a situation where we’ve dropped a flashlight and it goes out, right? That’s the filament in the bulb breaking from the shock of impact. Not an issue with LED.) Additionally, bulb life is greatly(!!) enhanced. The only other change I could discern other than the bulb was the reflector…it was more rounded and ‘egg shaped’ than the usual ‘funnel shaped’ reflector. I’ll be taking this and a ‘normal’ MagLite out tonight to try them out in the dark and see how they perform. A ‘conversion kit’ is also offered to allow you to retrofit your existing MagLite to LED. It’s the wave of the future, gang. Flashlights with filament bulbs are going to be right up there with rotary dial phones very soon.
=-=-=
The fold of local LMI’s may be increasing with the anticipated relocation of some folks I know. Its always nice to have people to hang out with, go to the range, and otherwise be yourself around….esp. when they don’t think its weird to have conversations about MRE’s, freeze-dried foods, alternate energy supplies, battle packs of ammo and gold coins.
-=-=-
North Korea is saying theyre going to have a nuclear test going on sometime soon. This country couldn’t successfully launch a couple missles a few months ago. If they cant even get the delivery system to work….
I’d be surprised if those idiots have a working nuke and I’d be more surprised if they had enough to be able to afford setting a couple off for ‘testing purposes’. On the bright side, perhaps it’ll malfunction and take out the ruling government.
In reality, this is just a ploy to get international aid. “Give us money and food or we’ll start building nukes”. Things in that particular workers paradise aren’t as rosy as they’d like and it seems that short of welcoming capitalism the only way to relieve the suffering (and perhaps stave off a popular revolt?) is to extort international aid. I say let ‘em starve.
-=-=-
New tag added for Jericho
Okay, so the black guy, Hawkins, not only knows about radiation but has a complete suit of gear so he can go to his storage unit while everyone is hunkered down and retrieve….a case of M4’s???? I’m telling ya, theres alot more to this guy than meets the eye. My three theories at this point:
a) uber-survivalist
b) .gov agent planted there by the .gov, who knew what was coming, to help keep things from descending into chaos
c) sleeper or other operative for the folks that did the nuking
And whats with the cinderblock wall he’s building in his basement?? A fake room to hide his goodies? I wanna know more!
Hawkins, the black guy from Jericho
like i said over at the inexpensive tree rats forum, former St. Louis cop MY EYE, he KNEW the jig was up
Unfortunately I missed episode 3 this week because I chose to go shooting instead(!) And, of course, they’re not showing repeats like the did when it started off.
Eps are available online, I believe….
Torrents are your friends! Tivo killed the one from last week and I managed to find one online that way.
One of my former roommates bought one of the LED retrofit kits for his mini-maglite a few months ago, and from what I saw it wasn’t as good as the usual bulbs in those things.
Of course, it might have just been the quality of the kit he got, but I’m not sure.
I use a mini-maglite with a one watt MiniStar2 LED module, but the Maglite factory LED module is 3 watts. I might have to pick one up to see what the effective difference is. One advantage of the 1 watt version is that the battery life is much longer.
Useful site: http://www.flashlightreviews.com
I picked up a 3 AAA cell 20 LED light from Target. I like it very much. I suppose I should plan out a reduction in batteries used. I have gear that needs D, AA, AAA, N and 123’s. Just making sure they all get rotated into use is a minor pain.
And whats with the cinderblock wall he’s building in his basement??
I go with the fake room theory. He anticipates that other local people will be in the basement soon, and doesn’t want them to see what he brought back. Meantime, even behind the cinder blocks, they’re easier to retrieve than they would have been in the downtown storage bin.
One of the minor annoyances about the LED upgrade to the maglite (aside from the fact that the upgrade to my big 3 D-cell light cost me as much as the damn light did in the first place) is that they don’t tell you the lumenn output of the new bulb. With my SureFire E2D, I know the output (and the SureFire has a lot more umph than the Mag, even with the upgrade). Frankly, I don’t see a lot of difference in light output between the filament bulb and the LED in the Mag. There might be a slight improvement, but I think the main advantages will come in shockproofing and battery life.
Full episodes?
I read somewhere that CBS was hosting the full episodes on it’s website with additional footage, something about a “90 minute” episode which I speculate is probably like 65 min. or so like your hour-long show is usually about 44 min. with commercials.
I went to the CBS Jericho site and there is a link for the first three eps to watch the entire show… I can’t click on it because I am working but I will try it later.
Crom