Power outage at the grocery store. Big day for me.

It's plenty holesome.

I mean, looking into it (you can thank me later), it seems like a great support group!

It will not work here:
"Sir, This Is A Wendy’s"
but maybe here:
"Anyway, this is a Walmart"

Me, too!

I can get a battery/inverter set up in about 10 minutes that'll last from dusk until bedtime that'll run my entire server and network and TV.

The trouble is that the power usually comes back as soon as I switch the inverter on.

The memes must flow.

!flashlight@lemmy.world

Did you see the old "follow the light" post from /r/flashlight? It's a classic

Mine unfortunately has a 3s delay before it cuts over to battery when grid synch is lost. Too long for servers to stay up. So I went and bought a lithium power station, and put it online in UPS mode. Now when the grid goes out, the UPS kicks in, the house battery kicks in, and I have 16kwh (plus whatever solar is coming in) before I need to start turning off servers.

Assuming your ISP and the equipment between you and them didn't got hit by the power outage ...

Yeah but check out my thick beamshots

10 times a week are rookie numbers

There's an entire horror game about having only your phone flashlight during a power outage.

Actually, it looks like there are a few.

Double edged sword. I was into lock picking as a teen. When my family found ourselves in the same situation, I leapt into action and got the side door open in no time.

My mother freaked out at how easy it was to get into our house without a key, and went on an anxiety fueled journey of kitting the house out with extra security. It wasn’t a bad idea to up our security, but I felt horrible for stressing her out by trying to do a good deed.

I'm a firefighter\emt. I've gotten to pick Sooo many door locks over the years and it's saved a lot of people a lot of money and headache for it.

Anytime someone has "fallen and can't get up" in their locked house, but says they aren't injured, I'll pick my way in, instead of us having to break a door or window just because they need help off the floor.

... And that's how I got your mother to subscribe to the lockpicking lawyer.

Congratulations, you're now "the wizard who can open doors" forever. It's really nice to be able to help people with something that isn't that hard (for most locks) but appears as magic to so many people.

I was once at a wedding at a lodge type place in the middle of nowhere with rooms that auto locked like a hotel. Opened the locked closet that held the tables/chairs when the owner had accidentally left it locked and was two hours away. ... Then three rooms for drunk people that locked their keys inside... Then somebody who rented a cabin 30 min away drove me out there to let them back into the cabin they'd locked themselves out of (hopefully I didn't just break into a random cabin for them... But the keys were sitting on the counter just inside the door, and they knew exactly where they were, so probably not)

Plus, it's just fun.

What picks do you use?

How heroic and badass did that feel? I need to learn to lockpick. And get a wife. And lock her out.

Having paper currency as part of your EDC for when electronic payment goes down feels great until someone starts calling you unc for having a wallet. Trust me.

If I leave my house, my edc flashlight is on me, and I literally have a use for it every day. I used it probably 4 different times today. It's kind of astounding how many times you could use a lil extra light real quick, even if you could sort of not need the light. Like when I was checking under my car seat today. I could sort of see under there without a light, but since I had the light right there in my pocket, I used it, and it made it way easier.

Same. I change out my EDC every few months to account for the weather. And obviously if I need to pass a security checkpoint, I'll leave some stuff at home.

One thing I haven't regretted yet is keeping spare medication in my bag. The number of times I've left the house and realized I forgot my antidepressants is frankly embarrassing.

It took me way too long of concentrated thinking to figure out that EDC meant every day carry have associating the acronym with Electric Daisy Carnival for so long

A small AAA pocket flashlight with a magnetic base comes in handy surprisingly often and can be clipped into a tiny jeans pocket for carrying. You can even use it from there if it's angled.

You're not going to save the day with it but it's pretty neat to have on hand. (That's pretty much as far as EDC goes for me.)

I feel naked without my Spyderco Delica 4 and AAA light clipped in my pockets.

People will ask you where you got it and then you get to talk about it!!

You have my exact use case energy wise (homelab + fridge). Can I ask what battery and panels you got?

You can charge your car with a powerbank?

... For a while.

No we aren't. We like being the heroes in little emergencies.

When the big emergencies happen, we're just as likely to die as anybody else. Anybody who says differently is a complete moron.

Prepare for the most likely scenario, and you'll be fine. For the big problems, the best insurance against that is being an active member of your community. Prepping by being there for city council meetings and advocating for responsible city budgeting and city planning is way more likely to save you and your family than kitting your Jeep with a generator.

Beamogging the darkness-cels

🔦

Much as I have always loved Star Trek: TNG and its take on future tech, every time they beamed somewhere dark and pulled out their scifi flashlights all I could think of is how tired their hands would quickly get in the unnatural position needed to use those things.