@phendrick@xobzoo sometimes I watch SkyTV news from England and though it is fun I’m not sure they are better off. What’s fun is the parliament hall where people yell insults at each other. Apparently this is normal there…
Some politics seems to be allowed iff it agrees with unbiased moderator’s opinions.
But fantasy always seems to be allowed, or even encouraged.
As for MAGBA, i don’t drink tea anyway, so would just dump it overboard forthwith. (But wouldn’t dress up as indigenous people – who had probably had ancestors who weren’t born here – because that is now a no-no, unless you are a fan of certain sports teams.)
There are many of my southern neighbors who do drink copious amounts of tea, provided it is iced, overly sweet, and the weather induces much sweating. They wouldn’t go for any tax on it though, other than restaurant sales tax.
I wish I could say I collect railroad lanterns, but the damned things are so expensive these days that I simply cannot. I’d love to have even one nice one I can actually use. It’s almost torture staring at the ones at work all day!
EDIT important historical trivia: if you notice in Wyoming and Eastern Colorado towns are spaced about 100 mi apart. That’s because it was the distance to get a service stop where they would get fuel and water. Maintenance shops were built and then houses, churches, and schools. This is how early towns were placed and now the Interstate mostly follows the same path.
@tweezak@xobzoo https://www.lanternnet.com
They carry Dietz and Feuerhand; Dietz are now made in china and not up to the quality they once had but still usable. Feuerhand are nicer but more expensive.
If you want real light (and quite a bit of heat) then Aladdin’s are worth looking at but $$$ and the mantles are harder to get these days and don’t work as well as the original ones.
@duodec@tweezak@xobzoo Another W.T. Kirkman enjoyer! Great people. I go to them for all of my vintage lantern restoration stuff, like wicks, globes, and burners.
@duodec@tweezak@xobzoo Yes Aladdin ones give out about 100 watts. The rest of them are far dimmer and the light is far yellower - speaking as someone who worked in the far north where the generator didn’t work below about 5 degrees and so we had to use kerosine and in the kitchen we had rigged a propane light (stove was propane) which was really bright. Propane tanks though need to be fairly full as they lose pressure in the cold but less so than some other gas fuels.
I got into that for a while before Y2K; I have two working Aladdins with spare components (one a lamp with shade, the other just open), a couple of Feuerhands, and two Dietz (one of which leaked so I had to seal the font).
The Aladdins put out an amazing amount of light, but also (from memory) about 1500 BTUs of heat, and you need to be careful of what is directly above them if its not far enough above.
I still have a full 5 gallon kerosene can from back then. Never bought the kerosene tower heater or stove, though.
@Kidsandliz we used to use a butane cassette burner outside with the previous grill that didn’t have a side burner; it had trouble below freezing (on the rare occasions we cooked outside when it was that cold) so the replacement grill had to have a propane side burner. No issues.
@duodec@Kidsandliz@tweezak@xobzoo I would love to have a proper Aladdin-style kerosene mantle lamp one day. We have a couple caboose lamps at the museum where I work and the light they put out is wonderful.
Primarily power outages, but I did just use mine at night when my husband let the dog out when the gate was open and we had to scour the neighborhood in the dark looking for our pup. Thankfully we got him home safely!
@cbilyak yes and you have to decide on headset light or handeld, or both (probably bought here).
We lost our cat in a campground in Colorado. (In truth he escaped). No luck that night. Serious story, the next day my wife found him by asking one of the neighborhood cats where our cat was and led her to a building with an underfloor area where apparently all the local cats hung out. And there he was.
I don’t do cave crawling but we’ve used oil and kerosene (Aladdin) lamps during power fails and camping. We have LED lanterns as well as actual propane camping lanterns. Aladdins and propane are winter only because they really pump out the heat…
@chienfou@Fuzzalini not all caves aretiny tiny spaces. some caves have all these huge rooms and big passage ways. It really depends on the cave and what part you go through.
Nobody knows this reference, so I’ll tell. It’s from one of the very first computer games called Adventure, a written word game that I played on my dad’s company’s HP mainframe in 1981 or 1982. My dad was the IT Director so he had to have access from home. We played it on a teletype machine hooked up to a modem with a phone coupler.
@chienfou@Fuzzalini@Kidsandliz I (along with many of my fellow coworkers) played Adventure on our 8085-based workstations (this was pre-PCs, late 70’s - early 80’s). One guy even mapped out the whole labyrinth on paper. I figured out how to edit the parameters of my avatar to basically make it indestructible, which was fun for a while but eventually made the game kind of boring.
@Fuzzalini@macromeh
My experience ('72-'73) was more limited. We had to write out our own basic programs, type them in and run them in one go since we had no storage process (no mag tape or punchcards for instance). A bit of a PITA but a good intro to the process.
@chienfou@Fuzzalini@Kidsandliz UNLV had a CDC Cyber 70 model 73 mainframe; initially we had to use teletypes to play Adventure (which used a lot of paper) and Star Trek; I was a junior before enough terminals were available (and I had enough ‘student seniority’ to get time on one while the frosh still got stuck on teletypes).
Was awesome. I never solved it; I suck at puzzles…
@chienfou@duodec@Kidsandliz I never solved it either. The copy we had may have had a bug that made it unsolvable, one of my dad’s programmers told me that years ago. I’ve just found out we didn’t have the original game, there was no mention of Spelunking Today magazine in the original. Ours must have been one of the later iterations.
To warn that the British are coming!
(But i might need two.)
@phendrick I wonder if it counts as too political for this thread to repeat the joke about “Make America Great Britain Again”?
@phendrick @xobzoo sometimes I watch SkyTV news from England and though it is fun I’m not sure they are better off. What’s fun is the parliament hall where people yell insults at each other. Apparently this is normal there…
@phendrick @pmarin @xobzoo It is normal and it’s awesome.
POPSOCKETS! COURT DOCKETS! FOLK ROCK HITS! AWESOME!
@xobzoo
Some politics seems to be allowed iff it agrees with unbiased moderator’s opinions.
But fantasy always seems to be allowed, or even encouraged.
As for MAGBA, i don’t drink tea anyway, so would just dump it overboard forthwith. (But wouldn’t dress up as indigenous people – who had probably had ancestors who weren’t born here – because that is now a no-no, unless you are a fan of certain sports teams.)
There are many of my southern neighbors who do drink copious amounts of tea, provided it is iced, overly sweet, and the weather induces much sweating. They wouldn’t go for any tax on it though, other than restaurant sales tax.
[iff = math shorthand for “if and only if”]
@pmarin @xobzoo @zinimusprime
We seem to be easing toward that model, if you’ve been watching Senate confirmation hearings. And for several years before that.
i agree it is more fun and palliates my cynicism somewhat, not to mention in keeping with the current political climate emphasizing “transparency”.
Searching for an honest man …
– Diogenes
@Kyeh Thanks, I was trying to dig up that reference.
@Kyeh @pmarin
Did a search for “truth” before I posted…D’oh!
I wish I could say I collect railroad lanterns, but the damned things are so expensive these days that I simply cannot. I’d love to have even one nice one I can actually use. It’s almost torture staring at the ones at work all day!
@PooltoyWolf now that is a cool obsession.
EDIT important historical trivia: if you notice in Wyoming and Eastern Colorado towns are spaced about 100 mi apart. That’s because it was the distance to get a service stop where they would get fuel and water. Maintenance shops were built and then houses, churches, and schools. This is how early towns were placed and now the Interstate mostly follows the same path.
@PooltoyWolf is there a railfan forum topic on this site? If not we should start one.
Sometimes it’s more satisfying to just curse the darkness.
During power outages I use oil lanterns. I want to get some hurricane lanterns too.
@tweezak I think I could track down where to buy oil for the oil lanterns, but where do you buy hurricanes?
@tweezak @xobzoo
https://www.lanternnet.com
They carry Dietz and Feuerhand; Dietz are now made in china and not up to the quality they once had but still usable. Feuerhand are nicer but more expensive.
If you want real light (and quite a bit of heat) then Aladdin’s are worth looking at but $$$ and the mantles are harder to get these days and don’t work as well as the original ones.
@duodec @tweezak @xobzoo Another W.T. Kirkman enjoyer! Great people. I go to them for all of my vintage lantern restoration stuff, like wicks, globes, and burners.
@duodec @PooltoyWolf @tweezak @xobzoo Another source for wicks and parts… http://www.milesstair.com/
@duodec @tweezak @xobzoo Yes Aladdin ones give out about 100 watts. The rest of them are far dimmer and the light is far yellower - speaking as someone who worked in the far north where the generator didn’t work below about 5 degrees and so we had to use kerosine and in the kitchen we had rigged a propane light (stove was propane) which was really bright. Propane tanks though need to be fairly full as they lose pressure in the cold but less so than some other gas fuels.
@PooltoyWolf @tweezak @xobzoo
I got into that for a while before Y2K; I have two working Aladdins with spare components (one a lamp with shade, the other just open), a couple of Feuerhands, and two Dietz (one of which leaked so I had to seal the font).
The Aladdins put out an amazing amount of light, but also (from memory) about 1500 BTUs of heat, and you need to be careful of what is directly above them if its not far enough above.
I still have a full 5 gallon kerosene can from back then. Never bought the kerosene tower heater or stove, though.
@Kidsandliz we used to use a butane cassette burner outside with the previous grill that didn’t have a side burner; it had trouble below freezing (on the rare occasions we cooked outside when it was that cold) so the replacement grill had to have a propane side burner. No issues.
@duodec @Kidsandliz @tweezak @xobzoo I would love to have a proper Aladdin-style kerosene mantle lamp one day. We have a couple caboose lamps at the museum where I work and the light they put out is wonderful.
Fixing things under the sink.
… supporting my strange urge to keep buying things that light up. Must. Resist. Buying. These.
@ItalianScallion Give in to temptation!
@yakkoTDI
/showme a borg with an electric lantern
@mediocrebot You will be illuminated.
Playing in the dark with my nephew.
Primarily power outages, but I did just use mine at night when my husband let the dog out when the gate was open and we had to scour the neighborhood in the dark looking for our pup. Thankfully we got him home safely!
@cbilyak yes and you have to decide on headset light or handeld, or both (probably bought here).
We lost our cat in a campground in Colorado. (In truth he escaped). No luck that night. Serious story, the next day my wife found him by asking one of the neighborhood cats where our cat was and led her to a building with an underfloor area where apparently all the local cats hung out. And there he was.
@cbilyak @pmarin That’s amazing. He ran off to the local cat nightclub, eh? And a local cat led you there - wonderful!
Looking for miscreants.

Signaling for Batman
Light
Lantern
Drive away
The dark of night
Bright
@2many2no seems like this should be a haiku
Light from a lantern
Drives away the dark of night
It’s good to be bright
@pmarin It’s actually a lanterne
@2many2no Oh, I love that! I didn’t know about those.
️
️
️!
@Kyeh Neither did I, but sometimes meh gives me the incentive to learn something new.
I don’t do cave crawling but we’ve used oil and kerosene (Aladdin) lamps during power fails and camping. We have LED lanterns as well as actual propane camping lanterns. Aladdins and propane are winter only because they really pump out the heat…
I’ve only known about the brand as a lunchbox and thermos company! Turns out they also own Stanley! I knew that logo looked familiar!
Late night grave no sorry gardening in the backyard
Finding a (Truthful/Honest) Man?
@chienfou Is this you? https://meh.com/forum/topics/i-could-use-a-lantern-for#67a1c9afe38a99d00fb6931f
You find a copy of Spelunking Today magazine…
If anyone knows this reference, I will be deeply impressed.
@Fuzzalini Used to take student spelunking. And we’d sleep in the entrance to caves at times too (along with the mice).
@Fuzzalini @Kidsandliz
Spelunking is just not my jam. Crawling around tight dark damp spaces is creepy to me…
@chienfou @Fuzzalini not all caves aretiny tiny spaces. some caves have all these huge rooms and big passage ways. It really depends on the cave and what part you go through.
@Fuzzalini @Kidsandliz
I’ve been in a ton of large caves. Spelunking is a whole different thing.
@chienfou @Kidsandliz
Nobody knows this reference, so I’ll tell. It’s from one of the very first computer games called Adventure, a written word game that I played on my dad’s company’s HP mainframe in 1981 or 1982. My dad was the IT Director so he had to have access from home. We played it on a teletype machine hooked up to a modem with a phone coupler.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_Cave_Adventure
@Fuzzalini
That was how we used the computer at my high school in the early seventies. It was tied to the mainframe at McDonald Douglas!
@chienfou @Fuzzalini @Kidsandliz I (along with many of my fellow coworkers) played Adventure on our 8085-based workstations (this was pre-PCs, late 70’s - early 80’s). One guy even mapped out the whole labyrinth on paper. I figured out how to edit the parameters of my avatar to basically make it indestructible, which was fun for a while but eventually made the game kind of boring.
@Fuzzalini @macromeh
My experience ('72-'73) was more limited. We had to write out our own basic programs, type them in and run them in one go since we had no storage process (no mag tape or punchcards for instance). A bit of a PITA but a good intro to the process.
@Fuzzalini
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
@macromeh Exactly!
@chienfou @Fuzzalini @Kidsandliz UNLV had a CDC Cyber 70 model 73 mainframe; initially we had to use teletypes to play Adventure (which used a lot of paper) and Star Trek; I was a junior before enough terminals were available (and I had enough ‘student seniority’ to get time on one while the frosh still got stuck on teletypes).
Was awesome. I never solved it; I suck at puzzles…
VAN GOGH! MANGO! TANGO! AWESOME!
@chienfou @duodec @Kidsandliz I never solved it either. The copy we had may have had a bug that made it unsolvable, one of my dad’s programmers told me that years ago. I’ve just found out we didn’t have the original game, there was no mention of Spelunking Today magazine in the original. Ours must have been one of the later iterations.
Delving to greedily in the depths of Moria.