hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr1929.txt

Episode: 1929
Title: HPR1929: I Found a Flashlight
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1929/hpr1929.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 11:15:24

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This is HPR episode 1929 entitled, I Found a Flashtite, It is hosted by John Culp and
is about 14 minutes long.
The summer is, I talk about an amazing flashlight I found while walking to work one day recently.
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Hey everybody, this is John Culp in Lafayette, Louisiana and I'm today recording another
one of my walking to work episodes.
For while I wasn't walking to work anymore because I think I mentioned in a previous
episode about the little bridge that connects my street and apartment complex down at the
end of it over to the university campus, it's been closed off by the city.
And actually I think I talk about that more on my emergency episode where I'm actually
writing my bike to work while I talk.
But anyway, they closed off this bridge, the city did because they said it was unsafe
and they erected fences across.
But you guys will be proud to hear that the hundreds of students who live in this apartment
complex and rely on the bridge to walk to campus took it in their own hands to, well,
hack it.
They hacked holes in the fences on this side and the other side of the bridge.
And so now you can just walk right across the bridge again just like you always could,
you can even get through on a bicycle if you duck your head and tread carefully.
So I'm walking to work, I'm going to walk through the hacked holes in the fence to get
across and onto campus.
And while I'm walking, I'm going to talk about something that I found another day while
I was walking to work, actually I was biking to work that day.
But while I was waiting to cross the street on my bike, just waiting at the stop light
on my bicycle, to cross over to the music building, I noticed that there was an object in
the road that kept getting banged around and bumped by cars and run over.
And it was cylindrical, it was rolling around and every time it rolled around again another
car would run over it and bang it and it would get bounced around and roll a few feet
away and then another car would hit it.
So I got off the bike and looked and it was a flashlight.
And so the next time it was safe, no cars were coming that would run me over.
I ran out on the street and grabbed the flashlight and pushed the little button to check
whether it turned on and it did.
It was incredible.
I mean what caught my attention about this thing was the fact that it had been run over
by six or seven cars before I got to it and apart from some scratches on the surface
from having clattered across the pavement, it did not seem to have suffered any kind
of damage.
And I thought man, that is incredible that it could take such a beating and not be visibly
damaged at all.
So I clicked the little button to see whether it still turned on and it did.
So I just put it in my bag and went on to work.
And then when I got home after work that day, I took a closer look at the flashlight, saw
that it was a stream light brand, SL-20L model.
So I looked that up and found it on Amazon and saw that it was a very high end flashlight,
retail price of $225 and Amazon price of $125.
And I guess you can take these retail prices with a grain of salt, they are artificially
high I think.
And nevertheless, even so at $125, it is the kind of thing I would never even consider
buying for myself.
And it is a very large flashlight, it is well over a foot long.
So probably for Europeans, maybe 35 centimeters long, about an inch in diameter, it is very
heavy, about two pounds.
And it occurred to me, this is probably a police flashlight.
I'm walking across campus now and you just heard some students talking because this
is, we're in exam week right now.
Classes are over today is the first day of exams so not as many students on campus
right now they have exams at different times and right now it is smack in the middle
of the first exam period so lots of students will be sitting in desks taking their exams.
Anyway, so it looked like it was probably a police flashlight and something that valuable
I thought man, I should probably at least check with the police department and see if anybody
lost the flashlight.
And theoretically they could easily track down who it belonged to also because these
flashlights have serial numbers on them for just such a case, for people who have to keep
a close track of inventory, they have serial numbers so each officer would be assigned
a particular flashlight with a particular serial number and they could track it down.
So the first thing I did was just email the police department and ask what kind of flashlights
they issue their police officers, I mean something that nice I didn't want to just go give
it to them because maybe it didn't belong to them.
So a very nice public relations police officer emailed me back and said thank you very much
for reporting that you found a flashlight, it's awfully nice of you to do this and she
said that we issue stream light brand flashlights to our police officer and of course that's
the kind I had and so I emailed her back with the serial number and then she checked
around I suppose throughout the day and then that evening I got an email back and she
said you know thanks again but nobody has reported a flashlight missing and so I thought
well maybe one is one of the so that was the Lafayette city police, I thought maybe
the university police department might have lost one so I emailed them and they said
they don't even issue flashlights to their officers but that sometimes officers would
buy their own but no one had reported a missing flashlight and so I kept in.
Now the problem with this is that of course I did not have the charger, this is you know
just taking a look at it you would think it's one of those flashlights that requires like
three or four diesel batteries you know there's very large batteries but this is a professional
grade very high tech flashlight and instead of having you know alkaline batteries it has
a rechargeable battery inside and it didn't even occur to me at first that it could do that
because I could not see anywhere on the flashlight where you would plug it in there was no little
jack to plug it in and so I did a little bit more research and found that it doesn't charge that
way you have to get a little sleeve that mounts on the wall and then you insert the flashlight into
this sleeve that's plugged into an outlet and it looks like it looks like it uses the screws
that hold the switch on I think it uses those as contact points to charge up the flashlight so
anyway I ordered a sleeve and charger and when they came in a few days ago I put the flashlight
in I was glad to have it because by then the charge was pretty much gone and put it into the little
sleeve lo and behold it just starts charging right up and so now I've got the charger it works great
now you might wonder why is it worth talking a whole HPR episode about a flashlight or a torch for
Europeans well man this is no ordinary flashlight when I got it home that that first night and
turned it on you know when I found it it was broad daylight and so you couldn't really tell how
bright the thing was but that night I took it out in the backyard where it was very dark and when I
turned on the light I could not believe how bright it was I have a large backyard and it lit up
the entire backyard and I brought my kids out to see and they just like couldn't believe it they'd
never seen such a thing we were we were taking the light and shining it into the trees in the
park next to our house trees I don't know a hundred yards away we could shine this light way up
in the tops of those trees and see everything perfectly up there incredibly powerful light
and it has what three three different levels of brightness if you press and hold the button
you can toggle among the three different levels of brightness if you just push it and let go
you get the brightest level if you push and hold to the next level it's like one less bright and then
I don't know they there are technical specifications on their website that shows you the different
lumens and the levels of output I don't I don't know what those are it goes from super bright to kind
of bright to not very bright at all and if you hold it long enough also you can make it no wait
I think it's a double click you can turn it into a little strobe light and also if you just
barely hold the button down without clicking it it will just turn on the brightest light and then
you can just let go and it'll turn off the the build quality on this thing is astounding and as
you would have surmised having seen it been run over by several cars and suffering no damage
still working perfectly it is unbelievable build quality another thing I did was inspect the
internal battery to do that I had to unscrew the end cap which has really really finally
machined threads I mean when you turn it it's like it it just feels great to turn this thing in
the the threads they're so fine and they're so perfectly machined and it's got a little rubber seal
to keep water out I think it's rated to be able to be dropped into like one meter worth of water
and still work or something you can drop it from two meters and onto the ground and it won't be
damaged is incredibly amazing flashlight anyway it's the kind of thing I never would have bought for
myself because it costs so much money but when you when you look at the customer views on Amazon it's
one of those products where every single reviewer gives it five stars there aren't that many
products like that but it's it's one of those things where you get what you pay for I guess and
you pay for quality with this and it is unbelievable quality so I mean if you're looking for a professional
grade flashlight I cannot recommend this highly enough it's an incredible object I feel so lucky to
have found it and I feel sorry for whoever lost it but I've I don't know really how
us to track them down I've already done what I feel was my due diligence in contacting the
local law enforcement agencies so anyway that's it that's my review I suppose you'd call it of
the streamlined SL 20L flashlight an unbelievable piece of machinery machinery piece of kit I guess
and uh I will talk to you guys later that's it I've arrived at work
bye oh
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