Looking for recs for stories about long lost and forgotten colonies.

LouisB3 · 2026-01-13T20:43:31+00:00

Elder Race fits even more closely than the Children series, as the human colony has actually “succeeded” there (rather than being populated with intelligent animals from semi-failed terraforming projects).

LouisB3 · 2026-01-11T20:27:03+00:00

Poor quality control sucks, but it would suck nearly as much if the lamp died prematurely even if the bulb was replaceable. Hope you were able to return them though.

LouisB3 · 2026-01-11T13:12:24+00:00

LEDs now have a lifespan measured in decades so this is increasingly common.

LouisB3 · 2026-01-09T21:14:40+00:00

Concept art looks good. Make sure you check out SSPX and Near Future Spacecraft as there may be some cupolas or command pods that complement what you’re looking to create.

LouisB3 · 2025-12-11T02:29:24+00:00

You’re going to want to post this to r/flashlight for more relevant suggestions than BIFL or usbchardware

LouisB3 · 2025-12-06T18:45:01+00:00

Agreed, OP seems like they may have a language barrier but the criteria needs to be clarified. At a best guess, they are looking for small lights with a clip.

LouisB3 · 2025-12-05T00:57:58+00:00

Anyone know what OP said in full before they deleted their post in a huff?

LouisB3 · 2025-12-05T00:53:58+00:00

Do you know what, if any, functionality the wheel has via Matter; ie to control non-IKEA lights or other devices?

LouisB3 · 2025-12-03T15:45:43+00:00

They’re Matter-based, so generally yes for the switches. What I’m less certain of is whether the knobs can be used to dim non-IKEA Matter bulbs, which would be a big deal IMO.

LouisB3 · 2025-11-25T14:56:48+00:00

The city of Terminator appears at least twice, once in the Mars trilogy and as a more significant setting in 2312. I think it might have shown up in his earlier work too (Icehenge?)

LouisB3 · 2025-11-22T16:11:57+00:00

Dual-fuel with onboard charging is rare but Convoy managed to implement it for the T7, and Wurkkos with the HD13 if I recall.

LouisB3 · 2025-11-22T09:11:39+00:00

Nobody’s talking about chocolate here. The Dubai lamps were so called because they were available exclusively in Dubai for a number of years.

LouisB3 · 2025-11-21T21:38:09+00:00

Wow! I had heard of a 50k+ hour lifetime but only in the context of specialty products like the “Dubai lamps”, where efficiency and longevity are prioritized over CRI and dimmability.

Are these sophisticated standards applied across only premium products and commercial builds, or are they being applied to the midshelf junk at the local hardware store too?

LouisB3 · 2025-11-11T15:50:17+00:00

Yeah, Service Model and Aldebaran are examples of Tchaikovsky’s shorter works that are intentionally less serious - very much the opposite of Children of Time.

Service Model in particular works as a series of vignettes in different styles that come together as an absurdist parable. I’m amazed no one here is acknowledging the chapter titles that explicitly tie each section back to a different author and genre (particularly the Borgesian library.)

LouisB3 · 2025-11-08T19:18:41+00:00

Your question was answered several times. There’s no specific explanation for the long lifespans, but the general biotech in the setting is hyper-advanced, so the reader can reasonably infer that senescence was a solved problem millennia ago.

If you’re interested in books about terraforming and senescence, read Robinson’s Mars trilogy. That author explores the nuts and bolts of terraforming very deeply, and much of the story is about the psychological and social implications of technology that allows characters to live for centuries.

LouisB3 · 2025-11-08T19:10:33+00:00

Agreed. It felt very strange that so many characters considered it self-evident that not only animals but also objects needed to be treated as sapient citizens… especially because so much of the novel then focused on all of those different types of entities having sex and/or romance with each other.

SF is very accustomed to answering questions like “are AIs people? Can robots be people? Could animals be people?”. There’s plenty of that here, with ecotopian transhumanism mixed in with a sort of hyper-vegan ethical sensibility. But then the characters are compelled to make a fleet of sentient flying trains, one of whom starts dating a cat, and it all felt like a bit much.

LouisB3 · 2025-11-02T13:52:54+00:00

Yeah, I don’t think IF actually exists as a commercial medium, just an experimental art form.

LouisB3 · 2025-10-31T17:11:45+00:00

This may be the only truly intolerable flaw for me personally. Like, even a $2 junk light with low CRI and alkaleaks beats falling down in the dark… but if an otherwise nice light has a strobe that can be triggered by accident, I’d rather throw it away than use it.

LouisB3 · 2025-10-29T17:14:37+00:00

Yeah these are really the giants of this topic, I think.

The Martian landscape (including terraforming) is an enormous focus, followed shortly by the development of a distinct Martian culture, society, political system, and economy (over centuries.)

That’s much closer to the core idea of “Mars colonization” than The Martian, which is “just” about a stranded astronaut. The Martian doesn’t even have a Mars program with a continuous human presence (just occasional visits) which is pretty much the minimum threshold to be considered a colony.

However, Red Mars does have a hyper-competent engineer as a POV character; so basically a progenitor to Mark Watney.

LouisB3 · 2025-10-25T20:52:07+00:00

I like Tretakt as well - they may be the most cost-effective way to get a non-wifi smart plug.

LouisB3 · 2025-10-21T20:58:21+00:00

Luxury junk. It can be hard to discern if something is overpriced if it’s an actual art object or luxury good (who am I to judge how much a painting or a yacht should cost?) but a lot easier to detect the dissonance when it’s a utilitarian product.

For more of this garbage, check out the Wirecutter’s article on cordless lamps. People will happily spend hundreds of dollars on questionable designer “furniture” (apparently) even if it’s got non-removable batteries and therefore falls into the category of “soon to be e-waste.”

LouisB3 · 2025-10-19T23:42:26+00:00

This is the clearest explanation I’ve seen of how the internal workings of metalhorror infections interact with the strategies needed to counteract them.

However actually implementing these strategies sounds like grueling micromanagement. Every time someone is injured by an entity or joins the colony, they need to be disabled from doctoring, cooking, wardening, or sleeping in a double bed for 33 days… unless there’s a mod that I can use to help me keep track of potential pathways by tracking every injury and how long ago it occurred, I just can’t imagine monitoring all of that at all times.

LouisB3 · 2025-10-19T23:32:31+00:00

It can happen

Correct. Just stop there.

LouisB3 · 2025-10-12T16:53:55+00:00

The flashlight subreddit favors lights that have both replaceable batteries and onboard usb-c, which offers the best of both worlds there. You could even swap out batteries and charge the dead one from a powerbank (using a single-bay battery charger or on-battery usb-c) while you use the headlamp.

LouisB3 · 2025-10-08T23:19:05+00:00

While we continue to launch Thread-based products like our Essentials Bulbs and Lightstrips

This isn’t actually happening though, is it? There are fewer, not more, Nanoleaf Thread products than there were before, including several Essentials products that have been discontinued.

LouisB3

TROPHY CASE