I got an automatic Voyager update from F-droid and now it complains of an out of date Webview version and tells me to update Webview from the Play store. But I don't use the Play store and don't want to enroll an account there. I get all my apps from F-droid. Is there a fix or workaround from this? thanks. Android 14 on Motorola Stylus 5g 2023 if that matters.

Several years back I reviewed this tiny zipper pull light: https://lemmy.world/post/2163520

I stuck one of them into a mesh pouch where I carry stuff like toothpaste, and more than a year ago (IDK exactly when) it turned on by accident. I left it on to see what would happen. It has stayed lit ever since, though by now the glow level is completely useless for illumination and barely viable as a locator. As someone in Bored Of The Rings said of the parody version of Gandalf's staff lighting up in Khazad-dûm, it's about half as bright as a dead firefly. But I can report that with some dark adaptation, I can see it from 5+ feet away (and probably further) in a darkened room. I finally just got around to replacing the battery with one of a pack that I got on ebay (link in the original post).

I also notice that the light itself is discontinued now, oh well. It does seem to me that it turns on by accident too easily. I might stick down the on-off flange with a bit of tape to prevent this.

The original vendor blurb just said 24 hours of light so I might use up a battery to test that, or maybe for a week. It might be ok as a short term alternative to a tritium marker for that much time. I would say in its current state it's way dimmer than a tritium marker whose tritium isn't nearly depleted.

It also seems to me that at under 3 grams, this is maybe the most extreme ultralight headlamp out there, if you stick it to your forehead with a piece of tape. It DOES put out enough light to be useful in that setup, for limited notions of "useful". You can navigate a dark room without bumping into stuff, you can see near-distances enough to change the battery in your main light without having to fumble around by feel, and so on.

Since the light is just a direct drive SMT led and a CR927 cell, it could be that something similar with a CR1616 and a resistor (or go big and use a CR2032) could be used as an H3 substitute that would last for months.

TLDR: I like it. Write-up will discuss a few nuances. Order link.

Photo, left-right: Wurkkos TS10v2, Emisar D4v2, Wurkkos TS11. So you can see the TS11 is kind of a chonker, but it's ok. If you're not familiar, the TS10v2 is a 14500 light (roughly same energy capacity as the 18350 in the TS11) and the D4v2 is an 18650 light that is considered kind of chunky for that format.

Note: all three lights in the photo are TURNED OFF. Only the standby (locator) leds are on. More about this below.

I've never been into throwers and have never really had one before, unless you count the big incans of bygone years. I ordered the TS11 because there have been a few times recently when I wanted something with throw (trying to look down a hillside at night, or read house numbers from a car) and also, Wurkkos and Sofirn both seem to be giving up on making Anduril lights, so I figured now was the time to get one. They ship the TS11 from a US warehouse and there is an 18650 battery tube available from the China warehouse. I ordered both at the same time (plus another item or two) and IIRC i got free shipping for everything. The TS11 arrived today and the other stuff is not here yet. I think everything has encountered some delays due to the winter holidays but it's no big deal. The orange color is very nice and was one of the attractions.

As you can see, the standby leds for both the pushbutton switch and the front are ridiculously bright, like 5x brigher than the D4v2 switch light, which is already too bright. Come on guys, they are locator lights to help find your light in the dark, not illumination lights. They are distracting if you like to keep the light next to your bed. I think Anduril now has a way to adjust the standby brightness, so I'll see if I can make it dimmer, but if not I might just shut it off since this isn't really a bedside light anyway. A piece of GITD tape is enough of a locator. I do very much appreciate the standby led feature (genius idea that I first saw in Anduril, as alternative to a tritium marker) but this is way overdone.

The light has a reflector (large by EDC standards) and an optic on the front and makes a small, sharp edged circular hotspot without much spill. This is slightly not ideal compared to traditional throwers with deep parabolic reflectors, which had more spill. But it's ok, at least it's not a LEP. It's raining out right now so I haven't taken it outside yet.

I tried to charge it up through an Adafruit USB-C power display but found that the USB charging port was too deeply recessed for the display plug to connect firmly. I was able to interpose a USB-C right angle adapter and charge that way with the display. The light reported 3.8V battery charge out of the box, and it started charging at about 1 amp. It stopped after 45 minutes with about 1.2WH delivered. That's from the USB plug at 5 volts, so I guess a little under 1WH to the battery. The battery is a Wurkkos branded 18350 that says "1100mAH" so I guess it came with about 75% charge.

It's a nice sized handful that makes no attempt at miniaturization, yet it's still EDC-able if you want to do that for some reason. I still see it as sort of a niche light. I will use it but probably not that often. My main current EDC is a TS10 SG which has quite good throw for a tiny pocket light, and is a fraction of the TS11's size and weight despite having about the same battery energy.

The TS11 came with Wurkkos's usual nice packaging, shiny cardboard box with magnetic closure, etc. Included were the battery (inside the light), a USB A-to-C cable and one of those cheap wrist lanyards that you thread through the radiused lanyard hole, plus some spare O-rings. Between the packaging, the light's nice appearance, and the included accessories, it would be a good gift for someone who can use a thrower for outdoors. I definitely think the orange version looks nicer than the black. The 18650 battery tube is not really needed and will probably make the light seem awkward, but I ordered it anyway since I have several other 18650 lights and cross-compatibility is always nice.

I'm sad about Anduril losing popularity with manufacturers, apparently due to UI complexity leading to customer dissatisfaction. Hank is the main holdout but IMHO his designs are too lumen obsessed, leading to technical tradeoffs that I don't really like. I think Anduril 3 will need some redesign to make it easier to customize the UI. I had a brief chat with Toykeeper about this and she seemed open to it, but it's conceptual only so far. If it happens I hope it can bring Wurkkos and others back to the fold. There are some nice Wurkkos lights that I've avoided on principle just because they're not Anduril.

Anyway, that's my NLD for today and I'm happy. Any day with a new light is good.

Fwiw Molicel INR 21700's are rated for discharge down to -40C (pdf) though charging only down to 0C. I don't see a need for a sodium ion flashlight just yet, but I'm posting anyway since I guess it's news despite being stupid.

Content warning: this is something of a marketing pitch, but it is worth reading. It's about using CT scans to find safety flaws in 18650 cell manufacturing. It's put out by the manufacturer of the CT equipment, i.e. not trying to sell anything to most flashlight users.

Basically want something with decent performance and durability. Cost matters, but I'm not trying to hit rock bottom. I'm particularly wondering, is an HMB-type PCIe SSD ok combined with a SATA adapter? I think HMB is supported if your machine can use a PCIe or NVMe disk directly, but I'd be using an older Thinkpad with a 2.5" SATA slot at least for now. So I'm wondering if I'd lose a lot of performance if the SSD combo doesn't have its own RAM buffer.

I see good deals by today's standards for PCIe SSD's at of all places, Office Depot.

Thanks.

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/28431012

• Google is set to cut hundreds of new jobs in its device and platforms divisions soon.
• The company has continued to cut its Google Pixel teams, doing so earlier this year as well.
• Rival Microsoft is considering a new round of layoffs next month, per reports.

It's almost the same as v1.0. Surprisingly complex circuit. 13 minute video.

Apparently Android apps (even in current Android versions) can check for the presence of other Android apps by listing the apps they want to check for in their manifest file. Nothing stops them from listing dozens or hundreds of other apps, and some do exactly that. Up til Android 11 they didn't even have to list the other apps in the manifest. Then Google "tightened" things to be almost as bad. Dumb move, Android.

Question is how to do these in Rust. An example might be a browser DOM: each node has a parent pointer, a list of child pointers, left and right sibling pointers, maybe a CSS node pointer, etc. Inserting or deleting nodes has to repair the pointers to and from the neighboring nodes as needed.

I know this is doable since obviously Servo (Rust's initial driving application) has to do it. I hope the answer doesn't involve the word "unsafe". But I am quite unclear about how to create such a structure under Rust's rules of pointer ownership, and also how to reliably reclaim storage when nodes and trees/subtrees are deleted. Plus there will be thread safety rules that should be statically enforced if possible.

I've heard that doubly linked lists in Rust are handled by an unsafe library, yet this seems even worse. Thanks.

Now I have a use for my Sofirn C01R and that H25LR headlamp with 670nm LED's. Cool. 3 minute exposure to 670nm light in the morning apparently improves color perception for the rest of the week. I'll read more closely to find the right intensity and so on.