A "copy" ???

[bf1]

I love my Spy as well my friend.

[owner]

Visit their website now and it seems that all references to the imitation have been removed. Does it mean that they completely abandon it?

[easilyled]

Visit their website now and it seems that all references to the imitation have been removed. Does it mean that they completely abandon it?

Maybe data threatened to sue their arses and scared the cr@p out of them.

[nbp]

Visit their website now and it seems that all references to the imitation have been removed. Does it mean that they completely abandon it?

That's even better than a reply to my email!

[jch79]

CPF FTW!

[Tim W]

CPF FTW!

?

[easilyled]

?

I believe FTW means "For the Win" in the context that jch79 used it.

[Obijuan Kenobe]

First off, let me say that I sent an email to this company the moment I read this OP. However, I didn't post because I tend to agree with Fred. This is a POS in Spy clothing...nothing more.

Trade imbalances are impossible to sustain forever. Eventually China (or whoever ends up with China's stash of U.S. Dollars) will have to spend that money in the United States. Sure, we're "bleeding" money like crazy into other countries right now -- but ultimately U.S. Dollars are only valuable here, and here is where their owners will have to spend them. Someone PMed me with the factoid that oil is bought using U.S. Dollars, but what will oil suppliers do with all the U.S. Dollars they've collected from their customers? They can't very well buy their own oil with their U.S. Dollars, that accomplishes nothing, so they'll have to spend it here eventually.

So, since the money will have to come back to the United States eventually, it's a good thing for us to tolerate trade imbalances for a while (which may well be decades or centuries), because that trade imbalance causes two things to happen: 1) it allows other nations to build themselves up to the point that they can afford to be our customers in the future, and 2) it gives them a significant interest in not attacking the United States for the foreseeable future, because then their U.S. Dollars would become worthless.

This is getting way off-topic now, but I did want to make the point that if other countries have piles of U.S. Dollars in their banks, that's actually a good thing. They'll have to spend them here eventually, and they won't want anything bad to happen to us until they've spent all that money.

I lvoe my SPY Tri-V, by the way.

IF...and I say IF...the USD had any ties to real value. However, this hasn't been the case for decades. It's a fiat currency. The only thing that is keeping this illusion sustained is the fact that the USD is the world's default reserve currency. The primary consequence of this is oil being sold in dollars. If/when this changes, you will see just how wrong you are.

Maybe even more consequent is the trillions of imaginary dollars tumbling around the globe in the form of CDO's and derivatives (imaginary and completely unregulated financial products).

As these massive sums of dollars slowly enter the 'real world', the value of the dollars in your pocket slowly depreciates. Don't tell me you haven't noticed prices going up. This is not going to change in your lifetime. You will never see prices go down again.

This is the real effect of using a fiat currency to pay trillions for wars, trade deficits, and wall street gambling.

You are living in a dream world if you think that eventually this will be good for any Joe American. But if it helps you sleep....

obi

[Data]

First off, let me say that I sent an email to this company the moment I read this OP. However, I didn't post because I tend to agree with Fred. This is a POS in Spy clothing...nothing more. . . .

They will be shunned by CPF people for copying lights. We have seen this play out before.

It would be way more profitable to introduce original flashlight designs here at CPF.


Dave

[fyrstormer]

Indeed. The triple-reflector design they still have on their website doesn't look at all like it's targeted at Wal-Mart shoppers. CPF and related forums are most likely the maximum extent of their market.

[fyrstormer]

IF...and I say IF...the USD had any ties to real value. However, this hasn't been the case for decades. It's a fiat currency. The only thing that is keeping this illusion sustained is the fact that the USD is the world's default reserve currency. The primary consequence of this is oil being sold in dollars. If/when this changes, you will see just how wrong you are.

All currency is fiat currency. Who decided that gold should be used as currency? Certainly its physical properties make it excellent for use as a Bronze-Age currency*, but for most of human history, the vast majority of people all needed the same basic commodities, and those commodities were easily traded without the use of currency. (If you raise chickens, it's not going to be difficult to find people who will accept chickens and eggs in exchange for just about anything else you need; if you make clothing, it will be similarly easy to trade pants for anything else you need; etc.) Gold has always had a certain decorative appeal, because humans like shiny things just as much as most animals with high-resolution vision, but it took the force of militarized governments to say "you shall transact goods and services using these coins, and this list of prices shall be followed, or you'll be put in prison."

The primary advantage of currency has always been it allows the specialization of labor -- no longer do people need to raise/gather/produce multiple commodities of various values to fund different types of purchases -- but how much inedible metal is a cow worth, anyway? You can't eat gold, you can't wear gold (not as clothing, anyway), you can't burn it, you can't build a house from it, you can't use it to treat illness, etc. -- the very belief that gold (or any currency) is good for anything besides what it can be used for requires a suspense of disbelief that most people forget about, because we're all used to doing it nowadays. The assignment of monetary value is always arbitrary until people learn how to think of value using numbers.

As long as currency is unavoidably an abstraction of real-world value, it makes much more sense to base the value of currency on the value of EVERYTHING the nation has, instead of the quantity of just one resource. Why should our purchasing power be restricted to the amount of gold we have, when we have so many other resources which are also valuable? It also makes more sense from a practical standpoint to use a currency that isn't made from something that people will want to hoard for non-financial reasons, like often happens with gold -- people hoarding currency just because it's shiny is a waste of a useful material. No, I'm not worried about the fact that we use "fiat currency", because that is not the problem -- the problem is the list of "valuable things" has been twisted to include imaginary things, and we all know who we have to thank for that.

*hard enough to keep its shape but soft enough to cast and stamp at relatively low temperatures, rare enough that individuals couldn't amass huge quantities but common enough that national governments could amass huge quantities, distinctive color and weight, immunity to corrosion, etc.

Maybe even more consequent is the trillions of imaginary dollars tumbling around the globe in the form of CDO's and derivatives (imaginary and completely unregulated financial products).

This part I agree with wholeheartedly. (wholemindedly?) All monetary value is imaginary unless it represents the value of collateral in the real world. While raw materials, finished products, and the capacity to perform services are all valuable forms of collateral, simply selling a piece of paper at a higher price than you bought it for does nothing more than contribute to inflation, unless that piece of paper is itself a deed for something which has actually increased in value. As we know from the housing bubble, that was not the case for a few hundreds of thousands of houses across the country.

[Obijuan Kenobe]

I have run aground on off topic posts before, so I will avoid this here.

However, I just wanted to post that I very much appreciate your (fyrstormer) thoughtful response to my post. I would love...love to discuss this with you further, as clearly you are thinking hard along with me on this one. Kudos.

obi

[easilyled]

In order to keep this on topic, lets say that currency will be in the way of SPY007s from now on.
American currency is therefore comparable to the fake SPY and British currency to the real SPY.

Now you may continue ....

[jch79]

I believe FTW means "For the Win" in the context that jch79 used it.

YUP! One of my favorite abbreviations.

Oh yeah... Hi Daniel! Long time no "see".

john

[easilyled]

YUP! One of my favorite abbreviations.

Oh yeah... Hi Daniel! Long time no "see".

john

Hi John, nice to catch up with you again.

Where've ya been? You're not allowed to have a life outside CPF!

[jch79]

Hi John, nice to catch up with you again.

Where've ya been? You're not allowed to have a life outside CPF!

Oh, I've been around... lurking in the shadows.

Actually, I've been busy with my new flashlight company - we copy other flashlight designs and call them our own. It's not going too well though, due to a buncha punks at CPF!

john

[octaf]

They will be shunned by CPF people for copying lights. We have seen this play out before.

It would be way more profitable to introduce original flashlight designs here at CPF.


Dave

I like your spirit, Data !

[octaf]

I'm not that guy that starts trouble. Tried to pm you Data.

http://niteyelight.com/product/?type=detail&id=42

By the way, I do not see any light that looks like "Spy", in this link provided.
Is it just me ?

[ArsMachina]

Is it just me ?

No, you are just too late :-)
(the website was changed in the meantime)

Jochen

[octaf]

No, you are just too late :-)
(the website was changed in the meantime)

Jochen

Well, if someone saved the pic's around somewhere, I'd love to see what it looks like.
Thank you Jochen, anyway.

[ArsMachina]

Not me, but someone else did ;-)





Jochen

[fyrstormer]

Holy engrish!

[bf1]

That advertising piece must simply be a joke.

[PoliceScannerMan]

Yep, nothing new with the copies. Has anyone seen the latest Strider Knife fakes, they look legit.

[Drywolf]

Happy Birthday PSM!

[PoliceScannerMan]

Happy Birthday PSM!

Thanks!

[Data]

Happy Birthday PSM!

+1

[Illum]

link failed apparently

[RIDE]

Wow....that is NUTS! Copies are an unfortunate reality...but there is no denying that it stinks to high heaven everytime I see it happen.

Hope this one never sees the market.

RIDE

[Got Lumens?]

link failed apparently

And so too did Google cache. I guess they won't make it or sell it,
if you can't find it on the www.
GL