July 2010

Wind Energy

30 July 2010

Wind is another big source of energy. While most people jump straight to thinking about a wind turbine, I am talking about something more basic. Which way does the wind blow around your home? In Colorado the worst weather comes from the Northwest quadrant, with occasional upslope conditions from the Southeast. In New England we [...]

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Making the Sun Work For Your Home

29 July 2010

The Sun is the biggest energy input to our homes.
It is a Type G2V yellow main sequence star sitting 93 million miles away. Light from our star takes just over 8 minutes to reach our planet. The Sun outputs 384.6 YottaWatts, that would be septillion or trillion billion Watts.
Most of its radiation is concentrated [...]

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Seven People Have Been Entrusted With The Keys To The Internet

28 July 2010

“These smart cards are the actual keys to the Internet. There are seven of them and they hold the power to restarting the world wide web “in the event of a catastrophic event.”
via Seven People Have Been Entrusted With The Keys To The Internet.
These are only for the signing keys tot he DNSSEC system of [...]

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Updating the Emergency Fund Size Rule

27 July 2010

It used to be that having 3 months cash was good enough. Now, not so much.
The median duration of unemployment is higher today than any time in the last 50 years. That’s an understatement. It is more than twice as high today than any time in the last 50 years.
via The Scariest Unemployment Graph I’ve [...]

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The Death of Paper Money – Telegraph

26 July 2010

The Death of Paper Money
As they prepare for holiday reading in Tuscany, City bankers are buying up rare copies of an obscure book on the mechanics of Weimar inflation published in 1974.
via The Death of Paper Money – Telegraph.
This is a concern, but it was obvious something like this was coming since Bush had the [...]

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Insufficient data – Charlie’s Diary

26 July 2010

What is the minimum number of people you need in order to maintain (not necessarily to extend) our current level of technological civilization?
via Insufficient data – Charlie’s Diary.
This is one of those things that really bugs me. Because what you might think of as important isn’t and what you think isn’t is vital.
The main stipulation [...]

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My Way News – Fungus wilts spirits of basil lovers, farmers

26 July 2010

My Way News – Fungus wilts spirits of basil lovers, farmers.
Well, this is a concern, I rather like basil. We grow our own, but it isn’t always enough. Yet Another Threat to our food supply.

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Food Storage Item Corn

23 July 2010

One of the most dangerous foods that people store is corn. Not that it is susceptible to anything particularly more then any other grain but because people forget to also store a necessary accessory to unlock a massive increase of nutrition.
Corn is a very durable food storage item, especially if you buy it whole. It [...]

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Food For the Get Home Bag

22 July 2010

A Get Home Bag is the bag or box you have at work or school to help get you home in case things go wrong.
Really, it’s a variation of a good old 72 hour kit, one designed to get to a specific place.
This is not about turning your workspace into a fort if the world [...]

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A Simple Blackout Kit

21 July 2010

Yesterday’s post about a 72 hour battery kit was pretty good but I realized that I haven’t done a simple blackout kit.
Basic Blackout Kit
Something every family should have, is a blackout kit.
At the most basic level that would include:

food that doesn’t require cooking
some bottled water, particularly if your water company needs power to get water [...]

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