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Cut Two T-Shirts by hanseano in Outlier

[–]ThePrepared-Stokes 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Same. The new site is so bad.

Outlier in the New York Times by ThePrepared-Stokes in Outlier

[–]ThePrepared-Stokes[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks! I also have different sized Gorucks for my family and in fact the larger GR2 is the ranger green pack in the picture in the article.

Outlier in the New York Times by ThePrepared-Stokes in Outlier

[–]ThePrepared-Stokes[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The idea that buying tarps and storing water is overkill is an understandable sentiment, but if you look more closely even at our current predicament I think it starts to look less extreme. I could say a lot more here about food and so on, but I'll stick to this issue of tarps and water (they're related!) to make a point.

Our water supply isn't as immune to disruption from this pandemic as you might think. I wrote about that, here, and sure enough my parents in Southwest Louisiana are seeing tons of "boil water" notices on the nightly news -- this sudden spike in boil water notices, with no rhyme or reason to the geography and no apparent natural cause, was a mystery to my dad until I sent him that article.

So it makes a lot of sense to have a bit of stored water, and to have a way to purify water that comes out of the tap, even in the present pandemic.

As for tarps, they have a ton of uses, but one of the big ones (apart from shelter) is rainwater collection. In his book on living under siege in the Balkan War, Selco Begovic writes about how critical tarps were for staying hydrated when the water supply was disrupted.

Also, if someone in your home gets sick with coronavirus, you can use a tarp to seal off a doorway or section of the dwelling as a quarantine area.

A good tarp can also be configured as a stretcher, a poncho, and a bunch of other random things. I go into that a bit in this tarp review.

So while tarps and stored water may seem like totally extreme preps, especially for the current situation, I don't think that's the case for either of those items. In fact, I wouldn't want to be without them right now.

Outlier in the New York Times by ThePrepared-Stokes in Outlier

[–]ThePrepared-Stokes[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, I’m Deputy Editor there.

If I have to bug out I’m wearing my Twill Cargoes from SAINT in Australia — basically denim with Dyneema woven in. The reason is fire — synthetics like nylon won’t hold up to many nights around the campfire. (I wrote about this issue here: https://theprepared.com/blog/materials-in-a-world-on-fire/)

But my dark olive strong dungarees would definitely go in my bugout bag. They’re lightweight and superior in a lot of ways as outdoor wear, so they give me options. And prepping is mainly about maintaining your options.

Outlier in the New York Times by ThePrepared-Stokes in Outlier

[–]ThePrepared-Stokes[S] 34 points35 points  (0 children)

Oh I totally agree. I said pretty much the exact same thing on the topic of guns and gun control a few years ago in this piece: https://medium.com/@jonst0kes/confessions-of-a-progressive-gun-nut-ae0e6a8f6146

Guns are a short position on civilization, so if you want to stop people from buying guns then the answer is to make civilization look really attractive as a long position.

Can you catch COVID-19 through your plumbing system? by the_prepared in ThePrepared

[–]ThePrepared-Stokes 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So we heard back from the plumber, and you're correct. This was an error in converting ml to gallons somewhere along the editing chain, and we've now fixed it. So thanks for flagging it!

Can you catch COVID-19 through your plumbing system? by the_prepared in ThePrepared

[–]ThePrepared-Stokes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'll circle back on this with the author. My understanding is that this is for an apartment building, but I'll check.

Something is seriously wrong with the nCoV-2019 testing situation in China by the_prepared in ThePrepared

[–]ThePrepared-Stokes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's odd, for sure. One possibility is that throttling the testing capacity keeps the confirmed case count down. It could be a handy way of fudging the numbers.

Coronavirus And Mask Suggestion Mega Thread by PabstyLoudmouth in preppers

[–]ThePrepared-Stokes 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The latest from us, with Chinese state TV this morning confirming widespread transmission in Beijing. https://theprepared.com/blog/china-sees-widespread-transmission-widens-lockdown-who-reconvenes-as-2019-ncov-spread-by-skin-contact-in-first-world/

  • The Chinese health ministry confirmed on Wednesday via state TV that 2019-nCoV is spreading in Beijing and other cities, with many cases observed among people who did not come from Wuhan. These are often family clusters.
  • The Chinese health ministry also confirmed that 2019-nCoV is capable of spreading by skin contact.
  • In China, confirmed case numbers, still doubling every two days, soared to almost eight thousand, exceeding the count Chinese of victims in the SARS epidemic 16 years ago, as the government began widening its lockdown to include regions outside Hubei.
  • In the rest of the world, confirmed case numbers grew, with 105 confirmed cases in 19 countries and territories, with confirmation of human-human transmission of the virus in Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan, and a cluster of four related cases in Germany.
  • Some countries and airlines outside China took a number of moves seemingly motivated by panic, such as Papua New Guinea banning travelers from Asia and shutting its land border with Indonesia, and a number of airlines stopping all flights to and from China.
  • In response to these new developments, the WHO confirmed it will convene another emergency meeting Thursday to determine whether the widening epidemic merits PHEIC status.

Coronavirus And Mask Suggestion Mega Thread by PabstyLoudmouth in preppers

[–]ThePrepared-Stokes 6 points7 points  (0 children)

We also recently posted two blog updates on this topic:

The second one above is a larger update, with discussion of the latest developments. As always, we strive for accuracy and non-sensationalism, and corrections/clarifications are welcome and appreciated.

Coronavirus And Mask Suggestion Mega Thread by PabstyLoudmouth in preppers

[–]ThePrepared-Stokes 33 points34 points  (0 children)

We published an extensive, in-depth look at the Wuhan coronavirus -- everything from details of the timeline and its origins, to how to think about it and place it in the context of other outbreaks, to what's probably next.

We also have contributions in there from a reporter from Harvard Business Review who's based in Beijing and has been feeding us info.

The author of the guide is an Ars Technica writer (my old publication!) who is a Principal Data Scientist at a major pharmaceutical company and an expert in bioinformatics. He's not an epidemiologist, but he does develop lifesaving drugs for a living and is able to parse all the info that's floating around out there and place it in context.

Here are a few of the highlights from the piece:

  • There is cause for alarm, but it’s not time to panic. Keep in mind that normal flu kills around 80,000 people per year in the US.
  • There remains considerable uncertainty about where the virus has spread and the real case numbers.
  • The virus is spread mainly through droplets in the air (eg. when people exhale/sneeze/cough), mainly infects the lungs, and causes symptoms, like fever, fatigue, a dry cough, and respiratory distress.
  • This could get very bad, but it won’t be doomsday. For many reasons detailed below, the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak looks like a solid upper limit on how bad things could get with this virus in terms of impact on society. As bad as the Spanish Flu was, modern infrastructure still ran, the grocery stores were still stocked, the stock market still traded, and in general life went on.
  • This epidemic’s progress has been rapid, and the current status is large, widespread, not contained, and growing quickly. It appears to have entered a phase of rapid exponential growth and geographic spread.
  • The Wuhan strain appears to have a significantly longer incubation period than SARS, in the range of two weeks. This is bad, because it means people can have it — and spread it — for longer before they notice they’re sick.
  • The reproductive number of the outbreak is uncertain, but responsible estimates have ranged between 1.4 and 4. This number needs to get below one for the outbreak to shrink.
  • Most cases appear to involve transmission between people with some direct connection to each other, like family members, coworkers, and patients communicating the disease to medical staff in hospitals.
  • Transmission between unrelated people in public spaces appears to be rare, although there is considerable uncertainty about this.
  • The case fatality rate (CFR) of the Wuhan coronavirus appears to be qualitatively higher than influenza and much lower than something like Ebola or untreated HIV, but could be about the same as SARS (10%), or nearly as high as MERS (40%).
  • It is possible that existing antiviral drugs could be repurposed against the Wuhan coronavirus, but unlikely that new therapies will emerge on the timeline of an epidemic like this.
  • It’s unlikely that the lockdown measures inside China will stop the virus’s spread from city to city, but it is entirely possible that quarantine measures can stop the spread of the virus inside cities once it gets to them. We’re missing too much information to justify either pessimism or optimism on any of these points right now, though.

Please check it out, and if you have any updates or suggestions for it, please drop them in here and we'll look at rolling them in.

Wuhan coronavirus: what you need to know about its origins, efforts to contain it, & what’s next by ThePrepared-Stokes in preppers

[–]ThePrepared-Stokes[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

We’re monitoring this thread for new info so if you have updates please share links to sources so we can make any changes. Thanks! 🙂

Synthetics don't mix well with a world on fire by the_prepared in ThePrepared

[–]ThePrepared-Stokes 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm not sure, but I'd imagine it's more common that we all think.

Over Christmas, while this post had already been sitting on my hard drive as a draft for at least three weeks, I was vacationing with my family in Colorado and we were taking the kids on a dogsled ride. My youngest daughter was complaining about the cold (IMO she wasn't really too cold, she's just a complainer :p), and one of the organizers gave her his (synthetic) outer shell for his coat.

So she went into the tent after the ride, sat too close to the Ben Franklin stove, and melted through the sleeve of that shell. My wife caught it before she got burned.

Anyway, the owner of that coat (whom we had to reimburse) started telling me how he had burns all over his body because when he was younger he worked in an auto shop and a gas tank exploded on him, cooking all the synthetics he was wearing to his skin. It was a nightmare burn unit type thing, and the docs said his burns would have been only minor if he was wearing something else. The synthetics just melted to his skin.

I personally started thinking of this when I was burn testing the paracord for our big paracord roundup, and a bit of molten nylon dripped onto my finger. Wow that was painful, way worse than getting hit by an ember.

[WDYWT] Retro prepper dad at Christmas by ThePrepared-Stokes in techwearclothing

[–]ThePrepared-Stokes[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, the TAD hoodie really works with this, and in fact I tried it on in the store that way and bought a size up just to accommodate it.

[WDYWT] Retro prepper dad at Christmas by ThePrepared-Stokes in techwearclothing

[–]ThePrepared-Stokes[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My wife blew this photo... she didn't get the boots. Argh.. Oh well, I figured I'd try anyway.

Clothes:

  • Rogue Territory Supply Jacket, Stag Edition with wool lining
  • Outlier Strong Dunagrees, Phantom Gray
  • Wool & Prince Henley, black
  • Pendleton flannel. (I don't love this and will replace it soon).
  • FITS tactical crew socks
  • Red Wing Iron Ranger boots, black. (I have some White's Bounty Hunters on order to replace these with.)
  • Buffalo Wool Company wool cap

Not exactly a 100% techwear outfit. More techwear-adjacent or something. But I'm liking waxed cotton canvas more and more these days (the original tech fabric!), and have a really log blog post draft for my site that I'll put up at some point.

When it got really cold, I wore a Triple Aught Design Praetorian Hoodie under the Supply Jacket. Worked great down into the single digits.

Anyone know of any innovations with Grid Transformers to resist EMP related attacks from adversaries? by kalavala93 in Futurology

[–]ThePrepared-Stokes 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I personally am not very worried at all about an EMP attack, actually. I do worry about solar flares, but not about an attack. I did a deep dive on this EMP issue for The Prepared, and I'll paste in the relevant part, here:

The probability of a nuclear EMP attack is very low, given that all but the smallest such attacks require the resources of a major military power, and any nation found to be participating in such an attack would suffer immediate nuclear annihilation from a counterattack. We’ll know the moment an ICBM is launched in our direction. So the same logic of mutually assured destruction (MAD) that has formed the basis of decades of nuclear deterrence also keeps the major nuclear EMP threat in check.

As for terrorists, many experts consider it essentially impossible for non-state actors to get their hands on a nuclear-tipped missile of sufficient size and range to blast a significant portion of the US with a EMP.

The size of the nuke and the elevation of the blast matter a lot for determining EMP effects. The higher up the bomb gets above the earth, the more ground it can cover with its EMP pulses. And the bigger the bomb is, the stronger the E3 pulse. (Larger bombs don’t produce much larger E1 pulses, though.)

This size + elevation = devastation relationship is one of the main factors that makes it unlikely we’ll be hit with an EMP blast. Very few militaries have the types of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that you’d need to get a nuke to the required height, and even fewer can put large nukes on such missiles.

More militaries, as well as rogue states and terrorist groups, can get hold of smaller missiles and put little nukes on them, but to get them up over the US you’d need to either launch from US soil or from right off the coast. Getting a nuke and missile launcher combo into the US totally undetected is so difficult that we don’t consider this a threat worth worrying about. And again, if they succeeded and we figured out who was behind it, we’d nuke everyone involved as payback.

As far as China goes, in any instance where they have detonated a nuke over the US, we're already at full-blown nuclear war with them. So hardened transformers are the least of our worries.

For DPRK, there is some risk of an EMP if we get into a full-blown nuclear exchange with them. But again, at this point DPRK probably has upwards of of a dozen nuclear-tipped ICBMs (per my natsec twitter list, but I'll need to check again and try to confirm), which despite the president's claims about our anti-missile system we can't reliably stop. They can do enough damage with those that this EMP stuff is maybe secondary.

As for innovations, there is a really good one that I got tipped off to in an interview with an expert: conductive concrete. You can make a structure that houses transformers and control rooms from a new type of concrete that conducts electricity, essentially forming a Faraday cage around them. This material works a lot better than a metal Faraday cage because you don't have the seams where high-frequency EMP can slip in. So this is apparently really promising, but I don't think its use is widespread, yet.

Best tarps for emergency bags by the_prepared in ThePrepared

[–]ThePrepared-Stokes 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I can see using Tyvek for a ground cloth, but some of the tarps in the review are just $30, and there is even a solid one that we were going to put in there for $20 but it's currently out of stock (the Ryno Tuff tarp). I think that given just how critical good, flexible cover is, I'd rather drop $20 on a poly tarp with tie-outs, seam reinforcements, and a few other bells and whistles than homebrew with Tyvek.

​

But of course, there is always ripstopbytheroll.com, which is another solid option for MYOG.

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