Bread is transformative. That’s the word that keeps recurring in the literature, “transformative”. It’s true. There is, on the face of it, no way it could not be. Bread does not occur in nature. It is artificial. It is an artifact. It is ancient, and therefore in a sense an ancient artifact, one from which we still have a huge amount to learn about the past. About our past as humans.
Happy Hacker’s Notebook: Desoldering surface mount devices with a headlight bulb.
Judging by the video, aside from being very, very dangerous in at least three different ways and probably more, this seems to actually work very well for very little money, and it fills a very real need (otherwise nobody would have been nuts enough to try it).
Emergency one-person survival stove- the best choice is alcohol, 91% of the time.
So, we have trail equipment stores, hardware stores of various types, liquor stores, drug stores, convenience stores, grocery stores, boating equipment stores and marinas as possible sources if you’re afoot on your own. That’s pretty versatile. I don’t think any other liquid fuel comes close, unless you’re willing to use automotive gasoline, which requires special stoves and a lot of ventilation and there’s still danger.
David West – Primitive Fire
I have no idea how many videos he’s posted, they seem to go on forever, but they are a rich mine of information that is vital to those who put a high value on being able to create fire in as many circumstances as possible, and spending leisure time browsing his videos is both enjoyable and time well spent.
Survival – quartz and steel firemaking
This opens up whole new possibilities for using quartz, though. Using a hardened steel spike in this way leverages the whole weight/momentum of a much larger stone to apply force to a tiny area of steel, and doesn’t rely on creating and maintaining an edge on the quartz. Looks like a much more effective technique.
Survival – Why you should stick your head in a tube of stretchy cloth
I’m calling these “tubedannas” because there isn’t a single good name for the whole category, one that isn’t a trademark. It’s my blog, I can call them any silly thing
Survival – The Heels-Down Squat. You May Want This.
Put another way, how enabled, how independent and self-sufficient can you possibly be if you cannot get into a comfortable, non-reclining resting position without the aid of a wooden or steel framework that is designed and built specifically for that purpose? We are handicapping ourselves with what has become an actual medical dependence on chairs, just as though we were dependent on any other medical appliance.
Survival – The Importance of Fire
While I was being told about this, standing around in our kitchen, wearing only shorts and a t-shirt since I hadn’t gone out yet on a Saturday, I reached in a pocket, pulled out a lighter and flicked it into life. No, I don’t smoke, I just understand that fire is really that important. I could have just as easily produced a knife or a flashlight, and I have an electronic compass in my casual watch and another in my phone. That’s lounging around the house, not going anywhere. When I’m leaving the house I carry more. If I’m driving or walking more than a block or two, much more.
Survival – Making fire without technology (or tools!) turns out to be easier than anyone thought
There’s a new, relatively easy way to make fire entirely with “primitive” (or found) materials, and it’s much, much easier than any other method I’ve seen over the decades.
Anyone who knows something about the subject of primitive fire-making will probably consider that incredibly unlikely, and possibly an outrageous statement. After hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of years of making fire with primitive materials new techniques simply don’t appear out of nowhere. Indeed, it’s very possible that this is a very, very old technique… even, just possibly, the first and oldest technique used by our ancestors to make fire at will, that it was very nearly lost in recent times, and is just now becoming known again.
Book – Survival Hacks by Creek Stewart
In the 21st Century it is spectacularly difficult to get completely away from trash. If you’re in the suburbs, or rural areas, or even the trails and parks that pass for wilderness in most people’s experience you’re bound to have access to some of the junk that these hacks utilize, and might be very, very grateful for some clues as to how to use it someday.
Survival – Tip – DIY Ranger/Pace Counting Beads, My Current Configuration
I’ve set up a slightly unconventional configuration for my own ranger beads, and I’ll describe here what I’ve done and why.
Survival – Tip – Real DIY Ranger/Pace Counting Beads
Beveled faucet washers make good sense too. If you think about it their normal use requires to resist abrasion and to be constantly immersed in water without ill effect, so they have to be durable and reasonably weatherproof. I have no idea what their ultra-violet (UV) light resistance is like over long periods, it’s probably fine, but if you’re worried you can always hit them with a little spray of Armor-All or similar plastic/rubber preservative, that’s what it’s designed for.
A Great Bit of Kit, the USMC Watch Cap
These things are right up there with the venerable P38 can opener near the very top of the list of generally-useful stuff that the military has come up with. I buy mine on Ebay, I don’t know if they’re factory overruns, or “seconds” (I’ve heard that the USMC inspectors are really tough, and will fail a sewing job if there is one letter of the tag partially blocked or the USMC globe is distorted) or “fell off of a truck”, and I guess I don’t care, I’m just glad they’re available.
Survival – The Magic of the Crooked Stick… and Why it Works
Even at that age, though, I had some rudimentary research ability, and I remember looking up “boomerang” in different references and finding out to my surprise that returning boomerangs were only one category of a larger type, and that larger type was in itself a part of the still larger category of throwing sticks as weapons, all of which seem to have been crooked. This puzzled me greatly, I understood that a fairly specific shape would be required of a throwing stick that would return to its owner (at least if it didn’t hit anything), but why would it be that throwing-sticks in general, that did not return to the thrower, should be crooked?
The Urban/Suburban EDC/Get-Home kit list
I’m a firm believer in versatility. The more detailed the scenario, the more specific you get in trying to predict the future, the more likely you are to be wrong, so I believe in just generally enabling yourself to handle more situations as they come up. Knives, flashlights, and multi-tools are among the most versatile tools there are, and can make you a whole lot harder to kill in a “collateral damage” sense. Insulation, water carrying capacity and the ability to make fire are almost universal needs.
A Better Duct Tape?
A lot of “survival” kits include duck tape (yes, that was the original name, not “duct”). That’s hard to argue with, it’s great stuff to have, it’s extremely versatile and it enhances your general capabilities admirably, which is what we’re
Aquarium tubing as survival gear
This is an odd survival item in that I’ve never had any use for it in an urban or suburban or even rural environment, only in the woods and mountains, but for there I find it indispensable. I never go out for more than a day hike without at least six feet of aquarium tubing, preferably eight or nine feet, and I’ve used it for more decades than I care to count.