It’s a well-known fact that a magnifying glass can concentrate sunlight enough to burn things. Many survival experts recommend keeping a magnifying glass in your fire kit, as well as buying a compass with a built-in magnifying glass in order to start fires without using consumables. But a recent Facebook post called that idea into
The Texas agriculture sector is down 600 million dollars after winter storm Uri. These losses could compound already rising food prices. Citrus was hit the hardest. Rooftop solar is a disruptive industry—it could be the nail in the Texas power grid coffin, or it could save it. Texas doesn’t yet have solar incentives like other
Since starting here at The Prepared, I’ve become something of a powered-egg connoisseur. Eggs were hard to come back last spring, so I tried some powdered eggs from American Family Supply. Those were gross, so I tried again with the Augason Farms scrambled eggs. Those were… somewhat less gross. I then taste-tested most of the
Food prices are rising precipitously. Commodities like metal and grains are also getting more expensive. This is being felt the most in developing countries, but just like the pandemic, this problem will quickly spread to the West. Semiconductors and other electronics supplies are in serious bottlenecks. This is something to pay attention to because it’s
A ‘pro tip’ for evaluating the quality of a piece of gear is to look at the small details, such as zippers and stitching. Cheap-minded manufacturers will skimp on those details because most people just don’t notice, and even a cheap component will often last past a basic warranty period, so it’s an easy way
You wouldn’t expect something as simple as opening a can of food to be controversial. Musician and podcaster John Roderick recently had to flee the public spotlight after tweeting about sending his daughter on a six-hour quest to open a can unaided. A Twitter thread went viral after Jean-Michel Connard talked about the foibles of
The Right to Repair and open-source software movements are growing—John Deere and other companies hold their customers hostage behind software licensing for updates and fixes the lack of which bricks heavy machinery. Farmers must choose between getting nickel and dimed to keep their tractors running or hack their own equipment. Prepping goes mainstream v. 500.0—This
In the aftermath of Winter Storm Uri, Texans spent a week in darkness, leading to dozens of deaths from freezing cold, hundreds of carbon monoxide poisonings, and multiple second-order effects like water plant failures and communication outages. News headlines have talked about “how Texas was only 4 minutes and 37 seconds away from total grid
When John Kerry starts waxing catastrophic about climate change, maybe some folks should listen… according to him global carbon emissions need to be cut 45% by 2030. We’d need a global space race of sorts to get there. I’m not terribly confident we can achieve this goal–some green-energy-minded countries are dumping nuclear and using coal
Imagine undergoing the backbreaking labor of tilling your garden, mixing in compost and manure, and planting, only for your precious lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes, and peppers to curl up and not produce. Maybe this has happened to you, and if so, chances are it wasn’t your fault. An herbicide called aminopyralid has contaminated many common organic
Although an electromagnetic pulse that kills electronics in a wide area is relatively unlikely, it is still realistic and one of the more serious scenarios you can prepare for. One of the most effective ways you can protect your electronics is by putting them in a Faraday cage — a scientific concept that blocks the
Texas is still reeling after last week’s massive, state-wide power and gas outage. It wasn’t just the inability to keep warm that created problems—water pipe bursts did historic damage to homes and businesses. Here’s a pipe burst map from Austin: Plumbing aisles are packed in TX, as you can imagine: Pipe bursts coupled with people
The massive cold front over much of the US is causing catastrophe and crisis in Texas, home to more than 29 million people. People are experiencing freezing temperatures inside their homes as the state’s energy grid and gas pipelines have failed. Approximately 4 million people have suffered from power outages during some of the coldest
Winter Storm Uri has hammered the United States this week, leading to severe winter weather in 25 states affecting more than 150 million Americans. Much of the country — from Maine to Oregon — has been blanketed in snow, ice, and frigid temperatures. But Texas has been hit the hardest. The state’s independent power grid
We recently evaluated combining tealights and terracotta pots to create makeshift heaters. While we found that they could effectively heat very small spaces, they were a fire hazard, and we suggested using an UCO Candle Lantern as a safer and more portable alternative for heating a tent in the field. So we decided to put
