Thanks for writing this! Love it. “Don’t predict, just model” is a great phrase to live by. Are you familiar with the book Farsighted by Steven Johnson? The book is all about making really high quality decisions in different high stakes contexts. One of the things he talks about is military war gaming, and how those practices can be applied as an individual. 

Hi Ari! Could you possibly post an addendum/update to this article? I’m interested in what things are looking like now that we know more about Omicron. I’ve been keeping tabs on updates of course but I’d love to hear your analysis. It’s so helpful to cut through the noise. Thanks for your work!

Sorry about that, I saw that section but when I skimmed it I thought he was speaking mostly to making improvements to an already chosen site. My bad! Thanks for the heads up. 

I should clarify- I’m talking about a homestead, like the one Falk describes in this book

Hi Josh-  Do you have any recommendations for resources about choosing land for a farm? I haven’t read this whole book yet but he doesn’t seem to speak to that process. 

Your top pick for headlamps (Black Diamond ReVolt 350) is on sale at REI as well!

Thanks for the info, that’s super helpful! I’ve been using ReviewMeta all the time since I read that article! I had forgotten that that was how I found out about it. I forgot about Fakespot, I’ll check that out as well.  Thanks for your work!

Hey- thank you for this blog post. As a teacher going back to school this is just what I needed.  Question- I looked at the mask you linked in your article, and there are some negative reviews on those masks saying that they may be counterfeits (ie: not actually made by kimberly-clark, not actually N95). Do you know any way to verify/double check on this? It looks like many people have tried to return them and are unable to get refunds. I’d love to hear your thoughts.  Thanks!

Oh that’s good to know, thanks for the tip. I remember you wrote something about your soil not draining well, and that’s the case with the soil on my property as well. Maybe I’ll just add another bed next year. I’ve seen some cool pictures online of people growing winter squashes out of a bed or container and up a trellis. Seems like a recipe for disaster to me with all the weight, but it’s a cool idea!

Cool, I thought about using 5 gallon buckets. I attached a link below. The cool thing about these bags is you can roll them down when you first plant them, and then unroll them as you add soil in the following weeks as they grow. https://www.gardeners.com/buy/gardeners-best-potato-grow-bag/8589785.html

This year, just tomatoes, kale, summer squash and zucchini in the bed. We got a bunch of free starts from our neighbor so we just went with those, plus potatoes in a few potato grow bags. I really wanted to do melon pits and some butternut squash but we couldn’t find a good spot for them. Next year I want to put a couple of those galvanized watering troughs in our driveway, because our driveway is longer than it needs to be and is actually the sunniest spot on our lot.

Thanks for the reply! The garden is doing great! Just one raised bed to start with, and some grow bags for potatoes, but the plants are growing like crazy. Your article on raised beds was especially helpful.  Thanks for the info- my copy of the book is arriving today 😀

Wow! I’m so glad you came across this. I happen to live in Vermont, so I hope to visit their farm at some point. Does he give any advice about choosing land for a homestead or transitioning from a more “normal” American lifestyle to a more resilient lifestyle?  Thanks also, Josh, for all your great posts. My wife and I used your resources to start a vegetable garden this year. Baby steps…

This is exactly what I’ve been looking for (or more accurately, wondering if it existed)! Thanks for your primer!

Love this! What a great/practical idea, and I appreciate the context as well. Thanks!

Have any of you tried Cambridge Mask Co. masks? I got one when my wife and I were living in Vietnam, and they made smoggy SE Asian city air markedly more breathable. I have mild asthma and the air in the larger cities gave me a sore throat and a cough, and this alleviated it pretty dramatically. Apparently the filtration in the “pro” models were originally developed by the UK ministry of defense, which is pretty cool. They look good and provide a pretty decent seal for a cloth mask because of the elastic pulls.

Re: an alternative to the iPad mini- Have you heard of the e-ink tablet “Remarkable“? I’ve been considering getting one myself to use as a more affordable e-ink monitor. Since it’s easier to see e-ink outside, and it should be less of a power drain, you might be able to kill two digital birds with one stone tablet. It would mess with your color coding, of course, but might be a worthwhile tradeoff.   Keep up the great work!

Thank you for all your work on this John (et al)! Question: I’ve seen a couple consignment MSR Guardians at my local outdoors shop. Would you be comfortable depending on a used Guardian if there’s no visible damage? Or would you be more confident in using a new but less expensive option? I’d like to get the Guardian eventually but it’s not in the budget at the moment 😀 I guess I could test the water to see if it works, but that would cost more money and I wouldn’t be confident in my results. Thanks!

Thank you!!

I second that. I discovered you just due to a google search but I’m new to the prepper community because although I’ve had concerns for a long time, I didn’t know there were logic/data driven prepper communities. Very very thankful for your work. Glad to know I’m not crazy