SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods— a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from “HJL”. There is an interesting article on common gun control lies today.
Off-Grid Air Conditioning
Reader T.J. sent in this interesting video from YouTuber Engineer775. In it, he is installing his first true off-grid air-conditioner with a 75 SEER rating. They are currently unavailable till August 2018, but it is intriguing that you can have a heat pump that will run on 750W of solar panel. Since you generally need air conditioning when the sun is shining, the claim is that you don’t need battery storage with this system. They do recommend a utility connection as backup for those days where you have limited solar capacity. I suspect that the system would work well with an existing largish solar power system. However, don’t expect this to come inexpensively. At nearly $2000, it pretty amazing what it accomplishes, but that’s still quite a bit of money and power demand.
Sheepdog
Continuing along the thought process of wolves, sheep, and sheepdogs, reader H.L. sent in this article on being a sheepdog. Do you know if you have what it takes to be the protector of your family? The author does a respectable job of linking the character traits of people to these descriptions. In particular, I like the concept that the “sheepdog” personality despises injustice, bullies, and those who never tire of ingratiating themselves to bullies. His instinct is to protect those upon whom the wolves and fellow sheep pummel, whether he likes them or not. Do you know which you are?
Gun Control
There have been a number of lies promulgated by the media and those who would take your firearm from you in recent years. Most of those lies have been around for quite some time, but despite being proven as lies over and over again, the drumbeat just seems to grow louder. This article submitted by reader G.M. outlines some of the more prominent lies like “The police will take care of us” and “We can stop criminals from getting guns”. The ones particularly annoying to me are the ones that use the term “common sense” somewhere in the verbiage. Remember, gun control isn’t about controlling violence. It’s about controlling you. They want you disarmed so they can act with impunity.
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Reader Jon Cylc wrote an article about the gun control debate and why it will never end. The argument is really not over facts, but ideologies. The two sides can’t come to an agreement because they are two completely different concepts and there is no middle ground. The progressive left is all about vagaries and emotional pleas while the Second Amendment supporters repeatedly use facts that just fall upon deaf ears. I agree with his final premise that the debate has no end. The truth is that emotion cannot compete with fact in an informed discussion, but those that know they will lose would rather just point fingers and not participate in an actual discussion.
Trying to kick the habit? Apparently, breaking up with Facebook is hard to do. This article submitted by reader DSV compares it to breaking up with a bad boyfriend/girlfriend who just won’t accept your decision. It literally becomes a stalking thing. One of the examples given was a person who stopped logging in and subsequently received 17 email messages over 10 days urging him to return to the swamp. The emails tended to use peer pressure suggesting that his friends were participating in some conversation that he should be a part of or suggesting that there was a post that he was sure to like. Like most people, he succumbed to the pressure and logged back in. Just say no!
Stealth Sheets
The technology to hide from infrared cameras has been around for some time and there is evidence that some of those we are fighting overseas have used some of the more rudimentary forms of stealth to attempt to hide from the ever watchful eye. However, reader G.P. sent in this article on some new technology that has some great potential. The sheet is made out of bendable silicon and can hide about 94% of the infrared light it encounters. We should note that Snakebite Tactical offers a practical thermal suit that you can get now.
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Please send your news tips to HJL. (Either via e-mail of via our Contact form.) These are often especially relevant, because they come from folks who watch news that is important to them. Due to their diligence and focus, we benefit from fresh “on target” news. We often “get the scoop” on news that is most likely ignored (or reported late) by mainstream American news outlets. Thanks!
On the AC unit for solar, We use the small R2D2 type units that only need a 6 inch hole in the wall to exhaust the heat, They are pretty efficient, 120v ac. 750 watts gets you 10,000 btu’s of cooling. Cost $350-500 ea. and available anywhere. Simple and cheap. larger models are available. They also make a good alternative when an old RV ac unit dies. I installed one in a root cellar and it runs very little to maintain the desired temp.
BookFace.
Social media addiction is real. Like all addiction many can’t just stop using it ‘cold turkey’. To fully kick the habit one may need to change the behaviors around using it.
Such as, yes, give up that fancy phone and go to a flip phone.
Get a second job to productively occupy your time. I particularly like this one because you get rewarded, in money, for staying productive which makes a person much more likely to stick with it.
Hey, start dating your wife again, oh the blessing that abound in this one.
Find other activities that you love or used to do. You gave something up to waste this time go get it again or something even better. There are many more activities but it’s about changing behavior to something productive and rewarding not quiting. You’ll feel much better about yourself and that nagging negativity will lift away.
Re. the comment above on R2D2-type portable AC units: most of them come with a fairly long, substantially constructed vent hose, roughly 6 to 10′ in diameter. What they DO NOT come with is a fan to move the exhaust air through the vent hose and to the outside. Normally the only way exhaust air is moved is by being pushed as a secondary effect of the condenser/evaporator fan. Therefore, if you are leveraging the entire run of the exhaust hose, either rig a separate exhaust fan at the point where the vent hose meets the wall to the outside, or DO NOT extend the exhaust hose at all. This probably will require you to set the AC unit on a chair or something to avoid putting more length in the run of exhaust hose so as to reach the wall opening. Your efficiency will be significantly improved if you either a) install a vent fan to assist exhaust air flow or b) reduce the run length of the exhaust hose to as close to zero as possible.
Some do come with an intake and exhaust hose
Yes, but please re-read my comment. They all come with the outlet hose; they don’t come with a fan to move the Cu” of air required to bring the evaporate and condenser units into efficiency. BLUF: the vent hose REDUCES the efficiency of the AC unit exponentially inch-by-inch if not equipped with a powered air handler like a little fan stuck at the exhaust-outlet side. The addition of the external fan to move air pushes (actually pulls) more Cu” air volume over the evaporator, increasing the thermal transfer between the refrigerant gases as they condense, pulling heat out of the airflow and pushing
‘cold’ into the conditioned space.
The secondary benefit of increasing volumetric air flow through the AC unit is you will extend the life of the system components (anecdotal, and YMMV, but I remain convinced this is true).
Understood, however a lot of these “Portable” ACs just use room air for condensing and then exhaust it to the outside via one hose.
Thus is true. The window I currently use to vent the hot air is 3 feet high. It uses almost the full length of the exhaust hose. I can feel the heat from the hose coming back into the room. I will have to find a permanent place for the ac unit then Install a clothes drier exhaust through a wall to shorten the exhaust hose.
I could see the addiction to social media years ago. How, I opened a Pintrest account. What an utter time waster! I closed it within a week. I have never had and never will have a FB account. EVER, EVER, EVER.
Lt. Col. “Nutinfancy” on YouTube has covered the “Sheepdog” Concept well:
https://youtu.be/OW8BZ7pRt28
I can understand justifying the expense of an PV system to power refrigerators and lights, perhaps even a few electronic devices. I cannot justify the expense for air conditioning. You can live just fine without air conditioning.
TheRiver: It depends on age, health and geographic location as to whether you want to live without air conditioning. It seemed to be a little extravagant to use that system for a food storage building, but there seemed to be very little effort made to save money on the homestead in the video. I mean, who actually puts a slate roof on a woodshed?
Facebook harassment: My solution was to link it to an email account that I also closed. Like reading a newspaper or watching televised news, if something really important happens then someone will tell me.
As always the writer gets the concept of a sheepdog wrong. A sheepdog herds sheep as in giving direction. On the other hand what protects the sheep is a live stock guardian dog. That is what one should be not a sheepdog.
On Facebook closure, I downloaded the info that FB has collected and went through the deleting of everything it had. Now I don’t for a second believe it is all gone from their computers. But, as I understand it, it does remove the current data and makes them rely on the old data. In short, as long as I don’t log on again they are without current data to sell. As for the present, I will not be deleting my account. I will not ever log on to it again either. I have my name, an old very vague photo of myself and a unique method of disguising my email address for old friends to contact me with (if the method doesn’t stump them.) The reason for keeping the account is to prevent anyone from creating an account in my name and doing nefarious things. A lot of my old school friends are still pressuring me to get back on but who needs friends that only want to gawk online rather than pick up a phone or write a letter.
Deleted FB account. Deleted email account attached to it.
Started to keep track of old high school friends. Finally realized I didn’t know anybody, just recognized a few names. Knew I would never attend a class reunion. Who wants to connect with people you haven’t seen in nearly 50 years. The folks I would like to have connected with weren’t on FB, weren’t at the reunion 10 years ago. So why try.
After that only used the account to keep track of my nephews when they were young and relatively naive. Once they became adults and moved on with their lives it was time to leave.
Only posted picture of a pair of polar bears as my screen image. Had minimal information posted about myself. Never posted any other pictures. Could only be contacted through FB, no direct contact.
OpSec before OpSec was cool.
I remember seeing the start of social media. A bunch of people I knew spent countless hours on MySpace. I thought it was ridiculous then and never had a myspace account even after continual urging by friends. A few years ago I finally opened a Facebook account when working overseas so I could chat with family. After coming back stateside, I would gander through FB once or twice a year. Then when all the stuff came up about conservative censorship, I deleted my account. No love lost there. Just like previous comment, if I want to talk to someone, the phone is not far away.
Latest report says American private citizens have over 400 million guns. That is way more than all the government agencies combined. Yet our elected officials treat us with contempt. Now imagine how they would treat us if we had no way to defend ourselves from them.
https://twitchy.com/brettt-3136/2018/06/21/no-one-tell-david-hogg-but-americans-set-a-gun-sales-record-in-april/
Every law enforcement agency in America combined have about 1 million firearms in their inventory. That means American civilians have about 400 TIMES as many firearms as American police.
Similarly, the American military is estimated to hold about 4.5 million firearms. That means American civilians have 100 TIMES as many firearms as every branch of the American military COMBINED.
If you combine May and April’s gun-related background check numbers you get 4.7 million. That means the American public bought more guns IN JUST THE LAST TWO MONTHS than the entire American military has on hand.
20 years ago, working in IT, I saw the addiction in users. Some would become very adamant that they NEEDED a laptop for the next business (or sometimes personal) trip. When my colleagues marvelled at this, I explained by simply rolling up my sleeve and pantomiming injecting heroin. Always good for a laugh. Here’s a weird, though. I and 2 brothers are current or for IT workers. We are rarely on social media. Nor is Professor of Communications brother. All of our wives can’t go a day without. And we know that addiction genes run in our bloodline. Like many human phenomena, this will bear much study.