Solar generators exist, and are relatively inexpensive for smaller units.
Comment on Sales of Hard Drives for the End of the World Boom Under Trump
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Neat. I get the archived sites and docs as pretty useful and a good way to keep info that might be redacted or manipulated by a fascist government, but I gotta question the use of this technological medium to save information as useful during a “doomsday” situation.
If you’re in an actual doomsday situation, that means odds are utilities like water and power are intermittent or nonexistent, this box will be useless unless you have already spent the time and effort to install and maintain an off-grid power solution to use this device. Otherwise it’s useless.
So essentially a gimmick. However, I can’t argue with the preservation of knowledge in an effort to reference it when bad actors change what is publicly available.
KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Note that I already said you’d have to have all the survival and power requirements in place before doomsday. Not waiting until doomsday to use this box as a tool to learn how to survive. IOW if you’re not already a prepped prepper, this box is pointless.
KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
I’m not a prepper and have both a gasoline and solar generator. Generators arent just for preppers, they are commonly owned in areas with regular power outages, for example.
And honestly, solar panels are so common these days you could rig something up with relative ease with a basic understanding of electricity.
Landless2029@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I’ve seen people make power generators using old washing machine motors. Youtube is full of them. Cutting PVC pipes to make wind ones and even water based ones off of rivers.
I feel like some people would figure out basic electrical grids for led lights in homes at night and possibly a battery bank made of car batteries or something.
Getting a laptop working in that environment wouldn’t be too far of a stretch. Just need to find an old brother laser printer and a Linux USB and you’re golden.
Print off the critical farming/water treatment stuff you need and power it off.
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I’m not sure what you’re aiming for when you kinda proved my point.
You cited a youtube video, something that would be inaccessible during doomsday as a source of info, and the whole point is to have all the power supply and survival solutions in place before doomsday and the youtube video would be pointless.
Look, unless it’s a slow decline where you have some access to power and time to develop survival tools and skills to use this box it’s pointless as you’ve already developed the survival tools and skills. As an archive of other skills and knowledge it’s only as useful as the longevity of the storage media and the devices used to access it (monitor, keyboard, pi, etc).
Landless2029@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Yeah that’s a solid recap.
I now possess the knowledge about generating power to life off the grid using old motors salvaged from a junkyard thanks to my own personal research and video tutorials.
My intent with bringing that up is the hope of the existence of a document covering this topic in a preppers backup.
In a post apocalyptic scenario humanity has been proven to band together in groups and cooperate to survive. It’s less murder/greed and more sharing/helping. In these small groups it would only take one prepper or even an engineer to setup a generator or even just get solar panels to hookup for basic electricity.
Many of these points could be moot in a nuclear scenario where were dealing with EMPs and radiation.
bluewing@lemm.ee 2 days ago
Like most prepper things for sale, this is a better product to skin money from the ignorant and the unreasonably fearful than it is truly useful. It assumes you have electricity and the functioning equipment to access it.
In a real prepper situation, you either already ready have the knowledge in your head, (the best method), or you have real books and pamphlets to read, (slow to access).
Remember Kiddies, if a real SHTF gets here, there not only won’t be no google or youtube, but there won’t be much time to use it anyway. Survival is a real time sink. And most living in the big cities will simply die in place anyway.
batmaniam@lemmy.world 2 days ago
As someone who is generally on the more prepared side, the use case for most stuff falls far short of “doomsday”. There is a ton to be said about things that are just generally useful in adverse situations. I’ve lived through a dozen or so storms that took out power for a few days (longest I think was 2 weeks). It’s usually not a complete blackout everywhere.
Point being: I can see it being useful to have a bunch of info in something easily portable to say, double check breaker wiring helping your friend fix some stuff after the storm. Look up the emergency AM/CB/NOAA radio freqs. I have a lot of the resources on this thing on a server, but that’s not mobile and would eat a lot of power just booting up. To package it nicely in a form factor like this would probably run me just about $189.
But the overall point is I think this falls on the extreme end of practical preparedness but I can absolutely see the use. Honestly the most practical thing on there are the books. Again, usually if a community gets hit bad you wind up with people that have power having a bunch of people stay over. Being able to allow multiple people stuff to read would help kill time.
All of that being said, its a distant second to the critical items that, again, have a huge range of uses: A solid first aide kit, 2 weeks of food (even if it’s not awesome). I realize that’s a luxury for a lot of people, but money is much better spent there first.
Strayed off topic a bit, but it’s because while I don’t think it makes a lot of sense to plan for SHTF scenarios, I do think we’re going to see a general decay (but not elimination) of public services/utilities and an increasingly pissy climate. I think it’s important for people to not fall into the bunker-prepper fantasy OR write off being more prepared than they’re accustomed to.
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
Jars of peanut butter that you rotate put. Stuff is so.calorie dense. Downside is that it doesn’t last quite as long as dried beans and rice. But beans and rice take up alot of space and I don’t eat enough to rotate out years supply worth in time.
batmaniam@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Lmfao, that’s what I mean, it makes way more sense to plan for the scenarios where you won’t be forced to, you know, resort to canibalism.
I’m a big fan of just augmenting your floating stock at home. I make a point of buying a few extra cans every-time I grocery shop, a few extra boxes of pasta etc. I focus on things I may actually cook with so I’m rotating stock. Diced tomatoes, canned beans, those tomatoes with green chilies in them. I’ve got some canned meat that I almost never cook with (a just in-case thing), it gets rotated through making dip during football season, but it’s there if I need it. I’ve also got textured vegetable protein (which is more for camping/a vegetarian I dated and tried to learn to cook for). Again, it’s a luxury for some folks (both for budget and space reasons).
But that was my point. This may not be you but it was surprising to me in early covid how many people just didn’t keep food around. Also spices, like it’s great to have rice and beans, but you’ll be a lot happier if you make sure you’ve got chili powder, hot sauce, soy sauce, etc.
Sure there are “grab and go” scenarios, but it is far more likley someone might need to put together some meals in a less than ideal situation. Being able to do, say, mac and cheese with some shredded canned chicken and hot sauce with a side of green beans goes a long way to keeping spirits up.
I didn’t grow up super rural, but it’s just the way my house was. One reason was the weather, the other was my mom was amazing at stretching a dollar. She’d buy when there was a great sale, and we’d have 4-5x of whatever the item was downstairs. So you’d wind up eating Christmas themed breakfast cereal until like May, but it also meant there was just a bunch of reserves.