00:00SPEAKERAll right, well, here's the real reason that I wanted to do this podcast with you.
00:02SPEAKERHit me.
00:03SPEAKERSo I can ask you questions.
00:05SPEAKERIs it just a formal way for me to get my own curiosity satiated?
00:10SPEAKERHere I am.
00:11SPEAKERI can look things up on Wikipedia real good.
00:14SPEAKERWe ended last week with me rambling about buying a serial to USB cable.
00:19SPEAKERYeah, I'm really into this idea.
00:20SPEAKERSetting up a com port. Yeah, now you're excited.
00:22SPEAKERThis is a great idea.
00:23SPEAKERAs a kind of an ancillary topic to that, what the hell is a UART?
00:27SPEAKERBecause that's something I've run into setting this thing up,
00:29SPEAKERand then you also mentioned UARTs, I think, talking about PS2 ports for mice and keyboards.
00:34SPEAKERModems, probably.
00:35SPEAKERA couple weeks ago, but I basically have seen that acronym related to a bunch of the kind of internal core technology on motherboards,
00:42SPEAKERand I've always wondered what that was.
00:44SPEAKERIt's funny you mention this because I happen to have a Wikipedia page open right this moment.
00:48SPEAKERWait, what are you saying? I could have just answered this myself.
00:50SPEAKEROh, it's fine. Let me Google that for you.
00:52SPEAKEROkay.
00:52SPEAKERA Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter, or UART, is how it looks like it's pronounced according to the Wikipedia Pronunciation Guide,
01:01SPEAKERis a computer hardware device for asynchronous serial communication in which the data format and transmission speeds are configurable.
01:09SPEAKEROh, you mean the BOD?
01:11SPEAKERYeah, so it can say, look, I want to send binary data at this speed, or I want to send ASCII data at this speed.
01:17SPEAKERSo it's just a bucket, I think, a pipe that you can pour data into, and it can be a fat pipe.
01:22SPEAKERWell, it can be that fat, but it can be pretty fat by 1960s standards, or not that fat by modern standards.
01:29SPEAKEROkay, so when you're dealing with devices that plug into computers and the way they communicate with the hardware, that's going through UART in a lot of cases.
01:38SPEAKERAnd for serial stuff, yes.
01:40SPEAKERPre-USB?
01:41SPEAKERPre-USB would be my guess.
01:43SPEAKERPrinter ports, modems, game ports, perhaps?
01:46SPEAKERIt used to be a chip. This used to be an actual physical chip that would be on a board.
01:50SPEAKEROkay.
01:51SPEAKERProbably just integrated into the motherboard chipset now?
01:54SPEAKERProbably, it's just like 50 transistors somewhere in there these days.
01:57SPEAKEROkay.
01:58SPEAKERThe XR17V252 is a dual quad and octal 66 megahertz PCI bus UART with power management support, register set, FIFOs, which is first in, first out, I think, I can't remember, level counters, so it's basically like all the stuff you need for the modem except for the modem bit.
02:17SPEAKERAll right, consider me edified on this topic. I'm sure this will be great knowledge to have in the scenario that we're about to discuss on this episode.
02:25SPEAKERYeah, it's exactly what we need.
02:27SPEAKERThis is really going to save your bacon someday.
02:47SPEAKER(upbeat music)
03:04SPEAKERWelcome to Brad and Will Made a Tech Pod.
03:07SPEAKERHi, Will.
03:08SPEAKERHi, Brad.
03:08SPEAKERHow's it going?
03:09SPEAKERGood, man. How about you?
03:10SPEAKERGood. For now.
03:11SPEAKERLook, man.
03:12SPEAKERWhat if things go bad?
03:13SPEAKERYou've got to be eternally, I learned this from Wing Commander 4, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
03:19SPEAKERIs that where that, that can't be where that comes from.
03:21SPEAKERNo, it's from like, like Alexander Hamilton or Ben Franklin or somebody said it, but Malcolm McDowell said it to me in like 1995 and it really stuck with me.
03:29SPEAKERAnything Malcolm McDowell has ever said to me.
03:31SPEAKERYou know, it turned out he was kind of a fascist in that game.
03:34SPEAKERWhat is?
03:34SPEAKERSpoilers.
03:35SPEAKERYeah, I could, okay.
03:36SPEAKERYeah, so.
03:36SPEAKERHe's good at that kind of thing.
03:37SPEAKERBut the point is you got to be ready at all times.
03:40SPEAKERYeah, and it actually, it's, it's amazing how much that doing this podcast has gotten me thinking about this stuff.
03:45SPEAKERLike after we did InfoSec, I locked down a bunch of my financial and email stuff and I'm going to buy a fire safe to put documents and stuff in.
03:53SPEAKERI have a YubiKey.
03:54SPEAKERYeah, you've got a YubiKey.
03:55SPEAKERI already had a fire safe, but I have a YubiKey.
03:56SPEAKERIt's probably time to go all the way and just talk about, you know, your basic human needs.
04:01SPEAKERLook, I find, so we live in a, in a area that is prone to unpredictable emergencies, earthquakes, sometimes fires.
04:10SPEAKEROkay, yeah, like, you know, when you get down to it, there are not a lot of places that are not prone to some kind of disaster.
04:16SPEAKERYeah, but like hurricanes, you can at least, you know that there's hurricanes coming, you got like a few days notice.
04:20SPEAKERI mean, I grew up in the hurricane territory, you know, even when you know they're coming, they're pretty bad.
04:24SPEAKERNo, it's, oh, no doubt.
04:25SPEAKERIt is bad news, but the point is after watching, I mean, this is something the federal government has told us for years to do, but after watching the aftermath of Katrina and how long people in New Orleans and the south Louisiana coast and in Houston.
04:40SPEAKERAfter the floods there a few years ago, we're just completely on their own hurricane Sandy wildfires in Northern California.
04:47SPEAKERExactly.
04:48SPEAKERStuff has been rough the last few years.
04:50SPEAKERYou have to be prepared to feed, clothe, house, clean yourself.
04:57SPEAKERYou have to Maslow's hierarchy of needs yourself for, I think a week probably is the number that we shoot for.
05:03SPEAKERThe federal government says 72 hours.
05:05SPEAKERI don't have that kind of confidence in FEMA.
05:08SPEAKERI mean, you do get into a weird guessing game.
05:10SPEAKERI guess I would say of like, how much is enough to sustain you?
05:14SPEAKERAnd then what is the point where having supplies isn't going to matter anymore?
05:18SPEAKERYou know what I mean?
05:18SPEAKERLike, yeah, I guess what I'm getting at is like, okay, let's say, what is, what is the number of days before things have gotten so bad that if you still need supplies by that time, then like extra supplies aren't going to help.
05:27SPEAKERI think that is the Mad Max threshold, right?
05:31SPEAKERHey, we have a title already.
05:32SPEAKERYou get what I'm saying?
05:34SPEAKERYou get what I'm saying though?
05:35SPEAKERYeah, no, it's like, yeah, maybe it's two weeks.
05:37SPEAKERI don't know.
05:37SPEAKERBut like at some point you've got to tell yourself, like, okay, if the water is not back on and there's no food available after two weeks, then society has probably broken down to the point that like an extra week worth of water is not going to be enough.
05:49SPEAKERAcross the Mad Max threshold, clearly.
05:52SPEAKERSo the basic idea, we went to ready.gov, which is the, the, the Department of Homeland Security last updated in 2016, just so you know, so it's clean 2014.
06:02SPEAKERSo it's clean, still trustworthy, trustworthy information.
06:06SPEAKERIf you, their, their basic idea is that you need to have a disaster supplies kit that supports everybody in your family, including pets for at least 72 hours.
06:17SPEAKERAnd their basic guidelines are real good.
06:19SPEAKERSo it's like one gallon of water per person per day for at least three days.
06:23SPEAKERAnd that's potable water.
06:24SPEAKERPotable water.
06:24SPEAKERNeed to be able to drink it.
06:26SPEAKERI, I have a mixture of gallons, like one gallon containers and just a shitload of bottles. So you don't have to open and contaminate the one gallon containers unless you're actually going to use a lot of water.
06:40SPEAKERLike if you have to wash dishes or something.
06:42SPEAKERCause you know, if you're just drinking water for yourself, then the, then the bottles are fine.
06:46SPEAKERYeah.
06:46SPEAKERIf you're going to buy this in a store, you need distilled water.
06:50SPEAKERIt doesn't matter.
06:50SPEAKERCause they don't last.
06:52SPEAKERNothing lasts longer.
06:53SPEAKERLike you have to cycle.
06:54SPEAKERSo one of the guidelines is you have to cycle the food stuff out every year to three years, depending on what it is.
06:59SPEAKEROkay.
07:00SPEAKERSo when you're purchasing this stuff, think about the things you're going to want to eat one to three years.
07:06SPEAKERSo every year, just, just open it and consume the water you've got and buy more.
07:09SPEAKERSo what we do is we buy groceries from Amazon and when they send you cold items, they put frozen water bottles in there and all of the frozen water bottles go on the back of the shelf.
07:19SPEAKERAnd we pull off the new water bottles when we need water bottles, either for like keeping coolers cold or for, you know, whatever we use water.
07:27SPEAKERAnd that's good water.
07:28SPEAKERI mean, it's fine.
07:28SPEAKEROkay.
07:29SPEAKERIt'll keep you alive.
07:30SPEAKERDrinkable.
07:30SPEAKERYeah, it's, it's, it's like, it's like Dasani bottle.
07:33SPEAKERIt's like their generic brand bottled water that they sell.
07:36SPEAKERYeah.
07:36SPEAKERAnd that's I guess the, the one gallon per person per day.
07:39SPEAKERLike that's the rate of consumption.
07:41SPEAKERThat is that's for washing plus some cleaning and like dishes and stuff like that.
07:45SPEAKERIt's the idea of drinking and dripping.
07:47SPEAKEROkay.
07:47SPEAKERSo that's everything you need.
07:48SPEAKERYou also need to include pets, right?
07:50SPEAKERYour pet obviously won't use a gallon per day.
07:52SPEAKERBut the reason I ask is like, when you get into water and food, if you're actually in this scenario, then you have to think about on a per day basis, how to ration.
07:59SPEAKERYeah.
07:59SPEAKERSo that's kind of what I was thinking about of like, okay, let's say you actually are in a disaster scenario.
08:03SPEAKERLike you've got your gallon for the day.
08:04SPEAKERDo you want to space it out?
08:06SPEAKERLike, do you want to, how do you want to make sure that you just drink when you're thirsty?
08:09SPEAKERYeah.
08:09SPEAKEROkay.
08:10SPEAKERThe other thing is you have to think about sometimes it gets really hot.
08:12SPEAKERSo like in the summertime, you're going to drink a lot more water.
08:14SPEAKERSo that's why you have a gallon, even though you need, you know, eight or 10 ounces or something to survive.
08:19SPEAKERYou need a three day supply of non-perishable food.
08:21SPEAKERYeah.
08:21SPEAKERSo you want calorically dense, relatively small stuff.
08:24SPEAKEROne of the things that the California earthquake readiness authority recommends is buying stuff like Insure, which is, tastes horrible.
08:32SPEAKERIt's revolting, but it has basically two cans of Insure is everything that an adult needs to stay alive.
08:38SPEAKERNutrient wise?
08:39SPEAKERNutrient wise.
08:39SPEAKERNot calorie wise though.
08:41SPEAKERIt's super high caloric.
08:42SPEAKERIs it really?
08:42SPEAKERIt's for people who can't eat or drink a whole lot.
08:45SPEAKERYeah.
08:46SPEAKERSo like you can, like, it's not perfect, obviously.
08:50SPEAKERI'm sure if you'd eat that for six months, you're going to get micronutrient failure and have all sorts of problems.
08:54SPEAKERRight.
08:55SPEAKERI think we have somebody in the other room who could probably answer these questions way better than me.
08:58SPEAKERSure.
09:00SPEAKERBut the point is like energy bars, the survival boxes of food that Jeff makes fun of all the time.
09:09SPEAKERLike freeze dried stuff is good.
09:10SPEAKERWhat about straight up just canned food?
09:12SPEAKERYou don't want stuff that's too, too salty.
09:14SPEAKEROh, sure.
09:14SPEAKERCanned food is often too salty.
09:16SPEAKERYeah.
09:16SPEAKERSo I was thinking like beans and spam and stuff like that.
09:19SPEAKERI think, I think that stuff like, look, I think if you're in a situation where you're going to be eating this stuff for 10 days, probably variety is the spice of life.
09:26SPEAKEROkay, sure.
09:27SPEAKERYou know, it's a little taste of spam.
09:29SPEAKERIt's going to be real, real delicious after five days of Insure.
09:32SPEAKERSo, but I feel like, I feel like when we put all this stuff together, we did this when my daughter was born and we've, we are at the point where we have to cycle food again.
09:42SPEAKERWe're thinking about what food we're going to replace, what we're going to replace the food that we have with.
09:47SPEAKERA mixture of stuff that's shelf stable for a really long time, so you don't have to buy it every three years is nice.
09:52SPEAKERBut then also having stuff like builders bars.
09:54SPEAKERSo you have like protein bars and, and you know, nori and stuff like that, that is shelf stable and lasts a long time, but is going to not - talking to astronauts about what it's like to eat on the international space station where they're mostly shelf stable food.
10:08SPEAKERThe thing they crave more than anything else is like a piece of lettuce or an apple.
10:11SPEAKERSomething fresh.
10:12SPEAKERLiterally when they open the cargo supply ships, they come in and they get the apples that the people loaded in.
10:17SPEAKERLike the, the Americans and the Westerners get apples and fruit and lettuce, and they have salads and stuff like that.
10:22SPEAKERThe Russians get raw onions and just chomp around right off of the, right off of the, of the soy, the progress ship.
10:30SPEAKERYeah.
10:30SPEAKERThey want the roughage.
10:32SPEAKERBrad, it seems like you've brought show and tell.
10:33SPEAKERYeah.
10:34SPEAKERI didn't actually think to mention this when we first got into this list.
10:36SPEAKERI wasn't sure if I should bring it up now or at the end, but what you see before you is, I guess, is this your kit?
10:43SPEAKERThe extent of my disaster preparedness kit.
10:45SPEAKERI mean, we have canned food and we just keep a lot of canned food around in general.
10:48SPEAKERSo there is like definitely some stuff we could subsist on.
10:50SPEAKERWell, like stuff like, like dried ramen and stuff like that is good too.
10:54SPEAKERCause that stuff lasts forever.
10:55SPEAKERAnd what if you don't have heat?
10:56SPEAKERWell, I guess you're going to want a camp stove, like a camp stove is going to, we'll get there.
11:00SPEAKEROkay.
11:00SPEAKERYeah.
11:01SPEAKEROf course though, it's pretty salty, but anyway, let's see.
11:04SPEAKERWhat do you have?
11:05SPEAKERA single pack of, uh, that's the astronaut ice cream.
11:08SPEAKEROh, that's a cookies and cream ice cream sandwich as sold at the air and space museum in Washington, DC.
11:12SPEAKERYeah.
11:12SPEAKERAlso got a little baggie of, uh, what is this?
11:14SPEAKERTwo MREs, three MREs?
11:15SPEAKERI think that's three, maybe.
11:17SPEAKERI have to fess up.
11:18SPEAKERPretty sure these MREs, we'll see if this is vegetable lasagna.
11:21SPEAKERAre these Chach MREs?
11:23SPEAKERI'm pretty sure the astronaut ice cream and the MREs came as promotional material.
11:28SPEAKEROne was Kerbal and one was Call of Duty with video games.
11:31SPEAKERWow.
11:32SPEAKERI think these MREs are probably 10 years old, at least maybe 15.
11:36SPEAKERThey last a long time.
11:38SPEAKERI know that's the whole idea.
11:39SPEAKERI mean, there's a YouTube channel where a guy eats like one or two food.
11:42SPEAKERYes.
11:43SPEAKERI wouldn't do that.
11:44SPEAKEROne time I ate a piece of really old gum.
11:46SPEAKERIt was like 80s trading card gum.
11:48SPEAKERIt was, it was, it just crumbled into like grains.
11:52SPEAKERIt was bad.
11:52SPEAKERYeah.
11:53SPEAKEROkay.
11:53SPEAKERSo three days supply of non-perishable food, I think go a little bit longer than that.
11:57SPEAKERThink about what you're going to want to eat.
11:59SPEAKERThink about if you have to cycle it out, what you want to eat at some point in the future.
12:01SPEAKERAnd it's in a non-emergency or like a camping situation.
12:06SPEAKERFlashlight.
12:06SPEAKERThis is important.
12:07SPEAKERYeah.
12:08SPEAKERSo should we.
12:09SPEAKERWe can talk about your radio.
12:10SPEAKERWe want to get to the third and final and maybe perhaps the only actually useful item in my kit.
12:14SPEAKERAre you a KQED member or is this a separate purchase?
12:17SPEAKEROh, this is separate.
12:18SPEAKEROkay.
12:19SPEAKERI have a little, this is an Eaton brand.
12:21SPEAKERI'm gonna have to look it over to make sure I remember everything it does.
12:23SPEAKERIt's a crank powered radio.
12:26SPEAKEROkay.
12:26SPEAKERSlash flashlight.
12:28SPEAKERDoes it have batteries too?
12:29SPEAKERJust, yes.
12:29SPEAKEROkay.
12:29SPEAKERSo we'll get to that.
12:30SPEAKERCause I have a question about that.
12:31SPEAKERLet's see.
12:32SPEAKERSo it's got, so it's a radio.
12:33SPEAKERIt's like an AM, maybe AM/AFM at least AM.
12:36SPEAKERIt's got, it has a flashlight.
12:38SPEAKERYeah.
12:39SPEAKERSo it's got a flashlight.
12:40SPEAKERIt's actually got something on the back there.
12:41SPEAKERIt's got USB ports on the back to charge crank charger.
12:44SPEAKERUSB is what I assume.
12:46SPEAKERThat's a solar cell.
12:46SPEAKERThat's a little solar cell.
12:47SPEAKERSo it's both solar and crank powered.
12:49SPEAKERThat solar cell is not big enough to do much.
12:51SPEAKERProbably not.
12:52SPEAKERNo.
12:53SPEAKERLike you're not going to charge your phone off of that.
12:55SPEAKERNo.
12:57SPEAKERBut it's.
12:57SPEAKERI mean, maybe for a little bit.
12:58SPEAKERYou can crank.
12:59SPEAKERYeah.
13:00SPEAKERConverge kinetic energy.
13:02SPEAKERIt's like that, that thing that panic's making.
13:04SPEAKERPhone.
13:05SPEAKERYeah.
13:06SPEAKERYeah.
13:06SPEAKERSo it's, it's, it's basically radio, flashlight, charger.
13:09SPEAKERThe radio is on the list because as we learned last year, when our power was out for three days,
13:15SPEAKERthe cell service goes away when the batteries at the cell tower stopped working,
13:19SPEAKERwhich is about 48 hours in my case.
13:21SPEAKEROh, wow.
13:21SPEAKERSo you guys actually need the radio?
13:24SPEAKERWe didn't have a radio.
13:25SPEAKEROh no.
13:26SPEAKERAnd let me tell you when there's wildfires burning all around you.
13:28SPEAKERYeah.
13:29SPEAKERYou're you, you end up doing seemingly unhinged things,
13:33SPEAKERlike walking out in the backyard at two o'clock in the morning going.
13:36SPEAKEROh, nope.
13:37SPEAKERDoes it smell like smoke yet?
13:38SPEAKERWe're probably good.
13:39SPEAKERProbably fine.
13:39SPEAKERI don't see a glow on the horizon.
13:41SPEAKERYeah, this is what we did see a glow on the horizon.
13:43SPEAKERThat's the problem.
13:43SPEAKERCause we see like daily city had lights.
13:46SPEAKERSo we just went out.
13:47SPEAKERYeah.
13:47SPEAKERAnyway, what about your car radio?
13:48SPEAKERWas that not?
13:48SPEAKERWell, that would have been really smart, Brad.
13:50SPEAKEROkay.
13:51SPEAKERI hadn't considered that until you said that just now.
13:53SPEAKEROkay.
13:54SPEAKERWell, next time.
13:55SPEAKERYeah.
13:56SPEAKERIf you don't get one, the more we learned before we move on real quick, I was just
13:58SPEAKERgoing to ask, I bet I've had this thing for 15 years.
14:02SPEAKERYeah.
14:02SPEAKERProbably changed the batteries.
14:03SPEAKERThat's what I was going to ask.
14:04SPEAKERSo I've never pulled the little cardboard pull tab to actually connect the batteries
14:08SPEAKERthat it shipped with.
14:09SPEAKERDo you think they're still good?
14:10SPEAKERI'll bring the volt meter next time and we can find out we'll do an experiment.
14:13SPEAKERThey're NIM, nickel metal hydride.
14:15SPEAKERYes.
14:15SPEAKERThose will be no nickel metal hydride is Enel loops.
14:18SPEAKERSo they should be like 70% charge.
14:20SPEAKEROkay.
14:20SPEAKERWell, maybe less.
14:22SPEAKERNo, no.
14:22SPEAKERLike that's the stop at 60 or 70% losing charge.
14:27SPEAKERI don't think they ever completely discharged, but I could be wrong.
14:29SPEAKERWell, the bigger question for me is less how much charge they still have in them and more
14:32SPEAKERif they can be charged, like would they still work?
14:34SPEAKERYeah, they should be fine.
14:35SPEAKEROkay.
14:35SPEAKEREspecially if you crank it real hard.
14:39SPEAKERDone.
14:40SPEAKERI have two names for this podcast.
14:43SPEAKERAll right, cool.
14:44SPEAKERSo I do have one item in my thing that's actually possibly kind of used.
14:47SPEAKERSo I want to talk about some stuff that I've added to our kit after various minor emergencies.
14:52SPEAKERThe one thing real quick before we move on that I was going to add about the radio is I
14:55SPEAKERguess at least, I mean, this may be less so for you, but I would think in my case, being
14:58SPEAKERin the middle of a city, like there's probably, if nothing else, there's going to be straight
15:02SPEAKERup like loudspeakers.
15:03SPEAKERYou think?
15:04SPEAKERIn some way, right?
15:05SPEAKERSurely, surely they've accounted for that.
15:06SPEAKERI like that optimism.
15:08SPEAKERSurely the city has just got some way to very loudly yell what's going on to people.
15:13SPEAKERLook, I'm watching what happens, what's happened in China as they're figuring out how to deal
15:16SPEAKERwith coronavirus and thinking that probably there will be no, like if there is a legitimate
15:22SPEAKERemergency, the infrastructure will be entirely dedicated to ameliorating the emergency and
15:27SPEAKERnot human comfort.
15:28SPEAKERI guess you're right.
15:29SPEAKERThere is some kind of, I don't know if it's like an air raid siren.
15:33SPEAKERThere's some kind of early warning error.
15:35SPEAKERWell, there's earthquake and tsunami sirens.
15:38SPEAKEROkay.
15:38SPEAKERMaybe that's what they're testing.
15:39SPEAKERThey test it around noon sometimes.
15:41SPEAKERBy the way, do you know about the quake alert thing?
15:43SPEAKEROh.
15:44SPEAKERSo you can sign up for a service if you live in an earthquake area in California that is
15:49SPEAKERcalled Quake Alert.
15:51SPEAKERYou know how sometimes you log into Twitter and you see people tweeting about an earthquake
15:54SPEAKERand then you feel it a few seconds later?
15:55SPEAKEROh, I've never had that experience.
15:57SPEAKEROh.
15:57SPEAKERI always feel it and then go to Twitter to see everybody going, "Earthquake!"
16:00SPEAKERWell, so I've had a couple of times where I was sitting and I happened to be looking
16:03SPEAKERat Twitter and I saw like East Bay people tweeting about an earthquake and then I would
16:06SPEAKERfeel it like five seconds later.
16:08SPEAKERNo kidding.
16:08SPEAKERSo because the internet moves at the speed of light and the earthquake moves at the speed
16:13SPEAKERof waves through dirt, basically Quake Alert will send you a notification when there's
16:18SPEAKERabout to be an earthquake.
16:19SPEAKEROkay.
16:19SPEAKERSo they've already detected it starting?
16:21SPEAKERThey've detected it.
16:22SPEAKEROkay.
16:22SPEAKERI thought where you were going with that was they were predicting it, but my understanding
16:26SPEAKERis predicting quakes is basically impossible.
16:27SPEAKERIt's like you get five or 10 seconds head start on like, you know to bend over and kiss
16:32SPEAKERyour ass goodbye, not that you can actually do it anyway.
16:37SPEAKEROkay.
16:37SPEAKERSo first aid kit, flashlight.
16:40SPEAKERI have a couple more flashlights.
16:41SPEAKERI have these little lanterns that are, I have a pretty good size solar cell on the top.
16:45SPEAKERYeah.
16:45SPEAKERWe've got one of those two actually.
16:46SPEAKERThat thing is incredible with the power that was out.
16:48SPEAKERLED lamp.
16:50SPEAKERBecause like the one that we have two, one is a D-light, which is the good one.
16:53SPEAKERDeep dot light you can get from Amazon.
16:56SPEAKERI'll put a list of all this stuff in the show notes and people can get it from Amazon or
16:59SPEAKERwhatever they want.
17:00SPEAKERBut you put in the sun during the day and then you get 14 hours of light at night, which
17:04SPEAKERit turns out is a lifesaver when the power's out for an extended period of time.
17:07SPEAKERSure.
17:08SPEAKERCandle's not the worst thing to have around.
17:09SPEAKERObviously there's some fire hazard there.
17:11SPEAKERA little bit of a fire hazard, but you know, those tealight candles, the watch battery
17:15SPEAKERones will run for a hundred hours on a watch battery.
17:18SPEAKERSo those things are mega cheap.
17:20SPEAKERYeah.
17:20SPEAKERYou can buy a pack of like 20 of those for 10 bucks.
17:23SPEAKERIf you, yeah, Pier One or Daiso or Ikea sells them for very inexpensive too.
17:29SPEAKERA first aid kit, just normal first aid kit stuff.
17:31SPEAKERBandages, cold packs, bug, like Benadryl type stuff.
17:37SPEAKERSomething if you get bug, because if you're in an earthquake, you're probably sleeping
17:40SPEAKERin the backyard.
17:41SPEAKERSo you're going to get bug bites.
17:43SPEAKERYou're going to get sunburn, sunscreen.
17:45SPEAKERLike a bottle of, you know, you can get isopropyl alcohol for super cheap.
17:48SPEAKERExactly.
17:49SPEAKERA bottle of that around for disinfecting.
17:50SPEAKERAlways.
17:52SPEAKERExtra batteries.
17:53SPEAKERWe have a big sack of just AA batteries.
17:56SPEAKERYou know, they're in the box so they don't drain.
17:58SPEAKERThe disposable kind.
17:59SPEAKERDisposable kind, yeah.
18:01SPEAKERN95 masks.
18:02SPEAKERAnd if you have a beard, you have to have a razor so you can actually get shaved down
18:06SPEAKERenough that they work.
18:07SPEAKERYeah.
18:07SPEAKERBecause N95 mask does nothing for me.
18:10SPEAKERThat was the real eye opening experience.
18:13SPEAKERWas it two years?
18:13SPEAKERI can't keep track of time.
18:15SPEAKERWas it last year or two years ago when the terrible awful fires?
18:17SPEAKERSanta Rosa was when we got the bad smoke.
18:19SPEAKERThat was two years ago.
18:20SPEAKERWas it two years ago now?
18:20SPEAKERLast year we had bad fires, but they were further away and we didn't get as smoky.
18:23SPEAKERSo that two years ago, that incident where, you know, like everywhere you went, like they
18:28SPEAKERwere shoving masks in your face.
18:29SPEAKERLike at work every day, they were like, hey, don't forget your mask on the way home.
18:32SPEAKERLike it was like...
18:33SPEAKERIt was bad.
18:34SPEAKERWe strongly recommend that you wear a mask when you're outdoors.
18:36SPEAKERThis is not a just to make yourself feel better.
18:39SPEAKERThis is like the particulate load in the air right now is hazardous to your health.
18:44SPEAKERThere will be a cancer cluster around Northern California in 10 years from the shit we breathed
18:50SPEAKERtwo years ago.
18:51SPEAKERI have no doubt.
18:51SPEAKEROh, that's not good to hear.
18:53SPEAKERThat makes me feel...
18:54SPEAKERI'm not a medical professional.
18:55SPEAKERIt's just an opinion, but like a lot of garbage.
18:58SPEAKERIt's a weird feeling in the air too.
19:00SPEAKERLike not, I don't mean...
19:01SPEAKERIt's hard to breathe.
19:01SPEAKERNo, no, no.
19:02SPEAKERI don't mean like physically in the air.
19:03SPEAKERI mean, that sucks too.
19:04SPEAKERBut I mean more like psychologically the feel of like oppression, it feels oppressing.
19:09SPEAKERKind of, yeah.
19:10SPEAKERAnd it's something that's going to be a lot more noticeable in the city.
19:14SPEAKERBecause you're in the shared...
19:16SPEAKERI was in the burbs and I didn't get it as much.
19:18SPEAKERI also didn't leave the house much.
19:19SPEAKERIt's just stuff like, I mean, seeing everybody everywhere you go wearing those masks and
19:22SPEAKERlike the change in just like the color of the air because of the haze.
19:26SPEAKEREverything was yellow.
19:27SPEAKERYeah, everything was yellow.
19:28SPEAKERAnd like you're hearing announcements being made.
19:31SPEAKERIt feels a little bit like a disaster area.
19:33SPEAKERYou know what I mean?
19:34SPEAKERLike it raises your hackles a little bit.
19:36SPEAKERLike it makes you subconsciously go like, something is off here and it's not good.
19:41SPEAKERIt was very discomforting.
19:43SPEAKERAnd that's nothing compared to what the people in the actual fire zone were suffering.
19:47SPEAKERAnd it's also nothing compared to like much worse disasters than this.
19:49SPEAKERSo I'm just, you know, it was just a taste of what that's like.
19:52SPEAKERSo I can't even imagine what a true disaster situation is actually like to be in the middle of.
19:57SPEAKERI mean, it's got to be...
19:59SPEAKERI mean, I have friends whose houses burned in Santa Rosa and they said it was horrific.
20:02SPEAKERSo, okay, dust mask, moist towelettes, whistle.
20:07SPEAKERA lot of moist towelettes.
20:08SPEAKERWe have multiple boxes of baby wipes, like 150, 250 wipes.
20:13SPEAKERYou can get big baby wipes for like sponge bathing yourself.
20:16SPEAKERLike you'd get if you're in the hospital.
20:18SPEAKERI was going to say, you probably don't want to burn much of your water on bathing and
20:22SPEAKERwashing and cleaning if you don't have to.
20:23SPEAKERThe least you have to do, I would think.
20:25SPEAKERYeah.
20:26SPEAKERBecause the water is the hard thing.
20:28SPEAKERAnd also there are other things you can do to make your way.
20:30SPEAKERIf you live near a water source, I have one of those filter straws.
20:37SPEAKERI have a couple of those filter straws and I have a UV disinfectant and a filter bag.
20:42SPEAKEROkay.
20:42SPEAKERI was just about to ask about a UV.
20:44SPEAKERYeah.
20:44SPEAKERSo Vinnie introduced me to this years ago when we were camping.
20:46SPEAKEROkay.
20:47SPEAKERBut it's basically a UV light, a really UV ABC light, I assume.
20:53SPEAKERI don't know how it works.
20:54SPEAKERYou chuck it in this big canvas bag, fill the bag with water and then leave it there
20:59SPEAKERfor a couple of hours and it'll disinfect what's in the water.
21:02SPEAKERAnd then the bottom of the bag filters out whatever particulates it.
21:05SPEAKEROh, wow.
21:06SPEAKERProbably doesn't take out stuff like heavy metals.
21:08SPEAKERYeah, yeah.
21:08SPEAKERIt's just for bacteria.
21:09SPEAKERBut it's just for bacteria and stuff that'll make you sick.
21:11SPEAKERSo when we were camping, we were camping by a lake and he was able to go down and scoop
21:18SPEAKERup like a 10 gallon bag of the water, put this light in it, and then like an hour later,
21:22SPEAKERwe would have as much water as we needed.
21:24SPEAKERAs long as you're confident you're not downstream from any industrial pollutants, you should be.
21:29SPEAKERAlso, won't work with salt water.
21:31SPEAKERYeah.
21:31SPEAKERYeah.
21:32SPEAKERSo a whistle is important.
21:35SPEAKERI mean, if you really want to get crazy, there are ways to distill salt water if you have to sell.
21:40SPEAKERIf you want to build a still, it's beyond the scope of this podcast, but I salute you.
21:43SPEAKERYes.
21:44SPEAKERA wrench to turn off your gas.
21:45SPEAKEROkay.
21:45SPEAKERYou should always, always, always have a big pipe wrench near where you can find it.
21:52SPEAKERWhen the person drove through my next door neighbor's house last summer, they literally
21:56SPEAKERdrove their car through the living room of this friend of mine, our neighbors.
22:00SPEAKERThe first thing we did was jump out and somebody had a big pipe wrench and they
22:03SPEAKERshut the gas down for the house and we didn't blow up the neighborhood.
22:06SPEAKERThat was something I read about recently in a discussion about good kind of best practices
22:10SPEAKERfor home ownership, which sadly means it's nothing I need to worry about right now.
22:13SPEAKERBut that was something people were saying was like, "Hey, when you..."
22:16SPEAKERI guess this also goes for renting, even if you don't buy a house.
22:19SPEAKERYou need to know where the gas comes out.
22:20SPEAKERYeah, exactly.
22:20SPEAKERWhen you move into your first house, not just the gas, but also the water, all that stuff,
22:25SPEAKERknow exactly how the breakers work and know exactly how to turn off the water at a moment's
22:28SPEAKERnotice and I guess the gas as well.
22:30SPEAKERJust make sure that you give that stuff a trial run and are confident.
22:34SPEAKERYou don't want to have to figure that stuff out while something's on fire.
22:37SPEAKERYes.
22:37SPEAKEROr flooding or whatever.
22:38SPEAKERYeah.
22:39SPEAKERAnd the gas is bad because it can turn your house into a fuel air bomb, which will explode
22:45SPEAKERand blow.
22:46SPEAKERYou know, when that happened in San Bruno, while we were doing the Big Live Live show,
22:49SPEAKERit was a horrific disaster.
22:51SPEAKERPeople were killed.
22:51SPEAKERI still have nightmares about that incident.
22:53SPEAKERYeah.
22:53SPEAKERLike that's just one of those act of God things of like, this could happen anywhere.
22:57SPEAKERIt wasn't an act of God.
22:58SPEAKERIt was negligence on PG&E's part.
23:00SPEAKERI know exactly whose fault it was, but what I mean is there's no way to see it coming.
23:03SPEAKERYeah, no.
23:04SPEAKERLike that could happen anywhere and there's zero way to avoid it.
23:07SPEAKERWell, one of the ways you can avoid it is by knowing where the wrench is to turn on.
23:10SPEAKERBut you're right.
23:11SPEAKERWhat I mean is you on the street walking down the sidewalk, like there's no way for you
23:14SPEAKERto know it's going to happen because it happens in a split second.
23:17SPEAKERTerrible luck.
23:17SPEAKERYeah.
23:18SPEAKERA can opener.
23:19SPEAKERIt turns out it's important if you have canned food.
23:22SPEAKERGarbage bags, plastic ties, so that you have places to poop and put the poop.
23:27SPEAKERYeah.
23:28SPEAKERComposting toilet.
23:29SPEAKERIf you think you're going to have to camp in your backyard for a while is not a bad idea.
23:32SPEAKERSo you can get a five gallon drywall mud bucket and put a toilet seat on top of that.
23:37SPEAKEROkay.
23:37SPEAKERAnd put a shower curtain around it and have a nice private bathroom.
23:40SPEAKERAnd then you put sawdust on top of the poop and the pee.
23:42SPEAKERYeah.
23:43SPEAKERAnd then when you need to, you dig a hole and you dump the contents of that bucket into the hole.
23:47SPEAKERReally gives new meaning to the phrase mud bucket.
23:49SPEAKEROh boy.
23:51SPEAKERLet's move on.
23:52SPEAKERMaps, paper maps, because your phone won't work.
23:54SPEAKERYeah.
23:55SPEAKERCell phone chargers and a backup battery.
23:58SPEAKERWhen the power was out a few years ago, I was able to get for $55 or $60 a three-fold huge
24:05SPEAKERsolar panel.
24:06SPEAKERIt's two square feet, probably, that you can unfold, put in the backyard.
24:11SPEAKERYou can hook up multiples of them.
24:12SPEAKERYou angle them up toward the sun and they'll charge...
24:16SPEAKERTheoretically, you use them to charge your phone.
24:18SPEAKERI found it was much more effective to just put them in the backyard with a backup battery on it
24:21SPEAKERand let it charge a backup battery.
24:23SPEAKERI'm sure they don't come with their own batteries.
24:25SPEAKERThere's nowhere for the power to go unless you're charging something.
24:27SPEAKERSomething has to be plugged in.
24:29SPEAKERBut for 30 bucks, you can get a really nice backup battery that will charge two phones
24:36SPEAKERat this point.
24:37SPEAKERThat was a losing proposition if you used your phone very much.
24:43SPEAKERYou would never generate as much power with the sun as you would spend by spending five
24:49SPEAKERhours on the phone that day.
24:50SPEAKERSo you still want to ration your use and keep it for emergencies.
24:57SPEAKERI was going to ask, I don't know if you have any sense of the tiny little crank on this
25:00SPEAKERradio that I've got.
25:01SPEAKERIt's like a three, four-inch crank.
25:03SPEAKERI think you're going to have to crank it real hard.
25:05SPEAKERYeah, I was going to ask.
25:06SPEAKERI mean, that's probably a similar situation of you're just barely going to get any phone
25:10SPEAKERout of this, right?
25:11SPEAKERThat seems largely ineffective to me, but I don't know.
25:14SPEAKERI mean, how hard is it to crank?
25:15SPEAKERI've never tried it.
25:16SPEAKERI've never turned this thing on.
25:17SPEAKERWell, give it a try.
25:17SPEAKERLet her rip.
25:18SPEAKERI don't know what it would actually do if I.
25:21SPEAKEROh, that's okay.
25:22SPEAKEROh, the radio on?
25:23SPEAKERIt started the clock.
25:24SPEAKEROh, okay.
25:25SPEAKERWe'll set the clock real quick.
25:26SPEAKEROkay.
25:27SPEAKERI'm just going to sit here and look at this clock.
25:28SPEAKERIt says 12 PM.
25:30SPEAKERThere we go.
25:30SPEAKERNailing it.
25:31SPEAKERNot remotely accurate, but pet food.
25:33SPEAKERIf you have pets, you need food for your pets, water for your pets too.
25:36SPEAKERYes, the clock has gone off.
25:39SPEAKERYes.
25:39SPEAKERThe batteries aren't plugged in.
25:40SPEAKERPower is no longer being generated.
25:43SPEAKERPrescription meds, non-prescription meds, pain pills, antihistamines, antacids, laxatives,
25:50SPEAKERanti-diarrhea medicine, glasses and contact lens stuff.
25:56SPEAKERIf you need that, any baby stuff you need, some cash.
26:01SPEAKERWe have seeds in case society completely breaks down.
26:04SPEAKERNo kidding.
26:04SPEAKERI'm kidding.
26:05SPEAKERWe don't have seeds.
26:05SPEAKERI was going to say, that's very optimistic and forward thinking.
26:08SPEAKERLook, at some point, the only thing people are going to be able to use is the seeds.
26:12SPEAKERYeah.
26:12SPEAKERYour family documents.
26:14SPEAKERSo your passport and stuff like that.
26:15SPEAKERThe local warlord is going to require you to pay the seeds in tribute at that point.
26:19SPEAKERLook, it's either seeds or blood.
26:20SPEAKERYou can decide.
26:21SPEAKEROh, boy.
26:22SPEAKERLook, man, I got some tomatoes.
26:25SPEAKERI got some lettuce.
26:26SPEAKERI got some artichokes.
26:27SPEAKERYeah.
26:28SPEAKERTurns out he loved artichokes.
26:29SPEAKEROh, boy.
26:30SPEAKERSleeping bags for everyone.
26:31SPEAKEROkay.
26:32SPEAKEROur tent is right next to the emergency kit.
26:35SPEAKERIt's not in there, but our camping tent is there.
26:36SPEAKERThat's something you mentioned before that I haven't even thought about.
26:39SPEAKERAnd I guess different disasters are going to be different, but especially in an earthquake
26:42SPEAKERsituation, you might actually not be able to stay indoors.
26:44SPEAKERYeah.
26:44SPEAKERYou might not be able to go back in your house.
26:46SPEAKERThis might be more than just the breakdown of supply lines to keep you alive.
26:49SPEAKERIt might actually be like the structural integrity of your home has drawn away.
26:54SPEAKERSo, like I said, the tent, who knows?
26:57SPEAKEROne of the things that we got that we added is this combination pry bar, hammer, nail
27:03SPEAKERpuller.
27:03SPEAKERIt's an all-in-one kind of multi-tool sort of thing.
27:07SPEAKERIt's like a hammer scale multi-tool there.
27:09SPEAKERSo you can drive tent stakes, you can pull tent stakes out.
27:13SPEAKERIf you need to pry open a door that's jammed shut because the house shifted, you can do
27:17SPEAKERthat.
27:18SPEAKERIf you need to knock a hole in the wall, you can do that.
27:20SPEAKERThat sounds good to have.
27:20SPEAKERAnd also like an actual hand-sized multi-tool, like a Leatherman type thing.
27:23SPEAKERYeah.
27:24SPEAKERLeatherman, incredibly useful.
27:25SPEAKERAlso great to have.
27:26SPEAKERAlso, I don't know if we talked about, what is that key chain I got?
27:28SPEAKERThe Gerber Shard?
27:30SPEAKERYeah, that thing's amazing.
27:31SPEAKERSpeaking of multi-tools, Gerber Shard is the name of it.
27:34SPEAKERIt's seven bucks.
27:35SPEAKERIt's a tiny little metal.
27:37SPEAKERIt's just a machined piece of metal.
27:38SPEAKERThere's no moving parts.
27:39SPEAKERI think it's just folded and stamped probably.
27:41SPEAKERYeah.
27:43SPEAKERIt's like a pry bar.
27:44SPEAKERIt's like a little thumb-sized pry bar.
27:46SPEAKERFor pulling nails.
27:47SPEAKERThe idea, I bought one years ago because I was ruining expensive car keys by using them
27:54SPEAKERto pry stuff open.
27:55SPEAKERYeah.
27:56SPEAKERAnd this is $7, so if I ruin this, I just buy another one.
27:59SPEAKERYeah.
27:59SPEAKERBut it has a couple of bad screwdrivers that you would never use except for when you really,
28:04SPEAKERreally need a screwdriver and don't have one.
28:06SPEAKERYes, they are rough to use.
28:07SPEAKERI've tried that in a pinch if that's all you had.
28:10SPEAKERAnd a nail puller and a little bit of a sharpened edge so you can cut stuff.
28:13SPEAKERYou can open boxes.
28:15SPEAKERIt's got a can opener and bottle opener, stuff like that.
28:18SPEAKEROkay, so sleeping bags, warm blankets, tent, multiple changes of clothes appropriate for
28:23SPEAKERyour climate, shoes that you can walk in because you might have to do some serious walking.
28:26SPEAKERSo either hiking boots, tennis shoes, something ideally that's waterproof, something that's
28:30SPEAKERcomfortable.
28:31SPEAKERWaterproof, good arch support.
28:34SPEAKERBleach to disinfect water.
28:36SPEAKERSo the easiest way to disinfect water is a couple of drops of bleach in there.
28:39SPEAKEROkay.
28:40SPEAKERYeah.
28:42SPEAKER1% is solution.
28:43SPEAKERSo one part, 99 parts.
28:45SPEAKERYou mean that's what you're buying?
28:46SPEAKERNo, that's what you want to do to disinfect is my understanding.
28:49SPEAKEROkay.
28:50SPEAKERSo a couple drops per...
28:51SPEAKERI don't know.
28:51SPEAKERThat's just the idea of putting any bleach in something I'm going to drink sounds horrifying.
28:54SPEAKERDrunk pool water.
28:55SPEAKERI guess.
28:57SPEAKERLet's see.
28:58SPEAKERRainwear.
28:59SPEAKERIf you live in a rainy climate, especially while it matches in a waterproof container,
29:03SPEAKERlighters good too, those long lighters with the candle lighters with the long nose or
29:08SPEAKERmake it easy to light fires.
29:10SPEAKERI have some fire starters that are like paraffin wax.
29:14SPEAKEROkay.
29:15SPEAKERSo they're slightly flammable, but they burn for a fairly long time.
29:19SPEAKERThey're like little cubes about the size of like a dog biscuit or something.
29:22SPEAKERIt's like one inch by one inch by one inch.
29:23SPEAKERSure.
29:24SPEAKERAnd you can put them underneath your tinder and it means that you don't have to...
29:29SPEAKERIt's just an easy...
29:30SPEAKERYou don't have to have paper or anything to get a fire started if you're having a hard
29:32SPEAKERtime, cooking supplies, like a mess kit, feminine supplies, personal hygiene items.
29:39SPEAKERSo tampons, pads, all that stuff, paper and pencil, and then stuff to entertain yourself,
29:45SPEAKERbooks and games and puzzles and all that stuff.
29:48SPEAKERGod, I guess that's a situation where a Kindle is not going to be adequate anymore.
29:52SPEAKERKindle is great.
29:52SPEAKERActually, as long as it lasts.
29:54SPEAKERI mean, granted the battery lasts forever.
29:55SPEAKERSo two weeks you could charge the Kindle on the solar panel in like 10, 20 minutes probably.
29:59SPEAKERAnd I'm sure read a book.
30:00SPEAKERAnd if you're in a situation of relative luxury, you could get books downloaded over your phone.
30:05SPEAKERYeah.
30:06SPEAKERIf things aren't dire enough, you need to be worrying about more serious concerns.
30:10SPEAKEROh yeah.
30:10SPEAKERThere are ways to get more books onto your Kindle if you can
30:13SPEAKERkeep it powered and the cell connection is alive.
30:15SPEAKERAnd even when the fire was bad, I mean, if things are really bad,
30:20SPEAKERyou assume you're not gonna have internet, right?
30:21SPEAKERYeah.
30:22SPEAKERBut I remember seeing a picture during Sandy in New York where the one person on the block
30:28SPEAKERwho had power because they had a generator had run an extension cord out to the front
30:32SPEAKERwith like 55 ends on it.
30:34SPEAKERAnd everybody was there plugging in their phones and charging their phones.
30:36SPEAKERSo like community.
30:38SPEAKERCommunity comes together.
30:39SPEAKERPeople come together.
30:39SPEAKERPeople come together.
30:41SPEAKERThe other thing that the ready.gov recommends is that you keep a go bag at your workplace.
30:47SPEAKEREspecially that's intense.
30:49SPEAKERWell, like you and I wear sneakers to work, so it's not as much of an issue,
30:51SPEAKERbut it's like you wear high heels to work.
30:52SPEAKEROh, sure.
30:53SPEAKERYou want to have a pair of sneakers.
30:55SPEAKERYou want to have comfortable, warm clothes.
30:56SPEAKERProfessional business wear is not survival wear.
30:59SPEAKERNo, you want to be able to walk from your off workplace to your house
31:03SPEAKERor whatever your meeting point is for your family.
31:06SPEAKERAnd that's kind of the big stuff.
31:07SPEAKERLike books and puzzles were really important when our power was out last year.
31:11SPEAKERWe were in the house, which was a blessing.
31:13SPEAKERYou know, if you have a gas stove.
31:16SPEAKERYeah, I was gonna ask if you wanted to elaborate on the camp stove situation a little bit.
31:20SPEAKERYeah, we have...
31:21SPEAKERWhat are we talking?
31:22SPEAKERPropane?
31:23SPEAKERPutane?
31:24SPEAKERWhat's going on?
31:25SPEAKERLet's see, the main...
31:28SPEAKERI don't know what ours...
31:28SPEAKERWe have a jet boil that's good for boiling water really fast
31:32SPEAKERand making coffee and oatmeal and stuff like that that we use when we're camping.
31:35SPEAKERI want to get one of those Coleman white gas camp stoves of the two...
31:40SPEAKERKind of the two burner fold up kind that looks like a briefcase almost.
31:44SPEAKEROkay.
31:45SPEAKERJust because we do a lot of car camping now with the kiddo, not as much backpacking and stuff.
31:50SPEAKERI can't imagine there's any kind of sensible electric alternative at this point.
31:55SPEAKERI mean, you can do solar ovens and stuff like that, but those are real...
31:58SPEAKERIn my experience, those are useless.
31:59SPEAKEROkay.
32:00SPEAKERI'm sure that if you live in Arizona, they're great.
32:02SPEAKERSure.
32:02SPEAKERBut in terms of like something battery powered, I can't imagine the energy efficiency just...
32:06SPEAKERNo, you need there to cook food.
32:08SPEAKERYou want something flammable.
32:09SPEAKERThe way you can with some propane or the white gas.
32:14SPEAKERI don't know if they do the white gas anymore.
32:15SPEAKERI feel like my...
32:18SPEAKERThe jet boil thing is propane, I think.
32:21SPEAKERThe canisters last a long time.
32:23SPEAKERYou want to know how long, what your use rate of that is.
32:25SPEAKERSo experiment a little bit before you get into an actual emergency, make sure.
32:29SPEAKERBut the nice thing is you shouldn't be able to store two weeks worth of gas
32:33SPEAKERin four or five canisters at the most.
32:36SPEAKERDo you know much about the kind of relative, like the practical differences in the relative
32:40SPEAKERefficiency of your propanes and your butanes and your kerosines and...
32:43SPEAKERNo.
32:44SPEAKERJust they're all just different petrochemicals.
32:46SPEAKERYeah.
32:46SPEAKERTheir energy density is really going to be high compared to batteries though.
32:50SPEAKERWell, yeah, of course, of course.
32:51SPEAKERI just didn't know if there was one that was better in this kind of situation.
32:54SPEAKERI know very little about that stuff.
32:56SPEAKERI feel like...
32:56SPEAKERGet a chemical engineer in here.
32:58SPEAKERI feel like a lot of the reasons we use those different gases is the different volatility
33:03SPEAKERof butane versus propane probably makes a butane lighter less likely to explode.
33:08SPEAKEROkay.
33:10SPEAKERIt's like one of the...
33:12SPEAKERThis is great advice from my grandfather, but he told me never light a fire...
33:17SPEAKERNever light your burn pile with gasoline.
33:19SPEAKEROkay.
33:20SPEAKER'Cause it explodes, the vapor explodes.
33:22SPEAKERSure.
33:22SPEAKERHe used heating oil or kerosene to do that is what his recommendation was.
33:27SPEAKERYeah.
33:28SPEAKERTime-moderated advice passed down from Smith to Smith.
33:31SPEAKERIt's the best kind.
33:32SPEAKERYeah.
33:32SPEAKERIt's gotten you this far.
33:34SPEAKERI haven't killed myself yet.
33:35SPEAKERI don't burn a lot of brush piles, it turns out, in these days.
33:38SPEAKERMy parents here last week, I have some brush in the yard 'cause I have to do the thing
33:43SPEAKERwhere you trim trees and then dull it out to the compost over a period of two or three
33:48SPEAKERweeks to get rid of it all.
33:49SPEAKERThey're like, "Well, oh, right.
33:51SPEAKERYou can't just do a burn pile here, right?"
33:53SPEAKERI was like, "No, you can't just do a burn pile in the suburbs."
33:55SPEAKERNot such a good idea.
33:56SPEAKERIt would be frowned upon.
33:57SPEAKEREspecially such a fire-prone area.
33:59SPEAKERYeah.
34:00SPEAKERSo yeah, that's the kind of high points.
34:03SPEAKEROkay.
34:03SPEAKERI think the Kindle is a good add to the kit.
34:07SPEAKERYeah.
34:08SPEAKERWhen I first thought of it in my mind, it seemed kind of frivolous, but I guess because
34:11SPEAKERthe battery does last so long, it actually isn't the worst thing to have.
34:15SPEAKERYeah, the biggest problem we had when the power was out, especially with kids, was keeping
34:22SPEAKEReverybody entertained.
34:23SPEAKERPeople going stir crazy.
34:25SPEAKERYeah.
34:25SPEAKERAnd then you also have to think about things like, even if the power is just out, which
34:29SPEAKERis all we had where we were, the street lights and stuff all went out.
34:33SPEAKERAll of the infrastructure stuff went out.
34:34SPEAKERSo no cell phone, even if we had had battery backup on our internet, it wouldn't have
34:40SPEAKERworked.
34:42SPEAKERSo you're going to have a lot more time than you're used to, and you're not going
34:45SPEAKERto be able to fill it with Netflix or your video games or whatever it is you do for fun.
34:49SPEAKERDefinitely not.
34:50SPEAKERSo, you know, board games, it turns out are real handy.
34:53SPEAKERYeah.
34:53SPEAKERYeah.
34:53SPEAKERGrowing up in the deck of cards, too.
34:55SPEAKERI don't know how much you had to deal with this, but growing up in a heavily wooded part
34:58SPEAKERof North Carolina.
34:59SPEAKERI just went on walks a lot.
35:01SPEAKEREspecially a part where Duke Power was not interested in ever burying the power lines.
35:05SPEAKERYeah.
35:06SPEAKERWe definitely dealt with extended power outages just about every year.
35:09SPEAKERLike the worst was probably like four or five days at a time.
35:12SPEAKEROh, God.
35:14SPEAKERWe had a bunch of like three, four days, and then we had one that was two weeks when we
35:18SPEAKERhad an ice storm.
35:19SPEAKERDid you guys have a well?
35:20SPEAKERNo.
35:20SPEAKERThat's the real problem.
35:21SPEAKERYeah.
35:23SPEAKERMy parents are on a well now.
35:24SPEAKERThey have a generator because they're on a well.
35:26SPEAKERMy parents do too now, but they certainly did not want to ask for a well.
35:29SPEAKERBack then they were a lot more expensive.
35:30SPEAKERThat meant that when the power was out, the water was also out.
35:33SPEAKERSo you were not flushing any toilets, you were not bathing, you were kind of in, yeah.
35:38SPEAKERWhen I was at my grandmother's one year, she was on a well and we would walk down to the
35:41SPEAKERcreek and get water to flush toilets.
35:44SPEAKEROh, that's a good idea.
35:45SPEAKERWe would carry like a 10 gallon bucket back because you can just, if you don't know, you
35:49SPEAKERjust pour the water at the top of the toilet and then you flush like normal.
35:52SPEAKERYeah, that's just physics at that point.
35:54SPEAKERYeah.
35:54SPEAKERBut my father growing up in Virginia used to tell stories of multi-week power outages
36:00SPEAKERon a well and it sounded horrific.
36:02SPEAKERYes.
36:04SPEAKERSo I'm glad we're past that.
36:05SPEAKERTake care of yourself.
36:06SPEAKERGet, prepare yourself.
36:07SPEAKERJust be ready.
36:08SPEAKERYou know.
36:10SPEAKERLook, this is a thing you can go to Costco, you can buy a big garbage can that has most
36:15SPEAKERof the stuff in here that you'll need that'll serve as a base layer.
36:18SPEAKERYeah.
36:19SPEAKERYou're talking something like with a lid that would be waterproof.
36:21SPEAKERYeah.
36:24SPEAKEROurs is in the garage just because we have a small backyard, but ideally you'd put in
36:28SPEAKERthe backyard in a covered area where it's protected from sun and just leave it out there
36:34SPEAKERfor the core stuff.
36:35SPEAKERAnd I feel like if we can't get into the garage, we have larger problems.
36:39SPEAKERTotally.
36:40SPEAKERThat's past the Mad Max threshold.
36:41SPEAKERYeah, that's definitely past the Mad Max threshold.
36:44SPEAKERYeah.
36:44SPEAKERI don't want to be a doomsayer or anything, but as talk about more extreme climate disasters
36:50SPEAKERkeeps ramping up, it's not the worst idea to think about this stuff.
36:53SPEAKERThe way I look at it is if you're prepared and you don't require, you don't have to go
36:57SPEAKERto a shelter, you don't have to rely on other people, you can also avoid a lot of the other
37:02SPEAKERafter effects of bad natural disasters, like the secondary diseases that people get and
37:09SPEAKERspread due to close proximity and bad conditions and all that.
37:13SPEAKERYeah.
37:13SPEAKERCheery episode.
37:14SPEAKERYeah, this is a real heartbeat.
37:16SPEAKERWell, but I mean, look, ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
37:20SPEAKERThere's that Smith wisdom again.
37:21SPEAKERYeah, there we go.
37:24SPEAKERLet's see if you have questions or I would love to hear what you all have put in your
37:28SPEAKERkits, especially people who've been through disasters, because I know we have some listeners
37:31SPEAKERwho were in Houston and in Louisiana and in New York and all sorts of places that they've
37:36SPEAKERbeen actually impacted by this stuff.
37:38SPEAKERSo I would love to hear the stuff that you would add to your kit after this.
37:42SPEAKERHonestly, I could not have enough battery backups.
37:46SPEAKERCigarette lighter phone chargers are good, because then you can charge off your...
37:49SPEAKERGet a fast charge in your car.
37:51SPEAKERWe would often go for a drive when our power was out and recharge the battery backups that
37:56SPEAKERway, because that was faster than the solar panel.
37:58SPEAKERSure.
37:59SPEAKERBut yeah, let us know what's in your kits, let us know what you learned in your disasters,
38:02SPEAKERlet us know what you would do different, let us know what we said was what the government
38:05SPEAKERsays is wrong.
38:07SPEAKERAnd the email address is techpod@content.town.
38:10SPEAKERWe'll be back next week with more TechPod.
38:12SPEAKERThanks, Will.
38:13SPEAKERThanks, Brad.
38:13SPEAKERSee you next time.
38:14SPEAKERBye.
38:29SPEAKERBye.