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ill title  The Hitchhiker's guide to Survival!


From Urban, Jungle, Desert, Ocean, Snow, Disasters, or Warfare... As Nick Nolte would say: "If you survived all that, you deserve to Live!"



xx Quality of Life Tech
Yesterday at 12:01:51 AM by himself
Human exoskeleton suit

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSLP27939120080825?rpc=64

Quote
By Ari Rabinovitch

HAIFA, Israel (Reuters) - paralyzed for the past 20 years, former Israeli paratrooper Radi Kaiof now walks down the street with a dim mechanical hum.

That is the sound of an electronic exoskeleton moving the 41-year-old's legs and propelling him forward -- with a proud expression on his face -- as passersby stare in surprise.

"I never dreamed I would walk again. After I was wounded, I forgot what it's like," said Kaiof, who was injured while serving in the Israeli military in 1988.

"Only when standing up can I feel how tall I really am and speak to people eye to eye, not from below."

The device, called ReWalk, is the brainchild of engineer Amit Goffer, founder of Argo Medical Technologies, a small Israeli high-tech company.

Something of a mix between the exoskeleton of a crustacean and the suit worn by comic hero Iron Man, ReWalk helps paraplegics -- people paralyzed below the waist -- to stand, walk and climb stairs.

Goffer himself was paralyzed in an accident in 1997 but he cannot use his own invention because he does not have full function of his arms.

The system, which requires crutches to help with balance, consists of motorized leg supports, body sensors and a back pack containing a computerized control box and rechargeable batteries.
p2 continued:
Human exoskeleton suit helps paralyzed people walk
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSLP27939120080825?rpc=64&pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0
Quote
The user picks a setting with a remote control wrist band -- stand, sit, walk, descend or climb -- and then leans forward, activating the body sensors and setting the robotic legs in motion.

"It raises people out of their wheelchair and lets them stand up straight," Goffer said. "It's not just...
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xx Flour Storage {siguie method}
August 02, 2008, 04:40:37 PM by siguie
I mentioned this before but some people seemed to like the idea of eating weavels  yucky BUT I purchased another 50lbs of bread flour from Costco last night and figured I'd just take some photos to post.

The main thing to remember here is that a 5% CO2 atmosphere essentially kills or prevents anything from growing in your flour. If you want to use other inert atmospheres like nitrogen or nitrous oxide then you need 80% plus and really should shoot for 98%. CO2 just seems like the best choice especially since you can make your own trivially.


The procedure is very straight forward, I transfer 50lbs of flour into 1 gallon ziplocks, leave a little room at the top and squeeze out as much air as possible. You can use vacuum systems or a syringe with a plastic hose tp get out the last bits if you like. I then charge my whip cream dispenser with a CO2 cartridge and reinflate the bags with roughly 100 to 200ml of CO2 then seal it.



I let the bags sit for 30 minutes to an hour so the CO2 has a chance to diffuse around then squeeze out as much of the remaining air/gas as possible.  I then end up with 10x5lb bags of bread flour biggrin




For most people this should be good enough with storage in a cool dry place for the flour to last atleast a year. I however place all of the bags in a larger bag placed inside a large rubbermaid storage container. I then fill this bag and container with CO2 as well but there is no rush and I use CO2 from a yeast system. This is just a precaution in case the ziplocks are not air tight.

The main reason for not filling your ziplocks of flour this way is that the yeasty CO2 is very humid ... there are ways to dry and use it BU...
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xx Going Cold Turkey...or Cold Anything...
July 06, 2008, 12:30:40 PM by Phoenix
7 Fat and 7 Lean Years



Click Source

There is no cheese, no butter, no dry milk powder, no grains or anything else left [in US government reserve] ... The only thing left in the entire CCC inventory will be 5.73 million bushels of wheat which is about enough wheat to make one half loaf of bread, for each of the 300 million people in America...  [According to the May 1, 2008, CCC inventory report, USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation].
--Larry Matlack, President of the American Agricultural Movement

Long time ago Pharaoh asked Joseph to interpret a dream about seven fat and seven scrawny cattle, and--double trouble--seven fat and seven skimpy heads of grain. Joseph described the dream as a warning to make preparations for seven years of hardship, to act pre-emptively, during seven years of plenty. He ordered the granaries filled so that people would not starve when crops failed and famine hit.

If such ancient foresight and investment have not yet been implemented by the “bread basket of the world,” America, in the 21st century, where does that leave us? What are the precedents and the possibilities? How do we the people implement economics, as if people mattered?

Boom and bust cycles are natural and recurring events, chronicled back to the Middle Ages by a Soviet economist, Kondratieff. Stalin gave him the task of finding a way to destroy the West economically. Kondratieff reported back to Stalin that the destruction was cyclical, self-induced, and inevitable. Boom years of great crop yields and prosperity were also times of credit excess, borrowing, and mal-investment. Bank failures, crop failures, drought, flash floods, locusts, and blights followed boom years. Debts were called in, properties foreclosed upon, in a great and grinding transfer of wealth to the bank...
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xx Wonder Wash
June 23, 2008, 05:48:21 PM by siguie
This was something that was missing here ... whistle

I just thought of it with Asiel's washer going RIP candle

Anywho I'm not recommending it as a washer, it's really more of a water conservation thing BUT it's pretty cool for only $42.95 downunder




Quote from: Phoenix
I got your Laundry problem solved Siguie...
To Dry just hang it on the clothes line!

Wonder Wash (tm)
 



Why Use the Wonder Wash?

    * Washes a 5-lb. load super clean in just a couple of minutes.
    * Has a patented pressure system that forces detergent into the fabric at high speed for a fast, efficient, economic and very easy wash
    * Is ideal for campers, single persons and even for the housewife with small frequent loads like hand washables and diapers.
    * Is ideal for delicates such as woolens, silks, knitted dresses and cashmere garments.
    * Uses far less water than even hand washing.


$42.95

http://www.laundry-alternative.com/washing.htm
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xx Deep Antarctic Waters Freshening
April 19, 2008, 08:57:53 AM by The Shadow
Freshening of deep Antarctic waters worries experts

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Scientists studying the icy depths of the sea around Antarctica have detected changes in salinity that could have profound effects on the world's climate and ocean currents.

The scientists returned to the southern Australian city of Hobart on Thursday after a one-month voyage studying the Southern Ocean to see how it is changing and what those changes might mean for global climate patterns.

Voyage leader Steve Rintoul said his team found that salty, dense water that sinks near the edge of Antarctica to the bottom of the ocean about 5 km (3 miles) down was becoming fresher and more buoyant.

So-called Antarctic bottom water helps power the great ocean conveyor belt, a system of currents spanning the Southern, Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans that shifts heat around the globe.

"The main reason we're paying attention to this is because it is one of the switches in the climate system and we need to know if we are about to flip that switch or not," said Rintoul of Australia's government-backed research arm the CSIRO.

"If that freshening trend continues for long enough, eventually the water near Antarctica would be too light, too buoyant to sink and that limb of the global-scale circulation would shut down," he said on Friday.

Cold, salty water also sinks to the depths in the far north Atlantic Ocean near Greenland and, together with the vast amount of water that sinks off Antarctica, this drives the ocean conveyor belt.

This system brings warm water into the far north Atlantic, making Europe warmer than it would otherwise be, and also drives the large flow of upper ocean water from the tropical Pacific to the Indian Ocean through the Indonesia Archipelago.

If these currents were to slow or stop, the world's climate would eventually be thrown into chaos.

"We don't see any evidence yet that...
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