On a boat in cold water? – You should know these 5 things

1. You better be wearing a life jacket before you end up in the water.

The gasp reflex in action (source: 3Nues)

Cold water forces a rapid, uncontrollable gasping in everyone and that lasts from 1-3 minutes. If you happen to gasp while your mouth is underwater, you will draw the cold water into your windpipe and lungs which can then spasm and contract. Even if you manage to get your mouth above water, you may still not be able to clear the water and get enough oxygen. If things go really wrong, your epiglottis may spasm closed and you will dry drown. (The epiglottis is the cartilage flap that keeps liquid out of your lungs when you drink.)

There is some evidence that keeping the cold water off your face and head may lessen the gasp reflex. That is why you want the life jacket on before you hit the water. It helps to keep your face and mouth out of the water. The initial immersion in cold water causes a sudden constriction of surface blood vessels which causes an immediate jump in blood pressure and heart rate; sometimes to maximum heart rate. If your heart cannot handle this jump, it stops and you die. This seldom happens in healthy and fit people but the danger is still there. If you have a choice, make sure to wear a life jacket that is self-righting so that it keeps your face out of the water if you are unconscious….

Other tips: Delay or avoid getting in the water. Enter the water as slowly as possible. Wear protective clothing. Even poor clothing is better than no clothing. Wool or synthetic fleece still provides some insulation when wet.

2. You better have some waterproof way to signal for help on your person and you better know how to use it.

Your best chance for survival is to get help from someone else. In cold water, you only have about 10 minutes of meaningful movement before your muscle and nerve tissue ceases to function. You need to use those first 10 minutes to get help on the way. You do not want to squander those first 10 minutes trying to recover your communication device. Swimming around looking for it will just exhaust you and even if you find it you may then lack the physical dexterity to use it. It needs to be on you, waterproof and you need to know how to use it. Of course, if you don't have your life jacket on before you hit the water, you won't be doing anything except trying to keep your head above water or getting the jacket on. You will be wasting valuable time that you could have used to get help on the way. You will also be reducing the time you can survive in the water until help arrives. A cell phone in a zip lock bag can work if you know that you will have signal and you have the appropriate numbers on speed dial.

3. Don't swim to shore unless it is your last option and it is very close.

Your ability to swim in warm water has no relation to your ability to swim in cold water. On March 6th, 1968, nine elite marines, trained as water survival instructors, capsized while paddling across the Potomac River. Not one of them was wearing a life jacket and not one of them was able to swim the 100 yards to shore in the 36 °F water. Every single one of them drowned. Had they been wearing life jackets the results could have been very different. Remember, you only have about 10 minutes of meaningful movement. If you don’t have a life jacket on you will expend most of your energy keeping your mouth out of the water instead of propelling yourself forward. Self rescue is a complicated decision. The temperature of the water, the water conditions, your level of fitness, your clothing will all be a factor. Self rescue by swimming should only be attempted if you are sure it is your best chance for survival and that you can accomplish it in the time that you still have meaningful movement. If help is on the way, your best chance of survival may be to stay still. You have about an hour before you lose consciousness but only if you remain still.

What is very close? It depends on many factors but here are some ball park figures; Less than 100 yards in ice water and less than a quarter mile in 45 °F water. Both are assuming you have a life jacket on and you are a good swimmer. Weather conditions, clothing, etc. could reduce these figures markedly.

4. You can remain conscious for one hour in freezing cold water if you don't thrash around.

The Heat Escape Lessening Position: Used to conserve heat

Dr. Gordon Giesbrecht (University of Manitoba) studies cold water survival and he has come up with a guideline to remember what to do if you find yourself immersed in cold water. He calls it ‘1-10-1’. You have 1 minute to get your breathing under control from the initial cold shock response. Then you have 10 minutes of meaningful movement in which you can rescue yourself or signal for help. Then you have about 1 hour before you lose consciousness from the cold. If you are forced to wait for help, you will want to adopt a posture such as H.E.L.P to reduce heat loss.

5. You can die after you have been rescued.

In 1980, sixteen Danish fishermen were forced to jump into the North Sea after their fishing boat floundered. After about 1.5 hours in the water another boat approached and lowered a cargo net which they used to climb on board. They thanked their rescuers and they walked across the deck and went below to the galley where they were supposed to have hot drinks and warm up. Instead, all sixteen of them dropped dead. They suffered from profound acute hypothermia.

To understand how this might have been prevented, we need to understand what happens as hypothermia develops.

Chronic hypothermia is the lowering of the core temperature below 95 °F (35 °C) over a period of six hours or longer. This develops by simply not having enough clothing to maintain a thermal balance with the environment. The body uses vasoconstriction to reduce heat loss to the extremities by shutting down blood flow to them. The rescue of a chronic hypothermic individual requires the prevention of further heat loss. When the core temperature is above 90 °F (32 °C) virtually any method of handling the victim is fine. Heat may be added rapidly or slowly. The victim may engage in any activity they want. Just get them heat, shelter, food, hydration and rest.

Profound chronic hypothermia occurs when the core temperature is slowly lowered (six hours or more) to below 90 °F (32 °C). The vasoconstriction at this point will have caused a profound dehydration and a compacting and alteration of the blood to allow the tremendous decrease in blood volume. This individual needs to be handled very carefully. Rapid heat replacement can cause ‘rewarming shock’. This person needs gentle handling, slow addition of heat, prevention of further heat loss and litter evacuation. They cannot simply be wrapped up in a sleeping bag because they lack the energy to regenerate their lost body heat and rapid warming will likely kill them.

Acute hypothermia occurs when a person is subjected to a massive heat loss occurring in two hours or less (Like cold water immersion) The body doesn’t have time to make changes to the blood composition or volume. The danger is that even after rescue the core temperature can continue to drop to lethal levels because of the huge heat deficit. They can be allowed to move around but they need heat fast.

Profound acute hypothermia is when the person has been immersed for more than half the time it is expected that they would reach a lethal temperature. For example: If a naked person in ice water was expected to reach a lethal core temperature in one hour, they would be considered profoundly acute after half an hour of immersion. Profound acute hypothermics must not be allowed to run around. Often they are able to do so but it causes a massive movement of blood into the cold muscles and back to the core. This causes a temperature afterdrop that only adds to the massive heat deficit. The ideal treatment is rapid heat replacement such as a hot water bath of 110 °F (43 °C). If a bath is not available a large fire will do.

Profound acute hypothermia can progress to profound chronic hypothermia after the 2 hour mark of cold water immersion. Somewhere between 2-6 hours the body starts making changes to blood composition and it becomes more and more dangerous to rewarm the victim rapidly. They need to be treated as a profound chronic hypothermic.

Great videos to show you more

Cold water boating video (Alaska Office of Boating Safety) Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

Part 5:

Part 6:

Part 7:

References

1.) Dr. Gordon Giesbrecht has a wealth of information on his website. Including demonstrations of him falling through ice on a frozen lake and what to do to escape.

2.) Basic Essentials Hypothermia, by William W. Forgey A very good guide to hypothermia.

3.) Cold Water Boot Camp was a video produced by the US Coast Guard about cold water survival. It shows some good footage of average people being subjected to immersion in 45F water and how it diminishes their ability to swim.

4.) Jane Blockley has written some excellent cold water safety guides and some hypothermia guidelines. Nice summaries of current information.

5.) Survival in Cold Waters: Staying Alive by the Canadian Department of Transport. This (.pdf) document is VERY in depth.

6.) Sudden Failure of Swimming in Cold Water – W. R. Keatinge, C. Prys-Roberts, K. E. Cooper, A. J. Honour, and J. Haight. An interesting medical study from 1969.

July 12, 2011

Place Marker for articles related to Power

Stuff about Power here

July 12, 2011

Five ways to find north if you don’t have a compass

A decent compass is so inexpensive that everyone should own one. But if for some reason you find yourself trying to locate north without a compass, here are some techniques to get you pointed in the right direction. I’ve organized them from most accurate to least accurate. If two methods are equally accurate, then I have listed the easier one first.

1.) Locate the North Star. This method will accurately show you true north but it only works at night , in the Northern Hemisphere and when you have a clear view of the sky.

(How to find The North Star – Click for larger image)

The North Star (also known as Polaris) is almost directly above the North Pole. It is not the brightest star in the sky. It appears to be about as bright as the two pointer stars in the Big Dipper. Just follow the pointer stars and at about 5 times the distance between the two pointer stars you will find the North Star. How high the North Star is in the sky depends upon your latitude. If you are in Northern Alaska, the North Star will appear almost over head. If you are in the Florida Keys, the North Star will be much closer to the horizon.

2.) Use a shadow to find north. This works if the sun is bright enough to cast a clear shadow. The first method is a bit crude and it isn’t very accurate but the second method is very accurate but difficult to implement in the field.

(Click for larger image)

Method 1 – Quick and dirty

Step 1. Place a stick (about 3ft long) into the ground at a clear, level spot where it will cast a distinctive shadow. Mark the shadow’s tip. (Use a stone, twig, etc.) This first shadow mark is the west side of the line you are about to draw in Step 3.

Step 2. Wait 10 to 15 minutes until the shadow tip moves. Mark the shadow tip’s new position.

Step 3. Draw a straight line through the two marks to obtain an approximate east-west line.

Step 4. Stand with the first mark (west) to your left and the second mark to your right–you are now facing north.

This fact is true everywhere on earth. I’ve tested this method with a compass and it does get you pointed ‘approximately’ north.

The time of day, the straightness of the stick, how perpendicular the stick is to the ground, how level the ground is, all affect the accuracy. It is possible to very accurately find true north with the shadow method but it isn’t practical for use in the field.

Method 2 – Accurate but difficult (described below).

Click the image on the left to learn how to accurately find north using a shadow

3.) Using a watch face and the sun to find north/south. At solar noon (when the sun is at the highest point in the sky), the sun is due south in northern hemisphere You can use this fact and a functional watch set to the correct time for your time zone to estimate where the sun will be (or was) at noon. This method will be most accurate if you are physically close to the middle of your time zone. If you are in the middle of a time zone, then noon in the time zone should be very close to solar noon (when the sun is highest in the sky). This method is also more accurate the farther you are from the equator. Here’s how to do it:

(Using a watch to find North/South)

In the northern hemisphere, hold the watch horizontal and point the hour hand at the sun. Bisect the angle between the hour hand and the 12 o’clock mark to get the north-south line. This will point to where the sun was (or will be) at noon.

In the southern hemisphere, point the watch’s 12 o’clock mark toward the sun and a midpoint halfway between 12 and the hour hand will give you the north-south line

If your watch is digital, just draw the face of an analog watch on a piece of paper and use that instead.

4. Make a compass from a needle. Magnetize a small needle (by rubbing it back and forth from eye to point about 100 times with a piece of silk or wool) then float it on a leaf or something small and it will point to magnetic north/south. It works pretty well if you can figure out which end is north and which is south. Note that it only points you to magnetic north not true north. They may be very different depending on your location.

5.) Using a crescent moon to find south. If you are in the northern hemisphere, and you draw a line from the horns of a crescent moon to the ground, the point where the line intersects the ground should be south. It is a crude approximation but it is better than nothing.

(Using the shadow on the moon to find North/South)

I haven’t had a chance to test this extensively but it seems to work with the limited number of test cases that I tried. I hope to track the moon for a month and see how well it works.

July 12, 2011

Need to secure your home on a budget?

Source: epicture

You don't need to spend lots of money to feel more secure in your home but you do need to have a plan. Most homeowners put little or no thought into home security and, as a result, the thieves benefit. With some observation and careful thought you can create a plan that makes thieves skip your house and move on to something easier.

The plan starts with the realization that there is no such thing as absolute security. The goal isn't to turn your home an impenetrable fortress. (Although there is something romantic about the idea of living in a castle with a moat.) The goal is to make your home an unattractive target for thieves. This can be done without turning your home into a prison compound or breaking your budget.

Know thy Enemy:

Let's plan smarter and not harder and start by looking at the statistics to define the typical burglar. Every year, the FBI compiles a Uniform Crime Report. There is lots of information to be gleaned from the report. The exact percentages change from year to year but these things are constant.

The typical burglar is an inexperienced male teenager that lives within 2 miles of your home.
Most burglaries happen during the middle of the day while the owners are at work.
Most burglars enter through the front door, back door, or first story window (in that order).
First stop is the master bedroom, where they search (trash is more like it) the dressers and closets.(Under the bed, under the mattress and the freezer in the kitchen are popular places to search as well)
Favorite items:cash, jewelry, electronics, silver, guns
Average time they spend in the house: 8-12 minutes.

While this profile gives us some valuable insight, it leaves out some important information I have learned from talking with law enforcement.The first is that the burglars don't care how much destruction they cause to your home.They have no problem doing thousands of dollars of damage to get something that will net them $20. All they care about is getting what they want. The second is that the more advanced criminals have a different skill set than you do. Just because you don't know how to get past a particular lock or obstacle doesn't mean that they don't. It is a mistake to underestimate how creative and skilled they can be at getting around common defenses. Tailor your defenses to their skill set not to yours.

It is worth it to look more in depth at the types of criminals the home owner is up against. The typical burglar as described above falls mostly into the category of the "smash and dash" thief. Keep in mind that each of these categories represent a range of experience. The thieves start our inexperienced and as their life in crime progresses they develop skill and confidence.

Type 1 – The honest thief

This thief will steal when there is an opportunity but won't destroy things to do it. If they happen to see your iPod lying on the seat of your car and the window is open, they will reach in and grab it but they won't break your window to do so. If an item is lying on your porch or in your garage and the door is open, they may grab it and dash. Pickpockets fall into this category. I know of one instance where some honest thieves walked into a house party, as if they belonged there, grabbed all the purses that were piled up with the coats, and walked back out the door.

Type 2 – The smasher and dasher

These are honest thieves that have graduated to doing damage in order to get what they want. When they are inexperienced, not a lot of planning goes into their actions and they don't carry sophisticated tools. A shoe, a jacket wrapped around the arm, or some item from your yard is used to break into your home. They may see a laptop though a window and decide to break the window before dashing off with the laptop. As they gain more experience and confidence they enter the home and head for the locations most people keep their valuables. They are going to toss out the contents of your dresser and your closet shelves. In extreme cases, they take pride in trashing your house and they may purposely do damage just because they can. Mostly they are selling items for drug money.

Type 3 – The Prowler

The prowler has graduated from "smashing and dashing" and even though they may still smash to get in, they are going to linger around until you are picked clean. They typically work with an accomplice or two and they are well connected to crime networks so they can fence the goods that they are stealing from your home. With a lookout, they may break into your home, pick through all your possessions and then either the accomplice pulls up in a car or they steal your car and drive away with all your stuff. The prowler, with his more sophisticated network, is also interested in identity theft. Clearing your name can be a much greater aggravation than having your stuff stolen. The prowler is usually stealing for a living. They are more skilled at entry and may even disguise themselves as delivery or repair men. They may become aggressive if interrupted and they may be on their way to more serious crimes like rape and murder. Prowlers are realistically the worst type of thief you will have to guard against.

Type 4 – The Professional

Most people will never have to worry about a professional thief. Professional thieves can make a living off of 1 or 2 high yield jobs each year. They aren't interested in the small stuff that can be sold at a pawn shop. They are likely working with an informant at your insurance agency. They are likely to know what you have and how you have it protected. Most people don't have anything so valuable as to attract the attention of a professional thief. In theory, you protect against them just like the other thieves but your defenses will have to be much more professional to thwart their attempts.

So how do you make your home unattractive to prowlers?

Know your enemies enemy

It all comes down to the risk/reward ratio. You can't count on the criminals to be stupid. But you can count on the fact that they have a self preservation mechanism. After all, they are only looking out for themselves. That is why they are in this line of work. When they sense that the risk is too much for the reward, they will move on to another target. To increase the risk to reward ratio you have two main weapons at your disposal.

Increase the chances that someone will be alerted to their presence
Physically slow down the burglar so it takes them more time or requires more effort

There is a third deterrent of being identified but this isn't a concern to the more hardened and experienced criminals. They often have several outstanding arrest warrants. They are confident, to the point of cocky, that they won't get caught.

Your security plan should have many layers

The problem with most homes is that the owner hasn't thought about security and they are using the default plan which is locked doors and windows. This is one single layer of security and it is a passive layer at that. It isn't possible to know what any one potential burglar is thinking when they get to the edge of your property. Any measure by itself may not be a deterrent all by itself. Signs of an alarm may not bother one burglar but completely deter another. That is why layers are important. Each layer improves your chances of having a measure that deters the thief that shows up at your door.

Not only should you have layers but they should have active and passive elements

A locked door is a passive security measure. An alarm system is an active measure. Try to include both in each layer of your security; starting from the outside and working your way into the home.

Edge of Your Property


Defense	Active/Passive	Alert	Slow	Cost	Comment
Alarm Stickers/Signs	Passive	Yes*	No	$20	*the fear of alert is what counts
No obvious hiding spots	Passive	No*	No	$0-50	*Increases chances they will be spotted
Visible part of the alarm	Active (if part of alarm)	Yes*	No	<$100	*Can be fake or part of an alarm system
Physical Fence	Passive	No	Yes	moderate	Works well in rural areas
Proximity Alerts	Active	Yes	Maybe	Low	Driveway alarm or Dogs
Signs you are home	Can be both	Yes	No	<$20	Increases risk to burglar
Other visual deterrents	Passive	No	No	<$20	Use common fears & psychology

Alarm Stickers/ Signs – inexpensive and they work by making the thief think that you have an alarm. If an alarm is a deterrent to the thief, then the stickers should be enough. Keep in mind that a smash and dash thief may not care if you have an alarm because they are planning on being gone before anyone shows up to check on the alarm.

No obvious hiding spots – Look at your property and remove all the hiding spots that would allow the thief to work unseen. You can trim bushes, lock the gate to the backyard, install motion lights, etc. Do whatever you need to do to make it difficult for a thief.

Visible part of the alarm – This can be a fake siren & strobe or it could be part of a real alarm system that will visually and audibly alert neighbors. Thieves notice details. If your home seems organized and they see multiple signs that you have thought about security, your home becomes a less attractive target. The visible part of an alarm can help to create this impression. Thieves want easy targets.

Physical fence with a locked gate –This works well in rural areas where there is open space between the property line and the house. If they have to jump a fence and run across an acre of open land to get to the house, it makes them much more visible. They also have to carry their loot back across the land and over the fence to get away.

Proximity alerts work just like an entry chime for a store. They let everyone within earshot know that someone is there. This could be dogs that bark or an electronic driveway chime. Make sure your solution keeps the false positives to a minimum or the alert will just be ignored. Burglars hate noisy dogs.

Signs you are home – Do anything you can do to make it appear that you are home. This isn’t just for vacations where you stop the mail and paper delivery so they don’t pile up. Empty houses are still and quiet. Anything you can do to create motion and normal household noises can be a deterrent. Use motion sensors that activate an outlet inside the house. Plug a radio, TV or fan into the outlet so that noise or motion is created inside the house.

Other visual deterrents – This is a long shot but it is worth mentioning. Since burglars are people too, use some basic psychology to make your home a less attractive target. This can be the threatening signs like "Forget the dog beware of the owner" or it could be something crazy like a fake sign from the Health Department saying the house is quarantined because of infectious TB. Get creative without freaking the neighbors out.

Close to Your House


Defense	Active/Passive	Alert	Slow	Cost	Comment
Unfriendly Barriers	Passive	No	Yes	Low	Bushes, moats, caltrops
Curtains/Blinds	Passive	No	No	Low	Remove items from sight
Lock gates to backyard	Passive	No	Yes	<$20	Deny easy access
Motion Lights	Active	Maybe	No	Low	Don't allow them to be disabled
Other Motion Devices	Active	Yes	No	Low	Sprayer, Electronic Dog
Video Cameras	Active	*Yes	No	Low-Mod	*If they fear identification

Unfriendly barriers such as rose bushes, pyracantha, barberry, Japanese rose, Oregon grape, holly, blackberry or raspberry, bougainvillea, natal plums, spine tipped yucca, prickly pear cactus can be used as barriers to keep thieves from being someplace they shouldn’t be. It doesn’t have to be a bush, you could use a metal sculpture or water feature as a barrier. You could use barbed wire or an electric fence too but there really isn’t a need to make your yard look like a prison yard. A little creativity and some careful thought can go a long way.

Curtains/Blinds can be used to keep potential thieves from scouting your home for valuables. No need to let them have a clear view into your home. Don’t give them more information.

Locking the gates to your backyard makes it more difficult for thieves to get into your backyard where they can work in privacy. If you have dogs that live in the backyard, it also keeps them from opening the gate and letting the dogs out.

Motion lights can be used to keep thieves from hiding in the dark. Most burglaries don’t happen at night. If you do use motion lights, try to take measures to make sure the potential burglar doesn’t just disable it (remove/break the bulb).

Other motion devices – Two interesting devices that might be useful are the electronic watchdog and motion sprayers used to keep wildlife away from gardens. Obviously how well they will work for you is very dependent on your situation.

Video cameras can be real or fake and should help to convince the thief you are really serious about security. If they are fake, they need to be convincing. If they are real, they won’t actually stop a burglar but at least you will have video memories of who stole all your stuff.

Entry Points


Defense	Active/Passive	Alert	Slow	Cost	Comment
Security doors and locks	Passive	No	Yes	Mod	Door frame too
Window bars	Passive	No	Yes	Mod	Ugly, Potential fire hazard
Window security film	Passive	No	Yes	Mod	Improves safety too
Monitored Alarm System	Active	Yes	No	Mod – High	Needs to be well thought out

Security doors and locks – It is important to have strong doors, locks and a good door frame. The front door is the main entry point. Burglars either kick it in or pry it open. The weakness of most often in the door frame itself. If you have a window by the front door, they can break it out and then unlock the door. Assess your door and make sure you have a solid door and a good deadbolt lock that extends well into the door frame. You might consider a security product like Door Jamb Armor to strengthen your door jamb. Locks that are resistant to bump keys may also be a wise investment. You can read more about bump keying in this article (.PDF file). An outer security or storm door can also help by forcing them to defeat multiple doors.

Window bars work to prevent entry but they are ugly and can be a fire hazard. If it stops a thief from entering, then it can stop you from exiting. This is not good during a house fire. You can buy bars that can be released from inside the house to mitigate the fire hazard but there are more elegant solutions to keep thieves from climbing in your windows. (See unfriendly barriers above) Besides it is the thieves that should live behind bars and not you.

Window slide locks – stop the window from opening more than it already is. This can be simple wooden rod or a more elaborate device. Thieves see a cracked window as an invitation. They WILL come test to see how well your slide lock mechanism works. They can be very adept at knocking that wooden rod out of the way. If you are going to keep windows cracked, try to restrict it to windows that aren’t going the catch the eye of a passing thief and invest in a quality mechanism to stop the window from opening.

Window Film – A clear film (3M makes some very good security films) can be applied to your windows to make them very entry resistant. This makes it much more difficult to gain access to the home via a broken window.

Monitored Alarm System – A good alarm system can be very helpful but it should not be the entirety of you home security plan. Alarms, just like all other measures, have weaknesses. An alarm may not deter a smash and dash thief. They are only in the home for an average of 8-12 minutes and they plan on being gone before a response arrives. If your alarm isn’t well thought out and installed, thieves may disable it by smashing the control panel, or cutting the power to phone lines. If you forget to set your alarm, it wont' pose any problems to the thief.

Alarms do have good points. Prowlers don’t like monitored alarms because it denies them the time they want to pick your house clean. This is why it is important to get a monitored alarm. A monitored alarm means a live person has been notified and someone is probably on the way. An alarm that just alerts locally is no more threatening than a car alarm. Alarms go off so often that they are mostly ignored. A good alarm system does more than just detect entry. They can have fire alarms, CO2 sensors, freeze sensors, and a variety of features that let you check on an elderly person in the home. They can also have latchkey features that alert you when your children arrive home.

I recommend an alarm with internal pet immune motion sensors, battery backup, phone backup, a metal box that restricts access to the alarm panel, and one that allows self monitoring. I plan to write an article on monitored alarm systems in the near future.

Inside the Home


Defense	Active/Passive	Alert	Slow	Cost	Comment
A quality safe	Passive	No	Yes	Mod	Bolt it to the floor
Computer locks	Passive	No	Yes	Low	They come with most laptops today
Locked drawers	Passive	No	Yes	Low	For day to day items
Light timers	Passive	No	No	Low	Give the impression you are home
Video of your property	Passive	No	No	Low	For insurance claim
Double key locks	Passive	No	Yes	Low	May be a fire hazard
Don't give them keys	Passive	No	No	Low	Don't make it easy
Inscribe items	Passive	No	No	Low	Reduce Reward

A quality safe – It is a good idea to have a high quality safe that is secured to the floor to protect your most valuable items. A good safe can protect from fire as well as theft. Use a safe for documents, jewelry, guns, money, etc.

Computer locks – Use cables to lock your computers and laptops to their desk. An entire market exists for keeping computers from waking away. It isn’t the value of the computer but the data on the computer that is valuable. You do have a backup plan right?

Locking drawers – Keeping things you use frequently in the safe can be a major pain which means you won’t do it. So have a few locking drawers or cabinets to lock up items that are somewhat valuable but that you use all the time. (iPods, cameras, other electronic gadgets). The thieves may be able to break open the drawer but you can make them work for it.

Light timers – A good random timer can be used to turn on lights at random around the house to fool thieves from thinking you aren’t on vacation.

Video of property – Useful for theft and fire when you need to prove to the insurance company you have a loss. Also useful for proof of ownership in the unlikely event the police ever recover your stuff.

Double key locks – Are locks that require a key to unlock them on both the inside and outside of the door, Stop the thief from leaving through a door if they came in through a window. They may be a fire hazard if you don’t keep the key in them on the inside of the door while you are home.

Don’t leave keys to your vehicles hanging on a key hook inside your house. Lock them up so the thieves don’t steal your stuff and drive away in your own vehicle.

Inscribe items – You could permanently etch your name and drivers license number (never your SS number) into high value items to make them harder to pawn. Thieves may not figure out that you have done this until after they have stolen the items.

Protect the protection

After you have implemented a plan with passive and active measures in each layer, go back over your plan and try to think of how to defeat each of your measures then implement counter measures. Guard against disabling the alarm, removing the safe, disabling motion lights or cameras. At this point you will have gone through your plan twice. Now you can relax and get on with your life. There is no sense in worrying all the time about your home. There is no such thing as absolute security. You can't possibly guard against all the possible scenarios.

July 12, 2011

Fresh water is essential to civilization

Water is absolutely essential to life¹. In survival situations, there is something known as The Rule of Threes. It says that you can survive 3 minutes without air, 3 hours in inclement weather, 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food. We are going to assume that you don't have to worry about air to breathe or freezing to death as you begin your journey from hatchet in the woods to sending an email. That makes finding fresh water your highest priority.

It's no wonder that the first great civilizations emerged alongside freshwater rivers such as the Nile, the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Indus and the Yangtze. These fresh water sources provided the large quantity of water needed for farming. You can clearly see the Nile from space at night. (Click on the image at right for a larger view)

Let's start with the basics. You need to know:

Where fresh water comes from
How you find it
How to collect and store it
How to treat it
How much you are going to need for personal use or farming.
Interesting facts about water (surprisingly important)

Interesting Facts about water:

Water not only dissolves more substances than sulfuric acid, it dissolves more substances than any other liquid. Because it is such a universal solvent, it is the basis of all biological processes in the human body. Its ability to dissolve substances is essential for transporting nutrients into cells, as well as, carrying waste products out of cells. Without water, there would be no life as we know it.¹

In the year 2010, 884 million people world-wide still use unsafe drinking sources. (http://www.unicef.org/wash/)

The English word ‘rivals’ comes from the Latin word rīvalis , which literally means : one who shares the same brook. The notion being that neighbors compete for a precious resource.

Its chemical formula (H2O) is the best known formula in the world.

Unlike other liquids, water expands when it freezes. If it didn’t ponds would freeze from the bottom up. Ice is slippery partly because its solid form is less dense than its liquid form. When you step on ice you provide pressure that forces the ice to return to its more dense state of water. The resulting layer of liquid that forms between you and the ice is slippery. If you step on solid iron, the pressure just encourages the iron to stay solid.

It is the only natural substance found in all three states (solid, liquid, gas) at the temperatures normally found on Earth.

Water has a high specific heat. This means that it takes lots of heat to make it hot and once it is hot it holds heat well. One calorie of heat added to 1 gram of water will raise the temperature of the water by 1 degree C, in comparison to gold in which , One calorie of heat added to 1 gram of gold will raise the temperature of the gold by 33 degrees C.

A water molecule is bent resulting in a positively charged and a negatively charged end. These charged ends are what gives water its unique properties.

Foot Notes:

¹Scientists believe that life isn’t possible without liquid water.Dr. Neil de Grasse Tyson, an astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History says "Given that life on Earth is so dependent on water, and given that water is so prevalent in the universe, we don't feel that we're going out on a limb to say that life would require liquid water."

September 13, 2010

Where fresh water comes from

Fresh water is scarce

Even though the Earth’s surface is 70% water, 97% of it is salt water. Of the 3% that is fresh water, all but about 1% is locked up in ice at the poles. That means only 1% of the water on Earth is really useful to humans. That makes fresh water a relatively scarce resource¹. To put that in another perspective: Imagine if you could only use 1% of the money in your wallet. What could you buy with that?

It literally comes from the sky

The hydrologic cycle describes how fresh water is created by the sun. The heat from the sun causes the water of the surface of the Earth to evaporate. When the water evaporates it leaves behind the salt and other minerals that it had in it. When it condenses again and falls to the Earth (in the form of precipitation), it is fresh water. It will either drain back to the ocean or be evaporated again. This cycle just keeps repeating.

¹The English word ‘rivals’ comes from the Latin word rīvalis , which literally means : one who shares the same brook. The notion being that neighbors compete for a precious resource.