Nuclear Lighthouses

Holy cow, how many of these are there? It makes me wonder how many other abandoned and damaged nuclear facilities there are all over the world.

Via Warren Ellis' Blog

Garage Biology and Comets

New Scientist has two articles today concerning what I see as potential causes for TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It).

Rise of the garage genome hackers is about people making new biological organisms in their garages. I think it's fairly obvious how that could go wrong, even if it is unlikely.

Comet smashes triggered ancient famine tells us about a series of comets that hit the earth in 536 AD and triggered 18 months of darkness that caused world wide famine. Even in 536 AD, when we weren't so detached from our environment and dependent on technology for continued survival, that must have been very much like the end of the world.

Falcon Rock Command

Faclon Rock Command is a zombie survival blog. It was part of a viral marketing campaign for Alive, a series that doesn't even exist yet, but probably won't ever get made. The interesting thing about Falcon Rock Command is that it takes place on a longer time scale than most zombie works, focusing on continuing long-term survival rather than the immediate horror of the zombies.

Via RPPR's Interview with Matt Vancil, one of the writers involved. (The piece is about 39 min in.)

World War Z

I finished World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War a few weeks ago. Written by Max Brooks, author of the famed Zombie Survival Guide, this book is a fictional collection of accounts from the survivors of a zombie apocalypse. While there are some creepy parts, that's not really the point of the book. The stories are mostly of survival and dealing with the effects of the "war". Overall, I liked it. If you're a Zombie fan or a P-A fan, it's worth a read.

I'd like to give a better overview, but it's been too long since I read it. I've got a bit more spare time now, so I'll hopefully resume posting regularly.

Water from wind

EcoGeek has an interesting post about a wind-powered turbine that cools itself and condenses water out of the air. While there are doubts about the implementation, there are certainly examples of being able to condense large amounts of water out of the air, and in nearly any P-A world, getting fresh, clean water is going to be a challenge. Of course, most of these assume there isn't radioactive dust blowing around, but at least it's a good start.

Powerless cooling

"Apocalypse" frequently means no power. But so does "rural Africa." A very inventive Nigerian man named Mohammad Bah Abba developed an incredibly easy evaporative cooling system called a Zeer. Take an unglazed terracotta pot, and fill the bottom with sand. Put a smaller pot inside it. Fill the gap with sand. Add water to the sand. The water soaks into the pots and slowly evaporates, which causes cooling. Apparently it works quite well.

Terracotta is a great PA material because A), it's everywhere, B) it might actually survive the ravages of time and weather, assuming it doesn't get smashed, and C) you might actually be able to make it yourself. Hit up any garden or home store and you'll find plenty of big planters. For that matter, check your neighbor's houses. They may have a few as well, already in use.

More on Bah Abba and the pot-in-pot refrigerator at Wikipedia.

Solar Cooking

I came across a site on solar cooking today, and I realized that it's just the thing when you need to cook your food but don't want any smoke to alert nearby raiders, zombies or other nasty folks. The site has some plans for cookers. One seems to be made from an old tire and a sheet of glass - a little gross, but very resourceful. My dad and grandpa had actually messed around with this a few years ago. They used a wooden box lined with garbage bags and a glass lid. I don't remember if we actually cooked anything in it, but it was a neat idea.

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. Work has me very busy and there's no sign of it letting up.