Disappear from the System: Hacks from Wired

It seems you can't move in today's world without leaving a digital footprint. The good news is that escaping the panopticon doesn't have to mean living in a cave in Tora Bora. Frank Ahearn, a former skip-tracer and the author of How To Disappear, reveals how to pull off the ultimate vanishing act. _Wired

Wired

Incorporate Yourself
"The beauty of corporations, whether in the US, Canada, Caribbean, UK, Guernsey or Jersey, is that they offer privacy," says Ahearn. A corporation lets you conduct business affairs anonymously. Utilities, property and other essentials can be leased in the company's name.

Learn to live off the grid
When you upload info to social networks, you grant them rights to share that data. "If you want to remain anonymous you can't rely on third-party entities," he says. Share images on your own password-protected website, and use Skype or email to stay in touch with friends.

Create an army of doppelgängers
To throw stalkers off the scent, Ahearn buys 30 different domains containing variations of his client's name and creates an individual social network for each one. He then splices real information about each client with misinformation about their location and activities.

Engineer your own identity
Open a bank account and deposit a few hundred pounds. Send the card to a friend in a different city and have them spend in small increments. If your bank statements fall into the wrong hands, says Ahearn, "They'll find those supermarkets and search in the wrong place".

Switch your contact details
Before you disconnect your services, switch the contact number they have on file for a police department's on the other side of the UK. If a stalker manages to get hold of it, they'll flag themselves up to the police. Make sure friends and work colleagues know not to give out your details.

Pack your bags
Choose where you can lead a normal life. "If you're a small-town English girl, you might find it difficult to disappear in London. Everyone wants the palm trees and beachfront life-style, but they can't always have it." Forget the beach hut in Goa: think two-bedroom flat in Oldham. _Wired

Alright. What you see here is just the beginning. You can read Ahearn's book, or any number of similar books for more ideas. Ahearn was once a skip-tracer who has presumably tracked down some of the best disappearing artists.

When designing your own disappearing act, be aware that no one method will be foolproof. Use redundant camouflage, and a mixture of disappearing "styles." Just when they think they have your method figured out, "poof!" you've magically transformed yourself using an altogether different style.

Can A Stealthy Flying Submarine Escape the Madness?

Seaplanes and flying boats have been around for some time. But a flying boat that can also run submerged, is a bird of another feather. Multiple teams are now attempting to design such a bird ... er, fish ... er, loon. Loons, for example, are excellent swimmers, and can fly long distances at up to 70 miles per hour, and dive to 150 feet, staying submerged for several minutes (up to 15 minutes).

This is a DARPA project, in progress. Designers have been forced to abandon the deep dive capability of the flying sub, due to the excessive weight of the batteries necessary to maintain undersea life support and ship's functions. This may only be a temporary setback, however.

...rather than using electric power, the Auburn team favours propelling the vessel with a gas turbine fed by air drawn in through a 10-metre snorkel. That means the sub will have to stay close to the surface. While DARPA has yet to specify at what depth the flying sub should operate, being restricted to a limited depth might not matter. "As long as it is not visible, there's not much reason to dive far below the surface," says Bob Allwood, engineer and chief executive of the Society for Underwater Technology in London. "The problem is that the craft has still got to be slightly denser than water to submerge."

Hawkes, however, does not see this as a problem. In fact he doesn't accept that the craft has to be made heavier to sink beneath the waves, any more than a normal aircraft has to become more buoyant to take off. "You can't build an aeroplane that is also a balloon, and an aeroplane can't go under water in the same way a sub does. You're mixing two fundamentally different modes of operation."

Hawkes already builds submarines that are lighter than water (New Scientist, 12 February 2000, p 36). To overcome their natural buoyancy and keep them below the surface, they are equipped with wings that generate downward "lift". "Think about it as flying under water," he says. "It can be done. It just needs a lot of work."

...To operate below the waves as well as above them, these wings will have to be a bit out of the ordinary. "One important thing is that the craft's wings will need a symmetrical aerofoil, unlike the asymmetrically curved wing that gives aircraft lift," he says. So when the craft is airborne, the wing will need a positive "angle of attack": in other words, it will need to be angled upwards relative to the airflow. To achieve this, the craft will have to fly in a nose-up attitude. Conversely, when under water it will need a negative angle of attack, so the craft will travel nose-down...

... Hawkes foresees jet engines playing a dual role, propelling the plane through the water as well as through the air. There's no reason why the compressor and turbine blades in a jet engine can't be driven by an electric motor to generate thrust under water, he says. It should be possible to build an engine that runs on kerosene in air and switches to electricity when submerged.

Others are already thinking along these lines. Last year, aircraft manufacturer Airbus patented a hybrid electric jet engine for airliners which can be powered by both conventional kerosene and electricity. Most jet engines have an electric starter motor, and this motor could spin the turbine's shaft under water, Hawkes suggests. The blades would rotate more slowly than normal, he says, and the engine won't be particularly efficient. "But I believe this could work perfectly well."_NewScientist

Al Fin engineers (submarine, marine, and aerospace) have taken a look at the project, and believe that the vessel simply begs to be nuclear powered. A potentially viable nuclear powered airplane was designed -- but never built -- by the US government. The tricks will be to make the engine design compatible with high velocity flight and deep sea diving in saltwater.

Stay tuned.

The Frontier Diet: Learning to Live Through the Twilight

America and western civilisation are experiencing the twilight of peak influence and power. Debt and demography -- plus abysmally incompetent leadership -- are leaving western nations in a position where they will be unable to resist the inevitable crises that will hit them with implacable and increasing frequency. That means that you will be responsible for yourself and those you care about. It is critical that you prepare yourself for a variety of unfortunate circumstances.

Survival Blog is a repository of useful information, usually from people who have been through difficult life trials, and lived to tell about them. This entry details the "Frontier Diet," a spartan dietary approach to staying alive on the way to something better.

This I call the Frontier diet – four high-speed, low drag foods that can get where you are going without weighing you down....The four foods are: Coffee (or tea), hardtack, parched corn, and pemmican. All are easy to make at home, with the exception of the coffee and all offer excellent storage lives, ease of preparation, and all may be eaten cold if necessary. Each offers a specific set of advantages and they all can be used together to provide a bit of variety in your meals.

The coffee I am talking about is the commercial, freeze dried product found in small, one-cup packets. I would not consider any other type of packaging – the packets are air-tight, waterproof and frankly, I find the flavor to be superior. I suffered through many years with the “coffee product” found in C rations, Long Range Patrol Rations, and more recently in MREs. All were pretty nasty, at least in my opinion.

The value of coffee in the Frontier diet is in its use as an appetite suppressant. Strong tea (green, black or other non-herbal teas) will also provide the same effect. Tea normally requires hot water to provide a satisfactory product – though cold soaking tea bags for several hours will provide a drinkable product. Freeze dried coffee will quickly mix with water at any temperature.

... Hardtack or hard bread has been part of a soldiers ration since Roman times. Often reviled, always hated, hardtack (or sailor/pilot bread) serves to provide a long lasting, lightweight food that offers needed calories for travel. Commercially baked hardtack or hard bread is a staple in both Alaska and Hawaii. Modern commercial hardtack is seen as “Saloon Pilot” crackers in Hawaii and in Alaska as my favorite “Sailor Boy” pilot bread. Very long lasting when stored properly and eatable by itself cold, hardtack is improved with anything you might have, from peanut butter to apple sauce.

You can make your own hard bread, SurvivalBlog has several recipes already posted or you can use this one. Remember, if you add salt to your home made hardtack, it will reduce the storage life as the salt attracts moisture. Store in a cool, dry location and physically protect the product, lest weevils become part of your travel diet.

...Corn has been a staple of frontier ‘dining’ since before the United States was an independent nation. Made from dried corn, parched corn offers a very long term storage item, a useful addition to your diet and adds both calories and variety to the food you eat. You can make your own or purchase a commercial product. I will have to say parched corn is an acquired taste but offers many options as a food.

I make my parched corn in a cast iron skillet with just a bit of olive oil. Start with dried corn, heat the skillet and add the corn one layer (or kernel) deep. Keep the corn moving in the pan until it plumps and turns brown. If the corn starts to pop, reduce the heat slightly. Dump the parched corn in a bowl to cool. It is ready to eat. Add any spices or salt after the corn is cooked. The corn should be browned, plump and soft when you bite into it. If not try again. Start with small batches until you are happy with the results.

I pack mine in a wide-mouth water bottle (airtight container), and store in the cool location. I also grind some of the parched corn in the wheat grinder with the stones set in an 'open' position to give a course meal.

...The last item in our travel food bag is pemmican, food of trappers, fur traders and Antarctic exploration teams. A mixture of tallow and dried meat. It is a staple that has a long storage life. It may be eaten cold and contains nutrients needed to keep you going in tough times. The famed explorer Amundsen used pemmican made with dried peas, a key reason his party survived with the Scott expedition did not. Made from tallow and dried meat, pemmican is an energy dense food with excellent keeping properties.

Several folks have posted their recipes on the site, so use the keyword search as "Pemmican". If the thought of eating fat leaves you a bit queasy, you can try pemmican made with peanut butter.

This version of pemmican uses peanut butter rather than melted suet or lard as the binding agent, which is likely more palatable with the younger members of your family. Grind [or pound] the dried meat to a mealy powder. Add any dried berries, seeds or nuts if peas are not to your taste. Heat the peanut butter until softened. Blend all ingredients. When cooled, store in a plastic bag or sausage casing in a cool dry place. It will keep for months if stored properly. Some pemmican recipes call for honey, cayenne pepper and other spices. Experiment now, while you can. _SurvivalBlog

That is one person's short list of survival foods, ready for a quick getaway.

By all means, keep a good stockpile of food, water, supplies, power generation apparatus and fuel, etc. at your home. Most crises may allow you to stay home and tread water while society is rearranging itself into a more sustainable form. But just in case you have to run for it, be ready for that too.

Remember that you may not have much time to pack for the wild ride to safety. Have your bags ready to go, and consider keeping extra bags cached at likely locations -- workplace, schools, friends' or relative's houses, etc.

Food, water & water purification, fire starters, essential tools, emergency pharmaceuticals etc. Stick to barest essentials. Make sure your bugout food has a long shelf life.

Society is being progressively weakened by disastrous public policy and incompetent leadership. The particular shock that pushes things over the edge -- and makes it necessary for you to seek a safer environment -- cannot be accurately anticipated.

Flying Cars and Motorcycles Set You Free

Larry Neal's motorcycle / autogyro kits have been sold and flown for several years. Watch it drive around town, and fly above town, in the video above.

Terrafugia's Transition is now certified as a Light Sport Aircraft by the US FAA, which makes it much easier for novice pilots to get licensed to fly it. Watch it fly in the above video. The company is taking deposits for new planes, and plans to begin delivering finished models to new owners next year.

The Parajet Automotive Skycar is expedition tested. Watch it fly above the desert in the video above.

The Ramphos flying boat can also travel awkwardly on land.

An optimal escape craft would allow travel on all surfaces -- mud, sand, water, pavement, ice, snow -- plus provide full flight capabilities. Submersible travel safely down to 300 metres would be a big plus.

Hovercraft with flight and submersible capabilities would be ideal.

Check out Gizmag's roundup of flying cars and cycles

Escaping the Apocalypse In Style

When everything falls apart at once, you do not have time to transfer from one type of escape vehicle to another. You need a vehicle that can move quickly out of the danger zone, and covertly past those who might want to appropriate your assets, or do you personal harm.

The U-010 Undersea Yacht is designed to travel submerged or on the surface, depending upon the needs of the moment. Surface travel is by diesel. Simple controls allow you to switch to electric power for undersea movement.

Luxurious fittings allow you to forget that the world is falling apart around you. Just pack plenty of provisions and fuel so that you can get where you are going.

More photos

Via Impactlab

Waiting Out the Apocalypse Underground

WilliamLishmanProject
This ferrocement underground home is constructed of multiple adjoining domes, constructed on a hilltop. First a substantial quantity of earth is removed from the hilltop. The domes are shaped out of rebar, then covered with shotcrete. Then the earth is returned to the hill -- over the now-waterproofed domes, concealing most of the structure.

Building the dome infrastructure of rebar requires some ironworking skills, but allows for considerable creativity.

The image above demonstrates the multi-dome nature of the home, just before covering with earth, and planting with ground-cover.

The interior of the domes receive a great deal of light from the overhead sky-lights, which are designed into the domes.

It is possible to build underground houses which are virtually invisible from most viewpoints above ground. Most humans enjoy plenty of light, and outdoor views. As we learn better ways of providing artificial "full spectrum" diffuse lighting, it becomes more possible to live deeper underground without the windows.

This Swiss design provides plenty of outdoor light and mountain views, but could be made virtually invisible from most ground approaches.

Underground houses are better suited for survival of massive nuclear, biological, or chemical catastrophes -- if advanced preparations are made. Proper air and water filtering and recycling are critical. If residents must stay underground for longer than a few months, the ability to grow food underground becomes more important.

Heating and cooling loads are minimal when living underground, but fuel and power needs for cooking and hot water must be planned for.

BBC coverage of some underground English homes

Monolithic domes -- the premier rapid ferrocement construction method -- can be adapted for underground living.

3 Days to the End of the World: Where Do You Go?

You might want to consider making early reservations to the Doomsday Bunker nearest you. Take a virtual tour through a prototype Doomsday Bunker in the video above. These shelters can supposedly be built to hold up to 4,000 each. A network of dozens of such shelters is said to be planned by California company Vivos.

A doomsday bunker envisioned by California company Vivos can offer you, your family, and 4,000 other people the chance to escape the end of the world in a network of 20 underground shelters. Surely even the skeptics can't resist the allure of scary music played over scenes of comfortable underground habitation, as NPR's All Tech Considered reports.
The company claims to be a privately-funded venture with no religious affiliations, except perhaps to the gods of commerce. It certainly takes an agnostic view by listing all the possible reasons why you might want to pony up and help build those $10 million bunkers, including predictions by Nostradamus, the Mayans, the Hopi, and the Bible.

...Vivos goes all out by promising a survival shelter stocked with power generation, water wells, filtration systems, sewage disposal, a year's supply of food, security devices and medical equipment.
Of course, you'll need all that if you believe disaster may strike at any moment because of a polar shift, super volcano eruptions, solar flares, nuclear war, and "even the return of Planet X (known as Niburu or Nemesis)," Vivos cheerfully states. _Popsci

It's an idea whose time may have come. To be safe, you may want to reserve space in multiple deluxe Vivos bunkers. Depending on the catastrophe, some of your choices may be downright inaccessible. A look at the early stages of Vivos below:

Tower Cities, Living Above It All

There is something to be said for living high above the muss and fuss of ground level humanity. Even better if you can put your towers offshore and inaccessible to anyone without authorised access. Such precautions are particularly wise in cities such as Marseilles or Detroit.

The Tower | city | towers project offers the opportunity to rethink all the functionalities, needs and demands of the city, especially in terms of population density and everything it involves (leisure activities, work, housing, transportation, etc.), thus allowing the nature to take back its original place.
The idea is to go back to the origin, allowing the pine-wood and the vegetation to grow again, making the rock reappear, offering the earth a deserved fallow-land, using the potential of lands conquered by the current city to give life to an alternative city which would offer an unequalled way of life and give back its place to nature.
Tower | city | towers suggests to deconstruct the existing city and build it on the sea in order to liberate the lands. _TowerCityMarseilles

The intention of the designers was to create a more dense urban center, and place the city out on the water in order to let the land regenerate. This would allow the inhabitants of the city close access to nature, trees, and open space rather than being completely surrounded by urban sprawl for miles and miles. Additionally, residents have even quicker access to the water for recreation or travel. Although designed originally for Marseilles, this skyscraper concept could be applied for any coastal city.

The new city would be built above the water so as to not disturb the marine ecosystem. Constructed in a 3D grid, the skyscraper city would still contain all the necessities of city life – places to work and live, modes of transportation, schools, shopping and every day life amenities as well as recreation. By condensing the city into a smaller, compact space, the city itself becomes more efficient, and as a bonus, a ton of additional land would be available for open space. The city would be built from the ruins of the old city, powered by renewable energy, and would include port facilities, garden and open space. _Inhabitat

The bubble tower pictured above is tower-by-the-sea meant to serve as a massive desalination structure for Almeria, in Spain.

The system works with a series of circular tanks filled with brackish water. The water is pumped through the mangrove plants via tidal power, and is ultimately stored in freshwater tanks for later use. Design Crew for Architecture estimates that the tower could potentially produce 30,000 liters of fresh water daily. _FastCompany

Such a well-intentioned approach to providing fresh water must unfortunately wait for more advanced materials and construction technologies. But as long as we are spending time talking about such projects, we remain unaware of how all our splendid past fantasies of ecotopia are lying dormant and wasting in the sun and rain.

Tidal power is the most expensive form of power generation known. Wasting resources on such fantasies has become something of a Spanish past-time recently. Meanwhile, Spaniards are vanishing from the land and being replaced by third world newcomers with average IQs at least 1 standard deviation lower. What type of ecotopia, exactly, is created via dysgenic demographic transformation?

The Marseilles Tower may be more practical -- particularly if it can provide a secure self-contained arcology that allows productive members of Marseilles to escape the rampant human predation that occurs on city streets and backways.

Ground Effect Hovercraft Video: Survival Vehicle?

If you watched the "After Armageddon" videos in the previous post, you should have some awareness of how difficult it might be to get out of town at the exact same time as several million other would-be escapees. The HovPod featured in the video below was the recipient of the Al Fin 2009 Small Vehicle Survival Award.

The HovPod is a great all-terrain escape vehicle, but you can see from the topmost video that adding flight -- even low level ground effect flight -- to your escape vehicle's capabilities may make the difference between reaching the high ground and being stuck in a bad place.

The Terrafugia Transition is featured in the video below. It is a roadable aircraft capable of flying above the gridlocked freeways below. Finding a good landing spot may be problematic under some conditions, but a wise escape artist plans ahead.

The ICON A5 amphibious trailerable plane may be your best bet if you live near a lake, river, bay, or protected harbour. With the A5 you can take off from water and land on solid surface, or vice versa. Check it out below:

A personal helicopter may be your best bet if you live in the middle of a large city, and do not have access to a waterway or runway for your private airplane. The Helicycle demonstrated in the video below, is one example of a personal helicopter. Consider adding flotation for more versatility.

After Armageddon: X Meals from Total Anarchy

Things can fall apart for many reasons, and at astoundingly rapid speeds. Whether you are 3 meals from anarchy or 9, the distance between you and deadly threat is alarmingly small. Natural disaster, epidemic disease, power failure, terror attack, or outright warfare -- potential triggers are more numerous than you can imagine.

You won't be able to leave the city by freeway -- they will all be jammed by wrecked, abandoned, and burning vehicles. Better have several alternate routes and fallback plans. Is your bugout kit packed and ready? Does your bugout vehicle have a full tank of fuel and is it well maintained? Do you have a bugout destination?

I recommend the links and the postings at PreparednessPro.com. A good site for daily browsing is SurvivalBlog. Unfortunately, membership in the Society for Creative Apocalyptology is currently closed, but several online forums of a similar nature are available.

You have a much better chance of surviving a short, medium, and long-term catastrophe if you are a member of a cooperating group of survival-oriented individuals and families with complementary skills.

Stealthy Personal Flyer Half Airplane, Half Helicopter

This pretty little personal flyer lets you take off and land vertically (VTOL) in a stealthy manner, using electric motors. Called the "Puffin", it is NASA's answer to the US Marines' Osprey VTOL airplane.

In theory it can cruise at 150 miles per hour and sprint at more like 300 miles per hour. Since the craft is electrically propelled it doesn't need air intake, so thinning air is not a limitation, meaning it can reach — again, in theory — 30,000 feet before limitations on battery power force it to descend...

...Aside from the military applications (super-stealthy troop insertions with very low thermal signatures?) the quiet, uncomplicated, low-powered electric lift — just 60 horsepower gets pilot and craft airborne — shows how a world in which everyday folks get around modern cities via personal aircraft may not be as sci-fi as was once thought. _Gizmodo

Al Fin was unable to convince Jack Bauer to give up his priority position in line to test fly the Puffin. But just as soon as he can, he will provide a personal test flight report.

Aye, Chihuahua! No Mortgage for Me, Cucaracha!

Vela
Abe and Josie have forsaken a big city mortgage for the Chihuahuan desert, a house made of dirt, and off-grid energy.

Abe and Josie have the smarts to survive well in the big city, but they have chosen a different life, a remote life, off grid, debt free, and on their own terms and timeline. What is refreshing about this couple is that they are not rebelling against modern times. On the contrary, they are embracing it, and are in a sense early adopters of a lifestyle that was not possible until very recently. That is because their off grid, pay as you go lives are dependent on emerging technologies such as affordable DIY energy harvesting, satellite internet, and other modern advances. While off grid systems can be a costly investment, Abe and Josie have found the lo-fi, affordable route, proving that there is no reason to wait for off grid technology to improve or become more affordable. Anyone can do this now. It is a simple choice to opt out of an enslaving, over priced, city life. _Treehugger

Stay up to date with Abe and Josie's adventure in low cost desert living via their blog, Vela Creations. At the rate President Obama is hacking away at the US economy and energy infrastructure, these will soon be essential skills for all of us lucky enough to escape the trap of urban decay.

Al Fin's 2009 Small Vehicle Survival Award Winner

The HovPod personal hovercraft is built for durability and versatile travel on all types of terrain. From water to mud to sand to ice to snow to pavement, this little package is not just for exhilaration and mirth. It can get you places few other craft can take you, quickly and economically.

If you need a quick evac out of a gridlocked city that is located on a river, coastline, or harbour, this little airboat is the next best thing to a personal helicopter that can put down on land or water.

Al Fin engineers are working on a fairly simple modification which will allow the HovPod to fly, using inflatable wings. Put simply, it will require more power, and hull materials with more favourable strength to weight characteristics. More on that option as developments allow.

Society for Creative Apocalyptology Looks at Deep Science Research Facility in Homestake Mine

Image SourceAlmost a mile deep, under the Black Hills of South Dakota, the US government is building the world's deepest underground scientific hidey-hole. The groundbreaking for the facility was attended by politicians, connected individuals, and scientists who may eventually work in one of the labs to be built deep underground.

The new labs will be built in and around the old Homestake Gold Mine, which extends as deeply as 8,000 feet underground. The gold mine was shut down in 2001 and allowed to flood when pumps were shut down. Refurbishing of the mine will involve restoring the pumps, refurbishing and stabilising tunnels, and building new underground infrastructure for scientific and other purposes.

The ostensible purpose of the deep new facility is to study dark matter in a location that is deep enough to be shielded from cosmic rays. But can you think of any other reasons for building such a deep, remote, high technology facility? And how many politicians are more interested in dark matter than in confiscating as much wealth from taxpayers and anyone else, as they can?

The new scientific lab complex is expected to span a wide array of experimental sciences, as the refurbishers develop new methods of deep underground architecture.

Analysts at the Society for Creative Apocalyptology © have looked at the plans for the new underground lab, and concluded that it would make an ideal university / scientific complex to survive the next apocalypse -- whatever the cause.

When the axe falls on civilisation, human societies in the western world will fragment by religion, ethnicity, language, and the luck of the draw. If you find yourself living in a bad neighborhood when the doom comes down, you had better have some very good extraction plans already set in place, and well-rehearsed.

The electrical grid will go down fairly quickly, since it is unlikely that many utility managers will have had to foresight to disconnect their sections of the grid to prevent cascading failures. Manpower shortages at all high technology installations would grow acute quite quickly. Universities, high tech labs and research centers, and other high tech facilities would quickly fall to the momentum of collapse, and be looted and stripped beyond repair.

That is why a facility such as the one in South Dakota is so important in the re-start of civilisation -- after the fall. A location where top scientists and technologists across a wide range of human scientific and technological skills can continue to advance their studies while the rest of the world is falling down around them. Then, when the momentum of collapse dies down and the pressure from the doom inciting event(s) has subsided, advance teams of scouts can move out of the enclave to survey the damages and the potential for re-emergence.

A schedule for the re-introduction of technology can be devised and implemented by advance teams of skilled workers, as likely surviving population centers are located. As surviving, rejuvenated population centers are re-connected, a new larger society can be regrown.

But you will not read about these plans in conventional journals, papers, or blogs. And the SCA agrees that popular knowledge of such generative / regenerative knowledge centers would be counter-productive. Of course, what the government is attempting in South Dakota (and what the UK is attempting in Scotland etc.) is nothing more than a tax-supported version of what the SCA has been working on all along, using private funding.


H/T ImpactLab

How To Escape a Burning Skyscraper

Image SourceFor $1500 you can soon buy this device, which will allow you to zoom down the side of a 100 story building in perfect safety. High rise safety is anything but guaranteed, and anything that may add to your survival safety margin is worth considering.

Based on the concept of a fishing reel, the device is a simple harness to lower people to the ground, letting the individual plan his own escape, unless he is buckled in the pressure. The user is expected to open a small container, which is to be hooked to some steady anchor, on support of which the user can slip into a one size fits all harness, automatically controlled centrifugal braking to manage the descent.

The device along with the automatic braking system that takes less than four minutes to climb down a 100 story building also has a manual backup brake lever, in case the automatic system fails. California’s Vallejo Fire Department has conducted successful tests of the device, and now Stone is planning to market the Rescue Reel, which will be ready to buy at about $1,500. _Gizmowatch_via_ImpactLab

Foldable Helicopter: Perfect for Urban Survival!

If you live in a high rise apartment, deep inside a large city, you may have wondered how you could escape the unruly urban jungle, should the fecal matter hit the fan. Here is your answer: the Hummel Helicopter, which can be folded up and kept in a closet until it is needed. Simply roll the folded vehicle down the hallway to the elevator, go up to roof level, unfold the machine, and fly off to your retreat. Having a birds-eye view of miles of vehicles backed-up on the panic clogged freeways below, is an added bonus.

The “Hummel” (”bumble bee”) is a light helicopter for [a total of] two passengers. It can be used for passenger transport (air taxi), as well as for e.g. emergency transports like organs or units of stored blood and of course for conventional tasks of a helicopter like monitoring (e.g. coast guard, police, army, scientists) and to be mobile. The tandem rotor design guarantees a more efficient aircraft performance as the main-tail rotor design, without wasting fuel. _ImpactLab_via_dVice_via_Zoobota_via_DesignBlog

Terrafugia's Transition "driveable airplane" is another possibility, if you can find a long enough open stretch of pavement to use for a runway. Another alternative for those who live near a river, lake, or bay, is to keep an amphibious plane handy that can take off and land on either water or solid surface.

If you have ever been caught up in a large-scale evacuation of a large city, you will immediately understand the seriousness behind the silliness. In the past, such an evacuation might have been prompted by the approach of a hurricane. In the future, growing numbers of potentially predictable and emergent threats might trigger such an outrush of people.

Imagine if the current Swine Flu had been genengineered for maximum contagion and lethality? Just a few cases in the local emergency room might have been enough to trigger wide-scale panic and impromptu evacuation. A simple radioactive "dirty bomb" could accomplish the same mindless stampede without so much as a single fatality. As earthquakes and volcanoes become more predictable, evacuation plans will grow apace. Face it: getting out of a city in the midst of full-scale panic would not be easy or risk-free.

Check in with Survival Blog regularly, for a wide array of commentary on this and other survival topics.

High Above the Bloody Streets Below

Welcome to the future, where city streets are war zones between drug gangs and sectarian militias. A world whose cities are like Beirut of the 1980s, where the sounds of firefights, car bombs, and bloody martyrdom greet one's ears more commonly than sounds of birds singing or children playing.Having been financially and morally depleted by the Obama administration of the early 2000s, the United States had long since lost its ability to keep trade routes safe, or to ride herd on trans-national criminal organisations and religious terrorist groups. At street level, it has become a free-for-all, worldwide. People of means began looking for higher ground.

The world's elites decided to create cities in the sky, in an attempt to escape the cheapness of human life on the streets below. By paying "protection fees" to street-level gangs and militias, the sky-cities' street level foundations and ground access were protected, for the most part. The last sky city to be brought down by the gangs was in Singapore of 2049. Subsequent brutal reprisals against the streets of Singapore by the triad owners of the felled Sky City left most of the island freehold uninhabitable to this day.
The rise of China as world hegemon in the early 2020s paved the way for expansion of third world corruption to Europe, North America, and Oceania -- regions formerly supportive of property rights and rule of law. Finally, as China itself fragmented into warring factions in the late 2020s, the entire world became a place without law. The teeming masses of the third world discovered that the developed world lacked the will to defend its borders. Soon there was no distinction between third world and first world.

Crime lords and militia leaders have no use for space launches, so every year another irreplaceable satellite falls flaming back to Earth. During the 2030s, nuclear arsenals finally fell into the hands of the gangs, and a few short nuclear wars quickly thinned the ranks of would-be nuclear terrorists and warriors. Several warheads turned out to be duds, and a few thousand self-styled nuclear submariners took residence in Davy Jones' locker. They lacked the competence to safely pilot the aging sea monsters -- particularly the Russian death traps.

As the skies of the world once again grow dingy with coal and wood smoke, all pretense of protecting the water and air of the planet are abandoned. Any species that cannot fend for themselves will suffer the fate of the dodo. Rain forests are slashed and burned, and huge pit mines gouge the surface of every continent and large island. This is the rapidly poisoning world that the many leftist environmental movements of the late 20th and early 21st centuries made possible, through their quasi-terrorist tactics against the world of law -- a world that was quickly shrinking under their noses. It took only an Obama presidency and the lack of any credible opposition for the "Greens" to finish off human economic freedoms and any chance for a clean prosperity that might carry men to the stars.

And so the wealthy few -- many of them crime lords themselves -- huddle in the uncertain safety of the sky cities. Listening to the bombs and gunfire far below. Forgetting how close the world had come to climbing out of the primitivity of lower human nature -- but now mired in the stinking, choking future of perpetual sectarian and criminal warfare.

H/T Inhabitat and Time

Escaping the Apocollapse: If Humans Were Intelligent, What Would They Be Doing Now?

Kevin Kelly's Taxonomy of Collapsitarians:

1. Luddites, anarchists, and anti-civilization activists...

2. Goldbugs, survivalists, Y2K holdouts, and slightly right wingers...

3. Conservationists and greenies....

4. Somewhat leftist anti-globalists...

5. Critics of American super-power...(...native academics...prominent historians.)

6. Former financial employees who see...no escape from, this doom.

   KevinKelly

Collapsitarians are persons who feel -- for many divergent reasons -- that humans are on the brink of a deep and long-lasting collapse of civilisation. Brian Wang recently riffed on Kevin Kelly's Technium posting on Collapsitarians outlined above. Kevin Kelly appears to be amused by the sheer diversity of background displayed by collapsitarians. He does not so much argue with any of the collapsitarian viewpoints, but rather portrays them all as being somewhat ridiculous.

Brian comes along and looks at Kelly's portrait of the "six species of collapsitarians" and decides that a collapse -- a full collapse -- will not happen. Brian freely admits to bona fide existential risks as described by the Lifeboat Foundation, but feels that humans are intelligent and sensible enough to avoid the most discussed mechanisms for collapse: climate change, peak oil, resource depletion, overpopulation, self-implosion of globalism, nuclear war, economic doom etc. Brian discusses these mechanisms, and presents reasons why they would not cause a total collapse, based upon humans meeting the problems wisely and heading off the collapse. For anyone concerned about the possiblity of a deep, total collapse of civilisation, Brian's article is worth reading.

Brian is quite right that intelligent, wise, and functional human societies could deal with any and all of the listed problems above without breaking a sweat. In fact, many of these "earth-shaking crises" are mostly fabricated problems meant to sell newspapers and to transfer wealth from productive sectors of society to non-productive sectors (academics, politicians, bureaucrats, the UN, etc). Despite all the angst, the sleepless nights, the nightmares of children -- the problems simply do not exist at any meaningful level. And the rest could, as Brian maintains, be dealt with relatively easily by smart societies.

But -- have you seen any smart societies around lately? Voters have been electing some particularly clownish leaders recently in nations from the UK to the US to Russia to Australia. Such fools as these can only create new problems and make existing problems virtually insoluble -- they will not be solving any important problems soon. Rather than allocating resources wisely, governments led by such cracked pots will maximise mis-allocation of resources -- from the productive to the non-productive on a grand scale.

All of humanity's problems are soluble. But not if the scarce resources needed to solve the problems are mis-allocated by corrupt and ambitious leaders of limited wisdom and foresight. Within the developed world, governments have grown so huge and bloated as to become a suffocating force upon the creativity of the underlying society. Growing government becomes its own end, rather than a means to empower the creativity and enterprise of its citizens. Ballooning taxes become the largest single expense of any working person, steadily eliminating the life choices the person could have otherwise made. Smooth-talking politicians explain why all of this is necessary and for a very good cause. In the end, government workers become a privileged class, parasites on the few producers who remain.

In the US, the election of Obama does not cause Apocollapse. The problems leading to the collapse of the US economy have been in place for almost a hundred years. They grew alarmingly during the 1930s, the 1960s, the late 1970s and the late 1990s. George W. Bush looked the other way while the programmed growth of these problem entities occurred on his watch -- and seemed not to take them into account in his own foreign policy decisions. And then Obama happened . . . .

Obama is the epitome of the clueless clown president, the smooth talker that puts zombie brains to sleep with words given him by others who happen to be good with words -- and know what the zombies want to hear. Obama is taking phantom, non-existing problems and making them a priority in his administration. He is taking small problems and turning them into huge problems. And he is taking huge problems and turning them into insurmountable problems.

I admire the optimism that Brian Wang displays, as he presents quite sensible responses to the popular collapsitarian concerns of the day. If humans were actually intelligent, capable of electing sensible leaders and of holding these leaders to account, the solutions to problems would occur largely as Brian describes. But that is not the situation we find ourselves in.

There will be a collapse. Whether it will happen soon, before Obama can reinflate all the pre-existent economic bubbles, or whether Obama can defer the collapse until after he leaves office, is only relevant to the timing. Will it be a "total collapse?" Not likely.

Although societies as a whole are growing dumber -- as witnessed by the ability to elect an Obama -- within those societies are persons of strong core competencies who will seek each other out if things get bad enough. Around these competent cores will grow functional islands in the middle of a larger dysfunctional society. If enough functional islands can link up and provide an inspiration to enough persons in the larger society, many of the corrupt and dysfunctional drags on society can be dispensed with, at least temporarily.

Some very amazing technologies are being researched, developed, and trying to find their way to market. There are a few of these technologies that are so powerful that they will make it very difficult for the populist Obamanoids of the world to use the stupidity of the majority as a weapon against humanity as a whole. In the long run, Brian Wang is correct in his optimism. In the short and middle run, however, we are in for some excitement that most of us would rather avoid.

Escape the System Like Jason Bourne

Multiple passports, moving assets, lock-picking, escape and evasion, foraging, even how to cross borders without detection (one preferred location: McAllen, Texas, page 390)–it’s a veritable encyclopedia of for those who want to disappear or become lawsuit-proof global citizens… _ 4DWW

The author of the best seller "The 4-Hour Workweek" devoted a recent long post on his blog (via Keelynet.com) to the topic of how to slip the system:

I took Spencer’s advice and opened an account with a Canadian bank that had a branch in St. Kitts. Since both Canada and St. Kitts are part of the British Commonwealth, he’d explained, I would have easy access to my money if anything happened in America. Unfortunately, in the process, I discovered that keeping international accounts secret is now illegal: the IRS requires Americans with over $10,000 in foreign accounts to file an annual report disclosing not just the amount of money and the banks it’s kept in, but the account numbers.

Meanwhile, Spencer was moving forward with his ten-year plan. He started an Internet business in Singapore, enabling him to open a private banking account in the country, which he claimed was fast becoming the new Switzerland. Though he hadn’t gotten his St. Kitts passport yet either, Spencer had done more research into buying an island.

“I’m looking at islands in the north, around Iceland, because no one will think of looking for anyone there,” Spencer said, his thick lips spreading into a self-satisfied smile. “If I can get some other B people [billionaires] to go there with me, we can build underground homes and use geothermal energy.”

“What about your submarine?”

“It’s a great way to move between islands undetected, but we’re running out of time. We need to move faster. This is only the beginning.”

“How bad do you think it’s going to get?” Spencer seemed to understand the economy at a higher level than most people did, perhaps because he knew so many of the people who ran it.

“I don’t think the whole country’s going to collapse, but we’re looking at the worst economic disaster in America since the Great Depression. What I’m also concerned about is the increase in violent crime that’s going to accompany this.” _4-HourWorkWeek

To get the information straight from the horse's mouth, check out the book "Emergency" by Neill Strauss.

I’ve begun to look at the world through apocalypse eyes. It usually begins in airports. That’s when I get the first portent of doom. I imagine explosions, sirens, walls blown apart, bodies ripped from life. Then, as I gaze out of the taxi window on my way home, I see people bustling around on their daily routine, endless rows of office buildings and tenements teeming with activity, thousands of automobiles rushing somewhere important. And it all seems so solid, so permanent, so unmovable, so absolutely necessary. But all it would take is one war, one riot, one dirty bomb, one natural disaster, one marauding army, one economic catastrophe, one vial containing one virus, to bring it all smashing down.

We’ve seen it happen in Hiroshima. In Dresden. In My Lai. In Rwanda. In Baghdad. In Halabja. In New Orleans. Our society, which seems so sturdily built out of concrete and custom, is just a temporary resting place, a hotel our civilization checked into a couple hundred years ago and must one day check out of. It’s an inevitability tourists can’t help but realize when visiting Mayan ruins, Egyptian ruins, Roman ruins. How long will it be before someone is visiting American ruins? _Emergency

Update: Dennis Mangan has also taken a look at this topic and has some interesting comments.

Seasteading Book: Updated on New Website

Image Source

The new Seasteading Book is updated and enlarged, on the new Seasteading.org website. The old Seasteading Book by the same authors is still online for comparison. The entire web-book is a work in progress by authors who clearly care very deeply about their topic. The authors have put a great deal of thought and research into this free online e-book.

Like Marshall Savage, I tend to see seasteads as preliminary rites of passage and tests of competence. The long term goal for most restless visionaries has always been the vast expanse and richness of space. Unfortunately, humans are not that far evolved from our tree dwelling cousins. It is not clear that entire self-sustaining societies of humans can be serious and competent enough to survive--to thrive--outside Earth's atmosphere.

That is why we need to demonstrate to ourselves that we can survive and prosper on the high seas, in polar habitats, and in undersea habitats. All of these settlements require a higher level of design competency and daily vigilance and competence, than most ordinary cities and towns that house most humans. If we cannot survive virtually anywhere on such a life-friendly planet as Earth, what is it within ourselves that tells us we can survive far away from the resources of Earth?

For those concerned about surviving the next apocalypse--whatever your apocalypse of choice--the new seasteading book contains a lot of useful material about all-purpose needs for communities in general. If you can create a sustainable community on the high seas, you can probably create a sustainable community almost anywhere else on the planet.