There’s a fitness gap between public and homeschool students
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Homeschooled adolescents may have significantly lower abdominal strength and endurance than public school students who are required to take part in physical education programs, according to a new study.
This was despite no significant difference between the two groups in measurements of body mass index, the researchers found.
The study compares specific health metrics between two sets of students age 12 to 17 who have been a focus of the researchers over the past couple of years.
While previous work showed homeschoolers should expect no added risk to their general health over time, the new study draws a few disparities from a dataset Laura Kabiri, a lecturer at Rice University, gathered at Texas Woman’s University.
Public school students in the study proved significantly better at performing curl-ups, a metric that measures abdominal strength and endurance.
Their daily use of backpacks weighing up to 25% of their body weight, sufficient to engage core-stabilizing muscles, could explain that, the researchers write.
“This is actually a hot topic in pediatric health and wellness and I don’t want anyone to think we are encouraging students to carry heavy loads in their backpacks,” Kabiri says.
“We all know that carrying heavy backpacks can lead to musculoskeletal problems. In fact, the American Chiropractic Association recommends a backpack weigh no more than 5-10% of a student’s body weight.
“However, we are hypothesizing that heavy backpack use among public schoolers could be one explanation for the difference in core strength seen in our study,” she says.
“Improper instruction and form for abdominal exercises among homeschoolers is another. We really don’t know the root cause but do see a difference. This is why we as health and wellness professionals need to do a better job reaching out to the home-school community,” she says.
The researchers drew the metrics from 132 participants evenly split between home and public school students. The homeschoolers took standardized fitness tests to measure body mass index, the ability to run for endurance, and the capacity to perform curl-ups and push-ups. The researchers matched these results to public school student data collected as required by states.
Push-up numbers revealed another interesting disparity. Public school students were on average able to meet requirements, but homeschooled students narrowly missed them.
“There was no significant difference in the mean for the push-up test, but it was significant for their health classification,” says coauthor Kendall Brice, an undergraduate student who will graduate this May.
For instance, she gave an example in which 17-year-old boys in public schools might be required to do 20 push-ups and averaged 20.4, while home-schoolers did only 19. “There’s no significant difference there, but what we see is that more homeschool kids dropped out of the healthy category,” which mirrors the actual results of the study, Brice says.
“How does that happen? From my experience, our coaches and PE teachers often told us, ‘You have to do 20,’” she recalled. “Or we’d ask how many we have to do. So the mean is similar, but public school kids knew the boundary, so they were able to push just past it.”
Kabiri says homeschool adolescents’ fitness deficits could affect their health in the near term and in the future. The solution is to provide better advice for those students and their parents.
“The main conclusion is that we need to do a better job as health professionals in reaching out to this community,” Kabiri says. “They’re very well intended, and very willing to learn about technique and proper forms for doing these exercises.”
Miracle: Coronavirus Passes Over Houses With Chick-Fil-A Sauce Smeared On Door Posts
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Miracle: Coronavirus Passes Over Houses With Chick-Fil-A Sauce Smeared On Door Posts
U.S.—The CDC is suggesting lots of weird ways to avoid contracting coronavirus, such as “washing your hands” and “not licking doorknobs.” These methods sound kind of sciencey, so we were immediately suspicious of them.
Sure enough, it seems the best way to avoid getting infected is supernatural: many have found that if you paint Chick-fil-A sauce on your doorposts, the virus will pass right over you and your household.
Research seems to indicate that the Angel of Coronavirus passes through each town and city every night and looks for the telltale sign that you are one of God’s elect, Chick-fil-A sauce. Those with the correct sign of being one of God’s people are passed over, while those without the sign are visited and immediately infected.
“We have no explanation,” said one so-called “scientist.” “This must be some kind of miracle from God.” The scientist said that they tried other substances, such as liberal tears, hand sanitizer, and essential oils, but only Chick-fil-A sauce proved 100% effective at staving off the Angel of Coronavirus.
At publishing time, President Trump had vowed to lead the nation’s Christians away from the Coronavirus-infested country and into the Promised Land where there are hardly any diseased people, or people at all. This turned out to be Greenland.
A Babylon Bee subscriber contributed to this report. If you want to get involved with the staff writers at The Babylon Bee, check out our membership options
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Homeschoolers To Continue Quarantining Themselves From Everything Like Always
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U.S.—The nation’s homeschoolers announced their plan to continue quarantining themselves from Coronavirus, social interactions, pop culture, and everything else Tuesday morning.
While the rest of the nation scrambled to quarantine themselves from the spread of the virus, homeschoolers were already prepared, having previously walled themselves off from the world.
“A quarantine? No problem,” said Jen Poulson, homeschooling mother from western Pennsylvania. “We’re on it.”
Homeschoolers stockpiled things like young earth science textbooks, Greek workbooks, classic movies and classical works of literature, and Bibles. They also rushed local stores to buy a bunch of toilet paper, but just so they could use the cardboard rolls for crafts.
Most homeschool kids are now currently quarantined but not much has changed, and the majority remain unaware that Coronavirus is a threat or that there is a cartoon television show called The Simpsons.
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Living in a Polar Vortex and bracing for winter storms?
Prepping 101 with Allison
Maybe you’re like the rest of us at Pew Pew Tactical, and preparing for the next big earthquake.
No matter what you’re preparing for, we want you to know we’ve got your back.
We know, Al. But earthquakes do tend to shake things up!
But before you grab your bug-out bag and head innawoods, we’re going to give you a crash course on everything you need to turn home, sweet home (or apartment) into your very own bunker!
Table of Contents
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Why Prep?
Preppers get a bad rap.
In the media, they’re often portrayed as tinfoil hat-wearing, gun-toting, trap-rigging, bunker-digging, conspiracy theory-believing weirdos. And we’re not saying they aren’t out there.
Uh… hi.
But the truth is–most preppers look just like you and me.
They’re average people who have taken steps to prepare their homes and their families for emergencies of all kinds, not just an Orwellian War of the Worlds invasion or the walking dead.
Personally, I’m sort of bummed it’s not zombies.
Most preppers are down-to-earth, discrete, and highly resourceful. Across the country, they quietly stock up on food and supplies, learn useful new skills, and, well, prepare.
So why should you join their ranks?
There are plenty of reasons that people join the prepper movement.
Maybe they find comfort in knowing they’re prepared for the unexpected. Maybe they want to make sure that their family will have resources that can see them through in case of the loss of income. Maybe they’ve experienced disasters before and won’t be caught unprepared again.
#MillennialLife
Maybe they’re looking to get back to a more traditional way of doing things, and enjoy the feeling of self-sufficiency.
Whatever reasons you have, we guarantee that there are others out there like you. The prepping community is a wealth of knowledge and support.
Whether you’re new to prepping or you need a refresher, keep reading. We’re going to take a closer look at all the things you should know to get set up and prepared for whatever may come.
Shelter in Place vs. Bugging Out
First off, let’s figure out what we’re doing.
There are two main types of prepping: bugging out and sheltering in place.
Both have benefits and drawbacks, and a truly prepared person is set up for both.
Bugging out means that you are prepared to pack up your survival gear and hit the road. It focuses on being mobile and taking only what you need. Bug-out bags are a great addition to cars, since they can help you to get home or get out of the danger zone.
When you didn’t do a test run with your bug-out bag.
Shelter in place means the opposite–you’re prepared to dig in and ride this thing out in the comfort of your own home (or office, RV, whatever). You’re well stocked with everything you need to stay alive, clean, safe, and comfortable, even in the absence of power, water, natural gas, or other utilities.
Just Fallout Shelter things <3
And that, my dear friends, is what we’re going to discuss in this article.
How to Prep in Your Home–Even If It’s an Apartment
Something I hear a lot when talking about prepping with my fellow millennials is, “But I just don’t have the space! I live in an apartment with six roommates/walk-in closet/tiny house/cardboard box fort in the woods! Where do I keep it all?!”
Okay, so prepping in a tiny house might take a little bit more creativity…
I know that housing can be a big issue, but that’s still no excuse to not at least have some basics in line.
In fact, there’s an entire world of apartment preppers. I am one of them.
Places I’ve prepped in include:
My college dorm room I shared with 3 other girls
A crawlspace under the floor of my closet in the room I lived in a shared house
A granny flat I shared with a friend over someone’s 108-year-old garage with no interior doors
A two-bedroom apartment I shared with a roommate who ate everything
A townhouse with an HOA and mandated garage parking
Real-time footage of my first apartment.
Point is, I’ve gotten really creative at putting up supplies because my housing situation always seems to demand it. If you don’t have the luxury of living on your own or having a garage, basement, walk-in pantry, or spare bedroom… you still can do this!
Small Space Prepping
If you do live in a house and have some space, you might be able to skip this section. If you didn’t binge Marie Kondo’s show and don’t have a surplus of storage, listen up.
Either Marie’s seriously escalating her methods, or Netflix is broken.
You can absolutely layaway months of dried beans and spam in a small space, what matters is how organized you are, how creative you are, and, of course, whether you’re willing to make space for prepping.
Storing Your Supplies
Obviously, no one wants to be tripping over cans of ravioli as they walk across their living room. You need a place to store your supplies that keeps them safe, accessible, and, ideally, subtle. After all, you don’t want to be the person whose door is beaten down by all your unprepared acquaintances the instant the power fails.
If your living room looks like this… it’s time to get creative with storage.
While it depends on your particular space, here are some ideas for storing your supplies:
Under the bed with rollaway storage boxes
Behind things in deep cabinets
Bookshelves or cubicle shelves
Bins in the garage
Crates on the floor of the closet
Coat closets
Nothing says that you can’t have a rack of bins in your living room. If you only have that as an option, it’s better than not prepping at all. But I think you’d be surprised at how easily you can tuck away supplies without anyone ever suspecting you own a tinfoil hat.
My garage stash. And no, none of the flammable things are actually full, because they’re living next to the water heater for the time being.
Pulling Double Duty
When you have a small space, it’s important to make sure that as many of your tools and supplies can be used for more than one thing.
You don’t need to buy gimmicky survival tools, but a solar-charged lantern that can also charge your devices is a great investment. A vacuum sealer can be used to seal dried foods, frozen foods, and documents to protect them.
If your spork doesn’t have so many features that it’s rendered practically unrecognizable as a utensil, can you even call it “tactical?”
Bleach can be diluted in many different ways to sterilize just about anything that can get wet–but rubbing alcohol is also safe to use on injuries and can be even used as a deodorant.
Making a Plan
Let’s be honest, if you want to be a successful prepper, you need a plan. You need to know how many people you’re prepping for, how long you want to have supplies for, and if there are any special considerations like medical needs.
This is what I get for asking my cat to take care of the prep plan.
Having a plan will help you prepare efficiently and effectively, which is a must when you don’t have much space to work with.
Ready to get prepping? Great!
Now that you’ve got a plan in place let’s start talking about what you’ll need to be ready for an emergency.
Food Storage
Obviously, food is a priority. Long-term food storage is best, but you can still prep without developing a taste for MREs.
Pretty, practical, not actually air-tight.
Whatever your goal is, you’ll want to squirrel away enough calories for each person to last you to that goal, but you’ll also want to make sure you have a variety of foods so you can get the nutrients you need. A food storage calculator is a great tool to help you plan.
Food for Long-Term Storage
Once you’ve figured out how much you need to save up, it’s time to get to it! There’s a multitude of ways to store food, whether you’re a DIY home canner or Amazon Prime is more your speed.
Commercially Packaged Foods
The easiest way to build up your food stocks is probably collecting pre-packaged foods, designed for long-term storage and easy use.
Making a pasta dish from one of the Wise Food buckets I have.
You’ve got plenty of options here, from freeze-dried hiking meals, #10 cans, emergency food supply buckets, surplus MREs, even plain old canned food.
We recommend a mix of food options. Single serving meals are great for variety, large cans of supplies stretch your space much further, and plenty of canned goods don’t require water or heat to be edible.
Lots of options! Some definitely better than others.
If you want to learn more about commercial survival foods, check out our Complete Taste Test Review! And video:
Home Preserved
Have a crafty streak? You might enjoy a more hands-on approach to laying away food for an emergency.
My canning set-up. Not pictured: my hoard of mason jars.
You’ve got lots of options!
Home canning food is not difficult or expensive, and it’s a great way to make sure you have access to fruit and vegetables no matter what comes. You even get control of the process from start to finish, so you can tweak recipes and make things the way you like them. If you garden, you can even start your food supply from seed!
Stuff for pickling and fermenting. That’s right–I’m making sauerkraut.
There are a few types of canning to learn about. Each one is best for different things, and it’s important to understand the differences so that you can always properly process foods for safe eating and storage.
Dry canning uses the heat of your oven to create a vacuum seal, and is best for dried goods. There is some concern about the heat shortening the lifespan of your canned goods, so don’t expect cans processed in this way to last as many years as other methods may last.
Vacuum canning is an alternative to dry canning, and uses a Food Saver and a jar attachment to suction the air out of jars and seal the lid. Because it doesn’t use heat, dried goods canned this way can last for several years. Not to mention, it’s super easy!
Water bath canning is probably the method you think of when you think about canning. Jars are closed and then placed in boiling water, which creates a vacuum and sterilizes the jars. As they cool, they’ll let out a ping! which means they’re sealed safely. Sometimes called wet canning, this method can be used for high acid foods like jams, jellies, and tomato products.
Pressure canningis the most labor-intensive form of canning, but it is also the only one that can be used on low acid foods like meat and most vegetables. Pressure canning is similar to wet canning, except the cans are placed into a water bath inside a pressure cooker, which heats the water past boiling.
If you have a vacuum sealer, you can also prepare frozen meals, break bulk food purchases into more manageable portions, and protect food from freezer burns.
Vacuum sealing cheese, very interested cat for scale.
Like I said–not all prepping is for the end of the world. Sometimes, you’re prepping for a car breaking down and not being able to make it to the grocery store that week.
If you really want to round out your home food prep kit, a dehydratoris another fantastic tool. You can use it to make dried fruit, jerky, and other treats–and it can even do it overnight, while you’re at work, or other times when you don’t want to leave your oven on and unattended.
The Food Saver doin’ its thing with dried goods and a jar attachment.
When home processing food, regardless of the method, you need to be absolutely sterile. After all, your home isn’t going to have the same controlled environment as a commercial facility, so you’ll need to take extra care.
Rotating Food
It’s a fact of life–food has expiration dates. We can extend those dates years into the future, but eventually, they will expire and you will find yourself tossing it out… unless you plan ahead.
Rotation schedules can be complex or simple, but their goal is always the same: make sure the oldest food is used up as new food is added.
Personally, I am not one to track a bunch of dates and keep up with a binder of notes (and also my partner grazes his way through my stash), so my system is really simple.
Me, explaining to my partner why he can’t just eat without noting what he ate in the food storage master list.
I use a permanent marker to write the expiration date on the lids of everything and place the newest items towards the back of the shelf. And then I beg my partner to at least use the ones with the closest date, to varying degrees of success.
For my long-term storage, I date everything the same way, and put an annual reminder in my phone to check my supplies. When that goes off, I check them, and anything with less than a year to go joins my pantry.
Water Filtration and Storage
Water!
Agua, H2O, the elixir of life… water is key. You can survive for three weeks without food (though it’s gonna suck), but you can’t go more than three days without water.
Don’t let this be you.
Unfortunately, water can be a challenge to store. It’s bulky, it’s hard to keep fresh, and you need a gallon per person, per day. If you live in a treehouse with eight roommates and a pet snake–it can be a bit challenging to store enough water to get you through two weeks.
You still have some options to keep water on hand and get more.
Water Storage
The easiest way to store water is to store gallon bottles (or those 5-gallon water cooler bottles) of water and rotate through your stash. Just go to the store, get your water, and stash it somewhere that light won’t compromise it by causing mold growth.
Water Storage, Food, & Ammo
If you’re in a DIY kinda mood, you can fill your own containers. We recommend these food-grade 5-gallon water containers, which are stackable, solid, and have an integrated handle and spigot. I own a few, and we keep at least one filled and stashed away.
Want to store more water? Augason Farms’ 55-gallon water purification system has everything you need to treat, store, and use the water you’ve stored away. Treated water has a 4-year shelf life, so at least you don’t need to fill 55 gallons of water every few months.
If you just want the water treatment part, you can get water purification drops that can treat up to 55 gallons of water. That’s a lot of those 5-gallon jugs.
Water Storage Containers
And if you want a nice, compact water solution that lasts up to 5 years, there are always emergency water pouches!
Water Filtration
Water purification is not the same as water filtration, and both are important. Purification removes bacteria, protozoa, and viruses from the water, but not particulates. Filtration removes particulates, as well as bacteria and protozoa.
How filtration works.
Both are important, and you can definitely double up on your protection.
You can find filters of varying levels of filtration and processing capabilities. A popular, single-person filter is a Lifestraw Personal Water Filter.
Losing power isn’t a guarantee when there’s an emergency situation but, well, it can happen even on a regular day.
Here in SoCal, they shut off the power if it’s even slightly breezy to prevent fires, so having alternative methods to keep your cell phone charged up and CandyCrush going all night long is a must!
Portable solar panels are convenient to store and use, and I own several of them. They can be used to charge devices directly, or they can charge portable batteries for use later.
They even can go on your bug-out bag, so you can walk and charge!
What I love using with my solar panels is a rechargeable flashlight, like this one from Anker that can be charged with a micro USB charger. I can charge it all day in the window with my solar panel, and have light all night long.
There are also other great options out there if the sun isn’t a guarantee or you want some redundancy. Hand-cranked flashlight/chargers are a great device to keep handy–you can even find them with an AM/FM radio built-in, which can help you monitor the situation.
While all that cool survival stuff is awesome, you can, and should, also keep a store of regular, plain ol’ AA, AAA, and 9v batteries on hand, too. And, as always… rotate your supply!
Cooking Supplies
There’s no guarantee your kitchen will be functional in a disaster. If you do have power and gas, awesome! If not, well… you’ll be glad you kept reading.
Actually kinda digging this DIY camp kitchen setup.
Don’t have space? That’s okay. There’s plenty of teeny-tiny stove options that can get the job done, albeit slower and less convenient.
Jetboil stoves are tiny little isobutane-propane stoves that can flash heat a liter of water to boiling in just 100 seconds.
These lil guys are super handy (and we used one to heat all the water for our survival food taste testing!) and they pack up to be darn tiny, so they’re easy to store.
Jetboil like a boss.
My personal favorite is my little Solo Stove, which is a flexible fuel rocket stove. It’s about the size of a tin-can, and fits inside the Solo Pot 900, which was designed to sit perfectly on the stove. The Solo Stove is great for burning biomass like twigs and pinecones, but it also can be used with an alcohol burner, which makes it a little more inside-friendly.
Solo Stove and Solo Pot 900
Gas Masks & Respirators
Ah, the most quintessential prepper basic–the gas mask.
Pew Pew Tactical Shooting with MIRA Safety Gas Masks
Truth be told, you probably don’t need to have one of these on hand. What we do recommend, however, is a respirator.
You probably also want to pair them with some eye-protection, such as a pair of goggles that provide a good seal. This will help keep germs and particles out of your peepers, and keep you from catching the latest corona-bola swinefluenzaplague.
3M Respirator Plus Goggles
However, if you do want to get a gas mask, our Best Gas Masks, Respirators, and Filters guide has hands-on reviews and a ton of updated information on buying protection for pandemics.
Currently, it’s a little hard to get ahold of masks and filters, but, as we’ll talk about in just a second, you don’t need one to stay safe.
Pandemics
Okay, okay–we know you’re really here because you want information on how to prepare for the next pandemic since that’s what’s on all of our minds.
The only board game I have in my bunker!
Preparing for a pandemic doesn’t mean you need to go running to the nearest medical supply retailer to stock up on masks and hand sanitizer–but there are steps you should take to prepare, obviously!
Ready.gov is a great resource to prepare your family for emergencies.
The main recommendation that Ready.gov stresses is to have two weeks of food, water, and medication in stock at home. That way, if you’re stuck at home because stores, schools, and businesses are closed, you can still hang tight and be just fine.
You also should stock up on non-prescription medications, like cold medicines, cough suppressants, antacids, electrolyte drinks, and anything else to keep you healthy and comfortable. Remember, you can’t go to the store, so if you get a stomach bug or a sniffle, you’re on your own.
So with that in mind… don’t forget to stock up on toilet paper and menstrual supplies.
Y’all be buying TP like…
(Ed. note: C’mon, you guys! I wrote this BEFORE you all went ham on toilet paper, but you can stop now!)
Keep a copy of the health records of each person in your family, including any prescriptions. Often, this information can be accessed online. Ask your doctor’s office if you need help!
Have plans for how you will take care of your loved ones should they get sick. Do you have everything at home to take care of them at home? Do you know where the nearest emergency care facility is?
Many doctors offer telehealth appointments, so you can avoid going to their office if you are ill or worried about becoming ill.
Keep those germs at home!
Make that plan ahead of time, and you won’t need to worry as much when you need it.
While you might be tempted to wear a mask, it won’t do much, and can even increase your risk of catching a virus. Masks are meant to protect others from the wearer’s germs, not the other way around. But if you’re touching your face and adjusting your mask, you might be contaminating yourself unwittingly.
We didn’t realize we needed this until we tried not touching our faces.
Instead, wash your hands. Constantly. Use hand sanitizer if you can’t wash your hands, but then wash them ASAP.
Please. Please wash your hands for the rest of us.
Also, get your slimy lil’ mitts away from your face. Most illnesses, from the common cold to COVID-19 are transmitted through the eyes and nose, so hands off! No touchie!
WikiHow, keepin’ it real.
If you’re not hunkered down in your bunker yet, keep some distance from other people and use paper towels or rubber gloves to handle things that get touched a lot, like gas pumps and doorknobs.
Suspect you’re sick? Try to protect others by keeping your distance, coughing or sneezing into a disposable tissue, and washing your freakin’ hands!
Keep your distance!
Medical Supplies & Care
On a related note–medical supplies! Sure, you probably have a box of bandaids knocking around, maybe a bottle of Advil.
But if you can’t go to the ER, how are you going to handle an accident or an emergency? If calling 911 isn’t an option, can you stop bleeding or perform CPR or administer an EpiPen?
A med bag keeps all your supplies in one space, and is easy to take with you if you need it!
You should plan to stock up on medications to handle any common illness, from colds and flus to food poisoning and allergic reactions. Electrolyte drinks also come in handy to help you keep hydrated.
Treating injuries can be more difficult to handle, but it is critical.
You will want to keep certain supplies on hand, such as sterile gauze, hemostatic bandages, tourniquets, chest seals, burn dressings, and pressure bandages, which can help you to stabilize the most serious wounds.
Everything you need to handle just about anything.
Want to learn more about what you need to keep on hand? Check out our best IFAK kits list and our current favorite all-in-one kit.
Check out our Full Review of the Surviveware large and also mini/small versions.
You also should prepare yourself and your family by taking courses in emergency first-aid, CPR, wilderness first-aid, or other useful training. And of course, don’t forget to keep your training current!
Clothing
While you might not need to plan on packing clothing if you’re sheltering in place, it’s still good to think about what you have on hand.
If you lose power or gas, will you be able to stay warm or keep cool?
Tactical fanny packs–the latest in apocalypse fashion.
If it rains and you need to go outside, can you stay dry? If you don’t have heat or power for your dryer, clothes will take longer to air dry, so you want to make sure that your only heavy coat isn’t soaked through with no way to get it dried besides waiting.
Having access to your entire closet is obviously a bonus in a survival situation, and if you maintain power and gas, you’ll have very little to worry about.
Picking out my daily apocalypse lewk.
If you do want to take extra steps to make sure that you’re equipped, consider using a waterproof spray to seal your outer layers and shoes against water, and making sure you have duplicates of things like socks, underwear, hats, and long underwear.
Don’t forget to figure in sun protection, too! Long-sleeve shirts, hats, and pants can keep the sun off you (and keep you cooler) should the weather outside be on the warm side.
Me and my ginger coloring will be rocking the Lawrence of Arabia look this summer!
You can weather anything if you take a little bit of time to plan and prepare your wardrobe for the worst!
Toiletries
Hygiene is important.
Not only can it prevent the spread of bacteria and viruses, but it’s just a comfort thing.
Assuming the worst-case scenario where your water supply is cut off (or too contaminated to use), how will you keep clean and sanitary? You don’t want to dip into your water supplies too much and run out, but you need a way of washing up and protecting yourself.
Water-free toiletries include things like baby wipes or wet naps for cleaning off grime and hand sanitizer for killing germs, but also waterless soaps and dry shampoo.
You’ll also want other things to keep comfortable, such as sunscreen, aloe vera gel, rash or itch cream, lotion, and body powder.
Remember, if you can’t get to a store and you suddenly find yourself in need of something to keep you comfortable, you’re going to have a bad time.
Keep a small supply of toiletries that can help you function when nothing else can.
Vehicles
Okay, so we know that the idea of this article is to prepare you for sheltering in place but… we’d be remiss if we didn’t at least briefly touch on vehicle preparedness.
For those of you that want to be sure your vehicle is as ready as you are, there are a few things to consider.
Gas
Obviously, your car ain’t going anywhere without gas, but storing extra gas is challenging.
You if you don’t store gas.
Gasoline has a very short shelf-life before it oxidizes. If you stockpile a bunch of gasoline without stabilizers or rotation, you might find that you have gallons of useless fuel on your hands when you need it.
So you have two options: rotate it or stabilize it.
The first method is simple–every six months or so, refill your car from your gas cans and take your empty cans to the gas station for a fresh fill. You don’t have to mess with stabilizers or anything, and you get to practice refilling your car with a can–which can be a bit challenging until you get the hang of it.
Might be time for some new gas cans, too.
The second method also is pretty easy. Once a year, add a bottle of fuel stabilizer to your supply (follow the directions for the correct amount) and you’re good to go for another year.
The downside to either of these methods is that you will need to remember to do them, but your phone’s calendar can help!
Oil, Coolant, and Other Fluids
Cars take a lot of different fluids, and if you run out of basically any of them, you’re out of luck. While you don’t need to be a certified master mechanic, you do need to know how to check and fill your coolant, oil, brake fluid, and transmission fluid.
This looks bad.
Check your car’s manual for the locations of all these reservoirs, and look up your car online–there’s a huge community of car enthusiasts providing great information on how to do these things.
Know where to find this on your car!
Once you know how to do it and what types of oil and coolant your particular vehicle needs, it’s a good idea to stock up on a supply of them, as well as routinely check your fluids (or have them checked).
Batteries, Fuses, and Electrical Systems
If your car won’t start, you won’t get far. The electrical system in your car is crucial to maintain, but also it’s a source of a lot of various car issues.
This sucker, right here.
If you don’t know how to change a battery on your own, we don’t recommend trying to do so in an emergency. But if you want to learn how ahead of time, you’re well on your way to becoming a prepper!
What is important, however, is to know how to check your battery for a charge using a battery meter, how to clean and reattach your battery’s leads if they become corroded, and how to jump-start your car using another vehicle or a jump-starter.
You can keep a set of jumper cables in your car easily, which can help you out of a sticky situation, but it can also help others. Attaching them in the right order is important, though:
Red clamp to the positive terminal of the dead battery
Other red clamp to the positive terminal of the good battery
Black clamp to the negative terminal of the good battery
Other black clamp to an unpainted metal surface on the dead car, away from the battery
Save this to your phone–you’ll thank me later.
Begin with both cars off, and attach the cables in the order above, without letting the clamps touch each other. Turn on the car with the good battery, then the car with the bad battery. Disconnect the cables in reverse order, and allow the car with the bad battery to run for at least 30 minutes to recharge the battery.
With a jump-starter, it’s even easier. Just connect the red clamp to the positive terminal and the black clamp to the negative terminal. Turn on the device, then start the car. Allow it to charge by running the engine for a while after you’ve started it. Turn off the device and disconnect it.
Boom! Done!
One last thing we’d like to mention is fuses. You can pick up a variety pack of fuses for cheap at any auto parts store, and you’ll never be left dead in the water by a blown fuse again. Most fuse boxes are very self-explanatory, with all the fuses labeled clearly.
Auto fuses are teeny, but so crucial.
You manual will tell you where your fuse box(es) are located in your car, but you’re likely to find them in the engine bay, on the side of the dash inside the driver’s door, underneath the dash on the driver’s side, or in the trunk (or under the floor of a cargo area.
Tire Patching and Air Compressors
And finally–tires. Nothing will put your wheels out of commission faster than a rogue nail, so it’s a good plan to have the knowledge and the tools to patch tires.
Not quite what we meant.
Once you’ve plugged your tire, you’ll need to reinflate it, as well as check the pressure. While the kit above does have a tire gauge, this digital tire gauge is incredibly simple to use and makes it a breeze to check your own tires.
To round it all out, you’ll need a portable air compressor. That will plug into your car’s 12v outlet, giving you the ability to fill your tires anywhere, as long as your battery has a charge!
In the event that you need to bug out, your vehicle will be ready to go and go and go!
Pets
If you have four-legged family members, you’ll want to make sure that you have plenty of supplies for them, too.
Pew Pew Cats take their prepping seriously.
Cats and dogs can share supplies like frozen meat and canned tuna with you but a little preparation and you won’t have to worry about them eating people food (not to mention, there are lots of spices and foods that are bad for them!)
Canned pet foods, as long as they remain sealed, can last just as long as canned human food. Foil packed food won’t last nearly as long, but it will last longer than foods that are packed in plastic. Plastic isn’t air-tight, and over time, oxygen will slowly make its way through the plastic to contaminate the food inside.
Just try giving your pet whatever random food was left at the raided Wal-mart. I dare you.
Dry kibbles may seem like they’ll keep, but they’re actually quite fatty which means that they’re prone to going rancid rather quickly, even when stored in a sealed container. They also are surprisingly high in moisture content for something dried, and that’s because they’ve only been dried enough to prevent mold growth–any further, and Fido wouldn’t eat it.
So what’s a pet parent to do?
Princess Wednesday, making sure I know that she wants me to stock up on tuna.
As a cat-mom myself, making sure that my kitties have plenty of food on hand is as much of a priority as making sure that I have food. If you’d ever seen them try to hunt, you’d understand. They’re pathetic.
My personal stash includes a few weeks’ worth of canned cat food, as well as some dried food, which I’ll talk about in a second.
If you feed your pets a mix of canned and dried food or dried only, and plan on stocking exclusively canned food, make sure you do some math and figure out the calorie needs of your pets and how much canned food they’ll need to meet those needs–then calculate how much food to store with that information.
Besides, you never know when you’ll end up sharing a nice can of Dinki-Di with your pal.
I do store dry food, but I use a rotation system to make sure that the oldest food is what I’m currently feeding. I started by buying two bags of food, used one and stored one. When I run out of their food inside, I bring the stored bag in and buy another to replace it. Easy!
The hard part is not letting the cats discover that there is actually more food in the house, even when I tell them, “No more, all gone!”
Don’t forget to stock up on any other supplies your critters may need, such as dried treats, medications, litter, and waste bags.
And, as with anything else, rotate your supply through!
Self Defense & Weapons
We’re going to say something controversial here: if you’re a casual prepper, you shouldn’t have a gun as the main part of your self-defense preparations.
Now, we’re not saying don’t have a gun at all. It would be awfully hypocritical of us to say that!
2A: Defending life, liberty, and the pursuit of toilet paper.
Rather, what I mean is that if you’re not going to regularly go to the range for practice, drill yourself in safe handling, secure your firearm in a way that is both safe and accessible–don’t rely on your gun to save your life.
If you’re not a shooter and have no interest in becoming one except for this idea you hold in your head that real preppers need a gun, save yourself some money and prevent a firearm accident by looking into other methods of self-defense.
Don’t be this guy, please!
But if you’re willing to put in the time and effort to learn defensive firearm use (or you already do know how), a firearm can definitely be used to protect yourself and extend your food supply, if necessary.
That being said, different firearms have different best uses. If you’re going for self-defense alone, a 9mm or .45 caliber pistol is a great choice. They’re compact enough to carry with you, have enough stopping power to be largely effective, and aren’t hard to store, maintain, or transport.
9mm vs .45 ACP
If you’re a city-dweller, you might find that a handgun is a little easier to keep around, and you won’t have to worry nearly as much about overpenetration if your backdrop is the wall that separates you and the nice old lady in the next apartment.
Testing out the overpenetration rates of 9mm ammo with a Glock 19.
That being said, both rifles and shotguns have their place in a prepper’s arsenal. If you’re a hunter, you can supplement your cached supplies with fresh game, and a more powerful rifle or shotgun can be excellent for stopping intruders in their tracks.
Let me introduce you to my little friend.
After all, there’s really nothing that can make you question your life choices than hearing the sound of a shotgun racking in the darkness.
That’s why we love our tactical shotguns, and will often reach for one when we hear something go bump in the night.
If a rifle is more your style, it’s hard to go wrong with a classic AR-15. These rifles are renowned for being able to handle everything from CQB to long-range precision shooting and hunting–it all just depends on how you build your particular rifle.
So many options, so little time to play with them all!
And considering you can piece them together like the world’s dude-liest LEGO set, you can customize your rifle to fit your needs exactly.
You heard us–exactly.
And you gotta feed your guns…check out our most common caliber ammo suggestions.
Truth be told, my 9mm M&P Shield isn’t the first thing I reach for when the cats knock something over and wake me up. I know that I haven’t gotten the trigger time I need to have in order to effectively defend myself.
That doesn’t mean I have to resign myself to being helpless. In fact, there’s a whole world of less-than-lethal self-defense items out there to keep me safe–some are even legal in California!
California is pretty much a No Fun zone when it comes to self-defense. Sorry folks.
Pepper spray is one of the most popular forms of non-lethal self-defense weapons since it is dang effective–when used correctly. Yes, it’s not just as simple as point and shoot, but it won’t take you more than 5 minutes to learn how to properly use pepper spray, so give it a try!
There is also a myriad of other options, from less-than-lethal ammunition to stun guns to self-defense keychains… which you can learn more about in our review of less-than-lethal self-defense weapons.
Prep Your Library
If I have to bug out and can only take just a handful of things, I guarantee at least one of those things will be a book.
Same, girl. Same.
Why’s that?
Because I’ve prepped my library, too. I collect books that cover a variety of skills, including wilderness survival, first aid, self-defense, food preparation, sailing, camping, and more. I also have a collection of local area books that include maps, resources, and other tips that can help me keep alive.
I can learn as much as I want, but without practice, I’m bound to forget things or get rusty, but with my collection of books, I have the information at my fingertips.
Anything I want to know, right at my fingertips!
Granted, life-saving things like stopping bleeding and CPR must be committed to memory, but I have a little bit more time to flip through a book on dressing kills when the rabbit is already dead.
I have a few books that are on my must-have list, that I think you’ll benefit from as well:
The Ultimate Survival Medicine Guide: Emergency Preparedness for ANY Disaster, by Amy Alton, ARNP and Joseph Alton, MD: This handbook is a comprehensive guide to emergency medicine when trained medical help isn’t available. It uses clear, plain language to train users in the medical care they’ll most likely need to provide in disasters and epidemics, as well as explains what medical supplies will be needed to become your community’s medic.
Wilderness First Aid: Emergency Care in Remote Locations, by Alton Thygerrson and Steven Thygerson: Designed for instructing readers on providing medical care in remote situations, this guide is a great addition to any prepper’s library. It’s easy to follow, clearly lays out decision flows to provide appropriate care. This book also includes a section on providing care for dogs, so your four-legged friends can stay safe too!
Camping & Survival: The Ultimate Outdoors Book, by Paul Tarwell: A comprehensive guide to just about everything you need to know to survive in the wild, from making camp to foraging for food. It’s packed with information you didn’t know you needed to know!
Just in Case: How to Be Self-Sufficient When the Unexpected Happens, by Kathy Harrison: Veering away from wilderness survival, this book prepares you for what to do when disaster strikes and public services aren’t available. You’ll learn about food storage and rotation, staying in communication with loved ones, packing evacuation kits, and so much more!
The Prepared Prepper’s Cookbook, by M.D. Creekmore: This all-in-one prepper blueprint for food is the only thing you need to store, preserve, prep, and cook fantastic meals with only the things you’ve put away. Best of all, everything is easy to follow, so you don’t have to be a master chef to pull this off!
Now that you have a list of books to shop for, we have to discuss the next important topic: digital or hardcopy?
There are pros and cons to both, and neither one is the wrong answer.
I can hear both sides of this debate yelling at me already.
Digital collections take up almost no space, except for whatever device you’re using. You can store hundreds of books and resources and access them easily–as long as you have them downloaded and have a charge.
Physical copies don’t need batteries to read, but they’re a lot bulkier and harder to transport.
See? Pros and cons. All you have to do is figure out which option works best for you!
Conclusion
Phew! That was a lot, but you’ve done it. Congratulations, you’ve officially passed Prepping 101 with flying colors!
Pugsley’s take: Foil hats–NOT cat-approved.
Taking care of your family during an emergency takes just a little bit of preparation and planning, and you’re ready to take on that challenge now. You’ve got this!
Anything else you want to learn about emergency preparedness? How do you prep for the worst? We want to hear from you, so leave a comment below. While you’re here, why not check out Essential SHTF Gear?
Stuck at home? On demand and Virtual Events and Entertainment
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Yes, we’re all stuck at home, or at least limited in our entertainment and activities. Don’t sit in front of the tv binge watching your normal tv shows – save that for your normal tv viewing time. Use some of your free time to check out new types of entertainment and virtual events and broaden your horizons while you stay at home!
We’ve gathered a list of free online and virtual events and activities so you can feel social while social distancing.
Virtual Events and Activities for Anyone!
Virtual Museum Tours and Exhibits
Google Arts & Culture has joined together with over 500 museums and galleries around the world to offer virtual tours and online exhibits of some of the most famous museums around the world.
Home Safari Facebook Live each weekday at 3pm will highlight one of the amazing animals and include an activity you can do from home. Join them starting Monday, March 16 at 3pm for the first Home Safari- featuring Fiona!
Watch 2 sessions of Columbus Zoo Q’s Series on their Facebook page. On Zoo Qs, they’ll offer answers with weird, wacky, and fun facts about the awesome animal kingdom. There are 10 episodes available, and each is just a few minutes long, such as “Why do giraffes have spots?” or “Wombat Poop Is What?”.
You can also watch a new video of Aurora’s 15 week old cub explore his behind-the-scenes yard and pool!
Each day next week at 3pm EST you can log in for free and your kids can go on a LIVE and one of a kind adventure with some awesome people. Open to all ages but focused on kids ages 5-10.
Monday – an exotic animal veterinarian will be hanging out with real giraffes (yes, this photo is one of them!) and teaching us all about their lives
Tuesday – a local policeman will give a tour of his police car and share all about how our policemen spend their days
Wednesday – some fun and relaxing and CALMING kid’s yoga with the amazing Allison Sullivan
Thursday – an adventure all the way to Ghana, Africa with yours truly
Friday – an online art class where kids will learn new skills and refine old ones and create something awesome (and not messy)
America’s Preppers are Finally Getting a Little Respect
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By John Seewer, AP
Curt La Haise has put up with plenty of razzing from friends over the years who have called him paranoid for stockpiling an eight-month supply of food in his basement and having enough fuel to power his generator for almost an entire winter.
They’re not laughing anymore amid panic buying that has cleared store shelves across the U.S. and growing fears that the new coronavirus will force many Americans to self-quarantine for weeks in their homes.
“Now my friends are like, ‘What should I do, what should I get?’” said La Haise, who operates a firearms and safety training business near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. “Prepping doesn’t look so bad now.”
For those in the often-mocked “prepper” community, this is quickly becoming their “I told you so” moment. But many are resisting saying that, even if it’s in the back of their minds. What they hope is that they’ll finally be taken seriously and that more people will follow their lead.
“We’re not laughing. We’re not saying, ‘I told you so,’ when people are out there fighting over toilet paper and hand sanitizers,” said Paul Buescher, of Northfield Center Township, Ohio.
Buescher is one of 32 members of a group in northeastern Ohio that shares a farm packed with enough canned and dehydrated food and water to last for years. He said he is now getting calls all day long asking for advice.
Jim Wiseman displays his guns in a gun safe at his home in La Jolla, Calif. The 54-year-old businessman and father of five has a back-up generator, a water filter, a grain mill and a 4-foot-tall pile of emergency food tucked in his home in this upscale San Diego suburb. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)
Survival supply stores can’t keep up with the demand for food kits and medical supplies.
“Every single business that has to do with emergency preparedness is overloaded,” said John Ramey, founder of a Colorado-based prepper website called The Prepared.
Most preppers say they are about self-reliance and common sense and are quick to distance themselves from the “doomsday preppers” who are depicted on television shows awaiting the day most of the world’s population is wiped off the map.
“The vast majority of this is ‘beans and Band-Aids,’ not ‘bullets and bunkers,’” Ramey said.
Jim Cobb, a disaster readiness consultant and editor-in-chief of Prepper Survival Guide magazine, said he has seen a few fellow preppers gloating on social media about people who are crowding stores in search of disinfectants.
“I hate the thought of alienating any of them because they think were a bunch of elitist goofballs.” he said. “We’re trying to take advantage of the opportunity that for once they’re not laughing and pointing fingers at us.”
While most people who have tested positive for the virus experience only mild or moderate symptoms, there’s a greater danger and longer recovery period for older adults and people with existing health problems.
Experts say it’s most important to practice safe hygiene: Wash hands frequently, cover sneezes and coughs, and stay home if fever or other symptoms arise.
As for the preppers, they have their own recommendations for anyone who is unsure of what to do next:
— Be ready to stay at home for at least two weeks. Have plenty of food and water. Don’t forget about your pets and medicines. That includes over-the-counter products for fevers and coughs.
— Yes, toilet paper is important, but so are hand sanitizers, disinfectants, sanitation wipes, eye protection and gloves.
— Get your finances in order. Make sure you can pay your bills and have cash on hand.
— Maybe most important, relax and don’t panic. And pay attention to the news and what’s happening around you.
This morning I see this Tweet from CNN sentient potato Brian Stelter:
Surgeon General Jerome Adams used the word "need" while talking to the WH press corps. So I will too. He needs to spend his time educating the public about how to protect each other, not lecturing the press about what’s newsworthy. https://t.co/1beTbBHZPWpic.twitter.com/VXFYkD19H9
“We really need you all to lean into and prioritize the health and safety of the American people,” Surgeon General Jerome Adams said at Saturday’s White House briefing. There’s nothing controversial about that — news outlets are empowering the public with health and safety information. But then Adams said this: “No more bickering, no more partisanship, no more criticism or finger pointing. There’ll be plenty of time for that. But we all need to hit the reset button and lean into moving forward the health and safety of the American people…”
What Adams called “bickering” and “criticism” is what most of us call accountability. Is there value in focusing on the future? Yes, but when Adams said he wants “less stories looking at what happened in the past,” I hear him saying “stop exposing the Trump administration’s failures.” There is value in all of the coverage. And government officials don’t get to decide that — readers and reporters and whistleblowers and editors do.
So Stelter admits that he is biased and projects his own anti-Trump hatred onto what the Surgeon General says.
The media would rather run with “make Trump look bad” than anything helpful to people.
Yesterday I went to the grocery store. There was no milk, bread, and toilet paper, and hardly any eggs.
Why is this happening?
Because the media is fucking dog-shit awful to a degree that is hard to fathom.
If the media were responsible, this is what they would be covering:
The United States, however, is more than self-sufficient on toilet paper and paper products in general. About 90% of US toilet paper is produced domestically. Most of the rest comes from Canada.
There is a reason for this. The United States has millions of hectares of harvestable forests in the Pacific North West. When you wipe your ass with a fluffy brand name two-ply paper, you are wiping your ass with some of the finest maple, oak, pine, and douglas fir ever cut down by American lumberjacks.
Chinese export shutdowns are not going to interrupt the toilet paper supply chain.
The is the same for food. In 2016, 87.3% of US food consumed was produced domestically. What we import is mostly specialty items like wines, cheeses, tropical fruits, and exotic items. Our staples are almost entirely US grown.
More than that, many of your staple items are produced within a couple of hundred miles from where you live. The milk I buy in Huntsville, Alabama, comes from a dairy in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, all of 112 miles away. I know, because I checked the milk code.
If you live in New York City, your milk probably comes from upstate New York.
There is no reason to horde milk or toilet paper or bread because of the Coronavirus.
BUT…
The media covered the Australian toilet paper hoarding and failed to explain any of this and people panicked and the shortages began.
Once there was a shortage of one staple (toilet paper) it caused people to horde other items and eventually, it cased a societal cascade failure.
Why?
So because of the media’s malfeasance and desire to make Trump look bad no matter what, we end up with this:
People should stop this toilet paper crap. There’s enough toilet paper for every person on this god forgotten rock floating in space. pic.twitter.com/s2m9k8ttrb
Rather than telling Americans that it’s not worth fighting each other over the last package of toilet paper in Target like its guzzoline in the wasteland, they are reporting shit like this:
So far, the United States has seen forty-one deaths from the infection. Twenty-two of those deaths occurred in one poorly run nursing home outside of Seattle, the Life Care Center. Another nine deaths occurred in the rest of Washington state, leaving ten deaths (four in California, two in Florida, and one in each of Georgia, Kansas, New Jersey, and South Dakota) spread throughout the rest of the approximately 329 million residents of the United States.
By comparison, there were 38,800 traffic fatalities in the United States in 2019, the National Safety Council estimates. That represents an average of over one hundred traffic deaths every day; if the press catalogued these in as much painstaking detail as they have deaths from coronavirus, highways nationwide would be as empty as New York subways are now.
As of Monday, approximately 89 percent of Italy’s coronavirus deaths had been over the age of seventy, according to The Wall Street Journal. Sad to say, those victims were already nearing the end of their lifespans. They might have soon died from another illness. No child under the age of nine has died from the illness worldwide. In China, only one individual in the ten-to-nineteen age group has succumbed.
An example: there were 34,200 deaths in the United States during the 2018–19 influenza season, estimates the cdc.
This is outstanding reporting putting common fatalities into perspective.
If you are under the age of 70, you are statistically more likely to die in a car crash on the way to the doctor to get tested than you are of Coronavirus.
Remember that data from 2002 shows that 1.7 million people got a Health Care-Associated Infection (when you get an infection going to the hospital because you are surrounded by other sick people) and almost 99,000 people died from those infections.
That is what killed my dad. His cancer was in remission from the chemo, but that made him immunocompromised, not to mention that he was a 62-year-old diabetic. He went to the hospital, got pneumonia, turned septic and died.
It seems much more likely that an elderly patient going to the hospital with Conronavirus will die from a staph or strep or MRSA infection they picked up in the waiting room than of the virus itself.
It seems that the leading underlying cause of untimely death in Europe is being elderly.
But that reporting does not generate panic clicks, cause people to sit in front of the TV for hours waiting for updates, or make Trump look bad, so the major networks won’t run it.
When the dust settles and we figure out just how much damage was done to our economy and the fabric of our society because of media malfeasance during the Coronavirus outbreak, I think there will be hell to pay.
One work-from-home suggestion: snacks, supplies, a pet, and dolls. You should consider upgrading to a more ergonomic work station (better chair, better keyboard). Replacing the dolls, on the other hand, is not an option, as far as we’re concerned. (Unless you swap in
Babylon 5
toys, we guess.)
Aurich Lawson / Getty
No matter where you live or work, the novel coronavirus means you’ve probably begun exploring the option of working from home instead of a centralized office. (In many cases, “option” is a gentleway of putting it.) Here at Ars Technica, our staffers have seen their phones and messaging apps blow up with countless versions of the following: “How the heck do you pull off this whole work-from-home thing?”
We’re in a position to know. Ars Technica has operated as a remote workforce since it was founded in 1998, decentralized and connected entirely by Internet-fueled collaboration. If this is news to you, fear not: Senior Technology Editor Lee Hutchinson wrote a massive February explainer about how our site functions this way. That feature is one part of a recent remote-work series, and its other entries have focused largely on the business feasibility of the practice.
But that conversation’s tenor is shifting rapidly in the face of coronavirus, and you might be more interested in a broader set of impressions and tips. Thus, we’re here to offer ways big and small to improve your remote workplace experience, based on our staff’s years of doing it successfully. These range from brief to lengthy, and they include suggestions that may seem obvious or silly to some, but sometimes in the course of working from home, the little stuff adds up in a big way.
Above all else, we’re here for you. Expect more coverage about the work-from-home transition from Ars Technica in the weeks to come, and hit us up if you start feeling a bit insane. Even when you work from home, take it from us: you’re not alone.
Doctor’s orders: Jay Timmer, Ph.D., Senior Science Editor
Your office needs to have a view. Trees, birds, open sky—just something you find appealing so that when you raise your head from your screen to clear your mind, there’s something there that you want to see.
Have an exercise and activity routine. Many studies have shown that simply getting up and moving a bit is incredibly positive for your health. When you can set up your office with everything you need and don’t have to get up and find co-workers or go out for food, it’s easy to just go completely sedentary. Establish a routine to avoid that.
Have a default activity for when you need a break from work—something you shift to easily, without having to spend the time thinking about what you want to do. One of the big problems for me is that I usually need a break when i’m already feeling drained and not thinking clearly, so the last thing I want is to have to start an internal debate about what I want to do.
Have a physically separate workspace—ideally a separate office or at least a desk that’s dedicated to work. Put it as far as possible from the kitchen, laundry room, TV, and other sources of domestic distraction. You want to take regular breaks throughout the day, but it should take a bit of time and effort to get there so you’re not constantly tempted to distract yourself with snacks, chores, or whatever.
It’s Slack, not slacking: Lee Hutchinson, Senior Technology Editor
In my experience, what helps more than anything to have coworkers who are also virtual. At a past job I held a role for a year or so where I was the only remote teammate in a large Bellevue, Washington-based administration team. On the upside, this meant I could work from home at need; I had access to a physical office in my city, but I was just as remote from my team there as at home. On the downside, it meant that I missed out on a huge amount of communication. Everyone was in the office, catching each other in the hall for informal communication, sticking their heads over cube walls to ask quick questions or hash out ideas verbally, BSing around the coffee pot, and all the other normal office things one does. Unless someone specifically called my desk phone or hit me up in an instant message or email, I was more or less isolated.
Working at Ars with a fully remote team means the majority of our interaction occurs within Slack, including the informal goof-off stuff that’s so important for building shared experiences and reinforcing team cohesion. The “time-wasting” aspects of Slack that might make it a questionable fit for teams using it to supplement a physical office are important when that’s (more or less) the only socialization you get with coworkers.
So I guess that’s a long way of saying that at least some kind of human contact is a must. Everybody’s got days whene they need to be head-down on a project and don’t want to be bothered, of course, but having someone in a similar situation as you, with whom you can share a dumb link or have a quick laugh over a shared joke, is absolutely vital to mental health.
I have spent much of my career working from home long before I joined Ars, and I absolutely agree it makes a huge difference having everyone working remotely. It’s the same kind of bonding via shared experience that takes place in a physical office, only virtually. When it was just me, I still found ways to build online communities, e.g., through a group of science-writer friends (including Dr. Timmer). We started out with an email list, then graduated to a Slack channel (which I visit far less frequently these days because I’m spending all my time on the Ars Slack—it meets the same need).
I honestly have never really struggled with working from home. It suits my temperament more than your standard office setting, and I’ve always been good at establishing my own daily routine and structure. But I noticed early on that without some regular social interaction in meatspace, it was way too easy to get lost in my own head and get a bit “tweaky.” Case in point: my spouse, Sean, was on a speaking tour in Australia for two weeks last month, and I made sure to schedule some time with friends a couple of times a week until he returned: meeting a fellow writer for tea and carbs, for instance, having a girls’ brunch and movie outing, or stopping by our local animal shelter to pet some rescues and help out for an hour or so. (We adopted our two cats from there, so I feel invested. 😊)
Jennifer Ouellette
Speaking of which: pets are a great outlet for short breaks during the day. I like looking up from the keyboard to see a napping kitty curled up on my Time Capsule or wanting to play fetch or get a few scratches.
I have always, like John, staked out time for regular workouts during the day, just to get me out of the house and away from my desk for a couple of hours. It’s also great for mind/body balance: working out gives my brain a rest so I can come back to work refreshed, ready to pound through any tough story or fit of writer’s block/brain fog that might have been plaguing me earlier. I can also often multitask during workouts by watching films or TV series that I might review, further countering those couch-potato tendencies. If you can review work documents or watch necessary video content while moving, that’s an option with or without a home treadmill; just watch your phone-glancing step if you take it outside. Which I suggest. While it’s better to physically leave the house for workouts, we do have the NordicTrack equivalent of a Peloton for those days when it’s just not feasible (say, a voluntary self-quarantine during a pandemic).
Study Finds High Demand for Go and AR/VR Programmers, While Python Remains Favorite Language
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The tech jobs marketplace at Hired.com crunched their data on more than 400,000 interview requests and job offers over the last year to produce their annual "State of Software Engineers" report. Among its surprising insights: software engineers with more than 10 years of experience get 20% fewere interview requests than engineers with 4 to 10 years of experience. Other insights:
Demand for AR/VR talent is up by 1400%, mirroring blockchain’s 517% demand growth last year… In large U.S. tech hubs AR/VR engineer salaries range from $135k – $150k… 46% of software engineers rank AR/VR as one of the top 3 technologies they’d like to learn in 2020… If you work in AR/VR, you may want to move to San Francisco, where they pay $150k/year on average. The next-highest growth in demand came for "gaming engineers" and "computer vision engineers" — with both positions seeing a 146% increase in demand over 2018. The next-highest demand growth was for "search engineers" (increasing 137%) and for "machine learning engineers" (increasing 89%). Demand for "blockchain engineers" increased by just 9%. But they also report that demand for frontend and backend engineers "grew steadily by 17%, which shows that all companies — not just Silicon Valley tech giants — are evolving into being tech companies…"
The worldwide process of digital transformation, while something of a buzzword, reflects a critical truth: every company is now a technology company. Whether the company is Bank of America, Alaska Airlines, Sainsbury’s, or Tesla, investment in top software engineering talent isn’t a future ambition, it’s a matter of survival. And the #1 most-desired coding skill was Go (for the second year in a row), "garnering an average of 9.2 interview requests for every Go-skilled candidate…" But there may be a larger trend.
All told, the number of interview requests across all languages remained nearly constant year-over-year, with only minor fluctuations in average requests, and zero change in how each language ranked against others. This could suggest that supply for these skills has not yet caught up with demand… According to Robert Half, 67% of IT managers plan to expand their teams in areas such as security, cloud computing and business intelligence, but 89% reported challenges in recruiting that talent. Those challenges in hiring are even greater for roles related to machine learning, artificial intelligence, and blockchain. Their analysis concludes the most in-demand programming languages are Go, Scala, Ruby, TypeScript, Kotlin, Objective C, JavaScript, Swift, PHP, Java, HTML, and then Python — though Python, JavaScript, and Java are engineers’ favorite coding languages, "largely because of their useful and well-maintained libraries and packages…" "Ruby, PHP and Objective C are ranked the least favorite (and least fun) languages for software engineers."
U.S.A. –-(Ammoland.com)– Oregon-based Kershaw Knives (and sister company Zero Tolerance) have a prodigious release rate, to say the least. I try to spread the reviews out, but it turns out in doing so sometimes I’m so busy using a knife, I forget to write it up! Such is the case with Kershaw’s Static, a pocket cleaver. This is a knife I like a lot, but has one flaw keeping it from being a knife I love. Let’s find out what makes the Static tick.
Given the Static’s composition of a stainless steel 8Cr13MoV blade and a stainless handle, I’m hearing “durable, durable” in my head. By that I mean resistant to the elements, and requires little care or maintenance The only real downside to the choice of 8Cr13MoV for the blade, is that it loses its edge a bit quicker than higher grade steels. 8Cr13MoV compensates for this by taking an edge with ease. Sharpening the static is no chore at all. A quick special mention to the texturing along the base of the knife’s spine! Great traction for when you use your thumb to really bear down while cutting.
Kershaw has often used KVT ball bearings for their blades to spin open on, and to good effect. Just a little resistance to start with, then the Static slides open with ease. Similarly, the usual Kershaw frame lock makes a return appearance here, and is simply reliable. It locks open every time, and unlocks easily enough. While I would appreciate a little texturing on the grip face of the frame lock, it’s not a real necessity here.
Solid lockup
Between the stainless steel construction (outdoors!) and the cleaver blade shape (kitchen!), the Kershaw Static seems most at home being used in a campsite cookset. While I’ve used it as an EDC blade, (and it performs very well in usual daily tasks), it really feels in its natural element cutting through a thick slab of meat that’s getting ready to be dropped into the hot cast iron pan.
Meat, cast iron, Static. nice trio!
So what’s my problem with the Kershaw Static? It’s inexpensive, easy to sharpen and made from some pretty corrosion-resistant stuff. It even checks the usual boxes with good design, a solid framelock and oil-slick ball bearings. My only issue is that the Static is a little to short for my hands. Now, my mitts aren’t giant, nor are they little carney hands. I’m left wanting just a little more handle here, maybe .5″-1″. I know that even if I found my Goldilocks solution, that would leave others out in the cold. I just feel that the Static would be better suited a touch longer, still shorter than many other pocket folders out there!
With all that said, the Kershaw Static is to me a really good value for what you’re getting. Good design and rugged construction combine with the very reasonable price point to bring a good knife to your collection, whether it’s for EDC or the campsite. MSRP on the Kershaw Static is $59.99, while the street price is around $36. If you like the cleaver shape and are interested in checking the Static out, I think it will be worth your time.
About Rex Nanorum
Rex Nanorum is an Alaskan Expatriate living in Oregon with his wife and kids. Growing up on commercial fishing vessels, he found his next adventure with the 2nd Bn, 75th Ranger Regt. After 5 tours to Afghanistan and Iraq, he adventured about the west coast becoming a commercial fisheries and salvage SCUBA diver, rated helicopter pilot instructor (CFII) and personal trainer, before becoming a gear reviewer and writer.”
(@howroute) 
