Photo: Midnight-digital/Flickr
Crisis schmisis. It’s nothing more than a crisis of consumer confidence, and Wired.com Editor Dylan Tweney’s list of 12 Good Gadgets for Hard Times is a great way to spend some money to survive it.
But what happens in a real crisis, the kind where the world stops working, the electricity stops working and (gasp) the internet
stops working? Every New Year’s Eve, some wacko predicts the End of
Days. What might you need? Consulting my huge back catalog of
post-apocalyptic science fiction, I came up with the following list of
true essentials. Bonus points for spotting the Sci-Fi sources.
Still
In order to weather the End of the World, you’ll need a stiff drink. Once the supermarkets have been looted, you can become the most profitable member of your tribe by building a liquor still.
Finding one might be tricky, so the quickest way is to build your own. First, hit Wikipedia for the details and print them, right now (remember, there will be no internet). Then, you’ll need to ferment something starchy or sugary to get some alcohol. Then, it’s into the still.
A good vessel is a copper hot-water tank. It probably even has a heating element inside, but if you’re out of power you’ll need to light a fire. The trick is to take the temperature up enough to boil the alcohol, but leave the water behind. The vapor is then condensed back to liquid in a spiral pipe. Just be careful you leave the “top and tail” — the undesirable parts of fermentation at the beginning and end, including the poisonous alcohol, methanol.
You’re done. Now you just need an old barrel and five years of patience.
Eyeglasses
Collect these if you can. Like Eldon Blaine in PKD’s Doctor Bloodmoney, you could make some cash off the former contact lens wearers. Better still, try to pick up some stronger lenses, or magnifying glasses.
With a lens you can use the sun to heat things, and set them on fire — you know, like you did to ants when you were a kid. Equally useful is the parabolic mirror, found in the wild in electric bar heaters but easily made with the right math and a shiny piece of metal. This can be used as a solar oven. Mmmm, barbecue. Now you just need to catch some critters, and for that you’ll need some…
Knives
Essential. The knife has so many uses it should be your first priority. You’ll also need more than one: your chef’s knife won’t be much good at chopping onions if you first use it to chop down the wood for cooking them.
We also recommend a machete, mainly because we’ve seen too many explorer movies where the machete is used as both weapon and jungle-clearer. When you loot your local Walmart, forget the iPods and grab one of these. Then grab the iPods.
Electricity
Fire only goes so far. It’s great for cooking and keeping you warm, and especially for those romantic dinners with the boy or girl from the neighboring bunker, but after a while you’re going to need some juice. Fire can be turned into electricity, but it’s tricky and wasteful.
Better to use the wind and the sun. Solar panels are good, as are wind turbines. The latter can be made with a bicycle wheel, a few fence panels, some wire and some magnets. I know — I made one in art college. You won’t power the HDTV you just stole, but it should be enough for some light and to charge the iPod Touch.
iPod Touch
What? An iPod? Isn’t that a little frivolous? No, my future shocked friends, it’s an essential piece of kit, and if you preload it properly and make the generator above, it will serve you well.
First, music will stop you going crazy. Load the iPod with some classic tunes that won’t drive you mad after a year or two, and then head to the App Store. There you will find the whole of Wikipedia, ready for offline use. This could be the best 2GB you ever downloaded — even better than the Hi-Def “Two Girls One Cup” video you got via BitTorrent.
Having the Wikipedia in your pocket means you’ll be able to tackle any problem, ever. Well, almost. A quick pre-apocolyptic visit to pornhub should take care of the rest.
More
There are other things you may need, but the list above will serve for survival, fun and profit. Of course, we welcome suggestions for our disaster kit, so leave them in the comments.
