> Generator 5kw - you want something with a higher duty cycle than you need so it can run for extended periods
Note that fossil fuel can age out, even with stabilizer.
There are dual- and tri-fuel generators out there that can use natural/methane gas and/or propane. Consider propane as you can get pretty big bottles and it does not expire so can sit around for long periods of time.
yeah used to manage data centers, diesel breaks down after a while, petrol even faster.
you can put in additives to extend the life, and specialized storage can squeak even more out, but ultimately you can't plan on it being good past 12 months, maybe as low as 5-6 if conditions aren't great.
we ran / tested the generators weekly, both just to exercise them and confirm they're good, but also just to burn off old fuel.
If you have a solar panels, a battery, and generator, it would be good idea to figure out how to hook them all together. Using the generator near its full output, to charge the battery, will use far less fuel than idling it all day.
Even if things are bad enough for iodine pills, they are only really needed for children. Once you hit your mid teens, your thyroid is fully developed and not pulling in enough iodine to worry about radioactive isotopes.
I presume that radiation is why the Ukrainian brought it up.
The article did mention using it for treating water, but it's not very good at that, and it tastes awful. Reverse osmosis works much, much better and it doesn't need to be a large permanently installed system; portable gravity-fed versions readily available.
I was thinking the other day that ALL drones SHOULD be considered LIVE explosives. It's probably never a good idea to handle one if you're not trained.
Last march i was at SxSw and the police drones over head were a first for me. I was in this large crowd of people, and thought "yeah i dont like this". How do i know they're not just some bad actors drone with red and blue lights?
I think my exposure to casual discussions of how to arm drones with my Ukrainian friend, and the videos we've all seen on Reddit about drones in Ukraine, have really made their presence feel unwelcome.
It depends on a number of factors about legality, but the hardware to make a drone that doesn't have software forcing it to follow the law is cheap and plentiful. Its not particularly hard to get either, even with the drone ban.
For ~$200 you can build a very good FPV drone that can carry a dangerous payload and travel at highway speeds. Another ~$200 buys you the video receiver and a controller.
Warfare yes, but that's all warfare that's terrifying. Similarly you can make a point that for $10 you can buy a knife that can be used in all different morbid crimes.
FPV drones as a fun hobby in the rest of the world has had, in the last 10 years since it became somewhat popular, a total of zero fatalities or serious injuries. Don't let the irrational fear guide you towards further unnecessary regulation that makes others' lives worse.
A toddler lost an eye, several hospitalizations of unrelated bystanders, multiple aircraft damaged in midair collisions, and an attempted assassination of a world leader are some of the highlights. Not exactly a squeaky clean record with no “serious injuries”, even if you ignore the intentional assassination attempt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unmanned_aerial_vehicl...
I think FPV and drones are awesome, and have built several myself. It is pretty hard to argue that they are not also very dangerous in the wrong hands. Are there more dangerous things in the world? Sure, but that doesn’t mean people should ignore an easy attack vector. Given the temperature of things currently, I would be incredibly nervous to hear a drone at a protest or political event.
Regulations are coming whether regular Joe wants them or not. Drones had moved from toy hobby to dealing with weapons and explosives level of scrutiny and this is not reverting anytime soon.
I saw writing on the wall and donated in 2022 my dji drone to Ukrainian army, hopefully it was used well for defense of their homeland. I don't want to have a hobby that I need to do covertly and illegally, and last thing I want to do during vacations is dealing with bureaucracy.
is the last point correct?
"Get familiar with remote detonation with drones, these are what we use to set off the molotovs:"
seems off for this list, like way off and more on military/offence side of type of thing?
and why would you need a 300m+ ethernet cable in a disaster?
Totally valid use case for sure, and we discussed this because I do have a Starlink dish, but honestly, in a conflict with the US...I don't think a) I'd want to use starlink and b) i'd expect it to work.
Ethernet cable is a high quality cable usable for various other purposes. That includes low voltage power line, such as 12V from the car to phone charger in the house, solar panel wiring, basic tripwire alarms, command relays in the yard from the house, basic audio intercom with your neighbors when phone lines are down, etc.
Plus the obvious ethernet repairs: lines broken by fallen trees/branches in a storm, video camera cables cut by thieves, install new survillance cameras, move existing ones.
Self-supporting ethernet cable is also a decent clothesline when your dryer is not working.
In his case i didn't actually bother asking about the cat6 because i already had a huge reel in my garage, but I can think of cases such a remotely mounting satellite dish' and maybe connecting buildings to each other.
The molotov didn't seem out of range for me honestly. Firstly because I know he was one of the first people flying drones for defence, and now they've been mass producing their own for a few years. I have to admit, it seems pretty rational to want to fight back in any way possible.
Funny, not funny, this friend and I met up in early 2020 and had a beer down the road. He was telling me he'd rented his apartment in Liviv and was moving here next week. He had to go home to get some things, hand over the unit, and then he'd be back.
Next week was the pandemic, borders closed. He never left, and now he /still/ cant.
Let politicians fight and die in their own wars. If russia "visited" my country, I'd follow it with a drink in my hand from the bahamas. No piece of dirt or earth is worth dying for, ever.
> No piece of dirt or earth is worth dying for, ever.
If no one ever defends the dirt, the pieces of earth where you can enjoy a drink in peace and freedom will shrink over time as the aggressors will continue to gobble up land because of the lack of defending.
They keep moving forward, you keep moving back, until you have no where to retreat to.
Come back to this comment in a few years and think about whether something significant has changed for those people who did not sacrifice their lives for a meaningless battle.
People are more important than the state. If they are not ready to defend him, why should they be forced? You can offer money or other valuables in return, such as fame, a pension, or a position, but if a person doesn't want to, why should they do it?
> Come back to this comment in a few years and think about whether something significant has changed for those people who did not sacrifice their lives for a meaningless battle.
My family is from Eastern Europe: if people had not fought "meaningless" battles then the land would have been ruled by genocidal maniacs. As it stand my grandmother almost ended up in an oven.
My very existence is the result of the battles having meaning, that people fighting matters.
Russia doesn't just "visit" your country. Lookup what Ruskiy Mir (Russian world) really means, basically your country gets subjugated by the Russians and I'm not talking about civilized or professional Russian forces - I'm talking about drunk and poor 20yo boys from a remote Russian villages that are now seeing the spoils of western civilization for the first time (do lookup what happened in Bucha, Kyiv suburbs in 2022 at the onset of invasion). Then of course the refusal of the Russians to recognize any other culture or language...the list goes on and on. So - yes, you could escape with a drink but then "If Not Me, Then Who"?
This is a lie, please stop spreading those. There are no "all barbed wire" borders, no anti-personnel mines, "guards with automatic weapons" sounds like some meme from 80s video games (which border guards anywhere in the world don't have some rifle with automatic fire mode?). Young people from Ukraine can currently travel free as far as I know.
You were thinking about russia, weren't you. Its not true even for that shithole, but much closer.
Very unlikely. Men of ages 18-60 are forbidden to leave Ukraine since February 27 or 28 of 2022. Women cannot cross the border since 2023.
Of course, there should be some exceptions. For example, some people need to go abroad to bring Western supplied munitions, officials can leave to visit other countries, etc.
But almost 100% of the population cannot leave Ukraine under any circumstances.
I have spoken with several Ukrainian women who have crossed the border several times since 2023. They live and work in Poland or Czechia, but go visit Ukraine once or twice a year. Note they're Ukrainian citizens, and do not have Czech nor Polish citizenship.
I don't follow Ukrainian laws closely. I remember they allowed young men of ages 18-22 to cross the border in August 2025 (!). That caused enormous lines on the borders as the first day after this law 11,000 young men fled the country.
But that only about men of age 18-22. Men of age 22-60 still cannot leave the country. And 18-22 couldn't leave the country for three years.
Honest question: why do you comment when you clearly have no idea what you are talking about? You make all kinds of false claims, and then people who actually know have to correct you.
You skipped the part where I said I work with Ukrainians? I work with them on a weekly basis for 13 years.
> Can you show an Ukrainian law that allows men to freely cross the border?
Did I say he crossed it legally? He crossed it illegally of course, which according to you was impossible due to guards with automatic rifles, drones and anti-personnel mines.
> half of my family lives in Ukraine.
My bet: You haven't spoken with them in years, because they cut connections due to your political views. Just as I will now.
The world we're headed for there is no "other place" to escape to. Many people's view of survival during collapse ultimately assumes the existence of a fairly large "safe haven" space for which they just need to survive until they get there.
That depends on a lot of personal things. I remember a Ukrainian I personally know, leaving after the 2014 invasion.
When Russia was doing "exercises" at their border in 2022, I asked them in a meeting what they felt (guys living in Lviv). Most of them thought Russia would have done it in 2014 already, and now it didn't make much sense. Only 1 person responded he filled up his gas tank. But in the end, nobody left Lviv right after the invasion.
