Evan Primakow Online

Worried the world is going to end, you get stuck on a desert island, or {insert natural disaster here} ruins your city and you have to survive on your own? Then you need to quick - while there is still an Internet - build your own portable survival kit. The following guide will help you put together some essentials so you can survive in an emergency.

• Lexan Wide Mouth Bottle
  This bottle will serve two purposes. The first and most obvious is as a drinking bottle. Its second and more creative use is as secure storage for non-liquid items that you would like to keep safe, waterproofed, and away from damage. These things are virtually indestructible and virtually waterproof when sealed tightly, so almost everything in your survival kit will go in here.
• Swedish Firesteel
  Fire has been essential to humankind’s survival since we first harnessed its power. There are some nice windproof matches available that would fit nicely inside your survival kit, but even if you fill the thing completely with matches, you won’t get the 12,000 strikes you will from a single set of Swedish firesteel - and it takes up much less space. I don’t own any of this myself (yet!), but I’ve seen it used and I can tell you right now that this would be a life saver if you need to start a fire in the wind and/or rain.
• Leatherman Multitool
  Just as essential as having fire is having a good knife. A knife that can also serve as a pliers, saw, wire cutter, bottle opener, and much more is certainly a must-have for any survival kit. There are dozens of different brands of multitools out there with probably hundreds of models, but Leatherman reigns king when it comes to quality. Most of the small to medium sized models will fit in your survival bottle without issue, but make sure to get one that does.
• Hand Warmers
  The purpose these serve in your survival is obvious - they warm your hands. They can, however, also warm your feet or just about anything else. Stick a few packs of these in there for when you aren’t near the fire.
• Band Aids
  For when you cut yourself. Get a variety of sizes for different types of wounds. You’ll probably want to take them out of the box to better utilize the space in your survival bottle.
• Mylar Blanket
  This blanket isn’t made out of fabric, it’s made of foil-like material called mylar. When wrapped in it, it can reflect up to 90% of your body heat back to you, so you can stay warm in the coldest climates.
• Compass
  It always helps to know where you’re going, so get a decent quality compass. Most hand held compasses will fit in your survival bottle without any issues, so if you’re wandering around lost, you won’t have to wait until dark and rely on the north star.
• Rain Poncho
  If you’re going to survive the apocalypse, you’re going to need to stay dry when it rains. The easiest way to stay dry is to wear a cheap plastic bag with a hood, also known as a poncho.
• Emergency Radio
  This is the only thing so far that you will not be able to cram in to your lexan bottle, but many of the radios have a strap so you can easily attach it to the bottle. There are plenty of models available, so choose one with features you like and think you’ll need, but I highly suggest one that has a hand crank for self powering. Some even offer a small solar panel so it can be charged by the sun. You certainly want one that offers AM/FM radio frequencies, but many also offer emergency weather frequencies or UHF/VHF audio. This is essential in helping you find safety with living humans in the case of an alien attack, zombie uprising, or artificially intelligent robots take over the planet. Also, it can be handy to find out the weather forecasts during a storm.

The above items are all essential survival tools, but there are a few extras that you might also consider getting, such as tea light candles, batteries, a mirror (for signaling), weatherproof matches, and probably plenty more things that I’m forgetting. Know something else that you feel belongs in this list? Leave a comment and tell me about it.

Jessie made a comment the other night while I was watching UFO Hunters on the History Channel that got me thinking: Why do they still call it the History Channel. Sure, they still air plenty of historical shows and documentaries, but all of their “prime time” shows have just about nothing to do with history. I think the best way for the network to handle this is to split off in to two separate stations. Similarly to how Cartoon Network didn’t have enough time in the day to air both classic and modern cartoons, so they split off the classic cartoons in to the Boomerang channel. Keep the History Channel for shows that actually involve, well, history, and create a new channel for all of their “hit” shows that have absolutely nothing to do with history. The types of shows that they’ve been airing (UFO Hunters, Monsterquest, Cities of the Underworld, Ax Men, et al.), all seem like they would fit great in a network called something along the lines of “The Discovery Channel”. Alas, I did a little bit of research and learned that the discovery channel is already taken. To the best of my knowledge, the History and Discovery channels are in no way affiliated, so the History Channel will have to do better than “Discovery 2″ as a name for my proposed spin-off channel. Something along the lines of “[H] Explore” might work well, as they can keep the their logo for brand recognition, while better identifying the content that they air.

The reasons for saving energy in your home are twofold. First, and foremost, it benefits the entire energy grid. If everyone is consuming less energy, less power needs to be created, which, in turn, is generally better for the environment. The second and more selfish reason is that it saves you money and everyone loves to save money.

Here are 10 great ways to save energy:

1. Replace the standard conventional incandescent light bulbs in your house with significantly lower wattage compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs). They are available to replace most types of bulbs you would have in your home and as opposed to the 40-100 watts that a standard light bulb would consume, they will use only about 7-27 watts for equivalent light output. Even if you only replace the bulbs in high-traffic areas of your home where the lights are on the most, you will still have noticeable energy savings.
2. Do your electronics have a “sleep” feature? Use it. Most computers and some other electronics have a built-in feature where after a certain time of being idle they will automatically go to sleep, where they use minimal power, but can “wake up” rapidly if needed. On a computer, this is extremely helpful because it can turn off your monitor and spin down your hard disk when you walk away and are done using it.
3. Turn down your water heater. About 15% of average home energy bill is the cost of running the water heater. Turning this down even a little bit can save you at least a few dollars a month and isn’t really noticeable when you’re showering, because you’ll just turn the cold water down a little bit to compensate.
4. Staying on the topic of water, replace your shower head(s) and with low-flow shower heads and install sink aerators. They can be relatively inexpensive to buy, are easy to install, and pay for themselves pretty quickly with the savings on hot water. In our shower, we have a Waterpik that came with it and it’s great.
5. Here’s the last tip to involve savings related to hot water: Do your laundry with cold water. There’s detergent formulated specifically for cold water laundry and it does a good job. The combination of doing your laundry in cold water as well as the hot water saving techniques I mentioned above can save you a cool (pun intended) $60+ a year.
6. Buy products with the Energy Star^© logo. These products meet strict government guidelines for energy efficiency, so they’re pretty much guaranteed to shrink your energy bill as compared to the same product without the logo. You can get just about anything with this logo on it: refrigerators, TVs, cell phones, heaters, air conditioners, fluorescent lighting, and much much more.
7. Got a house with older windows and doors? Stop by the local hardware store and pick up some weather stripping for your doors and windows. During the winter, it’ll keep the hot air in and increase the efficiency of your heater and, likewise, will keep the cool air in during the summer and increase the efficiency of your A/C.
8. Check, clean, and/or replace your air filters on a regular basis. The dirtier they are, the more airflow is restricted, and the harder the heater or A/C will need to work to heat or cool your house. Not only does a dirty filter cause your equipment to work harder, but it’s likely going to shorten its life.
9. Install a programmable thermostat. It will allow you to automatically set the temperature of your house at comfortable levels while you’re home, while turning it down when you’re at work. From personal experience, I can guarantee that they’re easy to install for even the newest of homeowners.
10. Last, but not least: Turn stuff off! Not watching TV anymore? Turn if off. Done with the computer? Turn it off (or put it to sleep). Not using a room in your house at the moment? Turn off the lights. It’s not that hot outside? Turn off the A/C, open the windows, and get some fresh air.

I hope the above list is helpful to whoever reads it, if anyone even does. I will admit that I haven’t done all of these things in my home (yet), but I’ve only been a homeowner for a few months now and will slowly do my best to save any energy I can.

There’s been a dead Rayovac battery sitting on my desk next to my keyboard since it died inside of my wireless mouse and I replaced it with working batteries about a week ago. Anyways, I’ve been really slowly picking the sticker off of it and just now decided to completely peel it off. Well, to my surprise, I began to notice writing below the existing sticker as I was peeling it off. Once I got it completely peeled off I realized something: The sticker with the current silver, blue, and black Rayovac color scheme and battery slogan that read “Rayovac Maximum Plus” and had the date “Dec 2009″ was covering an older copper and black colored label with no date. Now, there could certainly be some sort of recharging capabilities that they have (without removing the label and taking it apart?) that I might not be aware of, but it sure looks to me like this battery was old, unused, and relabeled to resell as a newer line of batteries. For anyone who doesn’t believe me or is just curious, I’ve attached a picture of it for your viewing pleasure.

If you know me at all, you’re probably expecting my phobia to show itself here and you are waiting for me to complain about my favorite buzzing nemeses. Well, you’re wrong, this is actually about a phenomenon involving bees called Colony Collapse Disorder. I read an article about it a month or two back that was extremely interesting while at the same time disturbing, but just about completely forgot about it until Bill Maher refreshed my memory in his closing monologue on this past week’s Real Time. Basically, entire colonies of bees have been more or less completely vanishing all across North America. What does this mean, exactly? Well, if you didn’t pay attention in middle school science, I’ll sum it up for you: Bees pollinate plants so that they can reproduce. Without bees, plants don’t get pollinated and don’t reproduce. Get it now? Plants will die. Without plants, people don’t have food. Without food, people die. Now, anyone who’s ever been around bees when I’m around knows how I feel about them, but I just can’t comprehend how is this not being taken more seriously. I know I sure like food and life would be pretty tough if farmers were unable to produce the crops that the world is completely dependent on because the majority of North American bee colonies were allowed to just vanish. If you want to read up about this, the Wikipedia link that I posted earlier in this rant is a good source of information, as is this article at the Discovery Channel’s website.

Those of you that regularly read Digitally Wise, the media review site that I host and admin, probably already know this, but I felt it was important enough to post here as well…

FOX HAS GREEN-LIGHTED A NEW FUTURAMA STRAIGHT-TO-DVD MOVIE!!!

Don’t believe me? Fine.

Watch Billy West’s Video-Blog from Comic-Con 2005 or read IGN’s article about the movie.

We don’t know much about the movie yet, but myself and all the other crazed Futurama fans out there are ecstatic and hope that Fox finally sees the wrongfulness of their ways. Alas, I still hold some doubts that it will ever fly, as Fox has a tendency to take good things and screw them over, but I’ll keep my finger’s crossed. I sincerely hope that the movie does make it all the way to my DVD player and has enough sales to convince Fox to jump-start the show again as they did with Family Guy.

Whelp, here it is, the first post in my new WordPress weblog. If the web address isn’t obvious enough, this is Evan Primakow, and I’ll be running the show here. This is my first personal website since the late 90’s, but I also run an internet community called Digitally Wise, so check that out too.