Preparedness for when

GreyQueen

:T Nice haul of gifts, smileyt.

And basketry can be expanded to weaving fish traps and also to weaving hurdles to contain you sheep and walls to plaster with mud and dung for your new Neolithic roundhouse. It's one of those things I've been meaning to try myself, I do love baskets.

My late grandma, passed 40 years ago, bless her, had many a gnomic saying. One of them was there's a trick to everything but basketry and that you can see through.

Frugalsod

GreyQueen wrote: »

Or you could live in the seething heart of the inner city, like wot I do, where the streetlights don't get turned off at all - cuz the CCTV is pretty useless in the dark.

Anyway, there's enough trouble with the clubbers falling in/ over and under things without turning the lights off. Blighters are always taking unexpected noturnal swims, pal living on a boat is often throwing the life ring to some numptie who decides it's easier to swim home than walk to the nearest bridge.

In city centres where the night clubs are they could be on all night because clubbers will be out for an hour or two after getting pushed out, and kebab staff will still be working.

My comments were more for side streets and suburbia. I used to live in a district where the pubs shut at 10.30 and the street lights were off at midnight. They came on again early for milk men etc but there is very little need for them being on all night.

Frugalsod

smileyt wrote: »

But seriously - any tips on using the pressure cooker? I'm vegan so won't be cooking meaty stuff.

I would look on the internet but the one thing I remembered when I had one was to never let it boil dry. It is great for bulk cooking depending on the size, so look at freezing some of excess.

nuatha

smileyt wrote: »

Just popping in to say - I got a pressure cooker, brussel sprout and kale seeds and tea seeds for Christmas, yaaay! I am starting my own Manchester tea estate...

But seriously - any tips on using the pressure cooker? I'm vegan so won't be cooking meaty stuff.

ETA I also got a basket-weaving kit I thought it might be a useful skill if I could weave my own containers from the ivy in my back yard...

Someone likes you
My first thought on the pressure cooker are prepping dried beans. Chillis, soups and stews are all worth doing in a pressure cooker, however in no circumstances can I recommend doing brussel sprouts in a PC - one of my Great Aunts' major failings as a cook was brussels for 4 hours at pressure.

greenbee

Frugalsod wrote: »

How many of you have actually changed your router and wifi passwords? My router is an 11 digit randomly generated password. And my wifi is 50 digits again randomly generated. Yet our utility companies have almost wide open networks.

I think 'wide open networks.' is something of an exaggeration. Most utilities have signficant security, but as nuatha points out, the biggest risk tends to be employees (or as one of my colleagues says 'you can't fix stupid'). There are regulations and standards that apply to all critical national infrastructure, not just around pricing and competition. Significant investments are made in security, and cyber security is a growing industry, but will always be reactive to some extent as you can't predict what the hackers will come up with next (although a lot of work goes into attempting to do that too...)

Perpetuating the myth that utility networks are wide open isn't helpful. It just worries people. Utility company (and government for that matter) cyber security involves far more sophisticated systems than a single layer of password protection.

As lot of the guidance is publicly available if you choose to research it. But clearly security professionals are not going to share the details of what they are doing and how. After all, they're trying to secure their systems. Not publicise the technologies that hackers need to look into... :cool:

smileyt_2

nuatha wrote: »

Someone likes you
My first thought on the pressure cooker are prepping dried beans. Chillis, soups and stews are all worth doing in a pressure cooker, however in no circumstances can I recommend doing brussel sprouts in a PC - one of my Great Aunts' major failings as a cook was brussels for 4 hours at pressure.

I am so glad I wasn't drinking anything when I read that quote - I would have spat it out all over the keyboard!

randomer

non meal planners.....a question....how do you work it? Do you have basics in and add from yellow sticker food?

moneyistooshorttomention

True re levels of security on our infrastructure ....but...on the other hand if a spotty little teenage nerd can tap into the U.S. warfighting computer network just for a "bit of a laugh":cool::eek:, then I do wonder what a dedicated team of hackers employed to wage cyberwar by a government could do....

nuatha

greenbee wrote: »

Perpetuating the myth that utility networks are wide open isn't helpful. It just worries people. Utility company (and government for that matter) cyber security involves far more sophisticated systems than a single layer of password protection.

As lot of the guidance is publicly available if you choose to research it. But clearly security professionals are not going to share the details of what they are doing and how. After all, they're trying to secure their systems. Not publicise the technologies that hackers need to look into... :cool:

When I first worked in testing IT security it was remarkably easy to penetrate systems and get into vulnerable areas - lessons were learned and improvements implemented by the late '90s it was relatively difficult to non-physical access to crucial infrastructure by 2002 when I changed career direction it was impressive how difficult access had become. Social engineering access is still potentially a problem - as Greenbee quotes "you can't fix stupid" unfortunately stupid comes in lots of flavours and IQs.

smileyt wrote: »

I am so glad I wasn't drinking anything when I read that quote - I would have spat it out all over the keyboard!

I had to eat them, spitting out was never an option - though I had it better than a friend - his mother started cooking sprouts on the solstice.

jk0

jk0 wrote: »

Today was the first day I felt well enough to drive for about ten days. I had a present to deliver to my ex's little boy, so hopped in the car with it around 1.30pm.

The car refused to start due to a flat battery, so I dug out my charger & extension lead.

I know that the battery should be okay, as I trickle charged it a few weeks ago, so then I got out the phone book to find another. KwikFit at the end of my road seemed to be shut already, so I tried National Tyres about 3 miles away.

Fortunately they had one, but were closing at 3pm! The battery got about 15 minutes charge, which was just adequate to start the car. I got to National Tyres around 2.20, and got new one fitted.

Thank God I did not leave present delivery until tomorrow!

Have a peaceful Christmas everyone.

I have the opportunity to purchase another car battery online for about half what I just paid. I'm not thinking of keeping it for a spare for the car. My thinking is that if SHTF, I could use one to power the house, then swap it with the one in the car to recharge it.

Any thoughts?