Doomsday Prep

[handymanshandle]

Archive everything to analogue formats /s

But nah for like film and tv shows, I suppose have two digital archives one on a mechanical drive and one on a solid state drive so that if either dies in storage you still have one.

 

A couple years ago Sony introduced the Archival Disc format, it meant to last at least 50 years. I'm not sure what other formats can last for.

Though M Disc claims to last for 1000 years. So eh.

[Pheelo]

2 hours ago, Anghammarad said:

When thinking about a doomsday you should take into thought that electricity will be gone. 

 

If you have solar energy and some backup batteries you could download the whole wikipedia onto a harddrive/laptop. Then while solar power regenerates your backup batteries you can for example keep a laptop charged. 

 

But then, you will also need food and water, without both every stored data may be obsolete because well, you won't be around anymore to use it. 

 

If you live in a big city you are screwed by default. 

Nukes would throw enough dust into orbit that a solar panel would be useless for the rest of his life

[handymanshandle]

For the low price of almost 10k you can have a PC that is good for gaming and a pc that is good for archiving a lot of stuff!
 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 7 1800X 3.6GHz 8-Core Processor  ($448.46 @ Amazon) 
CPU Cooler: be quiet! - Dark Rock 3 67.8 CFM Fluid Dynamic Bearing CPU Cooler  ($70.84 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: ASRock - Fatal1ty X370 Professional Gaming ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($253.98 @ Newegg) 
Memory: Kingston - HyperX Fury Black 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($143.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO 4TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($1488.00 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO 4TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($1488.00 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Seagate - IronWolf 10TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($369.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Seagate - IronWolf 10TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($369.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Seagate - IronWolf 10TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($369.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Seagate - IronWolf 10TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($369.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Seagate - IronWolf 10TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($369.99 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: Asus - GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB STRIX GAMING Video Card  ($779.99 @ Amazon) 
Case: Corsair - 760T Black ATX Full Tower Case  ($164.99 @ Amazon) 
Optical Drive: LG - BH16NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer  ($99.95 @ B&H) 
Optical Drive: LG - BH16NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer  ($99.95 @ B&H) 
Optical Drive: LG - BH16NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer  ($99.95 @ B&H) 
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Pro OEM 64-bit  ($132.98 @ NCIX US) 
Monitor: Asus - ROG SWIFT PG348Q 34.0" 3440x1440 100Hz Monitor  ($1199.90 @ Amazon) 
Keyboard: Corsair - K95 RGB PLATINUM Wired Gaming Keyboard  ($199.99 @ Amazon) 
Mouse: Corsair - Scimitar RGB Wired Optical Mouse  ($79.99 @ Corsair) 
Headphones: Beyerdynamic - T 90  Headphones  ($639.00 @ Jet) 
Speakers: Audioengine - A5+ Black 100W 2ch Speakers  ($399.00 @ Amazon) 
Total: $9638.91
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-05-30 12:01 EDT-0400

[NLD1st]

2 hours ago, Natsoup said:

- snip-

 

Books I would recommend getting an e-reader with a solar charger. 

the amount of books you can store on it means it will give you a lot of entertainment hours. Plus it would be easy to share in your survivors group.

 

 

18 minutes ago, wcreek said:

- snip-

Because thats so easy to take with you when you are in a hurry!

[Guest]

 

Job's a good'un

[Natsoup]

33 minutes ago, wcreek said:

For the low price of almost 10k you can have a PC that is good for gaming and a pc that is good for archiving a lot of stuff!
 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 7 1800X 3.6GHz 8-Core Processor  ($448.46 @ Amazon) 
CPU Cooler: be quiet! - Dark Rock 3 67.8 CFM Fluid Dynamic Bearing CPU Cooler  ($70.84 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: ASRock - Fatal1ty X370 Professional Gaming ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($253.98 @ Newegg) 
Memory: Kingston - HyperX Fury Black 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($143.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO 4TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($1488.00 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO 4TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($1488.00 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Seagate - IronWolf 10TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($369.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Seagate - IronWolf 10TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($369.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Seagate - IronWolf 10TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($369.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Seagate - IronWolf 10TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($369.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Seagate - IronWolf 10TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($369.99 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: Asus - GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB STRIX GAMING Video Card  ($779.99 @ Amazon) 
Case: Corsair - 760T Black ATX Full Tower Case  ($164.99 @ Amazon) 
Optical Drive: LG - BH16NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer  ($99.95 @ B&H) 
Optical Drive: LG - BH16NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer  ($99.95 @ B&H) 
Optical Drive: LG - BH16NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer  ($99.95 @ B&H) 
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Pro OEM 64-bit  ($132.98 @ NCIX US) 
Monitor: Asus - ROG SWIFT PG348Q 34.0" 3440x1440 100Hz Monitor  ($1199.90 @ Amazon) 
Keyboard: Corsair - K95 RGB PLATINUM Wired Gaming Keyboard  ($199.99 @ Amazon) 
Mouse: Corsair - Scimitar RGB Wired Optical Mouse  ($79.99 @ Corsair) 
Headphones: Beyerdynamic - T 90  Headphones  ($639.00 @ Jet) 
Speakers: Audioengine - A5+ Black 100W 2ch Speakers  ($399.00 @ Amazon) 
Total: $9638.91
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-05-30 12:01 EDT-0400

Am i supposed to download the entire fucking internet

[handymanshandle]

1 minute ago, Natsoup said:

Am i supposed to download the entire fucking internet

yes /s

[Natsoup]

16 minutes ago, NLD1st said:

 

Books I would recommend getting an e-reader with a solar charger. 

the amount of books you can store on it means it will give you a lot of entertainment hours. Plus it would be easy to share in your survivors group.

 

 

Because thats so easy to take with you when you are in a hurry!

I do think this is a good idea. Maybe a kindle paper white. Is there a way to import text files lr pdfs to a device like this, though? Buying digital books at full price is preposterous to me.

[NLD1st]

24 minutes ago, Natsoup said:

I do think this is a good idea. Maybe a kindle paper white. Is there a way to import text files lr pdfs to a device like this, though? Buying digital books at full price is preposterous to me.

there are digital books for lower prices as well besides you dont have to buy them all at once.

or you could do it the way Johnny Depp and Elizabeth Swann do ... 

[Natsoup]

19 minutes ago, NLD1st said:

there are digital books for lower prices as well besides you dont have to buy them all at once.

or you could do it the way Johnny Depp and Elizabeth Swann do ... 

I'm not in the carribbean my man but worth a try

[Froody129]

 

1 hour ago, Natsoup said:

I do think this is a good idea. Maybe a kindle paper white. Is there a way to import text files lr pdfs to a device like this, though? Buying digital books at full price is preposterous to me.

Maybe that's what the petabyte server is for...

[Natsoup]

 

@Froody129

Yeah lemme just drop $40k on a petabyte server really quick  

[Clanscorpia]

Maybe you know, prep some actual helpful stuff that could actually help you? As a prepper thats honestly a fairly stupid idea

[Natsoup]

8 minutes ago, Clanscorpia said:

Maybe you know, prep some actual helpful stuff that could actually help you? As a prepper thats honestly a fairly stupid idea

What makes that stupid? I understand that It wont contribute to survival but there are plenty of things other than just being alive that we do as humans. Your being here is proof of that.

[handymanshandle]

33 minutes ago, Clanscorpia said:

Maybe you know, prep some actual helpful stuff that could actually help you? As a prepper thats honestly a fairly stupid idea

Well it gives more meaning to survival.

[MilfShake]

what is doomsday? what will happen on that day?

[Natsoup]

1 minute ago, MilfShake said:

what is doomsday? what will happen on that day?

Nuclear fallout

[mariushm]

OPtical media (DVDs) only last about 10-20 years even if you're extra careful not to scratch them. It's because air and humidity and other things starts to oxidize the aluminum layer and affect the chemical (the glues) that bind the layer of substance sensitive to laser (in which the bits are stored) to the base reflective layer (usually some aluminum stuff) and the base plastic disc.

There are some special high end archival grade discs that use gold for reflection and other chemicals to glue the layers and they're guaranteed for up to 100 years but they're more expensive.

 

Backup tapes generally last a long time (10-25 years) and they hold a huge amount of data (but they're slow access to data since you have to go through all tape to reach the data you want). The downsides is that you have to also include in your archive one or more tape readers and probably also a pc because technology advances at such a degree that in 20 years you may no longer find the tape drive you used to write or read stuff from ... and they're not really compatible between each other.

They also have issues.. to last a long time they have to be stored at cool temperatures and in a place with low humidity and also .. they have to be flipped on the other side maybe once a month. Seems weird but has to do with how data is magnetically stored on the tape.. in time, there's some movement in the magnetic tape due to gravity and flipping the tape to the other side once in a while cancels that effect. Also wouldn't hurt to shove the tape in a reader and just wind and rewind the tape so it wouldn't stick inside.

So basically it's not a put in safe box and forget about it, requires maintainance

 

Hard drives are pretty much out there at around 10-15 years life if you buy quality ones with good warranty (but even then there's about 0.5-1% failure rate. You have the benefit of huge capacity so you can also add a lot of error correction and recovery information and you have a pretty good standardized connection (sata is only 4 wires, could make a connection to pc even with 4 wires and a soldering iron  and even IDE drives can still be used with adapters.

They require more care than tapes... you should still power them up every few months and do a scan of the whole disk surface to make sure the magnetic stuff on the platters can still retain data and "refresh" it optionally

They have moving stuff in them so you have to be careful about humidity and shocks so again, should be stored in a place with controlled temperature and humidity.

 

SD cards , flash usb sticks etc would be fine as they don't have moving parts but they often are damaged due to ESD (static electricity on the contacts) ... also flash memory has good retention , let's say 5-10 years maybe more.. but can be damaged easily by random cosmic radiation, esd etc

 

Acid free paper and ink with some metal in it or laser printer toner made out of some pigments that don't lose their color in time would be best for documents. Extra points if you vacuum seal the paper after, but even that plastic is not 100% seal.

 

Punching holes in a metal sheet or tape would probably a safe very long term solution but not cost effective (and you have to be aware of rust and other things)

 

Right now the longest surviving documents we have are engraved on rocks or clay or written with inks that had metals in them (or iron oxides) , written on leather/skina or paper..

 

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

3 hours ago, Natsoup said:

Buying digital books at full price is preposterous to me.

In a doomsday scenario, copyright will be the last of your concerns.  Or that of the copyright holders, for that matter.

 

 

 

 

Anyway ...

 

You'll want 2 laptops, preferably of the same model.  Ideally a very common model so that spares are easy to find.

 

You'll want to store the data on HDDs as well as optical media.  Don't bother with SSDs, even though they're more reliable than HDDs they're not that good for archival storage due to voltage loss in the cells after long periods of non-use.

 

You'll want 2 means of generating electricity.  Solar, wind, a generator, a pedal-powered alternator, any 2 will do as long as they cover most of the possible issues and your second choice works whenever anything prevents the primary from working. 

As others mentioned before, a nuclear detonation can hide the sun for years or decades so it wouldn't be my primary choice.  I'd probably go for wind first, with a pedal-powered alternator as backup because that doesn't rely on any external factors or fuel. 

 

You'll want to store everything twice, in sealed metal boxes that act as Faraday cages.  Never open both boxes at the same time, just in case an EMP or solar flare strikes at the very worst moment.  Laptops in the boxes too, of course.  Having all that info on those drives is useless when every computer or laptop in the whole region is fried.

 

While Game of Thrones or House of Cards would be fun to watch during the end of days, having a vast database of bushcrafting, survival and prepper tips will prove much more valuable as they will teach you the basics on how to survive.  Actually you should know those already, but you can use the videos to teach the others. 

Medical videos, engineering, self-defense, gardening, agriculture and architectural stuff can also come in handy when setting up a new base to rebuild society or at least a small closed community. 

 

 

[Clanscorpia]

1 hour ago, wcreek said:

Well it gives more meaning to survival.

It would be a hugely necessary waste of space and extremely scarce electricity, especially in the scenario he is saying

[NoCarrier]

wut?  good look fussing with solar panels and file formats when all hell breaks loose.

 

For the rest of us, just remember the 4 Gs and you're good.

 

Girls, Guns, Gold, and Gasoline.

 

/s

[handymanshandle]

56 minutes ago, Clanscorpia said:

It would be a hugely necessary waste of space and extremely scarce electricity, especially in the scenario he is saying

Sure.

[DexterSmythe]

4 hours ago, NLD1st said:

there are digital books for lower prices as well besides you dont have to buy them all at once.

or you could do it the way Johnny Depp and Elizabeth Swann do ... 

A Kindle would be nice and easy to put in a faraday cage/bag to keep it alive in the event of an EMP attack as well. 

[Mira Yurizaki]

In a doomsday scenario, you're likely going to be caring more about how to survive to the next day than whether or not you can watch Game of Thrones. Most of your data would be worthless anyway unless it's some sort of information on secret caches or whatnot.

 

Also you should be stocking up on bullets (and maybe have a gun that can use them). Bullets are going to be the currency in a doomsday scenario.

 

But if you live in a country that frowns upon that, clean water and then food are your next biggest things.

[mariushm]

1 hour ago, M.Yurizaki said:

In a doomsday scenario, you're likely going to be caring more about how to survive to the next day than whether or not you can watch Game of Thrones. Most of your data would be worthless anyway unless it's some sort of information on secret caches or whatnot.

 

Also you should be stocking up on bullets (and maybe have a gun that can use them). Bullets are going to be the currency in a doomsday scenario.

 

But if you live in a country that frowns upon that, clean water and then food are your next biggest things.

Goes to show how people think.. you're in US so naturally you think of guns but people in other countries where almost nobody has guns wouldn't care about them.

 

Hoarding bullets is stupid, eventually you run out of them. Maybe shotguns would make some sense since you can just make your own bullets easily with gun powder and lead balls or whatever.

 

later edit: also bullets are NOISY .. you try to defend yourself against some  guy and every other bad guy a mile around you hears your gun shots... or you shoot some animal and miss and every other animal around runs away (there goes your lunch)

 

Probably would make sense to learn how to use machete and similar knives and maybe some crossbow type of weapon (you can then make your own arrows from wood or metal bars or whatever.

 

Figure out some renewable energy solutions like a small air turbine,  if you're near water some water turbine that could just freely spin in the water and produce a constant trickle of energy... backup using some bike.

Less important would be some kinds of diesel generators.. gasoline would go bad within a few weeks due to all the additives they have nowadays , diesel would last longer but even that it depletes you can in theory produce some alternative fuels that a diesel generator would work with.

 

There's no guarantee you'll have refineries producing more fuel if there's some cataclysm ... think back at New Orleans floods and how something as localized as that had affected a wider area for a much longer time. .. , and even if they do work there's no guarantee you won't have bands of marauders or local groups controlling those refineries and asking for tons of money (think mad max)

 

Nobody should rely on solar power alone ... in case of nuclear attacks or some volcano eruption (think for example the big caldera at Yellowstone blowing up would kill maybe a third the US population and the dust in the air could block the sun for days or weeks)

 

some other food for thought.... how they imagined US after a huge EMP strike .. look at Dark Angel with Jessica Alba .. all currency worthless as it's stored digitally and computers were gone...