Author of The Dark Secrets of SHTF Survival and the online course SHTF Survival Boot Camp We all tend to pay much attention to acquiring stuff – physical things – in order to be more prepared‚ but we often fail to prepare ourselves more‚ physically and mentally. When working out a survival exercise‚ you need to be preparing for the things that are most likely in your regular‚ everyday life. Then expect that you’ll be under immense pressure. Everything is different when you’re under pressure‚ but you can prepare yourself for this‚ too. There are many ways how we can prepare ourselves more‚ simple and fun things like hiking or camping are great to test some of your skills and gear too. A popular myth is that we have to be physically prepared only through more “macho” activities like martial arts or shooting at the range and similar. It is person-to-person based and sometimes we are limited by our own living conditions to practice some of the above activities. If you are living a day to day life in a big city with your family and kids‚ working a regular job‚ you find yourself very easily in a situation where all your prepping activities are based on watching YouTube videos or similar‚ maybe‚ and finding a way to implement that into your own settings. You have to prep based on your everyday life and situations. Actually‚ you need to prep based on your own situation‚ and if that means day to day job‚ big city‚ kids‚ public transport… you need to implement all those factors in your prep plan. We have people living in cities that form their survival philosophy based on the idea that they gonna be surviving in the wilderness‚ or people preparing for the end of the world because they think asteroid will impact while they do not see that they are living actually next to the part of the city where organized crime rules. If organized crime is very powerful now‚ they should conclude that it is going to be much stronger once when the SHTF. We should all prep for the time where there are not enough resources for you and all the people around you.  Because when that happens‚ violence will come. Of course‚ you need to know how to start a fire or set up a shelter in the woods simply because you may find yourself in the woods and wilderness because you ran away from the city when SHTF. But it makes sense to pay more attention to your immediate surroundings. Try the “everyday life” survival exercise It does not have to be all physical training either.  Start it on an intellectual level. Use one week of your ordinary life as the beginning of your setup. Monitor and write down your daily activities every day of the week‚ and then throw in an everyday imaginary SHTF event. A very basic and simplified example may look like this: Every day you drive to your job at 8:00 (or using public transport) You are at a job from 9-5 (your kids are at school from 8-3) You are driving back from work from 5 to 6 Now‚ imagine for the sake of that exercise that something big and bad happened: while you are driving to your job (and while your kids are at the school) while you are at work while you are driving back from work or school Now gradually throw in complications. For example‚ the usual road home is blocked‚ cell phones are not working‚ you do not have enough cash or fuel‚ or nobody accepts cards at the gas stations… How much food or weapon or ammo should you have with you? What is an alternate way of communication with kids? Do you have pre-arranged meeting points with the kids if something bad happens? Have you built a cache somewhere? The examples of possible complications are numerous and my point here is not to go and talk about all possible complications. I want you to take one ordinary day of your everyday life and imagine something bad happening in the middle of it. Then start a mental exercise of solving that situation. An important thing here to mention is that please do not let this make you become paranoid‚ No matter how well you plan‚ you can not cover all possibilities and complications. Also‚ your plan cannot be too complicated‚ otherwise you’ll fail for sure. Think about the basics: safety and security‚ being together with your family when something bad happens‚ and getting to a safe location. Stop planning for far-fetched scenarios when you haven’t covered the likely ones. The main point of this is: there is no sense in learning high-end skills if you do not have a setup to deal with an immediate SHTF that happened during an ordinary day. Or to put it another way… There is no sense to know how to start fire with a bow drill if you do not know an alternative and quick way to your home if something bad happens‚ if you don’t keep enough fuel on hand… and if rest of your family does not know what to do until you get home (or if you do not get home.) SHTF situation often comes without warning and instructions. Then add pressure. I am a big fan of training under the pressure‚ and that does not necessarily mean that you have to deal only with a heavy backpack. Now pressure and comfort zones are very important in order to understand how good or how bad your plan is. In one of my last articles‚ I used a perfect example‚ and we saw again in the comments how easily people (preppers in this case) are getting “kicked” out of their comfort zones. For some of them‚ the shock was so bad that they actually do not want to “play” anymore. They won’t read the words of a person who has been through difficult times because some of the words are uncomfortable. The major thing about an SHTF situation is that you will be under pressure and out of your comfort zone during a lot of the time. You need to get familiar with it. Panic‚ confusion‚ misinformation‚ fear‚ and insecurity are all things that WILL happen to you‚ no matter what you think about it today. Now without going into the psychology of how those things work‚ you need to recognize how you operate under those feelings and conditions‚ so that you may correct yourself today before the SHTF. Here’s an example of the effects of pressure. During my last live course‚ for one of the exercises‚ after a nice and calm discussion‚ the students were instructed to leave the house in a hurry and enter the vehicle with all of their gear.  There were five of them and they had not used that car before. The car is OK for four people‚ but definitely not for 5 of them with all their gear. They managed to fit somehow. Then‚ during the driving‚ the instructor told them to – in 10-15 seconds – reach into their equipment and find important items like knives (weapons)‚ maps (navigation)‚ bandages (first aid) and similar. The car was driven by the instructor fast and rough‚ on narrow roads with pretty heavy traffic. The heavy metal music inside the car was blasting very loud. Most of them failed to find the requested items. Some of them put important items deep inside their bags (bad organization of equipment – remember layers?). Others could not concentrate because of the unsafe driving (fear) or because of the very loud music (distraction). Some of them just feel very uncomfortable trying to perform the task. These are examples only again‚ but it is a great idea to see how you and your equipment work under pressure when you’re distracted‚ and how well your equipment is organized. And it would be even better to check all that in your immediate surroundings – where you live and work. Not somewhere far away in that cabin in the woods at your bug out location where all is peaceful. Because remember you need to reach it first. The survival exercise may look very different for you. I am not advocating that you sit in a car and drive fast and yell at your family in order to see how they react. Start slowly and see how you and your family or group perform under small amounts of pressure and just outside of your comfort zones. For you‚ it may be practicing and testing your equipment and skills while you are without electrical power for 24 hours‚ or without running water or similar. Start slowly and with the basic things in your everyday life before moving on to more elaborate scenarios. What are your thoughts? In what ways can you add some pressure to everyday scenarios? How can you prepare for the things that are most likely? What survival exercise do you do on a regular basis? Let’s talk about it in the comments section. About Selco: Selco survived the Balkan war of the 90s in a city under siege‚ without electricity‚ running water‚ or food distribution. He is currently accepting students for his next physical course here. In his online works‚ he gives an inside view of the reality of survival under the harshest conditions. He reviews what works and what doesn’t‚ tells you the hard lessons he learned‚ and shares how he prepares today. He never stopped learning about survival and preparedness since the war. Regardless of what happens‚ chances are you will never experience extreme situations as Selco did. But you have the chance to learn from him and how he faced death for months. Read more of Selco’s articles here. Buy his PDF books here. Buy his #1 New Release paperback‚ The Dark Secrets of Survival here. Take advantage of a deep and profound insight into his knowledge by signing up for his online course SHTF Survival Boot Camp. Learn the inside story of what it was really like when the SHTF with his online course One Year in Hell. Real survival is not romantic or idealistic. It is brutal‚ hard and unfair. Let Selco take you into that world. The post This Is Selco’s Favorite Survival Exercise. appeared first on The Organic Prepper.

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Over half a century since NASA left the Moon‚ the space agency surprised everybody in November 2023 when it announced it was placing scientific equipment on the lunar surface once more‚ hitching a lift on American space company Astrobotic's Peregrine lander.After a successful launch on January 8‚ the world has been watching the first-ever private US mission to land on the Moon‚ especially as it got into trouble not long after lift-off. Unfortunately‚ it's looking pretty certain that NASA's equipment for searching for water ice and examining the lunar soil‚ as well as several other payloads from seven different countries‚ will not make it to the Moon. At least‚ not softly.The spaceship hit trouble shortly after heading out of the Earth's atmosphere‚ leaving it unable to point its solar panels at the Sun. Astrobotic has now confirmed that there is "no chance" of a soft landing on the Moon."Astrobotic’s current hypothesis about the Peregrine spacecraft’s propulsion anomaly is that a valve between the helium pressurant and the oxidizer failed to reseal after actuation during initialization‚" the company said in an update. "This led to a rush of high pressure helium that spiked the pressure in the oxidizer tank beyond its operating limit and subsequently ruptured the tank. While this is a working theory‚ a full analysis report will be produced by a formal review board made up of industry experts after the mission is complete."As well as being a disappointing end to the Moon mission‚ the company is in the unusual position of telling the world that the remains and DNA of several Star Trek actors and a handful of US Presidents are now stranded in space. Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and science fiction writer Arthur C Clarke are among those whose DNA was placed on board the spaceship‚ while the ashes of Nichelle Nichols‚ James Doohan and DeForest Kelley are also on board. Strands of hair from Dwight D. Eisenhower‚ John F. Kennedy‚ and George Washington represented the US Presidents on what was called the "Enterprise" payload. Ashes were also being sent to the Moon‚ courtesy of private space companies Elysium Space and Celestis.Peregrine still has a little fuel left and is attempting to deliver the payloads it can – experiments on board that were not intended to land on the Moon. The company has not elaborated on which payloads it is focusing on‚ but the Enterprise payload was not destined for the Moon itself‚ but a solar orbit of 150 million to 300 million miles (241 million kilometers to 482 million kilometers) into deep space‚ past the orbit of Mars. It could be that this is one of the payloads the Peregrine lander is able to deliver but for now‚ we will have to wait and see.

A huge‚ Bronze Age fortification enclosing the Khaybar Oasis in the North Arabian Desert has been discovered by archaeologists. The walls would have once stretched over 14.5 kilometers (9 miles)‚ making this one of the two largest walled oases ever unearthed in Saudi Arabia.What remains of the vast rampart has been dated to between 2250 and 1950 BCE‚ during which time oases were common in the region and were inhabited by sedentary populations.Despite being one of the longest-known fortifications from this period‚ no such walls had ever been identified at Khaybar‚ aside from a famous Islamic-period fortress in the center of its great wadis (river valley). The researchers believe this walled oasis has gone undetected for so long due to the extreme reworking of the desert landscape over the last four millennia.Having finally discovered it‚ a feat they say “constitute[d] a significant scientific challenge”‚ the team was able to estimate the fortifications’ original dimensions: approximately 14.5 kilometers long‚ 1.7 to 2.4 meters (5.6 to 7.9 feet) thick‚ and 5 meters (16 feet) high. However‚ a little less than half of their length survives today.In their heyday‚ the mammoth walls would have enclosed a territory of almost 1‚100 hectares (2‚700 acres). Only the fortified city of Tayma‚ which had walls around 19 kilometers (12 miles) in length‚ can rival Khaybar in terms of size – the two sites are the largest walled oases in the region.In identifying Khaybar as an immense walled oasis that belonged to a network of other such fortified settlements in north-western Arabia‚ the team has shed some light on human occupation in the area and furthered our understanding of the social complexity of the pre-Islamic period.“Dating from the Late third millennium BCE‚ the ramparts of Khaybar were probably built by Indigenous populations as they settled down and ostentatiously demarcated their oasis territory‚” the researchers write in their new study. “These ramparts lasted for several centuries before being dismantled or replaced by more recent structures.”“In addition to the discovery of a unique and securely dated monument‚ the recognition of the Khaybar walled oasis constitutes a crucial landmark in the architectural and social heritage of north Arabia‚” they conclude.At 4‚000 years old‚ the walled oasis of Khaybar is undeniably a senior citizen of fortified settlements – but for the world’s oldest fortress (an astonishing 8‚000 years old)‚ you have to travel east to Siberia.The study is published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.

The ocean is full of some of the most weird and wonderful creatures Earth has to offer‚ from the cutie patootie that is the dumbo octopus to the horrifying deep-sea football of your nightmares. While whales might be busy creating Fibonnaci spirals‚ one diver was lucky enough to see a larval form of a tripod fish that doesn’t even look real.Frida Yolotzin‚ a scuba diving instructor‚ saw the fish while diving at a blackwater site off the coast of Cozumel in Mexico. Blackwater diving occurs at night and divers can be tethered to their boat with hundreds of meters of dark open ocean around them.Yolotzin was fortunate to spot the larval form of a tripod fish while enjoying her dive. She shared the video of the fish on her Instagram profile writing that “a colorful reflection caught my eye‚ it was this extraordinarily beautiful fish swimming up and reflecting our lights in such a surreal way‚ being by far the most precious animal I’ve ever seen.”                    Yolotzin also identified the fish as a rainbow tripod fish larva. Adult tripod fish‚ also known as spiderfishes (Bathypterois spp)‚ are some of the world’s deepest-living fish found in waters around 1 kilometer to over 6 kilometers (0.6 to 4 miles) in depth. The name tripod fish comes from the very long pelvic and caudal fin rays‚ which can be up to a meter (3 feet) long‚ that they use to support themselves on the bottom of the ocean‚ according to the Australian Museum. The tripod helps the fish “stand” above the seafloor and wait for their prey‚ typically tiny prawns and crustaceans‚ to come past and into their waiting mouths. Tripod fish are generally blind or eyeless‚ having little need for light reception in the dark depths of the ocean. Instead‚ writes Bec Crew for Australian Geographic‚ they feel the vibrations of movement through those long fins‚ helping them hunt. This tripod fish was seen off the coast of Hawaii using its fins to "stand" on the seafloor.Image credit: NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program‚ INDEX-SATAL 2010‚ NOAA/OER/ via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)Smithsonian Magazine mentions that the larvae have large rounded fins‚ as seen in the video‚ to help them mimic jellyfish and avoid other predators. The larvae are more often seen by divers because they are moved up to the surface by the currents. This is a strategy known as ontogenetic vertical migration‚ whereby as the larvae age they will migrate down into the deeper ocean‚ eventually reaching the sea floor. “Probably we will be the only humans it will ever meet‚” concluded Yolotzin. 

“I checked it very thoroughly‚” said the computer‚ “and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem‚ to be quite honest with you‚ is that you've never actually known what the question is.”“But it was the Great Question! The Ultimate Question of Life‚ the Universe and Everything‚” howled Loonquawl.“Yes‚” said Deep Thought with the air of one who suffers fools gladly‚ “but what actually is it?”So wrote Douglas Adams back in 1979‚ and the galaxy has been pondering it ever since. We know the Answer is 42‚ but what we really need is an answer to the question of what the Question was to get that Answer.Any questions?LifeThere are so many things that 42 could be the answer to. In math alone‚ it’s the number of partitions of 10 – that is‚ the number of ways you can write 10 as a sum of positive integers; it’s the first number equal to the sum of its own nonprime proper divisors; the number of triangulations of a heptagon; and it was the last natural number below 100 to reveal a representation as a sum of three cubes – that last one only occurred in 2019.It turns up in the FIFA World Cup: it’s the number of all possible outcomes of each group stage‚ counting up all wins‚ losses‚ and draws. It’s the precise offset in degrees from a light source that produces a rainbow‚ which is all sorts of delightful.                          Unfortunately‚ when it comes to human lives‚ 42 has a much less fun claim to fame: it’s pretty much the worst age to be.At least‚ that’s the result of a study that followed tens of thousands of people across three countries back in 2015. Happiness‚ it turns out‚ tracks with age in a U-shape: it’s highest at the beginning and the end‚ and we’re all doomed by statistics to become crotchety old bastards in the middle for a bit.“The change-in-life-satisfaction function crosses the zero x-axis at ages 42.3 in the [British Household Panel Survey]‚ 40.1 in the [Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia study]‚ 41.4 in the [German Socio-Economic Panel] and 46.9 in the [Medicine in Australia Balancing Employment and Life study]‚” noted the authors. “By implication‚ these are the ages at which well-being reaches a minimum.”And yes‚ if you were wondering‚ the average of those figures… is 42.It makes sense‚ actually‚ because 42 is also the average age of a midlife crisis. That’s according to data from Spotify‚ at least: it’s the “specific point when middle-aged listeners drop their sophisticated singer-songwriters‚ their ‘best of the 80s‚ 90s and today‚’ and spontaneously start listening to teeny-bopper pop again‚” noted Caitlin Dewey for The Washington Post back in 2015.The change in music taste at that age can’t be attributed to parenthood‚ and it only lasts for a couple years or so – but it’s definitely there‚ and‚ perhaps unexpectedly‚ it’s more pronounced in women. Don’t worry‚ though: by about 45‚ you’ll be back listening to painfully outdated golden oldies once again. After all‚ apparently once you hit 42 years old‚ things can only get better.The universeWe live on a rotating rock named Earth‚ orbiting a sun named‚ um‚ The Sun‚ which‚ in turn‚ orbits the center of the Milky Way‚ which itself orbits a supermassive black hole named Sagittarius A*.It won’t always be this way. One day (whatever that may mean in this situation)‚ our Sun will run out of hydrogen and stop being able to create helium via nuclear fusion‚ as it currently does. Without that outward pressure‚ it will fall prey to gravity‚ which will make the core extremely hot and dense‚ igniting the outside shell and forming a red giant big enough to gobble up its nearest planets.That won’t be the end of the Sun: when the temperature in the core gets high enough‚ nuclear fusion will start again – but this time‚ it will be turning helium into carbon‚ and fast. Eventually‚ it will blast out a planetary nebula and collapse into a white dwarf roughly the size of the Earth‚ and from there‚ a black dwarf – a type of star so old that none are currently known. But for the Earth‚ there’s a reasonable chance that our time in the universe will end in the jaws of a gigantic red star that we once relied on to provide us with life. And the really sad part? Technically‚ we won’t even have reached middle age.“Throughout all of these changes‚ the Sun and our Solar System will continue to orbit around the Milky Way’s center‚ completing a full orbit every ~250 million years or so‚” wrote astrophysicist and author Ethan Siegel in October 2023. “The time to return to our starting point is known as a galactic year‚ and has about a ~10% uncertainty on how long it actually takes. Meanwhile‚ in term of stellar evolution‚ we are quite confident that the Sun will last roughly 10–12 billion years from the moment nuclear fusion first ignites in its core until the red giant phase begins‚ a track that we’re just a hair over 4.5 billion years into‚ at present.”With this information‚ we can figure out – more or less – how many galactic years the Earth-Sun system gets to enjoy before one cosmic dance partner finally destroys the other. And the result? You guessed it.“42 is an answer that’s extremely consistent with the best data we have‚” Siegel wrote. “It may yet turn out to be the exact answer to this question‚ although superior data will be required to know for certain.”EverythingWhen it comes to “ultimate questions”‚ you could do worse than one concerning the fundamental nature of existence itself. And while we’ll leave the existentialism to the philosophers – this isn’t IFLP after all – there’s one pretty important place that 42 crops up in cosmology: the Hubble Constant.“It's a measure of how fast the universe is expanding at the current time‚” Wendy Freedman‚ an astrophysicist at the University of Chicago who has spent her career measuring the constant‚ told BBC Future back in 2021.And it really does fulfill the remit of “everything”‚ too: “The Hubble Constant sets the scale of the Universe‚ both its size and its age‚” she explained.How’s that‚ you ask? Well‚ let’s start by thinking about how big the universe is. We know the observable universe is about 93 billion light-years in diameter‚ with us slap bang in the middle of it – but what about the unobservable universe?“We can only make inferences based on the laws of physics as we know them‚ and the things we can measure within our observable Universe‚” Siegel wrote in 2018. But the best data we have suggests that the entire universe – the bits we can’t see as well as the bits we can – must be at least 250 times bigger than the observable part. “This means the unobservable Universe‚ assuming there's no topological weirdness‚ must be at least 23 trillion light-years in diameter‚ and contain a volume of space that's over 15 million times as large as the volume we can observe‚” Siegel explained. “If we're willing to speculate‚ however‚ we can argue quite compellingly that the unobservable Universe should be significantly even bigger than that.”And it’s for this nigh-impossible question that the Hubble Constant is key.See‚ the universe may be unfathomably huge‚ but it’s still expanding – and if we want to know how big it is‚ we need to know precisely how fast that’s happening. There are two main ways to measure this speed: we can either look at the nearest galaxies to our own and figure out how quickly they’re moving away from us‚ which is known as “late universe” measurement; or‚ we can extrapolate it from lumps and bumps in the cosmic background radiation‚ or “early universe” measurement. While estimates of the Hubble Constant go back all the way to Georges Lemaître in 1927 – two years before Edwin Hubble got in on the game‚ in fact – modern estimates have the advantage of a vast wealth of empirical data from spacecraft such as the Planck mission. Now‚ there’s a bit of a cosmic paradox here‚ because you’ll find significantly different results for the Hubble Constant depending on how you measure it‚ and nobody really knows why‚ but since the Planck mission measured cosmic background radiation‚ that’s what we’ll concentrate on here. And according to the most current of those estimates‚ the Hubble Constant is… 42.“We have taken two measurements for the constant‚” Richard Saunders‚ a senior lecturer at Cambridge University’s Cavendish Astrophysics Laboratory‚ told The Independent in 1996 “and the average of them is‚ well‚ it's 42.” Saunders had just headed up a project to measure the Hubble Constant using the Ryle radio telescope – an array of what look like huge satellite dishes‚ but are in fact specialized antennae and radio receivers that scan the sky to pick up cosmic background radiation. He had measured the Hubble Constant in km/s/Mpc‚ or kilometers per second per Megaparsec – interestingly‚ this means that the Hubble Constant is technically a frequency‚ rather than a speed or acceleration – and here’s the really weird thing: he was wrong… but the answer is still 42.The most up-to-date estimates of the Hubble Constant these days‚ which use data from the Planck mission‚ put the value a little higher. “There are multiple possible cosmologies that can reproduce the patterns we see [in the cosmic background radiation]‚” explained Siegel in a 2021 column on the constant. “But […] the best-fit value comes in at 67-68 km/s/Mpc for the expansion rate […] There’s very little actual wiggle-room.”Let’s take the middle of that interval‚ then‚ for balance – call it 67.5 km/s/Mpc. Well‚ what is that in imperial? That is‚ in miles/s/Mpc?Oh. It just so happens to be 42.

After his revealing testimony before Congress last summer regarding extraterrestrials and alien technology‚ whistleblower David Grusch faced security concerns that led to the cancellation of his appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast‚ reports mirror.co.uk. In a new three-part documentary titled “UFO Revolution: Exposing the Largest Government Cover-Up‚” produced by TMZ‚ an investigation delves into the government’s suppression of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) sightings. Former intelligence officials detail the impact of their involvement with the subject‚ shedding light on the scrutiny affecting their lives. During the first episode‚ filmmaker Jeremy Corbell recounts an anticipated discussion on Joe Rogan’s podcast‚ “The Joe Rogan Experience‚” involving Grusch‚ fellow journalist George Knapp‚ and himself. However‚ the planned conversation was derailed as Grusch failed to appear‚ attributing his absence to security concerns stemming from his whistleblower testimony before Congress‚ as confirmed by Corbell. “Look man‚ reprisals are real‚” Corbell said in the documentary. “The effect of trying to silence people is absolutely real as well.” He then speaks about his experience trying to gather evidence from witnesses‚ who often fear they would face consequences if they speak out. The filmmaker asserts that a good portion of those witnesses work within agencies that would likely target them for revealing the truth. “To people like David Grusch who really just took it on the chin‚ came forward and said what he could say in that setting‚” Corbell said. “Yeah man‚ you’re going to take shots. You better be truly‚ deeply be prepared to the core of who you are to take those hits.” The post David Grusch forced to drop out of appearances for ‘safety concerns’ appeared first on Anomalien.com.