Survival Guide

[RYP]

"nonsense. the idea is to internalize it, practice it in an area that's not all that remote, and then have it mastered when you need it"

Hmmm. I was rubbing two sticks together at TGIF's to light this gals cigarette... and then I drank a gallon of my own urine to get into shape... feeling chipper, I ate a homeless guy (cooking him slowly over a tennis shoe fire) and then I torched a porta pottie to call a cab.

Like I said most survival guides are bush lore regurgitated by white folks for people that will never use them.

[kilroy]

most worthwhile survival guides offer much more practical info.

example: the solar water still
In the deserts of the world, with a plastic sheet six feet square, up to three pints of water a day can be extracted from a bowl-shaped cavity some twenty-inches deep and forty inches across. Place a cup, can, upturned hat, or other receptacle in the center of the hole. Anchor the plastic all the way around the top of the opening with dirt or stones. Set a fist-sized rock in the center of the sheet so that the plastic will sag in a point directly over the container.

Heat from the sun shines through the plasitc and is absorbed by the sand, causing the evaporation of the moisture already in the earth. The vapor is almost immediately condensed on the cooler underneath side of the plastic, the drops flowing down the underside of the steeply angled sheet and dripping into the ready container. Capillary action causes more water to be attracted to the surface of the sand to repladce that which has gone, and the process will go on.

Two such still will, When operating well, keep a man going in the desert, for even when the production lessens after a day or two, it is a simple matter to move the still. Production will even continue at night at about half the rate of the daytime flow.

Varying with the condition of the soil, the amount of water you can expect to extract in a twenty-four-hour day wil be from somewhat less than a pint to three pints. But you can help the process along, particularly if you have selected a hollow or dry wash for your location.

You'll get even more fluid by cutting cacti and other water-holding desert plants into pieces and dropping them under the plastic. The rate of output can thus be increased up to nearly three times that of the sand alone. Even contaminated water such as urine, seawater, and radiator fluid not diluted with such a highly volatile substance as antifreeze can be purified if poured into the hole and allowed to vaporize and drip in the heat.


Seawater in the bottom of a boat can be vaporized and condensed in pur drinkable form by this same method. Incidentally, no matter where you conduct this operation, remove the plastic as seldom as possible, as it takes half an hour or more for the air to become resaturated and the production of water to start once more.

see, useful info that can be easily practiced before being in an emergency situation. you're just being a moldramatic hater.

[redharen]

The solar still actually isn't a very good example of a useful survival tool. It has several problems.

1) In the process of digging a hole big enough to make a workable still, you'll sweat out a ton of moisture.
2) If you're in a desert where there's enough moisture in the soil to keep a still going, you must be lucky.
3) Building a still takes a ton of work and once you have it, you won't be very likely to walk away from it.
4) Rather than digging holes and cutting up vegetation, you're probably better off conserving energy in the day and spending your nights getting out of there on foot.

I actually experimented with a small still once when I thought I might die. Rather than digging a hole, though, I decided to lay in a cave and make a still out of some plastic sheeting and a cookpot, with a Nalgene cap in the center to catch the drip and some food scraps, vegetation, and urine to provide moisture. The atmosphere inside the still when I put it in the sun was optimal. After something like six hours, it yielded something like half a Nalgene cap of water that tasted like pee. Really, the best thing about making the still was that it didn't expend valuable energy and moisture, it staved off boredom, and it kept my morale up because I felt like I was at least doing something to improve my situation.

In the end I waited till the sun was going down and started walking in the direction of where I thought a road should be. I ditched all the stuff I didn't need and found shadows to rest in when I got tired. After awhile I finally made it to a road and got some water.

All that said, survival books aren't worthless -- but don't be optimistic about the way things work in the real world, under non-optimal conditions, i.e. your being too exhausted to dig twenty-inch-deep, forty-inch-wide holes in hard ground; dirt that hasn't been rained on in years and provides no moisture for the still; or not being able to find plants that hold water.

What would be sweet would be a portable, lightweight, foldable still designed to reclaim moisture from your own waste, so you could distill water from your urine instead of drinking urine, and you could also throw in any plants you happened to find. That would be a great invention. Or a Fremen stillsuit.

[Douchebag]

Looking for a good survival book.

The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Carem by Dr Benjamin Spock. Everything else in life is a walk in the park.

[denise]

so far, so true.

[Woodsman]

I actually experimented with a small still once when I thought I might die.

After something like six hours, it yielded something like half a Nalgene cap of water that tasted like pee.

This is real world survival in a truly wild place a nutshell.

[Caliban]

You want Woodland survival tips?


Don't feed the bears.
Stay away from woodlands
Don't stand in the pope shit.

There, saved you twenty five quid for a book you'll probably never use.

The book by Ron Reid Daly was ' Staying alive'. Congrats if you get hold ofacopy (I'll sell you mine if you're gullible enough)

His book Pamwe Chete about the Selous scouts would give you quite a bit in the way of tips too. But it is all African Savanah stuff, not really relevant to American woodland (no baboons).

[RYP]

"the deserts of the world, with a plastic sheet six feet square, up to three pints of water a day can be extracted from a bowl-shaped cavity some twenty-inches deep and forty inches across. Place a cup, can, upturned hat, or other receptacle in the center of the hole. Anchor the plastic all the way around the top of the opening with dirt or stones. Set a fist-sized rock in the center of the sheet so that the plastic will sag in a point directly over the container."

Try it sometimes...and make sure you have six square feet of clear plastic...and a hat that is waterproof...that you don't need to shade you from the sun :))

[kilroy]

i did it in the oregon high desert. worked fine, although the output wasn't as great as alleged. though it's not as arid as most other deserts (in fact i don't even think all of it can be technically considered 'desert'). and i would think that any toil would be done during night time, as would trying to set up a still (so that you can make use of as much sunlight as possible), just like normally you'd want to have your fire started before night falls rather than after. but i wouldn't hate on your desert camping skills, red. i don't think i'd be able to take on the negev just yet like you and your crew did. ryp, uh, you'd probably plan ahead and bring that stuff with rather than just hoping to inadvertently have it. duh.

fremen still suit would be baller.

[redharen]

Nah, kilroy, you can say whatever you want about my skills...I mean, it was my fault I got into the jam in the first place. I'm just glad I got out of it.

I think you'd be halfway to a stillsuit if you just came up with a system for filtering every last drop of water from your urine and wearing nose plugs that could collect condensation from your breathing. I bet a person could survive a lot longer in the desert if he could prevent those types of moisture loss. It wouldn't have to be in suit form -- just some kind of mask and some kind of pee filter.

[kilroy]

he wasn't in the desert, but maybe osama's dialysis machine was modified to be multipurpose...

[RYP]

How To Survive In the Desert:



How to Survive In the Mountains:



How to Survive At Sea:



I can go on. But its surprising to me how few people have ever tried to use the bushlore advice in those books. They simply don't work.

Try rubbing two sticks together to start a fire. Its gets old reeeeeaaaall fast.

[Caliban]

"the deserts of the world, with a plastic sheet six feet square, up to three pints of water a day can be extracted from a bowl-shaped cavity some twenty-inches deep and forty inches across. Place a cup, can, upturned hat, or other receptacle in the center of the hole. Anchor the plastic all the way around the top of the opening with dirt or stones. Set a fist-sized rock in the center of the sheet so that the plastic will sag in a point directly over the container."

Try it sometimes...and make sure you have six square feet of clear plastic...and a hat that is waterproof...that you don't need to shade you from the sun :))

The other alternative.
smaller sheet of plastic.
water catching reseptical
water tight heat proof can (tin can will do)
length of tubing.

dig two holes next to each other. bury tubing so the ends are exposed in the side wall of eah hole near the top. light a fire in one hol. the other hole contains your water catching container. Cover this hole with the plastic, weighted down and with a small stone in the centre to create an "inverted teepee over the container. Now piss in the tin can and place on the fire in the first hole. cover the hole. Steam from the boiled urine will pass through the tube and collect on the plastic and subsequently drip into the container as pure water.


But who the fuck wants to drink their own piss steam. I'm with Ryp on this one.

[redharen]

More importantly, during that whole time you were boiling your urine, you could have been sleeping, cutting off your arm that's trapped under the boulder, walking toward water, or writing your suicide note. Priorities, people.

[RYP]

Yeah the chop yer arm off cuz its lodged in a boulder is one of the best "survival" moves that dude made. Its the second guy that does it that is going to be deeply disappointed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aron_Ralston

"As a corporate speaker, he is paid between $15,000 and $37,000 per speech"