[107164] in Cypherpunks
Y2K like things...
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Sunder)
Mon Jan 4 12:42:23 1999
Date: Mon, 04 Jan 1999 12:28:08 -0500
From: Sunder <sunder@brainlink.com>
To: cypherpunks@algebra.com
Reply-To: Sunder <sunder@brainlink.com>
This has very little of anything to do with Y2K. The large huge blanket of
cold air that has covered the USA in the past two days has brought some
interesting thoughts...
Yesterday while out driving, there were lots and lots of spots on the
various NYC highways that were drenched in two or three feet of water.
There were also several accidents here and there, one the news said was a 50
car pile up or somesuch. Driving was a big mess, but not impossible. It was
also still raining heavily, so visibility was low...
This morning it was about 20 degrees F, and the idiot building managers
decided to shut off all hot water and heat (without previous notice) to
"clean the boiler" -- or so said a sign in the elevator this morning.
Anyway, I wasn't about to take an ice cold shower and go out in sub-freezing
weather, so I improvised. The gas was still working, so for heat, I turned
on the oven and left its door open. In the bedroom I use(d) an electric
space heater...
(I wasn't worried about running out of oxygen as much as freezing at that
point.) This solved the lack of calories floating in the room, but not of
how to take a shower rather than show up to work dirty...
So I dug up the largest pot I found, filled it with water and heated it up.
I took this to the bathroom and plugged the sink, letting the cold water fill
up half the sink, then poured some of the boiling water. Now that I had
water, I could wash up, and when the sink water filled up with too much soap
and grime, I let it drain and repeated.
So the problem of washing without too much water, or in this case, without
warm water is easily solved if you can manage to keep a supply of water
available at all times, and some way to warm it.
Having a way to warm the water, you also have a way to cook food and stay
warm.
Now how the hell does one store enough water for a month or two? I suppose
if you live in a house that has an oil boiler, you're likely to have a large
oil tank, so that solves that. You'll now need a secondary source of
electricity to run your boiler, a generator solves that, especially if you
find one that runs on the same oil as your boiler. Having sleeping bags will
likely take care of the issue of having to use up all your oil, candles can
take care of the need for light, etc...
Anyone know enough about boilers to say how many amps/watts/volts your
average boiler needs? Can generators run them? I suppose in a pinch you
could wire a voltage inverter to your car and get a few watts at 110vac, but
I'm not sure if it will be sufficient for a boiler...
That leaves the question of storage space for both food and water; food is
the easier of the two to store, water is very bulky and heavy, so that
remains to be solved...
There was also the question of human waste, trash, and such, but that has
already been addressed on this list.
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