Solar Flare Proof Gear?

Q

Quirt

Joined
Oct 10, 2005
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So with solar flare activity allegedly going to pick up in 2012 and it could potentially fry most things electronical, what absolute life essential bombproof gear must one have, where do I shop for them and if so which models?

I guess I'll start by asking what life essential gear would you suggest I should begin to assemble "just in case?"

Watch? All my watches are battery operated or solar charged. I suppose they'll be toast. So give me an idea of what kind of garage sale or ebay watch should I buy? Will any wind up watch live through a flare storm?

Radio? AM/FM, FRS, CB, & HAM...are there any flare proof radios I listed left on the market or in used shops I can search for? Suggestions?

Knife - ah the one tool I don't have to worry about! Next!

Vehicle/Transportation? I guess I need to buy a couple bicycles just in case. Even if I buy a Points type gasoline or diesal ignition system car/truck there is a remote chance I cannot get fuel for it anyway

Cooking? Standard Coleman will work

Lighting? I guess I need to get a Coleman Propane or Multi-Fuel

Other ideas/suggestions of bombproof gear one might consider having?
 
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Watch? Solar flares destroy all electronics on earth... and you don't want to be late for what?

Solar-flare proof radio? Won't be much use without flare-proof radio stations. What are you going to listen to anyway, solar flare static? :D

Cooking? How much electronics could be in my 1940s gas stove?

Other ideas/suggestions of bombproof gear one might consider having?
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Corkscrew. :thumbup:
 
I have knives and a mechanical watch. I'm all set.

Besides, you should be more worried about IPv4 shortages then solar flares. Computers that collide with each other will shut us down pretty quick.
 
Below are my recommendations to your questions...

Quirt said:
Watch? Watches powered by your daily movements should be good to go.

Radio? Useless... communication will be back to the stone age.

Knife - ah the one tool I don't have to worry about! Next!

Vehicle/Transportation? Are you near water? Some sort of self powered vessel would be idea. My vote is on a sea kayak. Store all your gear and wouldn't need to carry it on your back, and you could just make a life near water. When you aren't in the sea kayak, hoof it on foot or get a horse.

Cooking? Regular old fire...

Lighting? Again, fire. Maybe make a lantern and figure out a good method for fueling it naturally.

Other ideas/suggestions of bombproof gear one might consider having?
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Josh K said:
I have knives and a mechanical watch. I'm all set.

Besides, you should be more worried about IPv4 shortages then solar flares. Computers that collide with each other will shut us down pretty quick.
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I don't know. Despite the complexities, deploying IPv6 is a heck of a lot easier than protecting against the 21st century equivalent of the solar storm that occured some 150 years ago.

ETA: This one
 
roughedges said:
I don't know. Despite the complexities, deploying IPv6 is a heck of a lot easier than protecting against the 21st century equivalent of the solar storm that occured some 150 years ago.

ETA: This one
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Pffft. Solar storms. IPv4 is a problem that we've had twenty years to solve with IPv6 and it still hasn't been done. This tells you it's not as easy as simply switching it on. Less then 4% of current devices have it enabled.

Though I guess if the world short circuits itself in 2012 it will solve all those problems, right? :)
 
Josh K said:
Pffft. Solar storms. IPv4 is a problem that we've had twenty years to solve with IPv6 and it still hasn't been done. This tells you it's not as easy as simply switching it on. Less then 4% of current devices have it enabled.

Though I guess if the world short circuits itself in 2012 it will solve all those problems, right? :)
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I think your 4% number is very conservative, at least if you're including end user and application layers. It's finally coming more quickly now. Major providers are doing trials and all the major operating systems support it; I know that windows vista and 7 have support for ipv6 enabled by default.

I don't worry about ipv4 depletion or solar flares but, of the two, I suspect the flares have more potential for worldwide disaster. As for the Mayan end of an age prophecy thingamajig, the most recent I've read about it is that something major was lost in translation. Just one more proof, as far as I'm concerned, that constants often aren't. :)
 
roughedges said:
I think your 4% number is very conservative, at least if you're including end user and application layers. It's finally coming more quickly now. Major providers are doing trials and all the major operating systems support it; I know that windows vista and 7 have support for ipv6 enabled by default.

I don't worry about ipv4 depletion or solar flares but, of the two, I suspect the flares have more potential for worldwide disaster. As for the Mayan end of an age prophecy thingamajig, the most recent I've read about it is that something major was lost in translation. Just one more proof, as far as I'm concerned, that constants often aren't. :)
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Discounting the fact that solar activity has been steadily falling since 2008 right?

End user devices aren't what we have to worry about. IPv6 is supported by just about every operating system in use today. The 4% number comes from devices that have it enabled. You would be hard pressed to find a server running IPv6 unless it's in a colo with an extremely modern mindset. I can't even get Rackspace to open up their IPv6 address block. My servers have an address, but I can't access it because their hardware doesn't support it.
 
Josh K said:
Discounting the fact that solar activity has been steadily falling since 2008 right?

End user devices aren't what we have to worry about. IPv6 is supported by just about every operating system in use today. The 4% number comes from devices that have it enabled. You would be hard pressed to find a server running IPv6 unless it's in a colo with an extremely modern mindset. I can't even get Rackspace to open up their IPv6 address block. My servers have an address, but I can't access it because their hardware doesn't support it.
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I think you'll be surprised sometime within the next 2-3 years. Even comcast (my provider for the moment) is testing out ipv6 and I suspect that other large ISPs are as well. It'll happen, though I don't blame you for not holding your breath. ;)

Solar activity decreasing since 2008 isn't really that statistically significant (no more, from a purely meteorlogical perspective, than 2 years of highly active hurricane seasons) as it is well known that solar activity, by and large, occurs in roughly 10.x year cycles. Incidentally, we entered the latest solar cycle at the end of 2008.
 
roughedges said:
I think you'll be surprised sometime within the next 2-3 years. Even comcast (my provider for the moment) is testing out ipv6 and I suspect that other large ISPs are as well. It'll happen, though I don't blame you for not holding your breath. ;)

Solar activity decreasing since 2008 isn't really that statistically significant (no more, from a purely meteorlogical perspective, than 2 years of highly active hurricane seasons) as it is well known that solar activity, by and large, occurs in roughly 10.x year cycles. Incidentally, we entered the latest solar cycle at the end of 2008.
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Since we have such an accurate fix on that, why wasn't 2010 one of the solar maximums? Again, we are seeing an unexpected decrease in solar activity. This does point to a large upswing sometime in the near future, but probably not as soon as 2012.

The issue with "testing out" IPv6 is that you have to have an IPv4 address as well. Only other IPv6 capable servers will be able to communicate with you with an IPv6 address. They can enable it if they like, however the fact remains that the vast majority (read: entire) network has to shift in tandem. As it's grown this gets harder. People are lazy and it costs money.
 
Josh K said:
Since we have such an accurate fix on that, why wasn't 2010 one of the solar maximums? Again, we are seeing an unexpected decrease in solar activity. This does point to a large upswing sometime in the near future, but probably not as soon as 2012.

The issue with "testing out" IPv6 is that you have to have an IPv4 address as well. Only other IPv6 capable servers will be able to communicate with you with an IPv6 address. They can enable it if they like, however the fact remains that the vast majority (read: entire) network has to shift in tandem. As it's grown this gets harder. People are lazy and it costs money.
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Regarding solar maximum, I have no idea why there have been less sun spots than predicted. Heck, a whole bunch of astrophysicists don't know the answer to that. :D As I understand it though, and I may well be wrong, it isn't that we are seeing a decrease in solar activity- we just aren't seeing an expected increase at its predicted time. Also, I'm of the opinion that the whole Mayan Doomsday prophecy is a whole lot of bunk, a modern invention. All the so-called "ending" of the Mayan calender signifies is the ending of one age and the beginning of another. Have a look on the mayan great circle; I haven't been able to find much actual information- as opposed to sensationalist nonsense- but it's pretty interesting stuff as they used base 20 and base 18 and had a rather uniquely long term view of things in addition to their astronomical observations, etc.

All in all, I'll defer to you on the IPv6 thing but I do believe that it is only a matter of time before a switch happens, or is forced upon the providers by impending IPv4 depletion.

In talking about this, I remembered my cousin showing me a supposedly government run, or at least sponsored, building on the Univ. of Md College Park campus that was a backbone of a private IPv6 network. I thought nothing of it at the time, but when I speak with him again I'm going to ask him about it.
 
roughedges said:
Regarding solar maximum, I have no idea why there have been less sun spots than predicted. Heck, a whole bunch of astrophysicists don't know the answer to that. :D As I understand it though, and I may well be wrong, it isn't that we are seeing a decrease in solar activity- we just aren't seeing an expected increase at its predicted time. Also, I'm of the opinion that the whole Mayan Doomsday prophecy is a whole lot of bunk, a modern invention. All the so-called "ending" of the Mayan calender signifies is the ending of one age and the beginning of another. Have a look on the mayan great circle; I haven't been able to find much actual information- as opposed to sensationalist nonsense- but it's pretty interesting stuff as they used base 20 and base 18 and had a rather uniquely long term view of things in addition to their astronomical observations, etc.

All in all, I'll defer to you on the IPv6 thing but I do believe that it is only a matter of time before a switch happens, or is forced upon the providers by impending IPv4 depletion.

In talking about this, I remembered my cousin showing me a supposedly government run, or at least sponsored, building on the Univ. of Md College Park campus that was a backbone of a private IPv6 network. I thought nothing of it at the time, but when I speak with him again I'm going to ask him about it.
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You could probably get away with running an intranet off of IPv6, the issue comes with connecting to everyone else.

The whole 2012 thing is about as worrisome to me as Y2K was. Fabulous software bugs, eh? The fun one will be the Year 2038 and how we're dealing with Unix time at that point.
 
Josh K said:
You could probably get away with running an intranet off of IPv6, the issue comes with connecting to everyone else.

The whole 2012 thing is about as worrisome to me as Y2K was. Fabulous software bugs, eh? The fun one will be the Year 2038 and how we're dealing with Unix time at that point.
Click to expand...

Maybe it's just a conspiracy to require everyone and their mother,not just the power users, to invest in the x64 architecture whether it is exactly necessary or not. :D
 
The current sun spot minimum is supposedly one of the worst and longest since records keeping began. The last time it was this bad was in the 1850s. When it finally ended in the late part of that decade, the solar flares, or so it was reported, virtually wiped out the infant telegraph system and ignited hundreds of brush and forest fires world wide. I don't know the truth of that but 'flare time' might not be a good time to be out in the boonies...? BTW, solar flares, to my limited understanding, may also contain bursts of gamma radiation. So, might we all be microwaved? What a pleasant thought......

The current minimum has been with us since the mid 90s and is one the reasons I've pretty much quit Ham radio, no solar activity thus no or very erratic skip and lousy international contacts.
 
Old CW4 said:
BTW, solar flares, to my limited understanding, may also contain bursts of gamma radiation. So, might we all be microwaved? What a pleasant thought......
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Oh, don't worry. Gamma rays are much more energetic than microwaves. Microwave would just cause surface damage; gamma streams through and through, destroying chromosomes and generally wreaking havoc to your very core. It's kind of like Airsoft vs .30 cal:)
 
Hey guys, I appreciate the feedback/insight so far although the thread has drifted from what "life essential bombproof gear can survive solar flare activity" to are solar flare activities probable or not in the near future, or what other catastrophic events should we be more concerned about instead of or in addition to flares.

I can only prepare for one disaster or melt down at a time! So please feed me (and others) suggestions (make/models/types) of life essential gear you believe can survive massive solar flare activity without being locked up in a Faraday Box.

Your suggestions are greatly apprecated - regardless if we ever have flares or not. If we don't then I'll have a nice collection of old time technology!
 
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