Peaceful? Yes, But Death is Always Just Moments Away

Experience Human Flight from Betty Wants In on Vimeo.

High adventure awaits you, in many places and forms. Whether high in the atmosphere, deep beneath the sea, at extreme mountain elevations or in far polar regions -- excitement always walks hand in hand with death. Even more so as humans step out into space environments such as orbital stations and colonies, or lunar outposts.

One augenblick of inattention, and you are gone.

Yes, I know it looks peaceful, and even easy. But focus, intelligence, and competence are only starting points to survival. If a person or society is unwilling to put in the work, it will die in Idiocracy.

Video credit: Gizmodo

70 kg Seaplane Designed in Finland

PO
This one-seater carbon fibre plane lands and takes off on water, and weighs but 70 kg. It was designed by a Finnish aerospace engineer, has a topspeed of around 140 kph, and a wingspan of 5m. It will come in multiple models, with prices starting at US$ 39k. The company plans to start taking orders in 3 months.

The first version, one electric only, and two fuel based versions. The electric-only version has a 20kW engine. The two petrol-based engined run on 24 bhp and 35 bhp, respectively. The top speed on these planes is roughly 140 km/h, with a minimum speed of 70 km/h . The FlyNano has a wingspan of five meters. The plan can support a take off weight of 200 kg, as well as a take off speed of about 70km/h. In theory, the plane can travel about up to 70 kilometers in a single fueling, or charging, depending on the model that you have chosen to fly. _PO

The plane would be mainly for sport and recreation. For lake hopping, island hopping, or seastead hopping, the plane might be practical as a light mail carrier or courier craft. Future STOL (short takeoff or landing) versions of such planes might be convenient for getting out of a populated area quickly. Just be sure to have plenty of fuel caches pre-placed.

If You Can Survive the Zombie Apocalypse, You Can Survive Almost Anything

Riverboat Zombie Survival Compound
The imaginative survival scheme pictured above should provide a creative boost to your survival planning efforts. Here are a number of things to keep in mind when planning for your apocalypse of choice:

Basic Considerations for Planning Survival Compounds

100 Items that Disappear from the Shelves First In a Panic

Homemade Fuels: PDF Handbook for Downdraft Gasifiers

FEMA PDF Plans for Homemade Stratified Downdraft Gasifier

PDF Ideas for making your own propane from bio-feedstocks PDF

More on biopropane from MIT Technology Review

You can run a gasoline generator, tractor, or automobile with gasifier-produced syngas, from wood chips etc.

Use your imagination to discover ways to provide the items most in demand in a crisis. You may have the kernel for a profitable business to see you through the apocalypse of choice. Accept only gold, silver, or high grade ammunition as payment.

Can Bernard Way Kickstart "Arc Island" and Beat Seasteading.org?

Patri Friedman's Seasteading.org has been the primary website for seasteaders for a number of years now. Certainly Patri has worked the PR circuit and appeared on a number of TV shows and in some prestigious publications. He is currently in The Bahamas, giving a talk on seasteading at the Association of Private Enterprise Education.

The only way for Bernard Way to push Patri out of the limelight would be to deliver on a promise which Patri has so far been unable to keep: to build an actual working seastead.

Arc Island will be the largest civil engineering project in history, to build an entire floating structure the size of Manhattan that can be moved to different locations in the world, can be built upon and using a completely modular approach expanded as it grows.

We are creating a new civilisation from scratch, the scientific, economic, social and technological implications are huge; this is not an extension of another country, this will be its own country, with its own economic, political and legal structure. We want to take all the cutting edge ideas from all disciplines and apply them to this idea, and we want you to be part of it. _Kickstarter

Kickstarter is a fundraising site, and Mr. Way is working the site in order to get a start on necessary fundraising -- in order to start the new civilisation.

We’ve seen some great projects come out of Kickstarter, but nothing can top this. UK-born, SF-living Benjamin Peter Bernard Way wants to make an island. Oh, but not just any island. His Arc Island concept would be movable. Ah yes, and it would also be the size of Manhattan.

You see, Mr. Way has some big ideas. With big ideas come big projects, and this one is no exception. He’s had a number of ideas over the years, raising £25 million for a venture known as Pulsar while still in his teens. Though he was diluted out of the business, Way wasn’t to be kept down.

In the years that have followed his departure from Pulsar, Way has been involved with no fewer than 10 different companies. In fact, if his last name sounds familiar, it’s because he’s the brother of Hermione Way, the founder of Newspepper and our hostess with the mostess for TNW Video. _TheNextWeb_via_ImpactLab

The proof is in the pudding, not in the PR or the fundraising. But when it comes to competition for achieving world-changing enterprises, the more the merrier. Certainly Mr. Way's "Manhattan sized floating island" concept is somewhat more ambitious than Patri Friedman's mini-stead concept he is floating currently.

May the best seastead win, and actually provide meaningful societal and civilisational choices, in a world that is growing ideologically and Idiocratically hidebound.