What did you do today to prepare?

[NT2C]

Ordered a nice little propane water heater kit for those times when our electric heater might go out, for whatever reason, and also for travel when I go offroading. While it's unlikely the house water heater would go out since it's new we could lose power for an extended amount of time after a storm and being able to get a hot shower will make life just a little better in such times.

BougeRV Portable Propane Outdoor Camping Water Heater

[Optimist]

I finally got one of those battery jump starters for my car. I kept researching them but not following through, so I just got the one my nearest automotive store had (I did quickly check reviews, which were mostly positive). It's a Vector brand. It's going to live in my backpack cooler which is my EDC bag/lunchbox that I take to work so it will stay warm* and also work as a power bank and backup flashlight.

*It's a lithium battery which is supposed to be better in the cold but my experience with other people's lithium battery jump starters is that if they're cold they don't work nearly as well.

[tirls]

Our photovoltaic is up and running.
Well, not really. But the cables are in, the panels are installed. We're just waiting for the batteries and need the signature of the electrician. It still might give a big boom once we power it up and burn everything down. But it's on the roof and everything.
One day I'll become a proper prepper.

[Z.O.R.G.]

Bought a "comb" binding machine, spines, and plastic covers.  Now I can make my own custom logbooks, manuals, SOI/SOP, cookbooks, etc.  Total price <$200.  

[NT2C]

Bought a "comb" binding machine, spines, and plastic covers.  Now I can make my own custom logbooks, manuals, SOI/SOP, cookbooks, etc.  Total price <$200. 

Add a page laminator and you're all set to make durable, weatherproof, manuals, and guides.

[Z.O.R.G.]

Bought a "comb" binding machine, spines, and plastic covers.  Now I can make my own custom logbooks, manuals, SOI/SOP, cookbooks, etc.  Total price <$200. 

Add a page laminator and you're all set to make durable, weatherproof, manuals, and guides.

I already have one  and grease pencils to mark the laminated sheets!

[NT2C]

Target practice and function testing of two new firearms.

[Kathy in FL]

Finally feeling proficient with the Byrna "pistol" hubby got me for Valentine's Day.  Ain't cheap.  Neither is the practice "balls".  The practice balls are reusable so long as they don't shatter or otherwise become deformed.  I can now put a hole in a soda can at fifty feet with one.  Has the "hand feel" of a 9mm pistol but no kick which is a little weird.  It has taken some getting used to.  Also needs sights.  As the CO2 cartridge runs down you need to remember to adjust, or at least I have found it to be thus.

And FYI, if you practice with one or two of the pepper balls just to see how it works ... don't do it on a windy day.  Let's leave it at that shall we? 
https://byrna.com/

[EBuff75]

This wasn't exactly prepping, but might be useful for other people here if you would like to print some custom maps.  

For quite a while, our CERT wanted to get a map of our city to put up in our trailer - one that has all of the street names on it.  This is one of those things that used to be easy to get (you could buy them in city hall or at gas stations, etc.), but now it's just about impossible to find for most cities, short of paying for a custom printed map (which is fairly expensive).  I tried a few different online street maps, but most of them aren't really "printer friendly" due to using lots of color, streets that are gray, etc.

The exception is Bing.  If you turn off the labels, you get a very clean, crisp version with simple black lines for roads.  If you don't have a printed map of your area and would like to print one, I would recommend Bing, just because it's so much easier to view than the other sites that I tried.

I have a large 4k monitor (it's actually a 43" TV) and I played with the zoom in both the map and the browser window to fit our city onto the screen with the least wasted space and at a zoom level where all the street names showing.  Once I had it framed just right, I did a screen grab.  A slight bit of editing (I needed to straighten it slightly, plus some minor cropping) and I have a fairly nice image.  One of the guys in our group has access to a plotter and an oversize laminator, so we might finally get a map to put up!

[NT2C]

Let's just say that "1,000 Yard Coyote" is now on the "food for the farm animals in the Zpaw" menu

[MacWa77ace]

@EBuff75 what was the file size of the screen grab of the 4k? [hoping its not downsampled by the operating system, I can tell by the file size if that happened]

One of the guys in our group has access to a plotter and an oversize laminator, so we might finally get a map to put up!

Screen grabs are raster images, you'd be better off going to a large format inkjet printer than a plotter. Doesn't a plotter use vectors? Still you could probably get it done for a couple hundred if the plotter doesn't work and the resolution is high enough.

[tirls]

A plotter uses regular CMYK halftones, just like most printers. Even If you use vectors it gets converted into dpi for print. The difference is that you can scale vector data beforehand. As long as the pixel image is large enough there is no problem.

You can get vector data for maps online from GIS sources. You should also be able to get cadastrel maps from some official source.
We occassionaly use geoportals for planning.

[MacWa77ace]

LOL, you made me doubt myself for a sec, its been a while and tech changes. But...
It is still the filetype that would determine the best output device. So yes, get a map that is a vector filetype to use on the plotter. But use a large format printer for that screen shot. [if the resolution is high enough.] It's the way the printers lay down the 'dpi' onto the media that make filetype important. If its just lines then maybe, but I'm picturing a bing map and that has a bunch of background junk like buildings and terrain even on the graphic version.
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[for educational purposes only, tech info ahead, beware]





https://www.impactmybiz.com/blog/wide-format-vs-plotter-printer-differences/

TL:DR

5. Resolution and File Type
Plotter printers can print up to 1440 dpi (dots per inch—a measurement of the image quality on a paper), while most wide format printers can only print resolutions of up to 600dpi.

As stated above, vector images do not change quality regardless of how much they are enlarged, which means a plotter printer will deliver a high-definition print job regardless of image size.

Since wide format printers use pixel images, an image with a lower pixel resolution will lose its definition when enlarged to a large document.

Therefore, wide format printers work with pixel-based files such as PDF, JPG, BMP, etc.[screenshots]
Plotters work with vector files such as AI, EPS, or SVG.

Plotters work with vector images—images made from point-to-point lines—and are typically used for technical drawings where having a high level of detail is crucial. Sectors that often use plotter printers include: 

• Engineering
• Architecture and construction
• Product design
• Some sign-making 

Wide format printers are used for printing all kinds of large format images such as huge banners, posters, high-resolution photography, art prints, etc. The businesses that tend to use wide-format printers include: 

• Marketing and graphic design agencies
• Photographers
• Entertainment studios
• Art studios
• Event planners

His screenshot is not a vector image but could possibly be converted to vectors using software, but that would slow down the print job because using an 'auto' vectorization program generally results in hundreds of thousands of useless vectors that clog up a printers memory. And its to many vectors to 'clean up' manually.

One time I was doing a rush page layout job for a vendor, LOL so I was his vendor for this, and he supplied a background for a ~400 page catalog 'we' were assembling. And then he was saying that it was taking forever for each page to render in his imaging machine [each page x4 images cmyk]. So i took a look at all the stuff that made up the pages and come to find out the background which was just a bunch of lines that looked like confetti, was made up of 10's of thousands of vectors which were clogging up the memory. So I just took that file and rasterized it and then it ran thru the imager like lightning. [rasterizing is a term that means converting a vector image into a pixel image]

That same job, had an issue with importing fonts from a non US supplier and I had to find a program to convert them to something readable by my page layout program. And even then they came into the text boxes super large so had to then select the text and size it appropriately which is hard to do when the text box only shows two letters out of hundreds.   

What a nightmare. But I made about $6000 in 2 days only getting a couple hours of sleep a night. RUSH JOB. But saved his ass at the same time. The plan was that he was supposed to 'catch up' to me and take over the page assembly, but I stayed ahead of him as he was also doing the imaging, so I ended up doing the whole book. 

[tirls]

Plotter printers can print up to 1440 dpi (dots per inch—a measurement of the image quality on a paper), while most wide format printers can only print resolutions of up to 600dpi.

As stated above, vector images do not change quality regardless of how much they are enlarged, which means a plotter printer will deliver a high-definition print job regardless of image size.

That´s what I meant with a large enough pixel image. As long as the image is large enough and you don´t need to increase the size for printing you´re good. 

I think. It´s been nearly 20 years since I learned that stuff, it´s been a while. I haven´t really kept up with printer technology. Just ignore everything I said. 

[MacWa77ace]

Yeah, That's why I asked @EBuff75 for the filesize of his screenshot, cause from that I can tell if it was downsampled or not and if it'd be large enough to output without pixelating.

I think. It´s been nearly 20 years since I learned that stuff, it´s been a while. I haven´t really kept up with printer technology.

Me too, left that industry in about 2003 after 10 years. That's also why I had to refresh my memory on the subject.

See [below] this is a screenshot on a 1920x1080 monitor and its only 167kb [which is 9.46"hx19.94"w]. So lets say on a 4k its 2 times the size. IME 334kb is still way to small a file resolution to enlarge. But at 2*(9.46"hx19.94"w)= 20"x40" you wouldn't have to enlarge it. You'd get what you see. In theory. And you might be able to use software (Photoshop) to double the size using interpolation and not really lose anything. But still, when we did booth graphics on large format printers, the photos [which screenshots are photos] would be in the 20+ mb file size range. And they'd still pixelate depending on the enlargement factor, but that was mostly ok if they weren't going to be viewed up close, like 2-3 feet. from 10+ feet they look great.


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*pixelate (extreme version)

[Halfapint]

My buddy got into bows for hunting so I bought myself a new bow. I've been practicing 1-2 hours a day while I work from home. Getting pretty good. Had to relearn a lot if stuff since the 5 years during covid. When I was shooting probably 4-5 hours a day.

I took a rabbit the other day. 25-30 yards. Straight in the head, I know you're not supposed to do head. Skinned it, gutted it, stuck it in the freezer.

Amazon has surprisingly good arrows with .001 or less deflection. The top 4 and the bottom two are off about an 1.5-2" but I just Kentucky wind it until I can get the sight moved (kid took the Alan wrench I need ha!)