Privacy & Cybersecurity Technologist | AI Governance Researcher | JD Law • MS Aeronautical Science • BS CS
Last weekend at an outdoor range, part of the orientation was a simple safe-handling check: a few shots at a target about 15 feet out. Easy. I put every round on paper. The useful part was not the score. The Range Safety Officer stood next to me and watched
This is the fourth post in the AFR 64-4 series. Chapter 16 was fire. Chapter 17 was the small pack — what is still on you when the main stores are gone. Chapter 18 was food. Chapter 15 is shelter. The manual puts it before the fire chapter. A night
This is the third post in the AFR 64-4 series. Chapter 16 was fire. Chapter 17 was the small pack — what is still on you when the main stores are gone. Chapter 18 is food. It opens Part Six, Sustenance. When I was young, my family was very poor.
This is the second post in the AFR 64-4 series. Chapter 16 was fire. Chapter 17 is equipment — what you carry, how you keep it working, and what you do when the issued bag is gone. Section 17-1 opens the way a good kit should open. Survivors have
This is the first post in a series on practical survival skills, starting with AFR 64-4 Volume I (15 July 1985), Chapter 16 — Firecraft. The Air Force put fire high on the list for a reason. Section 16-1 is blunt: fire gives warmth, light, dry clothes, signaling, tools,
A nor’easter-style rain is lining up for the weekend. You do not need a new theory of preparedness. You need a few things done while the ground is still dry and the lights are still on. This is the short list. Stay informed Sign up for local alerts
Having stuff does not replace skills. We have forgotten how to make bread. We have forgotten how to raise a chicken. We have forgotten how to feed ourselves when the shelves go quiet. Preparedness is not a pantry full of cans. Preparedness is knowing what to do when the cans
By 1944, about 20 million American Victory Gardens produced roughly 40 percent of the fresh vegetables this country ate. Three in four households canned. The art did not die. We stopped practicing. A garden is not decoration. It is a food system you can walk to. In two world wars,
A lot of collections already live in a spreadsheet. Serials, calibers, what you paid, where it sits. Food in another workbook. Ammo in a third. That was never laziness. It was the list you could actually keep. Ready Center 1.5 (and the Import from Spreadsheet tool) is there so
Yesterday I caught myself looking backward — at feature lists, at warehouse tools, at the idea that a serious preparedness system ought to scan every can in the house. That is the wrong frame. The right question is not “what can the software do?” It is what will you still be
A household readiness record should not be four apps, a spreadsheet only one person understands, and the papers scattered — manuals in a drawer, PDFs in Downloads, a permit on the desktop. September 2026 · DPO Ready Center 1.5 There is a real market for preparedness software. That is good news.
As a pilot, I do not “go flying.” I fly a mission. Before the engine starts there is a plan: where I am going, what the airplane will carry, what the weather is doing, and what I will do if a system fails. The checklist is not bureaucracy. It is