'Must haves'

sky · Post by **sky** » Tue Nov 01, 2011 9:23 pm

It seems to me that must-have requirements are shrinking.
A laptop with free software and a free wifi node can now take the place of TV, phone, DVD player, cable TV, stereo, home entertainment system, etc. I don't care for cell phones, I would rather use the laptop.
The torrents provide more content than you can consume. Google voice is the phone connection. Youtube for timewasting.
If I had to, I could run my communications/entertainment system on 100W of solar panels and a couple deep discharge batteries (I have not calculated it out but 100W should cover laptop needs for quite a few hours).

northman · Post by **northman** » Wed Nov 02, 2011 12:08 am

-22lr revolver

-22lr rifle

-308 rifle
Buy quality and it will last you a lifetime.. I would recomend:
-Smith & Wesson mod. 617 with 4" barrel ( 10 round cylinder )

-CZ 453 Varmint

-Howa Stainless 308 with heavy barrel
Zeiss Conquests 3-9x40 have very good optics! Dont buy cheap crap here either!
Cheap fun with the 22lr and hunting small game (rabbits, birds etc )

With the 308 you can hunt anything you want, and find cheap surplus ammunition for plinking/target practice.
Many states in the US are overrun with feral pigs. These can be hunted year round, usually free of charge from ranchers.. 50-200lbs pigs produce alot of meat.
Right now I have 5 rifles.. Im seriously thinking about thinning the herd, down to just these 3 items. They will do anything I ever need!

chilly · Post by **chilly** » Wed Nov 02, 2011 12:39 am

@Northman

"Many states in the US are overrun with feral pigs. These can be hunted year round, usually free of charge from ranchers.. 50-200lbs pigs produce alot of meat."
I've actually thought about that, although I'm not a hunter (yet). Have you actually tried it? Does it taste like domestic pig?

riparian · Post by **riparian** » Wed Nov 02, 2011 12:58 am

@Northman, I have a similar collection of guns. I'd prefer a 30.06 to the 308 that I have tho. Also you left a defense weapon off your list.

akilligelisim · Post by **akilligelisim** » Wed Nov 02, 2011 10:24 am

The only must have gadgets are hygene equipments (electric shaver especially)and information gathering equipments (laptop, smartphone, ipad)
apart from that I don't have any must have equipment

northman · Post by **northman** » Wed Nov 02, 2011 11:59 am

chilly: I have not tried it, living in Europe myself, but reading hunting forums, I havnt seen any negative comments yet. Most hunters donate the meat to poor people in their community, as most hunt them as pests.
But I would say I belive they taste better, since they eat natural food. They will be carnivorus if they find easy pray..
riparian:

I have two 30-06, a 308, 223, 22lr.. maybe gettin a 9.3x62 or 7x57 aswell.. or I might sell everything except those two.
Well, for PD I would choose..
-a Smith & Wesson 686 in 357 Magnum. Its almost identical to the S&W 617, so you have a practice and a PD gun. They feel the same

-Remington mod 870 shotgun

-AR-15!

-CZ 75B : 9mm

George the original one · Fri Nov 04, 2011 5:11 am

Modern niceties that my wife & I prefer not to live without: Internet, tap water, flush toilet, bathtub/shower, hot water heater, silent dishwasher, washing machine, microwave oven, electric stove/oven, refrigerator, sturdy shoes/boots, rototiller multitool (it can be a woodchipper, mower, & power shovel in addition to being a tiller), black landscaping plastic (weed control & temporary shelter) and chainsaw (preferably electric).
I'm trying to learn to do without the refrigerator in case of extended power outages. We both are comfortable cooking with a campstove or in the fireplace. She's crocheted and knitted for decades and now is spinning fibers into yarn and dyeing the yarn.

riparian · Post by **riparian** » Fri Nov 04, 2011 5:40 am

@northman heh, I have the ruger 357 mag.

akilligelisim · Post by **akilligelisim** » Fri Nov 04, 2011 12:17 pm

Why do you keep these guns? Is it that unsecure in your countries?
I live in Turkey (a not so secure country, because of terror attacks etc.) I never felt a need for a gun.
I could imagine that you're living in wild west in 1800's

northman · Post by **northman** » Fri Nov 04, 2011 3:56 pm

Akilligelisim:
Hunting.. where I live, a small country of 5mill, there are 400 000 registerd hunters. Very accepted thing ( still ) to do here.
Also in the US. Alot of game, and relatively easy to harvest.
Now, the facination about Personel Defense weapons, is mostly an American thing. The west was "won" by the end of a gun.. so they still want the right to carry them, and defend themselvs.
Not that I would want to live in a country where I would need a PD gun myself. But, then again, I just applied in the Green Card lottery, and the first thing I would do, is buy a handgun, just because it would then be my "right" as a citizen. That would never be allowed where I live now.. so its one of the attractions.

riparian · Post by **riparian** » Fri Nov 04, 2011 5:59 pm

@Akilligelisim I live in the woods. 90% of my diet I kill. The .22 is for hares, beaver, grouse, ducks, etc. The .308 is for moose and bear hunting. The .357 I keep strapped to me all the time in case of aggressive bears or humans. I live near a village of 100 drunks and a few wannabe missionaries. Shit gets out of hand sometimes, but it holds true that well armed women make well behaved men.

BPA · Post by **BPA** » Sun Nov 06, 2011 2:45 pm

@Sky: I like the way you think and am eagerly awaiting Google Voice in Canada. For now, Skype works. I do have a cheap, prepaid cell phone and iPod shuffle, but the laptop does take care of most of my at home entertainment/education needs and wants.

SkaraBrae · Post by **SkaraBrae** » Mon Nov 07, 2011 3:08 am

I think I could stick my husband in a cave in the woods and he'd be happy so long as he had high speed Internet access and enough electricity to run his beast of a gaming computer. Running water or indoor plumbing would be a very distant third! The man's done enough wilderness survival that I don't think the lack of a kitchen or even a bed would really bother him.

Roark · Post by **Roark** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 9:44 am

I don't think an electric trimmer is a hygiene requirement if one defines hygiene as a practice that preserves health or prevents disease. Much of my family is Sikh, they are prevented in their religion from cutting their hair and trimming their beards, along with millions of others, and it does not seem to interfere with their health. I think shaving one's beard or head is more of a cosmetic issue.
Sometimes I wish I could wear the white robe that some of the Sikh men wear without being judged as a hardcore religious person (I'm an atheist). Also here in Thailand many monks or more traditional people wear very simple, comfortable, breathable and cheap clothing that does not have tight waistbands. I agree with the main motivations in the Sikh religion for wearing the outfit--to not concern oneself with issues of fashion and instead focus on more important things.
Are clothes without holes in them a "must-have" for people on this forum? I was reading Walden again and Thoreau wrote that a person would sooner walk through town with a broken leg than a hole in his trousers, the latter being more embarrassing. I laughed because that is true in my case and its quite nonsensical that I should have such an emotion.

Fred Tracy · Post by **Fred Tracy** » Tue Feb 21, 2012 12:20 am

Hah, I have holes in some of my clothes, and it doesn't bother me at all to walk around in them. I live in the USA if that matters... most people probably wouldn't be comfortable doing that, I suppose, but I've never cared.

m741 · Post by **m741** » Tue Feb 21, 2012 1:40 am

Interesting question. For business I would never dream of wearing clothes with noticeable holes in a professional environment. On the other hand, when I was doing landscaping, I preferred to wear clothes with holes.
For running errands I wouldn't have a problem with holey clothing, as long as it clean. For social events I wouldn't wear it, unless it was 'outdoorsy' or athletic events.

KevinW · Post by **KevinW** » Tue Feb 21, 2012 4:52 am

It depends. As long as I continue working at a place with an unspoken dress code, maintaining a ship-shape weekday wardrobe is a must.
If I really didn't care at all what anyone else thought, I'd wear clothes like Roark described. Some kind of loose fitting monk-like clothes.
Though, that sort of thing attracts negative attention here, and clothes that can "pass" are only very slightly more expensive. In college I wore holey Levis jeans and free T-shirts. Now I repurpose work clothes with holes or permanent stains into weekend clothes. When I'm FI I'll probably switch to patched jeans and second-hand shirts.

Radamisto · Post by **Radamisto** » Wed Feb 22, 2012 12:06 pm

I agree with point already raised that many modern appliances replace the older ones. I may have a smartphone, but it replaces a landline phone. Laptop instead of a TV. Kindle instead of paper books. Watch is no longer needed, since I always carry my phone with me. And so on.

dragoncar · Post by **dragoncar** » Wed Feb 22, 2012 8:13 pm

I pay extra for jeans with holes in them.
Plus, all cl

livinlite · Post by **livinlite** » Wed Feb 22, 2012 9:29 pm

@ iPads / schools:
Teachers used to need chalk and their brains; and maybe a typewriter/lithograph (in the mid-90's I still got hand-cranked copies in bluish ink or my Latin teacher's hand-typed quizzes..he ran them in his basement so he wouldn't have to depend on the school's "quirky copiers")
My Mom is an assistant principle at an elementary school in a struggling school district that is going through all the usual; cutting staff, increasing classroom size, forgoing maintenance, etc.. When she got the promotion earlier this year, she was given a brand new iPad because "all the administrators have them". This is in one of the most liberal cities on the West Coast...guess they didn't get the memo about the Foxconn problems or the human-costs of the iPad? Nevermind that they are choosing to equip their staff with useless consumer crap instead of (among other things) feeding their children better school lunches. Disgraceful..