Jon Stokes

Don't Let Disney Monopolize A.I.-Generated Art

The indie artists suing Stable Diffusion may not realize it, but they're doing the Mouse's dirty work. Disney and the rest of Hollywood have been eerily quiet about the launch of Stable Diffusion, despite the fact that this open-source A.I. software…

Survival clothing beginner’s guide

Unless you’re on an episode of Naked and Afraid, your clothing is an important part of most survival situations. Think of clothes as life-saving shelter or armor that you carry with you all the time. This guide explains what to look for and…

How to shop for preps online without getting scammed

As an editor at The Prepared, I’ve spent a lot of time over the past two years professionally shopping for gear on the internet. When we put together one of our in-depth reviews, we go through a lengthy process where we first put together a list of…

5 indigenous techniques for getting through winter the old-fashioned way

From the Inuit of Alaska to the Sámi of Finland, the winter survival skills of indigenous peoples were developed over millennia of trial and error. Much of the indigenous knowledge of how to get through winter falls into the following…

Waxed canvas jackets and pants: this old-school prepper outerwear still delivers

Modern outdoor clothing is a miracle of science. Polyester, nylon, and other synthetic fabrics and blends have a combination of strength, weight, comfort, and protection that our fur-wearing ancestors could never have dreamed possible. But this stuff…

Your car will probably be fine after an EMP

William S. Forschten’s post-apocalyptic novel, One Second After, famously describes a post-apocalyptic world of clogged roadways and stranded motorists, as all the continent’s cars are instantly stopped by a single blast from a high-altitude…

I’m a professional prepper, and here’s a look inside my go-bag

I have a confession to make: despite the fact that prepping is my day job, I didn’t really have my go-bag in good working order until this past April. Yeah, I had a go-bag, but it was more aspirational than operational — more “Jon’s bag of survival…

A giant waxed cheese wheel is the apocalypse prep you didn’t know you needed

Fats and proteins are a bigger challenge when putting together your food preps than other categories like grains and veggies. These critical nutrient families tend to have a terrible shelf life, so if you want either of them in a form that’ll last…

How to shop for preps without going over-budget or buying fantasy gear

Doomshopping — a vicious cycle of doomscrolling, fear-fueled impulse buying (of preps and supplies), guilt at overspending, and then back around to doomscrolling to justify the purchases and silence the guilt. So may Americans are doing it right now…

Doomshopping: How to stop overspending because you’re freaked out about the election

Election-related fears have trapped way too many Americans in the doomshopping loop — late-night doomscrolling, then shopping, purchasing, a quick dopamine hit, followed by a crash into guilt and helplessness, then back around to doomscrolling to…

NOAA: 2020 already has a record number of $1 billion disasters, and it’s not over

As if you needed another reason to always have a go-bag constantly at the ready, a new NOAA report brings word that 2020 has already hit the previous annual record of 16 disasters that cost $1 billion or more — and there’s still a whole quarter left…

Seeing the big picture: how to think about the pandemic and predict what’s next

Those readers who’ve been with us since our January coverage of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in Wuhan, China, know that The Prepared has consistently predicted the twists and turns of this pandemic. Our blog has been early on many stories, and our…

The YOLOers vs. Distancers Feud Is Tearing Us Apart

Covid-19 has given rise to a new blood feud—and the two camps are increasingly blaming each other for everything the pandemic has wrought. In the past few weeks, many Covid-19 hot spots around the country have seen their case counts surge and then…

Key developments for Tuesday, July 28, 2020

Welcome to the newly revamped Key Developments, now twice weekly and with non-COVID news. Right now, it’s actually still mainly COVID news, but we’ll be slowly morphing it into something broader as we go. World events Many are worried about the…

Dress like a prepper: the wonders of wool/nylon blends

Back in November and December of 2019, before the viral apocalypse ravaged global supply chains and sent us all indoors, I redid my entire wardrobe. I threw out some 90 percent of the clothes I’d been wearing, and I started over from scratch with a…

Fire season is here, so here’s how to prepare for blackouts on a budget

Fire season is upon us, and with wildfires comes rolling blackouts. Last year, California and other states saw widespread, rolling blackouts due to the wildfires. Now is the time to ensure you’re prepared to meet the challenges of fire season,…

It’s not just you: what’s going on with product shortages & what could be next

If there’s one or two products you’ve been trying to get your hands on, but they’re either always out-of-stock or going for sky-high markups, know this: it’s not just you. It’s also not just some random thing you’re trying to get your hands on. The…

How we know the future of COVID-19 is a roller coaster of lockdowns and spikes

When it comes to knowing what’s next with the pandemic, I’ve found the following two methods have yet to let me down: I keep close tabs on what infectious disease experts are saying, and I regularly mask up and go outside to look around. For the…

Unpacking the logic behind “slow the testing down, please”

A lot has been made of the President’s claim that we should “slow the testing down,” a claim that he doubled down on in subsequent remarks to reporters. Most commentators state that he’s under the mistaken impression that if we just don’t look at the…

How to understand ICU occupancy numbers and tell when your area is in the danger zone

ICUs in some areas of the United States are about to go into overflow mode, as you’ve probably seen. You may have even shared a story about this on a social media site. And if you shared one of those “ICU occupancy is surging” stories, odds are good…