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Emergency Gadgets Reviewed

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the powerless-to-resist dept.

Carl Bialik writes "When power lines go down, hand-cranked radios and standalone cellphone chargers could come in handy. Wall Street Journal columnist Walt Mossberg reviews emergency gadgets, including a $50 radio that picks up TV audio and gets 35 minutes of power from a 30-second crank. Of course, Mossberg also offers the caveat that these gadgets could be rendered useless 'should the communications infrastructure itself go down.'"

5 of 422 comments (clear)

  1. Limited Usefulness Lifespan by smbarbour · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The $50 radio that picks up TV audio will be useless when the mandatory switch to digital OTA broadcasts occurs. (Unless something interesting will be broadcast on those frequencies after that point.)

  2. Emergency by pete-classic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you're charging your iPod you aren't having a fucking emergency.

    A radio could be quite useful, but not nearly as useful as a couple of cases of bottled water.

    -Peter

  3. Judging by recent events by katana · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A hand-cranked device that could produce 3-5 days of food and water would probably be popular.

  4. Re:My Mossberg emergency item... by Karma_fucker_sucker · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Actually more insightful than funny. It disturbs me that during natural disasters, a few people go nuts and start robbing, raping, killing, etc... The cops can't or won't do anything - it really pissed me off during the LA riots when the cops just drove by the mob that was kicking the shit out of that trucker.

    In short, it never ceases to amaze me how humanity devolves during disasters and make a bad situation even worse.

    --
    Evil people don't think they're evil. - George Lucas, Making of Ep III
  5. Re:My Mossberg emergency item... by dougmc · · Score: 5, Insightful
    it really pissed me off during the LA riots when the cops just drove by the mob that was kicking the shit out of that trucker.
    I vaguely remember what you're referring to, but not the specifics ...

    But it doesn't matter. Police, firemen and similar people are generally trained to take care of #1 first, not to be a hero. (Now, many people do disregard this and do dangerous things, but they're usually disciplined afterwards, assuming they live.)

    If you've got two police officers in a car, and you see a very angry mob beating somebody, intervening immediately is not usually the smartest thing to do. You'd be putting yourself into extreme danger, and may in fact make things worse for the person being beaten.

    A much smarter response would be to stay back and call it in and get lots of reinforcements, cops in riot gear, and THEN you can go in. When you're ready, not before. If you're going to enter a battle, make sure it's a battle you're likely to win. If you're not planning to win, don't enter.

    Individuals respect cop's authority. Even large crowds generally respect police. But an angry mob? No way would two smart cops do anything about that on their own beyond getting reenforcements.