I Want To See All Individuals Succeed

*I don't care if you're friend or foe, I want to see all people succeed, why? Enlightened individuals have come to the interpretation that, "No one gets out of life more than they put in". This is not some dogmatic ritual, this is a metaphysical statement.

Want to Make Money From Your Blog? Get a Sponsor

Yesterday I wrote about how you can increase your chances of getting paid for the content you create.  How to monetize a blog is one of the most requested topics among the #Blogchat community, so today I wanted to talk about another option for making money from your blog:

Getting a sponsor.

The problem that many bloggers run into is that they want to start making money as soon as they launch their blog.  Which is understandable, but they simply don’t have the large platform and readership that most advertisers are interested in.  Years ago I was approached by one of the major blog ad networks about having them place advertisements on my blog.  At the time (this was 2009 or so) they told me that a blog had to have a minimum of 800,000 monthly pageviews before they could accept them. I had about 1% of that at the time.

Many bloggers will add Ad Sense ads or something similar to their blogs as a way to generate revenue.  The problem is this usually gives them pennies at best, and ends up detracting from the reader’s experience and clutters up the content on the blog.

But a sponsor can be a much better solution.  First, it gives you control over who the sponsor is.  You can bring on someone you are comfortable, and that’s a good fit for your blog’s focus, and your readers.  Second, you have control over what the sponsorship entails.  Third, if you’re smart you can work with the sponsor to enhance the experience on your blog, not detract from it, which is what a lot of ads do.

While I don’t have sponsors here, I have been selling sponsorships at #Blogchat for the last 3 years.  It’s worked out pretty well for everyone.  Here’s the framework I follow with #Blogchat and you can easily do the same with your blog.

First, make sure the sponsor understands what the sponsorship does and does not include.   I have created a special page for sponsoring #Blogchat so that potential sponsors know what they are getting.  You should do the same for your blog.  Think about what you can offer sponsors.  Will they get exposure on your blog itself?  As part of the #blogchat sponsorship, I give sponsors the option to have an ad on the right sidebar, and 1 sponsored post for the month of their sponsorship.  I also promote the sponsor here and on Twitter.  I let them know the bare minimum of exposure they will get but I always try to go a bit above that so that they will be pleased with the coverage they are getting.

Second, make sure the sponsor is a good fit for you and your audience.  This is highly subjective and you will have to figure out what works for you and your audience.  Basically I have two rules for potential #Blogchat sponsors: That they understand that they cannot use the #Blogchat chat itself as a promotional tool, and that their sponsorship doesn’t detract from the #Blogchat experience.  As I tell any potential sponsor, if the #Blogchat community is upset with the experience of the chat based on a sponsor’s involvement, then that makes both myself and the sponsor look terrible.  And yes, I have turned down sponsors that wanted to use the chat itself as a promotional tool for their business.  My suggestion is that you not promote a sponsor on your blog to the point that the sponsor is overshadowing the content.  If that happens then your readers will notice and likely be disappointed.

Third, create a win-win-win situation.  This is where you need to get creative.  You want to find a way for the sponsorship to benefit three parties:

1 – Yourself

2 – The sponsor

3 – Your audience

If you can bring on a sponsor and have all three parties benefit, then you’ve hit a home run.

First, think about what you want.  Do you want cash?  Do you want a product?  Do you want a service?  Again consult yesterday’s post for some great ideas on how to get paid.

Second, explicitly ask the sponsor to tell you what they want to happen as a result of the sponsorship.  Do they want to drive traffic back to their website?  Get more downloads of their new white paper?  Encourage more free signups of their new software product?  Ask them to tell you what they want, because that will greatly influence how the sponsorship is structured.

Finally, how will your readers benefit?  At bare minimum, you don’t want the overall experience on your blog to suffer as a result of the sponsorship.  The last thing in the world you want is for someone to read your blog on November 1st and think ‘Aw shit, he’s got another sponsor!’  You want them to either not notice the sponsor is there or (the best alternative) you want them to be excited that the sponsor is involved!

When I bring on a sponsor for #Blogchat, I am always careful to think about how the community will benefit as a result.  For example, when I bring on a sponsor for #Blogchat, the topics get set for the entire month at the start of the sponsorship because I work with the sponsor to cover topics that interest them, that will also appeal to #Blogchat.  So there’s one benefit.  Another is that each sponsor gets a guest host, so #Blogchat knows if we have a sponsor for the month, they also get an expert guest-host.  Finally, the sponsor will frequently offer #Blogchat members a special deal or discount on a product.  For example, this month’s sponsor, AllergEase, created a special offer to give away its product for free to #Blogchat members.

How to Get Started Landing Sponsorships on Your Blog

1 – Create a page spelling out exactly what a sponsor gets.  Here’s mine for #Blogchat as an example.  This communicates to potential sponsors that you are accepting sponsors, and tells them exactly what they will get.

2 – Figure out who your ‘ideal’ sponsor would be.  For example, if you are a tech blog focusing on startups, then tech startups.  If your blog focuses on parenthood, especially new parents, then a company that makes products for toddlers and newborns might be a good fit.

3 – Do your research and figure out if these companies are active on social media now, and more importantly if they are already working with bloggers and doing sponsorships!  From the above example of a parenting blog, let’s say you do some checking and uncover that Graco is currently sponsoring other bloggers (I have no idea if they are), then you could reach out to them and let them know that you are offering sponsorships on your parenting blog and explain to them how it would be a good fit for their brand.

4 – Focus on the win-win-win.  Figure out how a sponsor’s involvement on your blog will enhance your blog, not detract from the experience you have.   What do you get from the sponsorship, what does the sponsor get, and what do your readers get?

If you are willing to do your homework and some leg-work, you should be able to start getting some sponsors for your blog.  Something else I have noticed with #Blogchat is that it is MUCH easier to sell sponsorships when you are selling sponsorships.  I went all year without selling any sponsorships to #Blogchat, then suddenly over the course of 3 weeks I sold the sponsorships for September, October and November.  So if you can ever start getting sponsors on your blog, it become much easier to keep getting them!

If you accept sponsors on your blog, what has worked for you?

I'm Not Attempting To Make It Happen, I'm Making It Happen

*For every "reasonable" request as to placing all the helpful links in one location, I have done so.
 Now, I have a lot more space on my website and I have a lot more money, Yet more importantly for those who are up with cyber security, you will notice that my site is "https" which notes my site is a secure site, no viruses, malware, ransom ware and I do not monitor cookies. Thanks for your support.

https://www.systemsnicaragua.com/hot-new-tech

Sporcle - Quizzes, Groups, Achievements Pub Trivia & Blog

*Are you looking for something new to do from your home or office?

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While I'm Away, Take A Political Quiz

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If You Have $10 And No Debt, You Are Richer Than 15% Of American Households Put Together

*I have received quite a few emails asking me what I look like, very tall, red skin complexion with green hazel eyes.

It is possible to take this as a sign of the approaching Apocalypse - that 15% of American households own less than nothing. It is also possible to simply observe that if you've got $10 in your pocket and no debts then you've got more wealth that 15% of those American households. And the way this works is that that ten buck bill means that you have more wealth that that 15% of American households put together. We can then go on to start chuntering about how the revolution is imminent as the oppressed masses begin to rise up against their plutocratic overlords. How can we allow a system to persist where the Waltons have that $100 billion derived from Walmart and yet near one sixth of us all have nothing, in aggregate?

Except, actually, we ought to examine this all a little more - for there is this basic truth that we ever should recall. We can only divine what an economic number is telling us when we understand firstly how it was calculated and then secondly what isn't included in the calculation. And the truth here is that this isn't, at least not in total, a shocking indictment of the way the country and the economy work. Rather, it's a description of the fact that people age. Plus, a slight failure in how we actually count wealth.

The new information comes from this very interesting report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

We estimate that 15.1 percent of the households in the U.S. population have net wealth less than or equal to zero, while 14.0 percent have strictly negative wealth. Because of differences in measurement—such as in determining who is included as a household member—estimates vary across surveys and also vary somewhat over time. For example, the share of households with non-positive wealth was estimated to be 18.1 percent in the 2011 panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation, 12.9 percent in the 2013 Survey of Consumer Finances, and 19.4 percent in the 2013 Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Our 2015 SCE estimate of the share of households with negative wealth falls within the range observed.

There are people who have no net wealth and who are unlikely to ever have much. But that's not the reason why we've such a large portion of the population with a negative net value:

What are the characteristics of households with negative wealth? We find that the heads of such households are younger than their counterparts in households with non-negative wealth—an average age of 43 compared to 51. They are also slightly less likely to have a college or postgraduate degree—43 percent and 12 percent, compared with 45 percent and 15 percent, respectively. Moreover, we find the association between having negative wealth and the head of household’s age to be stronger for those with a college degree and especially so for those with postgraduate degrees. These results are consistent with standard life-cycle models of consumption and savings, which predict that agents smooth the marginal utility of consumption by incurring debt—for instance, student loan or credit card—when young and then steadily increasing savings until retirement. In particular, those models predict that young and educated households might have negative wealth as their incomes will likely grow with age so that they will be repaying what they have borrowed when young.

Consistent with intuition, households with negative wealth have much lower average annual incomes than households with non-negative wealth, $39,077 versus $86,309, respectively.

That's our first and major point to make. Negative net wealth is part and parcel of certain life points. We do borrow to invest when young - thus we have negative net wealth at some point in life. That's not the whole story though and this chart is very useful indeed:

I need to go for a swim, have a great day folks. I'll be back soon, there's nothing to do in Kookoo Beach FL.

Full article > http://tinyurl.com/y6v3el8c

How did Trump win? Here are 24 theories

*Allow me to add 1 more reason, "The poor people I know don't vote. They most often drink beer / liquor, smoke weed, have illegitimate children and complain". (I'll catch hell for that one)

Here is one thing we know: Donald Trump, against all odds, will be the next President of the United States.

That's a fact. How exactly it came to be is an open question. There will be dozens of books written about the real estate magnate's path to the White House. From his trampling of the Republican primary field to a convincing electoral victory over Hillary Clinton after a shockingly nasty general election campaign, some could arrive in volumes.

For now, though, we are left to sketch the first draft of history. And, like so many rough outlines, this one is a little messy.

Here are 24 different explanations -- some way more realistic than others -- for Trump's win:

1. He won because of Facebook and its inability or unwillingness to crack down on fake news

Via New York Magazine: The social network and others like it became a clearinghouse for fake news. Not simple partisan spin, but outright lies peddled as objective truth by shady actors both inside the US and abroad.

2. Because of social media, generally

Via right-wing commentator Stefan Molyneux: The medium made the man -- much as radio won the presidency for Franklin Roosevelt and television boosted John Kennedy, social media allowed Trump and his allies to drive the narrative.

3. Because of low voter turnout

Via multiple sources on social media: For a variety of reasons, from an enthusiasm gap to voter suppression, turnout in 2016 was lower across the board, but especially among Democrats. And it cost Clinton the election.

4. Because celebrity outlasts substance

Via Quartz: Trump's name ID, celebrity and media-savvy overmatched Clinton's policy acumen and data-driven turnout operation.

5. Because of white women

Via Slate: They were just as "racist" as their white male counterparts, with whom they identify more than women from minority groups.

6. Because of white male resentment

Via The Nation: Forget economic anxiety -- exit polls show people making the least money voted for Clinton -- and focus on identity. The best evidence lies in Trump and his supporters' calls to "take our country back."

7. Because of Russia after all?

Via The Washington Post: The Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, said in an interview with state media that, contrary to Trump's denials, "quite a few" people from his "entourage" have "been staying in touch with Russian representatives."

8. Because the left and coastal elites shamed Trump supporters

Via The New York Times: The left has pressed on with an "ideology of shame" directed at the right, most notably now Trump supporters.

In short: "The racism, sexism and xenophobia used by Mr. Trump to advance his candidacy does not reveal an inherent malice in the majority of Americans."

9. Because rural Midwesterners don't get out of the house enough

Via Patrick Thornton of Roll Call: It's not just that elites are abandoning or ignoring Middle America -- the "rural midwest" is doing the same, becoming more isolated and resistant to the diversity (of identity and thought) on the coasts.

10. Because the Democratic Party establishment didn't push Bernie Sanders

Via The Huffington Post: By raising up Clinton over Sanders, the Democratic Party establishment (and its voters?) showed they favored the company and support of comfortable professionals over those beset by economic injustice.

11. Because Reagan Democrats surged in Michigan and Midwest

Via former U.N. ambassador John Bolton: The so-called "Reagan Democrats" -- white, working class voters who tend to lean Democrat but bend right for special candidates like Ronald Reagan and, now, Trump -- are the story of this election.

12. Not because of millennials

Via the Boston Globe: But do blame the media for focusing too much on them and not enough on the older white males who were the great, underreported story of 2016.

13. Because of Gary Johnson and Jill Stein

Via Vanity Fair: Clinton lost for lots of reasons, most notably the millions of voters who turned out for Johnson and Stein, thus denying the Democratic support she might have received in narrowly lost states like Pennsylvania.

14. Because political correctness set off a nasty backlash

Via Reason: Trump's promise to "destroy" political correctness, which has run rampant on college campuses and other more liberal enclaves, won him the culture war and, thus, the presidency.

15. Because he simply listened to the American people

Via right radio host John Cardillo: The political class (on the coasts) did not listen to or care enough for Middle America. Trump did. So he won.

16. Because college educated Americans are out of touch

Via the Alaska Dispatch News: Trump spoke to working-class voters, here mostly defined as those without college degrees, about the things they cared about: religion, liberty, marriage, sexuality, abortion and gun rights. And because "professorial sorts" who have spent time at universities drift into an "insular political culture," their candidate was doomed to lose.

17. Because Americans are biased -- but not against any race, ethnicity or gender

Via The Resurgent: The election was, simply, a referendum on the ruling class in Washington, D.C. None of the other issues, be they cultural or racial, came close to mattering as much.

18. Because voters believed the system was corrupt

Via The (UK) Daily Telegraph: Voters believed their political apparatus was corrupt and Trump was the only one who reliably affirmed that belief and promised to fix it.

19. Because he remembered 'forgotten men, women' of America

Via FirstPost: While Hillary Clinton held campaign rallies with Beyoncé and Jay-Z, Trump was out talking about the "forgotten" working class, which in turn exacted a "revenge" on the political elite by voting for him.

20. Because Democrats focused more on turning out supporters than growing the base

Via In These Times: The party and the left "have given up/abandoned/lost touch with the working class" -- as evidenced by their lame effort to persuade people outside their base. By focusing on them, Democrats ceded all else.

21. Because the Democratic National Committee selected the less competitive candidate

Via WikiLeaks on Twitter: The party tipped the scales for Clinton, thus "defeating the purpose of running a primary" and in turn denying Sanders, a better candidate, the chance to win.

22. Not because of racism

Via Bloomberg View: Never mind the backlash to the country's first African-American president, this wasn't about race in the slightest. If race were an issue, then Obama wouldn't have won two terms and many of the states Trump himself prevailed in on Tuesday.

23. Because of Comey

Via USA Today: The FBI director's decision to revive the Clinton email circus with a letter to Congress two weeks before Election Day killed the Democrat's momentum and derailed her plans to finish the campaign with a more uplifting message. It also distracted from things like Trump's comments in the "Access Hollywood" tape.

24. Not because of Comey

Via The Washington Post: Clinton lost because exit polls showed more than half of voters believed she was "corrupt." And that was her own fault, not Comey's.

Full article > http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/10/politics/why-donald-trump-won/index.html

Access Top Secret Declassified Documents at Your Leisure

systemsnicaragua.com/hot-new-tech 

Follow Up to the Strawman Theory / Redemption Theory vs. Reality

When you are prosecuted for a crime, it is not your “straw man” that is prosecuted. The fact that your name on the papers is in all caps is as irrelevant as the fact that there is or is not gold fringe on the flag. You can’t get out from under the U.S. legal system by “redeeming your straw man.” The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) is not the supreme law of the land.

I could explain all of this in terms of what the law actually says, but it’s been done before and if you are among those who have bought the nonsense being sold by the “Redemption Theory” or “Natural Sovereignty” or “Moorish Nation” crowds, then you probably think that I’m a member of the British Accreditation Registry (BAR) with an interest in perpetuating the slavery of the American justice system. So instead of explaining the law to you, I’ll lay down some practicalities.

Whether it is true or not, there are lots of people who believe that the YOU that can be prosecuted for committing a crime is the same you that walks, talks, and breathes. These believers include every judge, prosecutor, cop, agent, and prison guard in the country. So if, based on something you heard at a seminar put on by Winston Shrout or his ilk you create a fictitious commercial instrument and deposit it in a bank, you’re likely to wind up getting arrested by real (not straw) agents with real badges, hauled before a real court with real power to send you to real prison (maybe you can share a cell with Roger Elvick, the white supremacist who dreamt up all of this Redemption nonsense) where real guards can kill the real you if you try to escape. None of these people are disciples of Elvick or Shrout; even if they recognize that the only value our money has is agreed value, all of them are willing to use violence to maintain that agreed value.

And Mr. Shrout? He’ll take your money for his nonsense, but he disclaims his advice as anything but “educational” . . . and “entertaining”. He’s not going to stand up to defend you when you get caught. That job will fall to a criminal-defense lawyer, who might not much care for the government but will nonetheless be left wishing that you had a a better defense than “They can’t prosecute me because I am sovereign.”

 This is old news yet you might wish to read some of the comments > http://blog.bennettandbennett.com/2008/11/redemption-theory-vs-reality/

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Noob's Introductory Guide to Hacking: Where to Get Started?

There is a vast amount of knowledge out there on computers! In fact, it is so vast that no single person could ever possibly ever learn everything there is to learn about hacking or computers in general. People usually specialize in a certain field: cryptography, computer security, networking, software development, testing, and so on...It's probably a bit premature to decide what you want your speciality to be, but keeping the question in the back of your mind will help give you direction in the future.

What is Hacking?

Hacking is all about understanding what is going on inside the computer and then figuring out a way to modify it to better fit your needs. Not all "hackers" are maliciously seeking out security holes to breach multi-billion dollar corporations in order to gain money or sensitive information. In fact, most hackers I know are just people who love learning about computers! They love manipulating computers so that they can accomplish tasks more efficiently. Remember that knowledge is power and power can be used for good or for evil. What is good or evil is a rather relative question and that's up for you to decide? Without getting too technologically philosophical, let's move onto ways in which you can gain knowledge in a fun and effective way.

Noob's Introductory Guide to Hacking: Where to Get Started?

Where's the Best Place to Start?

 Well, you have made the first step by finding a blog such as this and showing an interest to learn about computers! A blog is great because you are continually receiving little bits of information. It's not the quickest way, but a great to keep up on new hacking tactics and refresh your memory on general computing techniques.

If you want to progress more quickly, then the first logical step would probably be to learn how to program. Programming skills are probably the most valuable skills to have! The best way to do this is by trying out your own little projects. This could really be anything! You could create your own website, try designing a simple game or create an application for your phone, etc...Basically anything that sounds vaguely fun to you?

Don't really know how to program? There are a ton of online resources at your disposal! If you don't know how to do something, simply "Google" it and chances are someone has already had a similar question. A great comprehensive website is W3Schools. They have an outline of most of the basic programming languages you will need to understand how websites and programs on the internet work.

Another great site is Hack This Site, which allows you to test your hacking skills literally by hacking a real website. You will learn about everything from SQL Injection to XSS attacks, it's a rather entertaining site if I don't say so myself!?

More recently, Stanford has begun development of free online classes regarding everything from cryptography and CS-101 to Game Theory. It is supposed to launch within the next month, click here to check it out.

Besides the internet, don't forget the library! Your library probably has dozens of books on programming, networking and computer security. Go pick some up and peruse them just to see what interests you?

Have questions or more ideas about where to get started? Check out the Forums!

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There is tons of information on the net, I advise you not to download any programs or content > http://tinyurl.com/y9dk8256

The New Homesteaders: Off-the-Grid and Self-Reliant

You may have heard about them: Off-the-gridders living in radical opposition to modern amenities by growing their own food and cutting themselves off from the rest of society. Not so. Sure, more people are choosing to cut their dependence on the power grid, the grocery story and fuel pump. But these new homesteaders are hardly radicals -- they are simply DIYers who, for a variety of reasons, revel in self-reliance. This is their story.

The phone rang when I was shoeless and only a couple of sips into my morning coffee. "Hi, it's Novella Carpenter," the caller said. "My goat is giving birth."

Twenty minutes later I was crouched in the hay at Ghost Town Farm, pushing away chickens and peering into the pen that housed the expectant mother, Bébé. Her udder was so swollen she couldn't get her hindquarters down. Bleating, she clawed at the dirt with her right front hoof as if searching for a stash of Vicodin. "Pass me the iodine," Carpenter said. "We better wash up."

Similar birthing scenes have unfolded countless times in America's agrarian past, but none, I suspected, had the soundtrack of the Ghost Town neighborhood in Oakland, Calif. As Bébé's cries reached an apex they were matched by the caterwauling of a police car siren on Martin Luther King Jr. Way. Then came the intestine-undulating bass of hip-hop from a passing car. Residents disagree on how Ghost Town got its name—for the isolation created when freeways cleft the neighborhood from the rest of the city in the 1950s? For the appallingly high murder rate? For the casket companies that used to be located here? More unanimously accepted is that Ghost Town is a singularly odd location for a homestead that hosts pigs, goats, geese, peaches, potatoes, spinach and bees. Carpenter is living a version of the Laura Ingalls Wilder fantasy all right, but hers is Little House in the 'Hood.

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Carpenter, the author of Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer, is, by her own admission, "a bit nuts." If so, she has company—similar farms have sprung up on city blocks in Los Angeles, New York, Pittsburgh and Detroit. And food is hardly the only commodity that people are producing for themselves these days. A small but growing number of American households generate all of their electricity using wind, solar or micro-hydro. But off-the-grid living has come to mean something more nuanced than cutting all ties with utilities and society; for many, it's about finding creative ways to produce and conserve resources at home. Hundreds of thousands of Americans capture rainwater in barrels, can food from their gardens, heat water with solar collectors and commute by bicycle. We may be nearly a decade into the 21st century, but the self-reliant spirit of an earlier era—that of homesteading pioneers—has returned with gusto.

At Ghost Town Farm, Carpenter cleared the head-high weeds from a 4500-square-foot lot and started planting. She didn't ask permission. When the lot's owner discovered the squat garden he warned that he would soon develop the real estate–that was five years ago. Now the lot is verdant with lavender, sage and thyme; lime, rhubarb and raspberries; artichoke, collard greens and avocado.

Strolling through the garden, I became overwhelmed by a feeling that could only be described as vegetable lust. But something deeper than my appetite had been stimulated, too. My grandfather once worked a small mountain farm in Greece. He immigrated to California's Central Valley in his 20s, opening a produce stand and then a grocery store, but he never totally severed his connection to the land. I remember strolling through fruit-laden trees in his backyard as a boy. Now, I was gearing up for major changes myself—the arrival of my first child, the purchase of my own home—and I had been thinking about what sort of sanctuary I could create for my own family. The house I envisioned was solar-powered and garden-ringed, a little safer, smarter and more productive than the wasteful world around it. I was deeply curious about the experiments of modern homesteaders because I wondered just how self-sufficient I could be, too.

In the pen Bébé continued to push and, with a little gentle guidance from Carpenter, the newborn's head crowned. Then the front legs were out. Bébé gave a final, anguished cry and the kid was born, a female, soon to be named Hedwig. Twenty minutes later, she had a brother, Eeyore. The two Nigerian dwarf goats wobbled about on untested legs and, undistracted by a car alarm that had started to blare, tried to find their mother's teats.

America is dotted with remote, off-the-grid homesteads. Certain regions—including western Texas around Big Bend National Park; the mesas outside of Taos, N.M.; and pockets of the Sierra Nevada northeast of Lake Tahoe—host whole mini communities. The Surprise Valley of northeasternmost California supports another. There, where skyscrapers of light slant from the heavens to the mirror-flat floor of the desert, I was crouched on a mattress attached to a rope.

The other end of the rope was hitched to a Ford F-350. The tires spun and soon I was hooky bobbing—surfing at 30 mph, a roostertail of dust in my wake. I felt as gleeful as the Road Runner with Wile E. Coyote giving futile chase. The truck stopped after a few minutes and, as I spat dirt clods from my mouth, a pretty young woman in a red plaid shirt and a white cowboy hat emerged from the cab. "You're lucky you're just visiting," Tierra Hodge said. "If you lived here we would have set the mattress on fire."

I'd been introduced to Tierra through a tortured chain of connections—my wife's cousin's father's friend's daughter, or something like that. She grew up off the grid on land near here, and had agreed to guide me around a place I never knew existed and introduce me to people who didn't necessarily want to be found.

The first stop was welcoming enough: a mountain homestead replete with mud, solar panels, semi-clothed children, and chickens. Then we had lunch in the town of Eagleville with Ed and Wendi Lutz, trompe l'oeil painters who'd retired to build an off-the-grid retreat. Tierra said the place was beautiful—circular, with deep wooden sills and colorful bottles embedded in the walls—but the Lutzes refused to disclose its exact location. I'd told them I was a journalist and might as well have said One World Government Spy. "We have come to value our privacy," Wendi said, eyeing me warily. That afternoon we drove past a doomsday retreat, complete with its own private airstrip, belonging to a wealthy Bay Area businessman. "He's preparing for the end of the world as we know it," Tierra said with an enigmatic smile. I couldn't tell if she was mocking him or applauding his foresight.

The specters of financial crisis, climate change, uncertain energy reserves and a fragile food supply loom large for the new generation of survivalists—and though I don't share their apocalyptic mind-set, I find myself relating to the urge to run for cover. In April, the top-selling action and adventure book on Amazon.com was Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse, a work described to me by its author, James Wesley Rawles, as a "survival manual dressed as fiction." Its plot appeals to those on the political right, who fear a too-powerful government—and the anarchy to come in the wake of its inevitable collapse. Leftie off-the-gridders gravitate more to the "grow-local" approach championed by author Michael Pollan. "We're using up the world's resources more quickly than you could imagine," says Ruby Blume of the Institute of Urban Homesteading. "I think we need to be prepared."

Lately, homesteaders of all political stripes have settled upon a common concern: globalization. The shock waves of any crisis—for instance, the subprime meltdown—now spread far, fast and wide. Many doubt that major institutions can be counted upon to save the day. "You're on your own, your job is at risk, and a lot of the commodities you rely upon are vulnerable to disruption," says John Robb, author of Brave New War, which describes how terrorists could exploit global systems. To my ear, such statements straddle the line between reasonable advice and hyperventilated threat. One day you're sipping a frappuccino. The next you're using a pitchfork to fend off rioting mobs. But even if I don't fully agree with the dystopian diagnosis, I like Robb's proposed cure: "You're going to have to start doing more for yourself." The beauty of the DIY solution is that the exact problem doesn't matter; greater self-sufficiency makes sense to survivalists and eco-utopians alike.

In the early 1970s, Tierra's parents established their own fully off-the-grid homestead in Mendocino, and later in Surprise Valley, with the thought that "when society crumbles, we'll be able to raise our children in a safe environment," Tierra says. She and her sister, Celesta, grew up in a tepee; her mom, Tina, and dad, Bill, supported the family by breeding llamas and selling medicinal herbs. Instead of sitting in a classroom the Hodge girls were home-schooled, usually outdoors. Instead of playing video games, they explored the mountains on horseback.

Growing up in the wild was idyllic but not always easy. When Tierra was 15 a boy braved the long dirt road to the homestead to pick her up for a date to the county fair. He emerged from the car looking spiffy in an all-white outfit only to have the Hodges' pet raccoon pounce with muddy paws. Then one of the llamas pegged him with a wad of saliva. Tina, always on the lookout for free meals for wildlife she rehabilitates, shouted after the couple, "Goodbye, honey, have fun, and don't forget to look for roadkill!" "I just about died," Tierra recalls. But in spite of their upbringing—or because of it—the girls turned out fine. Tierra went to college. And Celesta moved almost directly from the tepee to a penthouse in New York, gracing the cover of Cosmopolitan as a fashion model.

The day after hooky bobbing, I found myself standing ankle deep in llama poop with a shovel. My job was to ferry wheelbarrows of the stuff up a hill to a garden, dump the smelly payload and then do it again. And again, ad infinitum, until it got dark or my blisters burst. It was raining, so I was damp, and the sodden manure was getting heavy. Then the clouds broke, and the sun beamed down on the Hodges' secluded mountain—160 acres surrounded by protected wildlands. The air was pine-scented and pulsing with the sound of a creek.

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