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Total Members Voted: 15

[Naturegirl1999]

Lodestone is a magnetic form of Magnetite, which has a Mohs hardness between 5 and 6.5, so as hard or harder than Apatite
but not as hard as quartz


Someone already showed what lodestone looked like, but here ‘s a picture of magnetite as well, it’s rougher than lodestone and isn’t as magnetic

Pyrrhotite is another magnetic mineral
The second most magnetic next to magnetite/lodestone and has a hardness of 3.5 to 4.5, so slightly harder than calcite

but not as hard as apatite. A mineral that is scratched is not as hard as the mineral that didn’t get scratched. Quartz can be found in geodes and have a hardness of 7, if you find quartz and scratch rocks against it and it’s the quartz that gets scratched, the rock you found is harder than 7, if you scratch a rock against quartz and the rock you scratched gets broken or discolored, the rock you found is not as hard as quartz, and is less than 7

[Stirk]

My snare caught a bunny . Went out to check my traps and I've got a big brown rabbit with big eyes, big back feet, a non-cottony tail, and a white belly. Apparently I'm supposed to dedicate this kill to you guys now. I'll get my fire going for today and finish the basket while waiting for information on what I should do with it. Mostly how to eat it and what to do with its ribs. Woke up after sunrise again, no good info there. The maybe-chert does break into jagged pieces when I smash the rocks, hopefully that is supposed to happen. 

After eating I'm following the creek down to check for minerals that might let me recharge my phone eventually. I'm hoping the creek acts as a trail marker so I don't have to spend too much time marking up trees. I'll try to post whenever I find something interesting, but I'm wondering how far I should go. Like if this is going to be a day trip or if I'm going to be napping down the mountain tonight. Gear I'm taking is going to be a pointy stick and my soon-to-be-completed basket unless someone says otherwise.

It's more something you'd make on demand. The simplest thing to do is just stick a branch in the fire until it catches; this is also the least effective. You could improve this, for example, by using the same "cotton candy" trick you've already learned for getting a branch wrapped in resin, then igniting that... I suspect it would burn out pretty fast, though. With the tools you have, I recommend taking a bundle of hay, dipping it in resin, and tying it to a branch with a length of your makeshift rope also dipped in resin. That should give you a decent burn time due to the extra material.

Oh. I guess that is pretty easy then. I still don't have a good way to lite it without a handy fire but hopefully I won't need to see anything in the dark without a fire handy anyway.

Smash 'em together. Throw them at stuff. Give them a really mean look.

Smashing 'em together seemed to be the most effective method of the three. Followed by throwing 'em at stuff. The stuff that worked was mostly other rocks so I guess it really is just a sub category of the first one. But yeah they break into kinda-jagged pieces! Not like knife-practical pieces and more like jagged pieces where the rock got chipped off. Hopefully I'll find some copper and not have to bother with the stone age.

Worst case scenario, we COULD make an electromagnet out of your phone and then use that electromagnet to make more electricity. It sounds dumb but it does actually work and is used in modern turbines. However, you'd still need to find enough iron to make a core, and smelting iron might actually be more pain than finding magnetite right now. Iron ore is also a little troublesome to find; it's substantially rarer than copper, and most of its minerals are much less obviously flashy. If you happen upon any swampy areas down the mountain, that might be the first place to look - "bog iron" is a kind of iron mineral that forms out of dissolved iron in underground water sources.

I meant I have this default compass app and it should have a magnet for that. That is how compasses work right? There has to be a magnet in there somewhere.

I'm for it. I'd say start with down, personally.

Down it is!

Okay, build your house. I didn't realise it would make you so happy. Just... don't expect it to be anything more than a sort of summer-home long term (but more likely a winter-home).

Re: clocks, it's probably not a huge priority, but there are simple clock designs you can set up. As I said, I'll let someone else come up with one unless nobody does.
And finally,

Maybe I can make it more of a hobby thing? Like just pick some extra sticks and star weaving when I have spare time. That way I can have my house eventually and then not have to give up on actually surviving to do it!

I wouldn't worry about it. I can't think of very many useful reasons to keep blood around and, if we suddenly meet vampires or something, the local wildlife will have made more by then.

If I do meet a vampire should I try a cross or making the B12 sign? I'm not sure how that tradition works in our new religion.

Have we talked yet about leaving your current area and trying to find another area or the coast?


Also don't turn the phone all the way off, as I've noticed that doing that takes more battery than just turning the screen off.

We haven't!

Oh. Whoops. Hopefully that won't kill me.

I vote against using your phone as an alarm. Checking the time at sunset is good enough.

If you've got a good memory you don't even need to use your phone clock to work it out.

First, throughout the day keep stock of where the sun is in the sky. Under our assumption of youbeing in the Northern Hemisphere, the sun will loose somewhere South-East, swing around to somewhere high-but-still-South, and then sent somewhere South-West. So at it's highest point (and actually at all times, unlss you're perfectly on the equator) the sun will actually be to the South rather than directly overhead.

Oncr you've got an idea of where South is, each sunset, make sure you stand in the exact same place and look at the landmarks on the horizon as the Sun sets. Compare where it sets each night to those landmarks, and you should be able to see the point is sets "moving". We're pretty sure you're interested Northern Hemisphere, so if it's going South then the days are getting longer, and if its going North the days are getting shorter.

The closer the sunset is to South, the further North you are, or the closer to the Winter Equinox it is. We won't be able to work that our right now, but both mean its going to be colder than if the sunset was closer to West.

Interestingly, if we're wrong and you're actually in the Southern Hemisphere, then we can flip some of this logic around. To test, stand facing North (your back to the sun). The sun should set somewhere to your left. If its actually setting to your right, you're in the Southern hemisphere! What you thought was South is actually North, but otherwise it all still applies. If the sunset is getting closer to North in this case, we're getting closer to the Winter.

And if you honestly and truly can't tell which direction South is, and it looks like the sun is setting in the same place each time (and subset itself only take a couple of minutes) then you're actually at the equator, and we won't have to worry about it getting any colder than it is now.


EDIT: on the topic of shoes. You can probably make some basic sandals if you can find some decently solid bark. Use your knife to cut the bark into two, roughly foot shaped pieces. Then poke three holes in each piece. The first, between where your first and second toe, and the other two adjacent to your foot, halfway between the ball and the heel. Then thread some rope through to make a loop through the two side holes. Put a knot in a second piece of rope thread it through from the bottom and tie it to the first loop . You'll end up with something like below.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You can stop there, or you can then use another piece of rope to go around the back of your ankle to keep it on better. This shoe won't last for long, but it might be that morale boost you need. Once we have some leather, you'll be able to do a similar thing and it'll last a lot longer.

I uh...should have brought this up earlier (well I did but I should have brought this up even earlier) but my compass app is still working. I guess it runs off of something that is in my phone and doesn't need GPS or whatever. So I should have a pretty decent idea of where South is (though I dunno how accurate this thing is without internet connection). I've only actively watched one sunset so far so I'll have to make this a sunsetly activity just to keep you guys posted.

And I don't really have a knife. Unless we count the kinda pointy rocks as a knife. Thanks for the shoe idea though! Once I got the tools I can try it out! Unless we want to use the bunny as shoe material. I don't really think its big enough for two shoes anyway.

So at it's highest point (and actually at all times, unlss you're perfectly on the equator) the sun will actually be to the South rather than directly overhead.

nnnnngggg. Nonono. During summer, the sun rises and sets north of true east and west in the northern hemisphere. You can determine this for yourself quite easily with a compass (I had to in middle school). And in fact, the sun can be directly overhead at its highest point anywhere within the tropics at the right time of year; on the equator it only is at the equinox! The reason for all of this is the Earth's axial tilt relative to the ecliptic plane. The thing you later said about the sun at the equator was also wrong for the same reason.

This is probably not helpful to Stirk.

I should still report the sunset position right?

According to the National Geographic Society
“ To become magnetized, another strongly magnetic substance must enter the magnetic field of an existing magnet. ... When you rub a piece of iron along a magnet, the north-seeking poles of the atoms in the iron line up in the same direction. The force generated by the aligned atoms creates a magnetic field.”

We’ll need to find magnetic materials and magnets. I’ll do research soon about that

So you need magnets to make magnets (unless we want to go with the electromagnet thing). Got it.

I’m afraid this thread is devolving into a flame war… 

I'm... pretty sure nobody is taking anything that seriously. There's nothing wrong with a little unnecessary negativity. It's healthy, part of a complete breakfast, and probably puts hair on your chest.

I am, but that is mostly because I'm kinda going to die if I don't take it seriously >_>.

I could probably be tricked into eating yellow snow if you guys told me I needed the salt or something. Bear Gryllz did it. I'm still not sure if the bug thing was hazing or not.

Lodestone is a magnetic form of Magnetite, which has a Mohs hardness between 5 and 6.5, so as hard or harder than Apatite
but not as hard as quartz


Someone already showed what lodestone looked like, but here ‘s a picture of magnetite as well, it’s rougher than lodestone and isn’t as magnetic

Pyrrhotite is another magnetic mineral
The second most magnetic next to magnetite/lodestone and has a hardness of 3.5 to 4.5, so slightly harder than calcite

but not as hard as apatite. A mineral that is scratched is not as hard as the mineral that didn’t get scratched. Quartz can be found in geodes and have a hardness of 7, if you find quartz and scratch rocks against it and it’s the quartz that gets scratched, the rock you found is harder than 7, if you scratch a rock against quartz and the rock you scratched gets broken or discolored, the rock you found is not as hard as quartz, and is less than 7

Oh, some of those are actually pretty pretty! I'll do my best to notice any of the listed rocks on my mineral quest!

[Maximum Spin]

So you need magnets to make magnets (unless we want to go with the electromagnet thing). Got it.

Not only that, but most electricity is made using magnets, too! Worst case, though, if you find those metals, we can make a simple battery and run an electromagnet. It wouldn't be a very good battery because we'll probably have to use an iron anode - no way you're going to be able to smelt zinc yet, for example - but it should work.

I am, but that is mostly because I'm kinda going to die if I don't take it seriously >_>.

(I meant the argument.)

[ConscriptFive]

Hey, glad to hear you're still alive.

Also, congratulations on graduating from gatherer to hunter.  Long term, you're going to need that diversity in your diet.

BUT, there's a new risk you should become aware of... other apex predators.  Ever watch any nature documentaries about lions and hyenas on the African savannah?  The lions down a zebra, and then a pack of hyenas roll up to fight as the vultures circle.  Bears in Alaska fight each other for salmon on a regular basis.  Predators steal each others kills constantly.  See also wolves or cougars.

Now you many not have seen any apex predators yet, but I can guarantee they're aware of you by at least sound and smell.  Some lone big cats will prowl a 'home range' about the size of the city of Seattle (for West Coast folk), Brooklyn (for East Coast folk), or Amsterdam (for Eurotrash).  And of course, individual predator home ranges overlap.  My point being, just because you haven't bumped into one, doesn't mean one or several apex predators aren't crossing your path daily.  They're probably still not sure what to think about you, but now they're guessing they can gank your hunting efforts for fresh meat.

There's actually a whole school of thought that a lone survivalist shouldn't hunt large game for this reason.  You'll possibly get challenged at the kill site, and they'll almost certainly raid your butchery site.  (Both sites absolutely will get picked over the moment you vacate them.)  Anything you try to stash overnight is also certain to get raided as well.

I'm probably getting ahead of ourselves with small game, but better to start safe procedures now, eh?

First thing to keep in mind here, you do not want anything dangerous sniffing around where you sleep.  (This point should be self-explanatory.)  Just about everything I say next is to prevent that.

Do not butcher near where you sleep.  Ideally do it outside the camp.  As a bonus, this'll also deter flies and other vermin from taking over your camp.

Do not eat in your shelter.  You've probably been getting away with this, but eventually you're going to make a mess.  Define an eating area and stick to it.  As a bonus, this'll deter flies and other vermin from taking over your bed.

Do not dispose of refuse near where you sleep.  Although we think of predators as... well, predators... virtually none of them are beneath scavenging for scraps.  Define a trash dump outside your camp, and bury that shit if you can.  As a bonus, this'll also deter flies and other vermin from taking over your camp.

Holy shit, my dude, DO NOT STORE FOOD IN YOUR SHELTER.  Again, you've probably been getting away with this, but your stash is due to get ratfucked at any moment now.  See previous point about large predators going full scavenger.  Either bury food and hope wild hogs don't dig it up overnight, or suspend it in a tree and hope any birds of prey don't figure out what you're doing.  It sucks to say this, but consider just trashing leftovers until you can stow them securely.  As a bonus, this'll deter flies and other vermin from taking over your bed.

Go wash up before bed.  By the end of all of this, you're going to be covered in blood and other aromatic nutrients.  You really don't want to sleep in that state.  Luckily, you got running water, so this shouldn't be too difficult.  Also, have you done laundry yet?  Probably should soak and dry your one set of clothes every few days too.  As a bonus, this'll deter flies and other vermin from taking over your bed.

Yeah, this is all a pain in the ass, but it's one of those 'ounce of prevention saves a pound of cure' situations.

Regarding worship.  I mean, as fun as it is to get egoist here, try considering it a moment of sincere reflection.  Quietly state what you're thankful for.  Keep in mind, whatever brought you here is likely watching and listening;  Why else would it do all this?

[King Zultan]

My snare caught a bunny . Went out to check my traps and I've got a big brown rabbit with big eyes, big back feet, a non-cottony tail, and a white belly.

Sounds like a snowshoe rabbit. Also ConscriptFive has written out a solid plan for the butchering.

[Naturegirl1999]

I looked this up, Chert is also a 7 on the Mohs scale. Try describing rocks you do end up finding, we can hopefully find out the hardness of some of them, and hopefully find one softer than 3.5/3 since one of the magnetic minerals are higher than 3 and both are lower than 7

[Kashyyk]

I uh...should have brought this up earlier (well I did but I should have brought this up even earlier) but my compass app is still working. I guess it runs off of something that is in my phone and doesn't need GPS or whatever. So I should have a pretty decent idea of where South is (though I dunno how accurate this thing is without internet connection). I've only actively watched one sunset so far so I'll have to make this a sunsetly activity just to keep you guys posted.

Well that does make things a little easier.


Anyway. Your rabbit! Here's how to deal with it, according to the first promising website I found. Its spoilered, cos anyone who isn't you might not want to think about what actually happens during this process.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You'll need your walking stick, a "knife", and a bowl.

First, place your walking stick across the rabbit’s neck.

Second, step on one side of your walking stick.

Third, almost simultaneously: step on the other side of the broomstick, and then pull the rabbit’s body upward by the hind legs. Pull firmly until you can feel the neck bones disarticulate. This will feel like a give and a stretch. (This movement is done by straightening your back and knees.)

At this point the rabbit will be shuddering in death throes. Please understand these two things about death throes:

First: Death throes are proof of death - hence, ‘death’ throes. The neck bones have been completely separated at the base of the head, terminating all signals from the brain to the heart, lungs, and rest of the body. 

Second: The rabbit’s eyes might be open. 'Open' does not mean 'aware.' It just means there are no signals to tell the rabbit to shut its eyes because it is dead.

Fourth, cut off the rabbit’s head through the break in the neck. This involves cutting through muscle and fur only, since the neck bones are completely separated.

Fifth, hang the rabbit by the hind legs over your bowl to complete the rabbit slaughter and cleaning. It'll take about a minute for the blood to drain, however if you don't have a bowl you'll just have to waste it. See C5's comment about never having your butcher site near your home, cos it'll be a beacon to the local predators.

You can actually drink this blood raw, and it has a similar nutrition factor to lean meat.

Re: butchering, you can actually just pull the skin off a rabbit with your bare hands, just like in Red Dead Redemption, by starting at the back of the knock and "degloving" it. Will be far less messy than with a knife as well. You'll then want to remove the organs like with a bird. For cooking, you can actually just split across the belly (like you probably already have for butchering) then unfold it like a spatchcock chicken. It'll cook pretty fast that way.

If any local predators do come sniffing around, it might be worth us debating the merits of bribing them to go away. Might be the first step to let your great, great... grand children have a pet. Although that requires you to find a date, which might have to be resolved via MoP's method, unless you've magically become ageless whilst you were transported through time anyway.

In fact! You have a promising candidate now. Do the whole kah-lee-mah thing on the rabbit before you execute the above. Infinite food source maybe?

[A_Curious_Cat]

I’ve done a bit of research and I don’t think your going to be able to make a working generator out of a magnet from inside your iPhone.  There are three possible compass designs that your phone might have and only one of them actually has a bone fide magnet (or at least I think it does), while the others have electromagnets.  Even in the one where there is a magnet, the magnet is microscopic in size thus making it impossible to extract and work with without modern advanced technology.

There’s also another problem.  In order to charge your phone, you need to feed it the correct type of electricity (DC or “Direct Current”) in the proper amount (Voltage; more specifically +5 Volts) and at the proper rate (Current AKA Amperage; more specifically your phone is likely to need at least 100 milliamperes -or it won’t charge at all- and no more than 1.5 amperes -or you’ll fry your iPhone’s electronics-).  This means, you’ll likely have to build a full fledged usb power supply.  To do this, you will need to be able to produce the following component at a component quality similar to modern electronics manufacturers:  a transformer (probably the easiest and the only one I expect you to be able to actually make), a rectifier bridge (this’ll require semiconductor diodes), a voltage regulator (this’ll require you to be able to make integrated circuits), semiconductor diodes, capacitors, and resistors.  All of this will take far longer to get working than it’ll take to completely drain your iPhone’s battery by communicating with us.

TLDR:  unless your battery is somehow magical or you can find another (also likely magical) way to communicate with us, you’re screwed!

[Man of Paper]

Magic, you say?

Do the ritual! Do it!

[Naturegirl1999]

Magic, you say?

Do the ritual! Do it!

what did you say it was, extracting the rib from the kill while chanting Kalina?

[Maximum Spin]

There’s also another problem.  In order to charge your phone, you need to feed it the correct type of electricity (DC or “Direct Current”) in the proper amount (Voltage; more specifically +5 Volts) and at the proper rate (Current AKA Amperage; more specifically your phone is likely to need at least 100 milliamperes -or it won’t charge at all- and no more than 1.5 amperes -or you’ll fry your iPhone’s electronics-).  This means, you’ll likely have to build a full fledged usb power supply.  To do this, you will need to be able to produce the following component at a component quality similar to modern electronics manufacturers:  a transformer (probably the easiest and the only one I expect you to be able to actually make), a rectifier bridge (this’ll require semiconductor diodes), a voltage regulator (this’ll require you to be able to make integrated circuits), semiconductor diodes, capacitors, and resistors.  All of this will take far longer to get working than it’ll take to completely drain your iPhone’s battery by communicating with us.

TLDR:  unless your battery is somehow magical or you can find another (also likely magical) way to communicate with us, you’re screwed!

I won't pretend it'll be easy, but devices aren't actually THAT finicky. First of all, we'll be producing DC, not AC - either from a battery or I can construct a DC generator in a pinch - so half of that stuff isn't even necessary. (Also, rectifiers, even if we needed one, are a pre-semiconductor technology... but I don't wanna make, or make Stirk make, a vacuum tube in the wilderness.) Most (I mean, probably all due to inherent uncertainties, but I can't technically rule out the existence of some magic perfect device somewhere) devices don't actually produce exactly 5V on a +5V pin either - it's usually gonna be like 4.something if you test it. The current (amperage) is set by Ohm's law and is not independent of voltage; we can, effectively, set one and the conditions of the circuit will set the other. It would be nice to have silicon to regulate all this, to be sure, but it can be done.

[A_Curious_Cat]

There’s also another problem.  In order to charge your phone, you need to feed it the correct type of electricity (DC or “Direct Current”) in the proper amount (Voltage; more specifically +5 Volts) and at the proper rate (Current AKA Amperage; more specifically your phone is likely to need at least 100 milliamperes -or it won’t charge at all- and no more than 1.5 amperes -or you’ll fry your iPhone’s electronics-).  This means, you’ll likely have to build a full fledged usb power supply.  To do this, you will need to be able to produce the following component at a component quality similar to modern electronics manufacturers:  a transformer (probably the easiest and the only one I expect you to be able to actually make), a rectifier bridge (this’ll require semiconductor diodes), a voltage regulator (this’ll require you to be able to make integrated circuits), semiconductor diodes, capacitors, and resistors.  All of this will take far longer to get working than it’ll take to completely drain your iPhone’s battery by communicating with us.

TLDR:  unless your battery is somehow magical or you can find another (also likely magical) way to communicate with us, you’re screwed!

I won't pretend it'll be easy, but devices aren't actually THAT finicky. First of all, we'll be producing DC, not AC - either from a battery or I can construct a DC generator in a pinch - so half of that stuff isn't even necessary. (Also, rectifiers, even if we needed one, are a pre-semiconductor technology... but I don't wanna make, or make Stirk make, a vacuum tube in the wilderness.) Most (I mean, probably all due to inherent uncertainties, but I can't technically rule out the existence of some magic perfect device somewhere) devices don't actually produce exactly 5V on a +5V pin either - it's usually gonna be like 4.something if you test it. The current (amperage) is set by Ohm's law and is not independent of voltage; we can, effectively, set one and the conditions of the circuit will set the other. It would be nice to have silicon to regulate all this, to be sure, but it can be done.

Yeah, assuming we’re working with USB 2.0, the voltage can be anywhere from 4.40 V to 5.25 V.  Assuming we get the voltage and resistance right, the current should take care of itself.

Now how are we going to get the voltage and resistance “right”?  More specifically, how are we going to do that without something like a multimeter?

[King Zultan]

I still think we should get him to go to the coast, even if he doesn't find anyone on the way there he should be able to tell if there are people or not because of all the random shit on the coast, also this random shit will be useful.

[Fluffe9911]

Considering its been almost 3 weeks at this point (longer or shorter depending on how much time fekery is going on at your side) and you have a iphone its a absolute miracle your phone still has power (my android phone tends to run out after about 4 days in sleep mode) What is your battery at atm anyway?

Also if this isnt too personal what country(state if in the US) did you live in before being lost in the wild? May reveal some key details about where you are/how much magic fekery is going on.

[Maximum Spin]

Yeah, assuming we’re working with USB 2.0, the voltage can be anywhere from 4.40 V to 5.25 V.  Assuming we get the voltage and resistance right, the current should take care of itself.

Now how are we going to get the voltage and resistance “right”?  More specifically, how are we going to do that without something like a multimeter?

Luckily, it turns out that at least two obvious sources of DC can be made to produce in that range without too much trouble. In particular, six fresh Voltaic cells gets us just barely into it, if we can arrange to get zinc; the voltage would be lower if we're reduced to using iron because it's less electronegative, but I THINK I can calculate that. A Faraday disk is also viable. One of us will have to look up how much internal resistance the battery has so we can figure out how to build the circuit, though. Making resistors is going to take the same approach - calculate and hope for the best. There are some simple tests we can do to check our work to a degree, I guess, like electrolysing water and judging about how much, uh, electrolysis we're doing.

I still think we should get him to go to the coast, even if he doesn't find anyone on the way there he should be able to tell if there are people or not because of all the random shit on the coast, also this random shit will be useful.

If he's where I suspect he is, he's not getting to the coast on foot this, like, year.