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.)
So I need to find a magnet or I'm dead. Got it.
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?
Just about every paragraph had a horrifying revelation, with a brand new flavor near the end there. I'm now suddenly aware that I'm surrounded by hungry bears and holding some nice fresh bear bait. Thanks for the advice on how to not get eaten by mountain lions in my sleep. Not getting eaten probably ranks up higher on my survival list then finding food and metals does. I've designated a wasted disposal area, a butcher area, a kitchen, and a food storage area. Since I don't really have anything to put in any of those places right now its mostly me just claiming those spots and scouting for good logs/rocks to sit and work on. Luckily I've mostly been eating the food I come across (aside from the bugs which don't seem to attract massive predators) and disposed of that bird properly so I'll hopefully be OK there.
I washed up last night but didn't do my cloths. I'll try to do them tonight and hope they dry out before I got to sleep, unless something comes up with the traveling that screws it up. I think I wanted to keep the skin of the bunny, should I store it some special way so it doesn't attract a hungry wolf pack like food would? I'll leave it in my cup tied to a tree just in case for this exploration.
What I'm thankful for....is you guys! Thanks for everything everyone!
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
Alright, I'll put one in my pocket so I can scratch them in the field. One of the smaller ones shouldn't slow me down at all.
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.
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?
Well it was easier than I thought it would be! I've already hardened my heart after the bird so I was ready for my rabbit execution. Hardest part after that was doing all the cutting with rocks. I never thought I'd skin something with my bare hands, or that this was even a real thing. It was surprisingly easy. I mean it isn't pretty but it came off well at least. I do have my cup, so I ended up doing the vampire thing. It was...awkwardly warm but still tasted enough like meat that it wasn't as offputting as I thought it would be. I just took out all the organs instead of eating whatever ones might be tasty just in case. Given the rabbit is big enough to be a meal and I don't have any way to store food I hope this isn't too wasteful. It cooked fast just like you said, I overcooked it again but I'll still pretend like that is a strategic thing to avoid undercooked meat. Had some berries with it and overall it was a pretty good meal! Still need some salt.
And as you may have expected from me telling you about the food, I'm not currently being fed by a bunny girl or surrounded by infinite rabbits. I gave it my best shot but the rib sits in the mud no matter how much I breath on it. I'll try to remember where I bury the skeleton so I can experiment with more ribs later if I need to. Did I do something wrong?
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!
Darn. I guess electricity is more complicated then I thought. And so are magnets come to think of it. Maybe my rib bone experiments can help? Magic got me into this and magic will get me out right?
Magic, you say?
Do the ritual! Do it!
I did!
....It didn't work
. It might need some modification or something.
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.
Oh so I don't have to rely on rib bone based methods after-all! I'm off to the creek to find some rocks that will build foundation for my civilization! Here is to being close enough to work!
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.
Well I'm exploring today. If I see anything coast-like I'll head towards it and look for signs of human civilization or useful random debris.
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.
Its been uh....two days here. This is the third day. I will certainly agree that is a miracle my Iphone still works. That is 100% true.
I'm trying not to look at my phone too much but it is at around 89%. I've set everything I possibly could to reduce battery usage and try to avoid using it for anything but contacting you guys. Now that I have at least some survival skills I could try turning it off and going it on my own whenever you think I should to save battery.
I'm from Oahu. I don't really have any reason to hold back from personal information at this point. So as you can expect I'm confused and out of my element.
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.
If he's where I suspect he is, he's not getting to the coast on foot this, like, year.
What would the world be without Zinc? I'll keep an eye out for particularly zinc like rocks while I'm on my exploratory mission. I have no idea what that means but hopefully they're shiny.
We are kinda in a pickle cause anything less detailed and specific then a (insert topic here) for dummies novel seems to end up causing communication issues/now whats but at the same time we cant give him that level of specifics because of his limited battery life (im still in shock he didnt consider air bubbles to be a potential problem with the pottery thing)
(Also my personal bet is he is somewhere in west virginia)
I'm trying to get better! In my defense the air bubble thing is hardly common knowledge.
I’m trying to find internal resistance of a Faraday disk or Homopolar generator, but so far I’m getting “low internal resistance” without numbers, also large ones can produce more than a million amperes. I’ll try and see if there’s a calculator relating diameter to voltage
From what I can tell the voltage seems to not only rely on the diameter but also on the speed with which the faraday disk rotates. I’m concerned that he might end up frying his phone if he uses one. It might be better to make a voltaic pile.
Anyways, here’s what I could find so far:
https://www.edaboard.com/threads/faraday-disc-voltage-calculation-formula.383542/
So that means I'm going to need zinc right?
Alright, off I go.
Status report one hour down the mountain. Following the creek was a good idea. The ground here is very non-offensive to my bare feet. Plant-life is still the same as base camp. I passed the purple flowers I saw earlier again. They're a bit far from the creek, I went to check them out marking the trees as I passed. They're grouped up together in a clearing that looks like it was caused by a fire. There are burned down trees and such in a relatively small area, a chunk just a bit bigger than a football field. Flowers themselves are in large groups. They look like a Christmas tree with cup flowers instead of pine branches. Dark purple. I picked one to put in my basket just in case anyone wants to know more about it later. I saw more clay and chert, but none of the shinier rocks yet.
Status report one hour twenty seven minutes. Creek has been widening out and getting faster. First signs of broad leaf trees. Still mostly pine. Found a new berry bush. Its a uh...spicy smelling bush with red berries that look like they have trumpets. Leaves look kinda like clovers. Bit into one as part of the poison test. Not dead yet.
More importantly I found a fistful of green rock
. Well its a bit more uh, bluish then the picture you guys showed me. But I think I've found some copper! PRAISE THE FORUM! It was in the creek, near a second creek feeding into it. The second creek doesn't go back that far, it looks like it comes from some kind of cave. Which I'm staying away from after that "bears are everywhere and want to murder you" thing. The chert cuts it pretty easily.
Poll
3 (20%)
Author
Topic: Restarting Civilization from Scratch- With the Help of a Forum (SG) (Read 15886 times)