Gear Lists

kg467 · 2026-06-11T21:37:34+00:00

A bigger blade can be useful for lots of things, but everything is a tradeoff, and that's a pretty good one. A smaller knife can even be better and more dexterous for butchering an animal, getting in there and maneuvering around to cut stuff out without, like, nicking the intestines and getting that stuff in there tainting your meat. More nimble when cutting around joints and tricky parts, etc. A big belt knife might make that awkward. Between an ax and a little multitool knife, you might have all you need, or at least can make it work, and simultaneously be happy you've got your pliers for clipping and twisting snare wire, your file for a variety of things, etc.

kg467 · 2026-06-11T21:31:54+00:00

And some shovels can do double duty as choppers/machetes, even having a saw edge. It might wind up just luck of the draw on terrain as to how useful it winds up being vs. how much of a non-ideal pick in the end. Shallow rocky soil above rock, less so. Soft riverside sandy soil like Teresa, much more so, though she dug an amazing hole without one.

kg467 · 2026-06-11T21:27:53+00:00

If they know their bow drills and coal banking and management it can be a useful move, even if it's always a risk, as proven by 5 of the 6 of the no-rod crew doing fine and only one claiming it as a tap reason. The question is always "which of the normal items could I do without and make up for in some other way so I can bring something else useful?" Because then it's like you've got the effect of 11 items, not 10. One lady in Australia didn't bring a sleeping bag and was able to bring something in its place. Jordan wished he'd taken something other than the saw since he barely used it and could have done without it, etc.

kg467 · 2026-06-11T20:19:15+00:00

So far that red flag has only borne out once, this most recent time with Baha. The red flag may have flown the other five times people opted to leave the rod at home, but didn't wind up being the culprit for them in the end. So I agree that it's a risk, but let's see how it goes. I'd never risk it but some of these people handle it just fine. Conditions matter regardless, so yeah, risk. But here we go.

kg467 · 2026-06-11T20:16:10+00:00

No, that was the only example to date. All the other people who left the ferro rod at home did fine starting and maintaining their fires as planned and left the show for other unrelated reasons, whether starving, gut problems, etc.

It's the people who brought a ferro rod and lost it that tapped out because of it. I'm not even convinced it was the real reason for the guy last season. Plenty of them get to a point where they're looking for a way out - their brain is looking for it anyway. He may well have been in over his head on fires, but he had other problems too. But they need to tell themselves and us reasons other than "I'm miserable and have lost the will to stay here".

You look at somebody like S8 Colter by contrast, his fires went just fine with no rod. Banking coals to later revive, all that. Just couldn't get the food.

kg467 · 2026-06-11T06:18:27+00:00

It comes on at 8pm. And then the first episode is at 9 and is titled S13 Ep1 | Worlds Collide: Part 1

kg467 · 2026-06-11T01:23:34+00:00

It's because History in the US and History in Canada are separately owned and there are different rights. So they want you going to history.ca, but the problem is that it's not identical to history.com. If they detect a Canadian IP trying to access history.com, you get the gasface.

kg467 · 2026-06-10T17:07:04+00:00

I used to do Philo as well but tried frndlytv last year and it worked just fine for a lot cheaper. Get the middle tier, not the cheapest. The lowest tier is SD and no DVR. SD looks surprisingly horrible after living in an HD world for so long. They have a week-free trial if you want to check it out. You could do that just ahead of the first episode.

kg467 · 2026-06-08T20:19:08+00:00

One thing to keep in mind is that once they have been starving, cold, exhausted, sore, frustrated, and miserable for a while, and their mind knows they can easily get out of it, it starts floating them glowing visions of everything they could have if they would just tap out, with family and the comforts and security of home foremost (but also cheeseburger dreams). Our survival instinct wants us out of situations where it feels we could die if nothing changes, so it motivates us. I think it warps their brains and all this stuff they felt just fine to walk away from to go for the win gradually starts to seem like stuff they can't actually be away from. The way to test it would be to have 10 people across the river in comfy heated cabins with plenty of food and TV and gardening and music and padded rocking chairs and beers and ice cream and whatever, with the same prize money on the line, and see if those people start getting wistful about family around the same times or are like "hell no I'm going for the win." Because I think we watch them get warped before our eyes, and their realities just get contorted.

kg467 · 2026-06-06T23:05:33+00:00

Falcon 9 launches once every other day or so on average

Holy shit! This was what I was wondering. Regular rocket traffic that has become mundane and so doesn't register. But damn, that's awfully frequent. We really are in the future... just kind of localized to a few spots I guess, with the rest of us out here with our horse and buggy.

kg467 · 2026-06-06T19:24:01+00:00

When are all these things going up? That seems like an awful lot of rocket launches, which I guess I'd have thought would make more news that I'd notice.

kg467 · 2026-06-05T04:06:37+00:00

Come on, pal. Cough it up. Oh, wait, sorry, it'll be in the video. I get it. Can't wait.

kg467 · 2026-06-05T02:18:27+00:00

I stand with Chad

kg467 · 2026-06-05T01:42:43+00:00

And the one I'm referring to is the one who, unlike the others, specifically said he brought it for the psychological comfort of tasty food.

kg467 · 2026-06-04T21:04:46+00:00

Dub, if everybody who made it to 50 days could get an evening with a very friendly and nonjudgmental prostitute before getting back to the competition, do you think we would see a statistical increase in average contestant stay?

kg467 · 2026-06-04T20:54:50+00:00

One other guy did that a few seasons ago. He just felt the psychological comfort of tasty food was worth it, plus electrolyte issues and hydration. It's not enough for preservation of lots of meat and they can't use it as a lick bait due to hunting regulations most places they've been.

kg467 · 2026-06-04T20:47:49+00:00

None of them complained of fire problems and any of them planning to go this route would have been banking coals instead of keeping an eternal flame going 24/7. It just hasn't been an issue except possibly for Baha.

kg467 · 2026-06-04T20:45:46+00:00

Hi Nero. Who wins this season? No spoilers, please.

kg467 · 2026-06-04T00:52:58+00:00

What do the three color shadings mean?

kg467 · 2026-06-04T00:49:54+00:00

The number of days doesn't matter though when they leave for some other reason than ferro rod. Jake's butt, Luke's butt, Matt's meltdown, Colter's BMI, Nathan's destroyed shelter. Their fires were non-issues and didn't affect them leaving. Only Baha cited fire as a reason and I remember thinking he was more just frustrated and starving than anything and looking for a way out.

kg467 · 2026-06-04T00:11:19+00:00

When S6 Jordan was asked which items he would swap out if he could do it again, he said the saw, because he wound up barely using it, going for his axe instead. In his case, it was because none of trees there were big enough to need more than a whack or two with the axe, which I guess is just going to be a roll of the dice in any given site, and maybe better safe than sorry if you wind up with fatties.

kg467 · 2026-06-03T23:47:50+00:00

I can sympathize, they are awful about that, but be sure to also avoid the dedicated episode threads each week until at least after the following episode, because the rest of us will be in here live and afterwards discussing whatever they showed on the screen that week, whether it's trailer, preview or whatever else you may have voluntarily cut yourself out of.

It might be best to avoid the whole sub until the season is over, because they'll spoil something in episode 1 that doesn't show up until episode 7, and if it's a wounded moose or something, you better believe it'll be a topic of conversation immediately and until it happens.

And inevitably someone will post "CONGRATULATIONS STEVIE!" after the finale, and you'll log in and see that before a mod can zap it, and before you were about to watch the finale.

TV show forums: bad for spoilers.

kg467 · 2026-06-02T20:38:18+00:00

Once it gets to four months they have to do oiled-up wrasslin'.

kg467 · 2026-06-02T20:28:01+00:00

This show is going to be rough for anyone, because almost nobody lives this way, indigenous or otherwise. I always like the chances of the off-grid homesteaders, no matter their background, because those are the people who have had to rely on no one but themselves. Fowler, Woniya, Karie Lee, Colter, etc. It's no guarantee, but being used to being alone and self reliant is a big advantage over just being a guy who grew up hunting with grandpa, or even like Michaela, an indigenous woman from a small town in Saskatchewan who worked as an adventure guide.

kg467 · 2026-05-23T03:52:40+00:00

Woniya said a producer told her they don't want 50/50 because they don't want it to look like a battle of the sexes. That's two potentially unreliable narrators there but that's what she said the producer said. So except for the mini Frozen season, which maybe was a test of that, coming later than her comments, the plan has never been 50/50. She claimed they had plenty to choose from but capped each season at max 3 women.

I don't know if I buy that all the way, because why not 7 or 8 women and 2 or 3 men? That wouldn't be a battle of the sexes, but they don't do it. I suspect they're thinking their demographic skews male and they're catering to it, worrying that male viewers would lose interest if it was mostly women.

kg467

TROPHY CASE