Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: and I love all things tech and it's time for
Speaker 1: a classic episode. This episode originally published July second, two
Speaker 1: thousand fourteen. It is titled tech Stuff camps Out, which
Speaker 1: I'm sure was metaphorical because I can't remember the last
Speaker 1: time I camped. Doubt. I'm a city boy. But let's
Speaker 1: listen in. I want to find out what our personal
Speaker 1: um opinion is toward camping. Lauren, are you Are you
Speaker 1: someone who would go camping? Uh? No, No, I mean
Speaker 1: basically not. Well, it's okay. I've got some friends who
Speaker 1: are into camping. My roommates are very much into camping,
Speaker 1: and it has been suggested as an extracurricular activity to me,
Speaker 1: and I'm not entirely against it. Uh. If I had
Speaker 1: a certain number of creature comforts, right like, I would
Speaker 1: want to actually be within easy distance of a shower,
Speaker 1: if I was going to be out there within a
Speaker 1: couple for for more than a couple of days, toilet
Speaker 1: would not be round upon really fond of bathrooms in general,
Speaker 1: I like them. I see where you're coming from. Bog Obama.
Speaker 1: On this we are simpatico when it comes to this.
Speaker 1: I have camped in the past. Um, I have gone
Speaker 1: camping before, and I am also I think I've just
Speaker 1: reached a point where where the the joy of it
Speaker 1: is outweighed by the inconvenience and the uncomfortable factor. I
Speaker 1: don't do so well if I sleep on the ground
Speaker 1: these days, I don't move so well. I'm celebrating a
Speaker 1: birthday today as we're recording this podcast. At the age
Speaker 1: i'm at, I don't bounce back the way I used to.
Speaker 1: But hey, happy birthday, thank you, thank you. No, I
Speaker 1: know you're not on Mike, but I'm gonna I'm gonna ask,
Speaker 1: are you are. Do you enjoy going camping? Noel says
Speaker 1: he has not been camping since Cub Scouts, so yeah,
Speaker 1: we're um, we're experts on the subject. Obviously he has
Speaker 1: stayed in a yurt. Uh, that's fantastic. I once helped
Speaker 1: put up a yurt, which by the way, is quite
Speaker 1: the effort. Uh. I used to be part of the
Speaker 1: Society of Creative Anachronism, the scar there's yurts of plenty,
Speaker 1: but yeah, and generally don't really do well outside. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're we are creatures that prefer the air conditioning, the
Speaker 1: shelter from the sun. I'm kind of cave dwelling. I
Speaker 1: mean I'm even a little bit translucent like some of
Speaker 1: those like deep sea shrimp. Right. So yeah, so so,
Speaker 1: but we can appreciate why people would want to go camping.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, nature is beautiful and the idea of camping
Speaker 1: is something that really appeals to me. It's just the reality.
Speaker 1: And also, to be fair, we all are living in
Speaker 1: in Georgia, which tends to get very hot and humid
Speaker 1: in the summer. That's like your your prime camping season,
Speaker 1: and it could be really hard to deal with. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But but anyway, that being said, we wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about camping, look at some of the gear, and talk
Speaker 1: about even just the history of camping itself, because it's
Speaker 1: not that old of recreational activity when you talk about
Speaker 1: something that's really widespread, I mean there always have been
Speaker 1: adventurers and outdoorsmen and outdoors women if you prefer, who
Speaker 1: have love to experience nature in its most primitive forms.
Speaker 1: But you know, as as a recreational activity that was widespread.
Speaker 1: It's it's pretty new. Well sure, because people didn't really
Speaker 1: widely live in cities until the Industrial Revolution circle than
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties here in the United States, right, So, yeah,
Speaker 1: you've got all these people who are already living out
Speaker 1: out in rural areas. They that was kind of their
Speaker 1: every days. You can already see the stars. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: once you had people moving on moss into the cities,
Speaker 1: you had a lot of folks say, you know, I
Speaker 1: kind of miss being able to commune with nature and
Speaker 1: to have that experience. And then once the automobile came along,
Speaker 1: this became an ability for people to travel great distances
Speaker 1: in a short amount of time and made it possible
Speaker 1: for them to do things like plan a trip for
Speaker 1: a weekend or a week So that's when we started
Speaker 1: seeing camping come into fashion. In fact, there were a
Speaker 1: couple of pretty famous folks who were you know, they
Speaker 1: were responsible for a lot of the technological development that
Speaker 1: we enjoy today, people like Henry Ford and Thomas Edison
Speaker 1: who reportedly very much enjoyed going camping. So, you know,
Speaker 1: it does have its connection to technology. I know a
Speaker 1: lot of people when they first hear this are going
Speaker 1: to say, what does camping have to do with tech? Well,
Speaker 1: part of it is that the industry exists because of technology, right.
Speaker 1: And another bit of technology that has led to camping
Speaker 1: being widespread is the aiway system. That's true. Once the
Speaker 1: interstates were established, and that really is part of tech.
Speaker 1: It took a lot of technology just to make that happen.
Speaker 1: But once that was established, it meant that people could
Speaker 1: get to really remote places, including places like national parks
Speaker 1: where historic landmarks are or natural landmarks were. And then
Speaker 1: you started having these parks established official campgrounds so people
Speaker 1: could come out and enjoy that that park. So we
Speaker 1: really saw it take off, and you know, the nineteen
Speaker 1: fifties was like a camping boon where it went bonkers.
Speaker 1: And now these days around forty seven million people in
Speaker 1: the United States go camping every year. The rest of
Speaker 1: us know better. Is what I put in my notes.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, I said, my ideal camping situation as a
Speaker 1: hotel room with room service. That's my favorite kind of
Speaker 1: camp My ideal camping situation is not camping, because that's
Speaker 1: really annoying. In first person shooters, it's a legitimate strategy,
Speaker 1: all right. So we wanted to start off by talking
Speaker 1: about tents um. You know, it's one of those things
Speaker 1: that is a basic need in camping. You need something
Speaker 1: to help keep the elements off of you too, maybe
Speaker 1: protect you either from anything from rain and storms to
Speaker 1: just the bugs in the area, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: And basically, you know, they haven't changed a whole lot
Speaker 1: since we started having a whole industry. I mean, anything
Speaker 1: with a basic pole structure and some kind of fabric
Speaker 1: to be stretched over that structure, and maybe some lines
Speaker 1: that secure the poles to the ground so that it
Speaker 1: gives it that stability, some kind of spike to help
Speaker 1: secure it exactly. Yeah, so we know these are basically yeah,
Speaker 1: you're basic dome tents. You're a frames walled tents. The
Speaker 1: walled tents, by the way, look pretty much like a house.
Speaker 1: But intent to form these are all you know, basics,
Speaker 1: and you have those poles to give the rigidity and
Speaker 1: the lines to provide the stability. But we have actually
Speaker 1: seen some development intent techno oology over the past to
Speaker 1: really advance things. One of them is just making them lighter. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Materials science is a huge part of the technology that
Speaker 1: we're going to be talking about today, right, and if
Speaker 1: you are someone who likes to go camping, particularly someone
Speaker 1: who wants to go hiking a good distance and then
Speaker 1: set up a camp, having your gear not way too
Speaker 1: much is a huge issue. I mean, you don't sure
Speaker 1: being able to replace the weight that you would have
Speaker 1: had to devote to a tent with tasty snacks. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: because you know some of us are not so uh
Speaker 1: so proficient at gathering food in the wild or are
Speaker 1: unwilling to eat their weight in m r e s.
Speaker 1: I have yet to find fruit roll ups growing just freely,
Speaker 1: so I have to carry them with me. Uh these
Speaker 1: are important important things in my mind. So yeah, this
Speaker 1: idea of developing lighter material. There's some uh kind of
Speaker 1: a trademarked material right called cuber Cuban sorry, Cuban fiber.
Speaker 1: See you be eaten, not Cuban as in cuban peat
Speaker 1: of that guy. Right. It's the brand name of this
Speaker 1: type of non woven fabric, meaning that the stuff is
Speaker 1: made from layers of plastic filaments that are bonded together
Speaker 1: and then coated. It can be really light and thin
Speaker 1: and strong, especially compared with traditional woven fabrics. Even lightweight
Speaker 1: plastic ones like say nylon or polys. Yeah. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then you can also find ultra light tents that use
Speaker 1: carbon fiber for the polls that you put through it.
Speaker 1: So anyone who listened to our carbon Fiber podcast, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things about carbon fiber reinforced material is
Speaker 1: that it's really really light. So again you cut down
Speaker 1: on that weight. You can find some of these two
Speaker 1: person tents that weigh less than two pounds total with
Speaker 1: the poles included. Yeah, I mean this is this is
Speaker 1: pretty light when you think of this is where I'm
Speaker 1: going to be sleeping tonight. Now. Granted, they also tend
Speaker 1: to be rather expensive, the ones that are male this
Speaker 1: material anyway, Like the ones I was looking at they
Speaker 1: were between fifteen hundred and two thousand dollars. That's a
Speaker 1: lot of money for a two person tent. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean there's some serious camping hobbyists out there, sure, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's some who who have the money to spend on
Speaker 1: their hobby like that. There are other ultra lightweight tents
Speaker 1: that are not nearly that expensive. Most of them are
Speaker 1: using other types of material, or they might be slightly smaller,
Speaker 1: like you might be able to fit two people in it,
Speaker 1: but you better be really good friends, because you're gonna
Speaker 1: be shoulder to shoulder inside that tent, particularly if you're
Speaker 1: built like I am. But at any rate, uh, it's
Speaker 1: it's you know, That's one of the things we looked
Speaker 1: at was just the idea of creating material science that
Speaker 1: will allow you to carry more stuff. Now, that's not
Speaker 1: the only kind of advanced tent we looked at. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the next one on our list is inflatable tents. And
Speaker 1: to me, this sounds like you're bringing a bouncy house
Speaker 1: out into nature. If only that were the case, I
Speaker 1: can just imagine a bear doing somersaults in the air,
Speaker 1: being super happy. It's so cute, except for the part
Speaker 1: where bears are jerks. Bears can be jerks, yes, um,
Speaker 1: this is true, but they to be fair, humans can
Speaker 1: be pretty big jerks. But no, that we don't eat
Speaker 1: our prey from the feet first, that the meat stays fresh, No, no, uh,
Speaker 1: we we find far more insidious ways. But any at
Speaker 1: any rate, Uh, the inflatable tents in this case are
Speaker 1: not like big domes that you just you know, you
Speaker 1: pull a cord and then suddenly it goes and then
Speaker 1: you've got an iglue it's not like that. Instead, it's
Speaker 1: a a tent that has a frame, a grid like
Speaker 1: structure that is made up of inflated inflatable tubes. You
Speaker 1: use a pump, usually a hand pump or foot pump
Speaker 1: to pump it up and then you've got the Once
Speaker 1: you've got the frame pumped up, it holds up the
Speaker 1: rest of the tent. So so those inflatable tubes take
Speaker 1: the take the role of the poles that you would
Speaker 1: usually use in a normal tent. Now, the one I
Speaker 1: was looking at specifically was one called the Cave, which
Speaker 1: is designed by Time Planet. They have since come out
Speaker 1: with a newer version called the Wedge uh, and these
Speaker 1: are pretty cool. They're supposedly tested to withstand winds of
Speaker 1: up to seventy five miles per hour, which is pretty gusty.
Speaker 1: I imagine they also need to be secured to the
Speaker 1: ground or else they go flying. I would think. So
Speaker 1: it could be well, the tent is safe, but it's
Speaker 1: also four miles away from where we put it. Um
Speaker 1: that would be the problem. Super Neat the other one
Speaker 1: I liked a lot, whereas one called the Cocoon Tree Tent.
Speaker 1: To get a chance to see this, yeah, Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: there's a couple that we're going to talk about here
Speaker 1: that are meant to keep you up off of the
Speaker 1: ground while you're sleeping, which I'm in favor of. If
Speaker 1: anyone has ever had to sleep on the ground, even
Speaker 1: using like a foam pad between you and the ground,
Speaker 1: not pleasant. Yeah, these these things are sort of like
Speaker 1: an an advanced protective hammock. Yeah, you can think of
Speaker 1: it as the cocoon tree. One looks like a little
Speaker 1: globe a sphere, and it has twelve points around the
Speaker 1: circumference of the sphere, like you know, if you were
Speaker 1: to be able to divide it directly in half right
Speaker 1: around that line. Uh. Those twelve points are where you
Speaker 1: can secure it to various anchor points, usually trees. So
Speaker 1: six of those anchor points would give it the suspension,
Speaker 1: as in it would actually hold it above the ground.
Speaker 1: The other six are what allow it to have some
Speaker 1: lateral stability, meaning it's not gonna flippy floppy left or right,
Speaker 1: because obviously when you get in and out, you don't
Speaker 1: want it to suddenly tilt and then everything comes tumbling. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you want to connect it both to the trees
Speaker 1: and to the ground below. Well, it's mostly to the trees,
Speaker 1: but it's it's to the trees in different points, so
Speaker 1: that you just kind of it's kind of like a
Speaker 1: spider web in that sense. And you can also get
Speaker 1: in fact a net that goes under it in case
Speaker 1: you are a little worried about your securing abilities. Um,
Speaker 1: and you don't actually have to have it suspended. I
Speaker 1: have seen other versions where you could have a little
Speaker 1: tripod legs that would hold it above the ground because
Speaker 1: you can't set it directly on the ground or would
Speaker 1: start rolling, and that could be important, Like if you
Speaker 1: are a restless sleeper and you pass in turn a lot,
Speaker 1: you could end up in another state. Yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: hamster ball situation. I mean it has it has its charms,
Speaker 1: but probably not great for camping. But now this thing
Speaker 1: is really cool. If you guys haven't seen it, look
Speaker 1: up cocoon tree tent. It looks really neat. Uh it's
Speaker 1: not light. It weighs sixty ms, which is about a
Speaker 1: hundred thirty two pounds, so it's really heavy. But it's
Speaker 1: also supposed to be really sturdy. It's supposedly can support
Speaker 1: up to two tons. The frame can not the fabric
Speaker 1: obviously that would be different. So the frame itself is
Speaker 1: built so and it's made out of aluminum, so it's
Speaker 1: you know, super sturdy stuff. And this has really meant
Speaker 1: more to put into a location, secure it in a location,
Speaker 1: and then kind of leave it there for a while,
Speaker 1: like you can use it over and over and over
Speaker 1: again over the course of a few months before you
Speaker 1: take it down. All Right, you probably wouldn't want to
Speaker 1: go to the trouble of setting something that sturdy up
Speaker 1: for a weekend trip. Yeah, it would be. It would
Speaker 1: be carrying a lot of weight, and I'm sure it
Speaker 1: takes a long time to set. I mean, if you're
Speaker 1: if you're securing this well above the ground so that
Speaker 1: you have kind of like this canopy view around you,
Speaker 1: then that means you have to climb that far up
Speaker 1: each anchor point before you could even start using this.
Speaker 1: And so I imagine that this is this is more
Speaker 1: of a long term kind of project. The tent is
Speaker 1: three meters in diameter, which is just under ten feet,
Speaker 1: and you can also, according to the website, outfit it
Speaker 1: with cooling or heating elements for climate control for extreme
Speaker 1: camping conditions. Uh as you might imagine this is the
Speaker 1: sort of tent that people who have quite a bit
Speaker 1: of money to spare would go into. This is not
Speaker 1: something that's going to be cheap, but I love the
Speaker 1: design of it just because it was really kind of
Speaker 1: unusual and that's why it appealed to me. And we'll
Speaker 1: try and share a link to the website when this
Speaker 1: podcast goes live, so you guys can take a look
Speaker 1: if you haven't looked at it already. But yeah, pretty
Speaker 1: deep stuff. Then if you wanted to spend slightly less money,
Speaker 1: have a little have a different way of having kind
Speaker 1: of like a hammock style tent. There's another company called
Speaker 1: tent Stiles Tree Tents, Tent Stile. It's cute anyway. There.
Speaker 1: I don't think you're allowed to disapprove of other people's putts.
Speaker 1: That's I just said. I didn't make it um. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it's it's a slightly less complicated these They look to
Speaker 1: me like they would anchor at three points, so the
Speaker 1: base looks more or less sort of triangular and u
Speaker 1: and it makes sense because they actually the company says
Speaker 1: that if you buy one of their tents, they'll go
Speaker 1: out and plant three trees. Yeah, so that would that
Speaker 1: would to me that would correspond to the three anchor
Speaker 1: points that you would need, but same sort of thing.
Speaker 1: Use use chords to anchor each point of the tent
Speaker 1: to a different tree. You keep it nice and tense,
Speaker 1: and then you can get in and out of the
Speaker 1: tent either through a front door or there's actually a
Speaker 1: hatch like panel that you can open up from the bottom,
Speaker 1: which obviously you want to secure as much as possible
Speaker 1: before we go to sleep. You might wake up during
Speaker 1: a twelve foot fall to the ground or something. But um,
Speaker 1: this one is particularly good for people who want to
Speaker 1: do star gazing or are able to secure it at
Speaker 1: some really picturesque spot because instead of it being like
Speaker 1: a canvas or or opaque uh canopy, it's mesh, so
Speaker 1: it's meant for you to have a view of the outdoors.
Speaker 1: Also means that don't be too picky about privacy issues well,
Speaker 1: and and also probably that you want to go during
Speaker 1: good weather. Yes, yeah, if it's raining, you're probably gonna
Speaker 1: have a pretty miserable time of it. But it was
Speaker 1: another one of those that I thought was pretty cool.
Speaker 1: There are a couple of different models that they have available,
Speaker 1: and they are less expensive than the Cocoon Tree um
Speaker 1: camping tents and also easier to set up. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm sure it takes two or three people to put
Speaker 1: one of these up efficiently, but it's not as it's
Speaker 1: not as heavy or bulky as the Cocoon Tree version.
Speaker 1: We have more to say about camping out, I'm guessing,
Speaker 1: but first let's take a quick break. What if you're
Speaker 1: like me, Lauren, What if you are someone who cannot
Speaker 1: survive for more than you know, five or six hours
Speaker 1: at most on a good day without checking one of
Speaker 1: my numerous mobile devices. Well, this is getting much easier
Speaker 1: to do out in the wilds. And one of those
Speaker 1: reasons is solar powered device chargers. Yeah, like including your tent.
Speaker 1: Your tent can be solar powered. Yeah, you can get
Speaker 1: a solar powered tent now. Grant the tent itself is
Speaker 1: not necessarily doing anything with that solar power. It may
Speaker 1: just have a battery pack that allows you to charge
Speaker 1: your devices from the energy that's collected through the solar panels. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: there are tents out there right now that you can
Speaker 1: go out and buy have solar panels incorporated into them
Speaker 1: in some way. There are others that are supposed to
Speaker 1: be hitting the market literally any day now. Like there
Speaker 1: was one that I saw that had originally been scheduled
Speaker 1: to to come out on the market sp two thousand fourteen,
Speaker 1: but as far as I can tell, it hasn't actually
Speaker 1: come out yet. Then there are some up some concepts,
Speaker 1: they're not actually products that you can buy. The Orange
Speaker 1: Solar tent is the one that I saw pop up
Speaker 1: over and over. It was a really cool looking design.
Speaker 1: I had very swoopy kind of lines to it, so
Speaker 1: it looked like, you know, this is the tune of
Speaker 1: the future. See it has swoopy lines. And also the
Speaker 1: canopy it had over the top of the tent, like
Speaker 1: it had a fabric canopy. And then on top of
Speaker 1: that it had these these panels that had the solar
Speaker 1: panels on these like it made it look like it
Speaker 1: was some sort of a fit or or Arthur pod
Speaker 1: of some sort of like a carapace a shell in
Speaker 1: other words. So it was really neat looking. And it
Speaker 1: had you know, lights that would light up at night
Speaker 1: and this but this was all artists rendering, and it
Speaker 1: was essentially saying, this is what you could do if
Speaker 1: you were to build this thing. And they even had
Speaker 1: like a panel that was on the side of the
Speaker 1: tent the inside of the tent where you could put
Speaker 1: a or mobile devices to charge. And it even had
Speaker 1: a little like touch screen interface of some sort, so
Speaker 1: really kind of cool. But again it was all a
Speaker 1: concept pro type currently non existent. Yeah, the stuff that
Speaker 1: does exist a lot more modest. Right, We're talking about
Speaker 1: solar panels that can, after several hours of being exposed
Speaker 1: to a good amount of sunlight, can charge a simple
Speaker 1: battery pack which then could charge your electronics. So if
Speaker 1: you're going to be setting up your tent in a
Speaker 1: sunny area, this is going to be pretty useful. It's
Speaker 1: provide you the maximum amount of surface coverage probably of
Speaker 1: any of your other gear to provide solar Yeah, because
Speaker 1: you're not like things like if you have and we'll
Speaker 1: talk about it in some other you know, gadgets that
Speaker 1: fall into the same kind of category. But if you
Speaker 1: have other gear that's maybe portable, that has solar panels
Speaker 1: incorporated into them, you may or may not be leaving
Speaker 1: it out all the time, right, you may you may
Speaker 1: need it for something else, Whereas your tent kind of
Speaker 1: stays there once you pitch it, so that makes it,
Speaker 1: you know, attractive. How however, it also means that you
Speaker 1: have to have that tent in that sunny area. If
Speaker 1: you have it in a shady area, you're not going
Speaker 1: to get as much sunlight. Um. And if you do
Speaker 1: have it in a sunny area, if you live someplace
Speaker 1: like we do, you have to be prepared for that
Speaker 1: tent to be rather toasty when you're ready to climb
Speaker 1: in at the end of the day, which could be
Speaker 1: perfectly nice in colder colder. Yeah, I think you could.
Speaker 1: One thing I would I mean, if I were designing
Speaker 1: one of these solar powered tents, one of the things
Speaker 1: I would design is a very simple low power fan
Speaker 1: that could actually vent hot air out of the tent
Speaker 1: while the solar panel is active, so some of the
Speaker 1: electricity can go to charging a battery pack, some of
Speaker 1: it goes to running this little fan. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like I'm sure you've seen them for cars, where you
Speaker 1: can have these little solar panel things where it runs
Speaker 1: the little fan to blow. In fact, I think we
Speaker 1: talked about a car that does this, so possibly on
Speaker 1: forward thinking it might be we do so many shows now,
Speaker 1: but yes, we have definitely talked about a car that
Speaker 1: has a similar concept to At any rate, let's talk
Speaker 1: a little bit more about other devices that campers use
Speaker 1: in order to regulate body temperature, okay, or I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, temperature in general, but sure, mostly body temperature.
Speaker 1: So I'm assuming we're moving away from tents and into
Speaker 1: the realm of the sleeping bag. Yes, yeah, So I
Speaker 1: have um mixed emotions when I think back to sleeping bags,
Speaker 1: because I just think of the ones that I had
Speaker 1: as a kid that were probably a little uh, they
Speaker 1: were probably rated for a temperature lower than what Georgia
Speaker 1: has ever seen in the history of ever um. Or
Speaker 1: maybe it's just because I would always go camping and
Speaker 1: like the spring and summer. Oh, the sleeping bags are
Speaker 1: rated for specific temperatures, that's true, And they use they
Speaker 1: use a standard. An interesting center because here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Temperature when it comes to what's comfortable for a person
Speaker 1: is subjective by definition, right, So what's comfortable for Lauren
Speaker 1: may not be comfortable for me, and vice versa. So
Speaker 1: what kind of standard do they use. It's called the
Speaker 1: European norm apparently, and essentially what this is based off
Speaker 1: of is kind of a surveyed average of temperatures and saying,
Speaker 1: all right, technically, if you want to get super general,
Speaker 1: and keep in mind it's a generalization, women get colder
Speaker 1: faster than men do, like at a at a higher temperature.
Speaker 1: So you can have the same temperature and a man
Speaker 1: and woman are both in that temperature, and the woman
Speaker 1: is going to feel colder, particularly at night when it's
Speaker 1: time to go to sleep, uh, than a man would.
Speaker 1: So the way they do their standards is they get
Speaker 1: a sleeping bag and they essentially tested by saying, all right,
Speaker 1: what temperature, what's the lowest temperature we can get at
Speaker 1: where a woman is going to feel comfortable sleeping in
Speaker 1: that temperature and they end up calling that the comfort level.
Speaker 1: So then they say, all right, well, what's the lowest
Speaker 1: temperature we can we can say that where a man
Speaker 1: will be comfortable inside this uh sleeping bag, and that
Speaker 1: one is called the lower limit rating. So you usually
Speaker 1: see both ratings on a sleeping bag. So one, the
Speaker 1: comfort level is all right, well, if it's you know,
Speaker 1: thirty five degrees is the comfort level, then it could
Speaker 1: get down to thirty five degrees and your average woman
Speaker 1: is going to be fine sleeping in the sleeping bag.
Speaker 1: At the lower level is nineteen degrees. That says your
Speaker 1: average man is still going to be fine all the
Speaker 1: way down to nineteen a woman maybe feeling very uncomfortable
Speaker 1: or at least a little chilly between those two temperatures.
Speaker 1: But then you also have was called the extreme rating,
Speaker 1: and the extreme rating that's the temperature below which you
Speaker 1: are in serious danger, even if you are inside the
Speaker 1: sleeping bag. Really, it's based upon the lowest temperature a
Speaker 1: woman can endure while inside that sleeping bag before saying
Speaker 1: I'm getting a hotel room call me when this trip
Speaker 1: is over, or getting hypothermia. That would also be another case. Yes,
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's interesting that even though it's a quote
Speaker 1: unquote standard, it's still obviously based on subjectivity. There's not
Speaker 1: like this hard and fast rule of saying, at this
Speaker 1: temperature you're going to be absolutely comfortable. It's more like
Speaker 1: it's more what they call guidelines if you want to
Speaker 1: be all Barbosa about it, but uh, that is, if
Speaker 1: you ever see that a sleeping bag is rated for
Speaker 1: one of these temperatures, that's usually what it means. Most
Speaker 1: of them are going by this standard. Some of them
Speaker 1: may be going by their own kind of you know,
Speaker 1: testing facility and surveys, but it's still basically the same
Speaker 1: thing saying, how what temperature do people still feel comfortable
Speaker 1: while in this sleeping bag? Um. And so you also
Speaker 1: find sleeping bags that are meant for different types of
Speaker 1: of environments. Like there's some that are the higher temperature ones,
Speaker 1: which is usually thirty five degrees fahrenheit or or higher.
Speaker 1: And that would be for things like people who want
Speaker 1: to go camping in the spring and summer months. Then
Speaker 1: you might have the multi purpose sleeping bags that are
Speaker 1: good for between maybe like ten degrees fahrenheit thirty five
Speaker 1: degrees fahrenheit, and that's meant to be you know, a
Speaker 1: little more versatile so that you can camp throughout the year.
Speaker 1: And then you have the cold weather sleeping bags, which
Speaker 1: are usually something between like minus ten degrees fahrenheit to
Speaker 1: ten degrees fahrenheit. UM, and that's meant for it. You know,
Speaker 1: if you happen to be camping like in Minnesota in
Speaker 1: the winter. You know, if you're crazy, Um, some of
Speaker 1: you may be camping in Minnesota in the winter. I
Speaker 1: don't really think you're crazy. I would be crazy to
Speaker 1: do it. But anyway, those are your basic rules more
Speaker 1: or less, so if you're ever looking for them, that's
Speaker 1: what you want to look for. And all of these
Speaker 1: temperature ratings have to do with the well again with
Speaker 1: material signs, with what the shell is made of and
Speaker 1: what the filling is made of. Traditionally it was down
Speaker 1: of various kinds duck in, goose duck and goose feathers,
Speaker 1: and these days a lot of it is plastics. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you get a lot of synthetics, and you get a
Speaker 1: lot of um water resistant or water repellent down. So
Speaker 1: regular down not necessarily water repellent, and that's well, it's
Speaker 1: it's really warm, but it absorbs water like holy woe,
Speaker 1: which means that if you're in a cold situation and
Speaker 1: your down sleeping bag gets wet, it can become very
Speaker 1: dangerous very quickly because it might actually be sapping heat
Speaker 1: away from your body, like you would be worse off
Speaker 1: in it than you would be outside of it. And
Speaker 1: some synthetics are the same way. That's why the water
Speaker 1: repellent down material has been developed and uh and all
Speaker 1: of these are called PHIL in the industry. So if
Speaker 1: you ever see a PHIL power rating on a sleeping bag,
Speaker 1: what that's telling you is essentially how effective the installation
Speaker 1: is at capturing heat. And the way they determine this
Speaker 1: it's kind of cool. It's called loft, I believe. But
Speaker 1: the way they determine is they say how much space
Speaker 1: would one ounce of this installation take? So if we
Speaker 1: if we get an ounce of it and we just
Speaker 1: let it because it's normal volume, how many cubic inches
Speaker 1: does that take up? And the more space it takes up,
Speaker 1: the more efficient uh insulator it is. And the lighter
Speaker 1: your your sleeping bag is gonna because it doesn't need
Speaker 1: as much material to fill it out, all right, So
Speaker 1: the higher the number is, the better off you are.
Speaker 1: So you might see film power numbers and right, well,
Speaker 1: and the lighter and the lighter the sleeping bag will be.
Speaker 1: So a film power number of six hundred is gonna
Speaker 1: be uh that that sleeping bag is gonna be heavier
Speaker 1: than one that's rated at seven, which is gonna be
Speaker 1: heavier than seven fifty or a hander, assuming that you're
Speaker 1: talking about two sleeping bags that have the same type
Speaker 1: of film material in them, because obviously different materials are
Speaker 1: going to weigh different amounts. But yeah, you want to
Speaker 1: have the higher number for it to be lighter, and
Speaker 1: you know these can rated for different temperature ranges as well,
Speaker 1: But that's your general rule about sleeping bags. So most
Speaker 1: of the time when you're hearing about high tech sleeping bags,
Speaker 1: they're usually talking about whatever the insulation material is and
Speaker 1: whatever the exterior material is, and whether or not it's
Speaker 1: water repellent, how good it is it retaining heat. I mean,
Speaker 1: the whole secret here is that you want to separate
Speaker 1: the heat from the inside of the sleeping bag from
Speaker 1: the outer environment. You don't want that heat to be
Speaker 1: leached away. So that's what most of the designs of
Speaker 1: sleeping bags are all meant to prevent. It's really basic tech,
Speaker 1: but it's also really important tech. Alright, what about backpacks?
Speaker 1: You know, those things that you carry all your other
Speaker 1: stuff in. You want them to be a lightweight. I
Speaker 1: guess um it could be cool if they maybe had
Speaker 1: some solar panels on them, because those if you're hiking
Speaker 1: in the sun. I actually used to have a backpack
Speaker 1: the head of solar panel in it. It was not
Speaker 1: a camping backpack. Back The one downside to having a
Speaker 1: solar panel in your backpack is that it does take
Speaker 1: up space because that solar panel. I mean, obviously it
Speaker 1: needs to be connected to something or else that electricity
Speaker 1: is not doing any good. Usually that's a battery pack
Speaker 1: which is one bulky and too heavy her. So there
Speaker 1: is a bit of a you know, that's something you
Speaker 1: gotta you gotta weigh, literally, you need to weigh the
Speaker 1: importance of that element and whether or not you know
Speaker 1: it's really key for you to bring it along. Sure,
Speaker 1: but you know, backpacks are yet again one of those
Speaker 1: material science related things that improvements in the fabric and
Speaker 1: the structure that these guys has let them get lighter
Speaker 1: over the years. Right again, really important when you're hiking.
Speaker 1: So now we're going to talk about the stuff what
Speaker 1: you put into said backpack, Like we wanted to take
Speaker 1: a look at some of the incredible gadgets that you
Speaker 1: could carry with you and because I mean, you know, ultimately,
Speaker 1: when you get down to it, if you're really roughing it,
Speaker 1: you essentially need a place to sleep, a thing to
Speaker 1: sleep in to keep you warm at night, and maybe
Speaker 1: some stuff to help you make a fire. Uh. For
Speaker 1: our friends who want to know how to make a fire,
Speaker 1: we have a treat for you, but that's gonna be
Speaker 1: another podcast. So one of the things we wanted to
Speaker 1: look at was or what are some of the cool
Speaker 1: gadgets that are available today that can make camping a
Speaker 1: lot more comfortable? Yeah, maybe more convenient for those of
Speaker 1: us who just can't let go of our electronic society.
Speaker 1: And I am mainly talking about myself here. And the
Speaker 1: first one I wanted to talk about is one that
Speaker 1: is so cool that I'm tempted to buy one, even
Speaker 1: though I don't think I will ever willingly go camping
Speaker 1: ever again. And it's a camp stove, specifically the one
Speaker 1: I was looking at, and there are different ones, but
Speaker 1: the one that gets repeated multiple times throughout the internet
Speaker 1: is the bio light uh camp stove, And the biolight
Speaker 1: camp stove is cool. It think of it as a
Speaker 1: camp stove where you can you put twigs in it
Speaker 1: and then you light a fire and you use those
Speaker 1: to eggs to help heat the stove, and then you
Speaker 1: can cook things on top of the stove. You can
Speaker 1: get one that has a grill surface and actually grill
Speaker 1: on the very top of it, so it sounds like
Speaker 1: a pretty basic portable grill, except that it also happens
Speaker 1: to have a fan powered generator attached to it so
Speaker 1: that the heat from the fire will turn the fan,
Speaker 1: which will then generate electricity, allowing you to charge electronics
Speaker 1: on your through your stove. I mean not on your stove.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't melt that. That's a terrible idea that you
Speaker 1: can explode. You can connect a USB cord to this
Speaker 1: stoves power outlet and actually charge your your electronics while
Speaker 1: you cook. And it takes about four and a half
Speaker 1: minutes from what I read to boil a pot of water,
Speaker 1: and you get about maybe twenty minutes at charging in
Speaker 1: a typical cooking scenario. So it's not like you get
Speaker 1: it's not like you're gonna reach out your entire you know, phone,
Speaker 1: but it will extend your battery going a little longer.
Speaker 1: And you know, if you're use if you're supplementing that
Speaker 1: with other means to keep your stuff, uh supplied with
Speaker 1: a charge, and every little bit helps, right. Um. I
Speaker 1: wanted to talk for a minute about handwarmers, which are
Speaker 1: really more chemical tech than straight gadgetry tech, but I
Speaker 1: think that they're really cool. So you've got both single
Speaker 1: use and rechargeable or multi use handwarmers, and the single
Speaker 1: use ones are just these little pouches that contain iron, powder, water,
Speaker 1: and salt, which together will react with oxygen when the
Speaker 1: packet is exposed to air. It's an exothermic reaction, which
Speaker 1: means that it creates heat and kind of as a
Speaker 1: byproduct in this case rust iron oxide, right. And they
Speaker 1: usually also contain an absorbent or absorbent material to to
Speaker 1: hold onto the water until it's needed for the reaction,
Speaker 1: and also activated carbon to help disperse the heat. So
Speaker 1: those are the single use ones once you know, once
Speaker 1: they warm up pretty well, but once they're done, they're
Speaker 1: done forever. You gotta toss it. You can't recharge that
Speaker 1: in any way. You cannot know. The multiese ones though
Speaker 1: they're really cool. Wait wait, if you have a handwarmer,
Speaker 1: how can it be cool, Lauren. That sounds like it
Speaker 1: doesn't work at all. So they're these sealed pouches of
Speaker 1: supersaturated saline solutions, usually sodium acetate and water is the
Speaker 1: solution that they're made of. And this stuff is really stable.
Speaker 1: It's really happy to exist as a liquid way below
Speaker 1: it's freezing point and or its crystallization point because it
Speaker 1: does that thing um that crystallization or freezing point happens
Speaker 1: to be a hundred and thirty degrees fahrenheit or fifty
Speaker 1: four degrees celsius, which you know is way above room temperature. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's that's quite warm. That's significantly above it. Right, So
Speaker 1: it's happy hanging out as a liquid at room temperature.
Speaker 1: But this pouch that contains it also contains this little
Speaker 1: disc like gidget that secrets away a couple of crystals
Speaker 1: of sodium acetate from the rest of the liquid. And
Speaker 1: when you manipulate that disk by kind of popping it,
Speaker 1: the crystals hit the liquid and seed this really quick
Speaker 1: crystallization process. Now, since a solid a k a. The crystal,
Speaker 1: the frozen version of this stuff is a lower energy
Speaker 1: state than a liquid, that energy of it going from
Speaker 1: a liquid to a solid very quickly has to go
Speaker 1: somewhere and it's released as heat. Right because as we know,
Speaker 1: you can't create or destroy energy, but you can convert
Speaker 1: it from one form to another, right. And then you
Speaker 1: can recharge this kind of pack by boiling it in
Speaker 1: water for for maybe ten minutes. You have to melt
Speaker 1: all of the crystals, and a couple of seed crystals
Speaker 1: will stay in the disk and then you can so
Speaker 1: you can just keep using it until there are no
Speaker 1: more seed crystals left in that disk, and then you
Speaker 1: might have to get a new one. You can you
Speaker 1: can use it until you basically break the bag. Got it.
Speaker 1: You will never run out of seed crystals because the
Speaker 1: way that the disk is formed, it will it will
Speaker 1: just kind of hide a couple interesting when the rest
Speaker 1: of it gets that's really cool. Wow, I never Now
Speaker 1: I've fallen into the whole handwarm or cool problem. We
Speaker 1: need to take another quick break, but we will be
Speaker 1: right back. So, speaking of water, water filters obviously very
Speaker 1: important if you're going to be counting someplace you want
Speaker 1: to you want to clean source of water, both for
Speaker 1: drinking and for cooking with and so water filters and purifiers,
Speaker 1: I mean, there are a ton of them out there.
Speaker 1: Some of them are very simple. They might use you know,
Speaker 1: essentially carbon to like a charcoal type filter for you
Speaker 1: to filter water through. Yeah, you might just fill it
Speaker 1: up and it takes like a minute for it to
Speaker 1: filter through and then you get filtered water. On the
Speaker 1: other end, some of them are more active than that.
Speaker 1: They don't just have a passive system that water flows through.
Speaker 1: For instance, I've seen a few that end up using
Speaker 1: a UV purification lights, so ultra violet light, and that's
Speaker 1: because ultra violet radiation can kill microbial, nasty stuff. And
Speaker 1: the one I saw specifically, you would turn the lamp
Speaker 1: on and then agitate the water, meaning you shake it
Speaker 1: for about a minute, and then that ultra violet light
Speaker 1: should pretty much kill off anything that happens to be
Speaker 1: in the water. You first would filter the water before
Speaker 1: you would pour it into the bottle, because you know,
Speaker 1: you want to get rid of anything macro first, like
Speaker 1: you know, maybe I don't want to put a fish
Speaker 1: in here or something crawdaddy until I grew up in
Speaker 1: the South, uh. And then you use the UV to
Speaker 1: get rid of all the little microbial stuff. That's pretty neat.
Speaker 1: And in fact, that's one of those that I looked
Speaker 1: at a lot of websites that had lists of gadgets
Speaker 1: that you would want to take with you on camping trips,
Speaker 1: like the high tech stuff, and that was one of
Speaker 1: the ones that popped up over and over again, presumably uh,
Speaker 1: written by people who actually go camping, as opposed to myself. Well,
Speaker 1: clean water is really good, you know. Another kind of
Speaker 1: low tech way of doing it is you can always
Speaker 1: boil your water for a good long time. Might not
Speaker 1: necessarily taste great, but at least you've killed off anything
Speaker 1: that would potentially do you harm. So but yeah, that's
Speaker 1: always also of very important thing to keep in mind.
Speaker 1: If you don't have one of these filter things handy,
Speaker 1: you still want to take precaution obviously before just dunking
Speaker 1: your head in the nearest water source and drinking deep
Speaker 1: uh or deeply I should say. Then. We have solar
Speaker 1: powered charging stations in general. There are a lot that are,
Speaker 1: you know, handheld. There's some that you end up fanning out,
Speaker 1: and I've seen one that looks like a like a
Speaker 1: large cell phone and then it ends up having this
Speaker 1: sort of three panel pedal thing where you just fold
Speaker 1: the little bits out yep, and then you just put
Speaker 1: it on some some surface that is exposed to sunlight
Speaker 1: and you let it charge. Most of them have battery packs,
Speaker 1: so you're not charging directly from solar panel to your
Speaker 1: device you or or you could, but you also can
Speaker 1: charge the onboard battery to save it for later. There's
Speaker 1: also the good old classic hand crank yep, man, I've
Speaker 1: got one of those, actually, yep, I have one of those.
Speaker 1: It's kind of an emergency radio slash and most of
Speaker 1: those you give it a good cranking for like thirty
Speaker 1: seconds to a minute, and then you may know it's
Speaker 1: pretty vigorous. I mean, you have to do a lot
Speaker 1: of kinetic work. It's it's converting kinetic energy into electrical energy,
Speaker 1: and you've gotta do a lot of work in order
Speaker 1: for you to get even a little bit of electricity out.
Speaker 1: But it might be enough electricity for you to do
Speaker 1: something like syndequate text message, which could be the difference
Speaker 1: between life and death depending upon your situation. So there
Speaker 1: are a lot of different companies that make these. Um
Speaker 1: Swiss Army Uh company that is famous for the Swiss
Speaker 1: Army knives also makes stuff like this or partners with
Speaker 1: people who do make stuff like this. I used to
Speaker 1: see them at c s every year. I'd see these
Speaker 1: different cool emergency kits that include a hand crank charging
Speaker 1: station along with usually the hand crank charging station is
Speaker 1: also something like a lantern and a radio and I
Speaker 1: don't know, a tour guide. I mean they got kind
Speaker 1: of crazy eventually, but and spraining eat stuff. Then I
Speaker 1: also saw fuel cells. Wait, camping fuel cells, Yeah, actual
Speaker 1: fuel else. There's one called the Power Trek and it's
Speaker 1: it's light enough for you to carry like you can
Speaker 1: either clip it on the outside of your backpack or
Speaker 1: actually carry it inside your backpack, and it uses little
Speaker 1: hydrogen pucks. Now a fuel cell. Brian herd Is talk
Speaker 1: about them before, but in case you're not familiar, fuel
Speaker 1: cells use hydrogen and oxygen, and uh, you know those
Speaker 1: those two elements like to combine into this stuff we
Speaker 1: call water. But let's say you've got a chamber filled
Speaker 1: with hydrogen and oxygen. You've separated them with a membrane,
Speaker 1: and the membrane only allows hydrogen through. If it's an ion,
Speaker 1: meaning that it's shed its electron, then you can channel
Speaker 1: those electrons to do work before they recombine on the
Speaker 1: other side where the hydrogen ions the oxygen and then
Speaker 1: the electrons coming in all conform water. So that's your
Speaker 1: basic fuel cell and power treck is that's basically what
Speaker 1: it is. The little hydrogen pucks contain hydrogen gas, which
Speaker 1: combined with oxygen, you get some electricity and a little
Speaker 1: bit of water vapor as the byproducts, and you can
Speaker 1: charge your electronics using that. So yeah, if you want
Speaker 1: to be super high tech, carry a fuel cell with you.
Speaker 1: Um and fortunately the hydrogen oxygen fuel cells can operate
Speaker 1: at temperatures that are comfortable to us. A lot of
Speaker 1: fuel cells, when you get into the industrial level, have
Speaker 1: to be heated up to temperatures that are you know,
Speaker 1: not conducive to living for humans. So fortunately this is
Speaker 1: not one of those. It would not be a very
Speaker 1: good camping accessory otherwise. No, on the slightly less ridiculously
Speaker 1: high tech level, cane think showers, I mean, because anyone
Speaker 1: can construct a shower in a camp by putting some
Speaker 1: water in a bag and hanging it from a tree
Speaker 1: and kind of letting it drip down on you poke
Speaker 1: a hole into the bag of some sort. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: if you want to go a little bit more high
Speaker 1: tech than that. The other a couple of different options.
Speaker 1: I saw one where it was one that could fold
Speaker 1: up into a very small case so that you can
Speaker 1: actually you know, carry it in one hand. But then
Speaker 1: of course when you fill it up, you'd hang it
Speaker 1: from like a tree or something. Let's sit in the
Speaker 1: on the sun heats up the water and then you've
Speaker 1: got a nice warm shower, so you're not you're not
Speaker 1: freezing while you take your shower. But there's another uh
Speaker 1: some other ones I saw where it actually includes inflatable
Speaker 1: bladders that are inside the bag that holds all the water.
Speaker 1: So you fill it up with water, you leave it
Speaker 1: on the sun, you let it get nice and warm,
Speaker 1: and then you go and use like a foot pump
Speaker 1: or a hand pump to pump up the bladders, the
Speaker 1: inflatable bladders that are inside this this back to you
Speaker 1: push the water out at you slightly more. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like a pressure ride shower. Yeah, so it ends up
Speaker 1: being a little bit more of a shower experience and
Speaker 1: not just using gravity to pull the water down. Because
Speaker 1: I mean, these days are behind me. But back when
Speaker 1: I used to wash my hair, obviously, um, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to rent out something like soap or shampoo
Speaker 1: out of your hair very effectively if you don't have
Speaker 1: any water pressure. Anyone who's had to deal with that
Speaker 1: and knows what I'm talking about. So that was the
Speaker 1: way of getting around that. It's actually a pretty low
Speaker 1: tech but creative luction to that problem. Um. Also very
Speaker 1: important is to have some sort of GPS receiver whether
Speaker 1: that is your phone or its own receiver. There are
Speaker 1: a lot of receivers out there that are very good
Speaker 1: at just barely sipping power so you can carry it
Speaker 1: on a longer trip, and really simple ones that you
Speaker 1: know aren't you're not doing a whole lot with, but
Speaker 1: can at least just give a ping and tell someone
Speaker 1: where you are right and keep you informed of where
Speaker 1: you are as well, so that way, you know, you
Speaker 1: might notice if you're heading toward an area whether there
Speaker 1: isn't an easy source of water or something along those lines.
Speaker 1: Very important. Two way radio is also really important usually, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I always recommend if people are going to
Speaker 1: go camping or hiking to do it with a friend
Speaker 1: you know, and also to let people know when you're
Speaker 1: going to do it. Yeah, this is I did an
Speaker 1: episode on geo Cashing years ago and that was one
Speaker 1: of those basic rules is let people know when you're
Speaker 1: going to go out and do something. Certainly someone knows
Speaker 1: where you are, and there are ways to stay safe
Speaker 1: when you're solo camping. Yeah, by it involves a lot
Speaker 1: of planning and a lot of know how and a
Speaker 1: lot of telling people where you're going right just in
Speaker 1: case that you know, something unexpected happens, like maybe some
Speaker 1: bad weather makes it very difficult for you to make
Speaker 1: your way back to your vehicle or something on those lines.
Speaker 1: Anyway to a radio is very useful. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of really advanced ones out there on the market now.
Speaker 1: I mean back in the day, UH, you would have
Speaker 1: limited range and limited battery life, But now we've got
Speaker 1: some that are very battery conscious and can operate up
Speaker 1: to thirty five miles apart if you have a good
Speaker 1: clear line of sight. Obviously, if you are in a
Speaker 1: deeply wooded area and you're both in separate valleys, that's
Speaker 1: probably not going to be as as effective, but thirty
Speaker 1: five miles is pretty significant, and a lot of them
Speaker 1: will also allow you to tune into other radio stations,
Speaker 1: not just a communications channel, but perhaps something like a
Speaker 1: weather report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAH.
Speaker 1: A lot of those, in fact, the hand cranks that
Speaker 1: I was talking out earlier, the ones that are often
Speaker 1: radios and lanterns, a lot of those also have that
Speaker 1: kind of capability so that you can check FM, a
Speaker 1: M radio and and no UH very important when you're
Speaker 1: out there by yourself or even you know, with a
Speaker 1: couple of other people, just to let you know if
Speaker 1: a storm's coming. Digital binoculars these are awesome. I think,
Speaker 1: of course, we're all familiar with what they can do
Speaker 1: from the documentary Star Wars and New Hope. When sand
Speaker 1: people are coming toward you and they're walking in a
Speaker 1: single file, you know, to hide their numbers, it's important
Speaker 1: for you to be able to spot them from a
Speaker 1: long way away. Also, these things often have video recorders
Speaker 1: in them, so you can look at you know, interesting
Speaker 1: wildlife and actually record what you're seeing. And some of
Speaker 1: them have um multiple cameras, like two cameras like you're
Speaker 1: you know, essentially it's mimicking your eyes, which means that
Speaker 1: the images they record are three dimensional. You can play
Speaker 1: it back in three D. Then you've got survival tools.
Speaker 1: Multi tools very useful because they pack a lot of
Speaker 1: utility into a a compact form factor, relatively compact. So
Speaker 1: I've seen some that get a little bit on the
Speaker 1: ridiculous side. Okay, yeah, there there's somewhere, like you know,
Speaker 1: I think I've seen like the the Ultimate Swiss Army knife,
Speaker 1: which has every single attachment, it's every single attachment that
Speaker 1: Swiss Army Knife Company has ever done, and it just
Speaker 1: looks ridiculous. You know, you need like two people to
Speaker 1: hold it up. It's like a baseball bat essentially. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But but your typical multi tool has things that would
Speaker 1: become really handy when you're out there in the woods,
Speaker 1: like perhaps a fire starter and you know, something like
Speaker 1: a flint and steel, which we'll talk about in our
Speaker 1: Pyro episode. Yes, we we have not talked in this
Speaker 1: entire episode about fire starting technology because that that has
Speaker 1: its whole own episode. We're doing that immediately after we
Speaker 1: record this one. We're kind of looking forward to it.
Speaker 1: I've seen some that have things like a way of
Speaker 1: alerting people if you're in distress, usually a whistle. One
Speaker 1: of the ones I looked at was able to produce
Speaker 1: a tone of a hundred decibels, which is pretty loud. Yea, Yeah,
Speaker 1: when you get above eighty five decibels, that's about the
Speaker 1: that's the level of safe so one, it's meant to
Speaker 1: be that loud, so that if you are truly in distress,
Speaker 1: you are alerting people that this is a problem and
Speaker 1: they need to try and find you. And obviously that
Speaker 1: is gonna be much louder than you crying out for help. Right, absolutely,
Speaker 1: although although I do have to say so you could
Speaker 1: say that that particular gadget has bells and whistles. Nice, Yes,
Speaker 1: you could say that, or at least as the whistle part.
Speaker 1: So yeah. I've also seen them that have compass knives.
Speaker 1: I wrote multiple knives because I know how to spell. Uh.
Speaker 1: Signal mirror that's a very low tech but very useful
Speaker 1: led lights. They might have wire or cord or other
Speaker 1: kind of things that allow you to secure stuff to
Speaker 1: other stuff, which comes in handy and survival scenarios, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know other things too, you like some of them
Speaker 1: have things like fish hooks, that kind of stuff. It
Speaker 1: all depends upon the individual tool, but uh, and I've
Speaker 1: seen these worked into things like, um, hiking poles, where
Speaker 1: use a pole to help you maintain your balance and
Speaker 1: keep you going even when you're hiking in rough terrain.
Speaker 1: Sometimes those have survival tools built into the handles, which
Speaker 1: are pretty cool too. Any the person who loves spy
Speaker 1: gadgets is gonna love that kind of camping tech because
Speaker 1: it's all about conserving that space and weight, which often
Speaker 1: means that it looks like it must be made for
Speaker 1: spies because everything's folded away in these little secret compartments.
Speaker 1: That's always neat. But there's something low tech. Yeah, sometimes
Speaker 1: really low tech is best. There are those survival bracelets
Speaker 1: you guys might have seen, which are woven of incredibly
Speaker 1: strong uh not yarn tech, yarn wire wire something to
Speaker 1: chord probably yes, thank you, uh that that you can
Speaker 1: use in in any number of survival situations. And also, hey,
Speaker 1: analog maps, maps that are on paper or perhaps some
Speaker 1: kind of plastic. The great thing about these, you guys,
Speaker 1: is that they don't run out of batteries, right, nor
Speaker 1: nor do they have some sort of system crash where
Speaker 1: you have to You never get a blue screen. You
Speaker 1: don't have to reset your map. Yeah. Yeah, things may
Speaker 1: have changed since the map was made, but probably not
Speaker 1: so significantly that you can't, you know, can't make use
Speaker 1: of the map. If you're looking at a map of
Speaker 1: like this is Pangaea, probably not going to be helpful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: be careful which map you pack. Also, I mean, if
Speaker 1: you pack a map of end or its probably not
Speaker 1: gonna not gonna be helpful. But I just wanted to
Speaker 1: put that out there. You know, sometimes you might want
Speaker 1: to bring one of those. In fact, in general, I
Speaker 1: would always recommend bringing one of those along, definitely. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So there's there's some cool stuff out there that you
Speaker 1: can you can take with you if you're a camping
Speaker 1: enthusiast and you want to be able to maybe trick
Speaker 1: out your your camp site a little bit more with
Speaker 1: some high tech stuff, maybe something like that that that
Speaker 1: camp stove I talked about earlier. Uh, those things can
Speaker 1: be you know, they can make your experience a little
Speaker 1: more comfortable. Uh for people who say, well, that's not
Speaker 1: real camping, obviously you can go as as as rough
Speaker 1: and ready as you want. Someone like me, Um, not
Speaker 1: gonna happen, but if it did happen, it's gonna be
Speaker 1: as comfortable. I mean, I'm gonna have an inflatable pad
Speaker 1: to sleep on. I'm gonna have probably an air conditioned tent.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just gonna have to be. I think
Speaker 1: that if it's getting you out there, then it's kind
Speaker 1: of beautiful. Yeah. So, uh, you know, until Google Earth
Speaker 1: has every square inch of the planet completely maps, so
Speaker 1: that way I can just virtually go there. Obviously, once
Speaker 1: in a while, I'm going to have to drag my
Speaker 1: carcass out into nature and see what's going on. Seriously though,
Speaker 1: I mean, I joked about this on Facebook while I
Speaker 1: was doing the research, but it really is true. As
Speaker 1: I was looking at these gadgets, it made me want
Speaker 1: to get a few of them and actually go camping.
Speaker 1: The only thing that keeps me from doing that is
Speaker 1: knowing that once I'm in that situation, I'll be questioning
Speaker 1: my sanity. But but it makes me want to do it.
Speaker 1: And again, it's because the idea of camping is so
Speaker 1: it's nice, it sounds peaceful, yeah, and then you get
Speaker 1: to you get to appreciate landscapes that we who live
Speaker 1: in cities don't see that frequently. And that wraps up
Speaker 1: that classic episode of tech stuff, you know. Speaking of camping,
Speaker 1: it's interesting Once a couple of years ago, I was
Speaker 1: talking about the possibility of starting a show, kind of
Speaker 1: a mini series to talk about camping and and outdoorsy
Speaker 1: kind of activities for someone like me, someone who who
Speaker 1: is not particularly interested or skilled in it. Someone I mean,
Speaker 1: I enjoyed camping back when I did it, I just
Speaker 1: don't do it anymore, and someone who has become accustomed
Speaker 1: let us say to the modern comforts beyond what is reasonable,
Speaker 1: one might argue. And I thought, wouldn't it be interesting
Speaker 1: to do a series where actually try to do some
Speaker 1: camping and some outdoorsy type stuff and I rely heavily
Speaker 1: on tech that's made for that purpose, and to see
Speaker 1: if that actually makes the experience, you know, something I enjoy,
Speaker 1: or if the tech actually gets in the way of it.
Speaker 1: I never never actually got to the point where I
Speaker 1: launched it, but it's an idea that continues to come
Speaker 1: back to me. So maybe I will revisit it, because
Speaker 1: I think that could be a really interesting series. First
Speaker 1: of all, it's gonna be hilarious because I'm hopeless when
Speaker 1: it comes to out doorsy stuff. But also I just think,
Speaker 1: like to put this tech to the test, find out
Speaker 1: does it really help you or is it completely unnecessary
Speaker 1: or does it just make something that is difficult for
Speaker 1: me impossible. That's really what I want to know, So
Speaker 1: maybe I'll look into that. If that sounds interesting to you,
Speaker 1: let me know over on Twitter the handle for the
Speaker 1: show Tech Stuff h s W. You can also let
Speaker 1: me know if there are any topics you would like
Speaker 1: me to cover in the future, and I'll talk to
Speaker 1: you again really soon. Yea. Text Stuff is an I
Speaker 1: heart Radio production. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.