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Comment by UncleEntity | Hacker News Reader

What good is a compass going to do?

Presumably he could have just followed the road he was on and maybe reached town before freezing to death.

And all conventional wisdom says to stay put if you find yourself in a situation like that. Years ago I was listening to the local radio on my way to Denver when a big storm was coming in and they were talking about how many people die in blizzards every year with most of the deaths being people who tried to walk to safety instead of staying in their stuck cars.

More presumption but I’d say the standard thing to do in that part of the world is to just hunker down and wait until the next traveler comes along — or press the magic button on the iPhone and get to town before last call.

—edit—

And damn straight I’d be pushing that button if I got stranded.

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So would I. But if I decided to traverse dangerous largely inhabited terrain and my only means of salvation are my phone with a brand new largely untested feature, then I'd be an idiot who took a big risk.

I mean, what do you want the guy to do? Not travel during winter?

Always travel with a snowmachine in tow, except when the lead snowmachine has failed, in which case, well probably still tow the broken machine with the secondary machine, so you can repair it at your destination instead of in the middle of your return journey?

Travel by car, again while towing a secondary vehicle, because having a vehicle fail during a trip is clearly irresponsible?

So I guess until Apple came up with this, people living in remote parts of Alaska where pretty much screwed unless they had a satellite phone.

I'm no expert in what living efficiently and safely in such a place is, but I know that in places like Svalvard, you are expected to be 100% independent and responsible for yourself because nobody is coming to your rescue. To the point that you shouldn't go out by yourself if you don't have a rifle that you know how to use, because you could run into polar bears or wolves.

So yeah, I think this guy most definitely could have been better prepared, don't ask me how, it's not the point. Clearly if your only means of survival when something goes wrong is your phone, you are unprepared to live in a place like that.

> Clearly if your only means of survival when something goes wrong is your phone

We don't know that he didn't have other means, just that he used this. And that he had appropriate clothes and firestarting materials.

So he was appropriately dressed to be in a snowmachine in the Alaskan outdoors, and could start a fire. Which to me reads that he cleared the absolute minimum essentials to not be a complete idiot. That still doesn't explain how he was so unprepared for anything going wrong that his best recourse was to resort to using a brand new feature which is largely untested in the real world.

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