I think I am going to say this one more time just to be sure. If you go to the ETS front page, you will find a plethora of basic how to information for a whole host of different situations, including aviation category. Folks like Doug tend to post fairly thoroughly and in enough volume that it is not too difficult to find the how-to information of basic survival skills and techniques. Likewise, you can find several good publications elsewhere covering the subject in even greater depth and detail.

What is often lacking in these publications (Doug's being more the exception to the rule) is review and notification of new and improved gadgets that might make the tasks associated with survival easier and/or more effective. While admittedly there is still the issue of technique and application to be discussed, what seems to be far and away the more important concern is the knowledge of such devices actually being available, and what their new capabilities may be.

Basic survival skills and techniques do not expand and evolve nearly as quickly as do the tools available, so one would naturally expect to see a lot more material being posted in forums such as this relating to the arrival of new gadgetry or material, rather than significant offshoots of basic techniques.

In focusing specifically on how to use the new items, there is a definite distinction between simple manipulation and application. For instance, I do not necessarily need to know how to operate a blast match in order to start a fire, but I certainly need to know how to build a fire in order to make a blast match work properly as intended.

It seems that this forum fills the more immediate need of product identification and situational awareness than actual instruction. I prefer to leave instruction to the professionals, and keep casual conversation on more immediate and perhaps superficial discoveries. That doesn't exclude basic instruction altogether, but such anecdotal discussion does seem to be more interesting in this form of medium.

Maybe this time I did a better job explaining why???