A woodburning camp stove....(- Wait for it....with a USB charger!...)

Holy shit-a-ree.....Some people might be familiar with, or have even used the ZZtove, a long time near curiosity of the backpacking stove market( which heats dinner via a tiny fan and  bits of  wood charcoal, or even dung....I shit you not...so to speak...) . A newer cyber era twist has now hit the market in the form of the Biolite Campstove, which not only uses the uses the fam powered woodstove concept of its older sibling, mut also integrates a heat exchaner to provide power to a USB plug for recharging your mobile devices....
The iPacker crowd is perhaps rejoicing and saving pennies to purchase this little bit of insurance against ever having to be without Jay-z or their Twitter feed again- I, however find myself firmly in the " I will be tempted to smash this if I ever see it in the wild" camp....We shall see... I can see certain advantages- If one truly needs to make a rescue call, or need to top off a GPS in dire circumstances, It could be a true lifesaving product....I guess we'll have to rely on our good judgements....I tend to believe that trait is in short supply however and expect to see even more iZombies, even further from the roadhead in remote places....

"Innovation" in outdoor gear...Never mind the Bollocks....

I DO NOT intend to do a whole lot of gear reviews here, I see the same thing over and over again and it would be SO damn redundant having gear tests end with "...Overall, the minor benefits don't solve a(the) problem..."  This little article by Ryan  Jordan of Backpacking Light magazine details what innovation REALLY is- and what it isn't... and why-perhaps, the bar should be set a tad higher in the outdoor industry before applying superlatives to ( at best) marginally "improved" gear...Frankly I won't be impressed until both my Baby( who is enthusiastic, yet unfamiliar with the minutiae of outdoorsperson-ship) and my Pal Jimmy ( who, though having plenty of early life experience in the wild, has been permanently scarred- and SCARED, by a continuous parade of outdoors gear that CANNOT live up to their hyperbole its advertised under, leaving him stranded, and endangered too often to believe that there IS such a thing as a "good or great" piece of gear...), can both head down to a local outfitter and easily and  reliably  get into a setup that keeps them warm, dry, and fed, without UNDUE( as we know being out involves risk..) concern that the equipment will work as expected, and when used within the envelope of reasonable expectation ...We arent there yet...some will argue that better gear isn't needed , more knowledgeable  users are...I call bullshit. If the stuff  DID what the industry claimed, we wouldn't have to have this discussion at all,  as much as I have seen gear improve in the last thirty years, the proof is in the double headlamped, goretex-ised freeze dried pudding....