Regarding the tree/camp thing, I was taught to always look up for dead branches before setting up a tent. While trees don't often fall, dead limbs do.

I did a quick google and on this paper where falling branches is about 10% of outdoor education deaths.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268415459_Preventin...

Widowmakers they are called in forestry.

There are conifers which produce heavy cones. You can find some in Fort Mason. Some guy was bonked on the head and sued the gov't when one fell on his head and cracked his skull[1]. There have been cases elsewhere of people getting hurt by them.

[1]https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Man-hit-by-16-pound-p...

A single cone of the Australian bunya tree can weigh up to 18 kg:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Araucaria_bidwillii

This is a problem with how people understand risk in general. The actual risk of something needs to take into account how many times you take the risk.

Something that only has a 1 in 1000 chance of death might seem like a small risk, but if you take that risk every day you will have a 30% chance of dying within a year

I don't think so. I think the issue is that people don't multiply correctly. A 1 in 1000 chance of death is actually very high, it just doesn't seem high because 1/1000 seems like a small number. But a small number (1/1000) times a very big number (how bad death is) can still be a big number.

As an example, if you would pay $100 to extend your healthy life by one day (I know I would), that means each healthy day of your life you have ahead of you should be worth at least $100 to you. Assuming you have 10 years left of healthy life, your life ought to be worth at least 10×360×100=$360,000 to you. So a 1/1000 chance of death costs you 1/1000 * $360,000 = $360.

This reminds me of an observation I once had at a time when I was doing contract work at an hourly rate. During a trip to Vegas, I found myself at a blackjack table making bets that happened to match my hourly rate. It occurred to me then that I was essentially gambling hours of my life, each turn in a sense increasing or decreasing my effective lifespan.

Of course "time == money" is a well known axiom, but it was still odd to consider in that context.

I read a book long ago on blackjack card counting. It's possible to take the winning edge, the maximum bet size, and the number of bets per hour, and figure out what your hourly wage is doing this.

Also figure in this being hard work, as it requires your full attention.

The pay just wasn't that good, and besides, the casinos will ban you when they figure out you're counting.

So that wasn't for me. Instead, I invest in the stock market, where "buy and forget" is not much work, and the odds are much better.

This applies to poker, too - a game where you really can get a consistent advantage over other players with sufficient study and make a living. Once you strip everything else away about the game, you're sitting in a casino for many hours a day, spending as much time as you can with mentally ill idiots... to make less money than you would applying that exact same effort to get good at an in-demand job skill and building things that people need.

Most people who are in a position to make a career out of poker decide that it's not worth it and remain (very good) recreational players. Casinos can be fun places to visit, and tournaments can be a lot of fun, but I wouldn't want to make them a fixture of my life.

Lots of people with in-demand skills still not really employable, so that's one advantage of poker.

I seem to remember to have seen a documentary (many years ago) giving advice about camping near/under coconut trees on islands in the Indian Ocean being not a smart idea because of the coconut crabs (no risk of death, but possibly very painful pinches):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut_crab

but really cannot say if it is just a myth.

Some with durian trees. My hometown has a lot of durian trees in addition to coconut trees, and the kids are thought from early ages to never ever rest under a durian and coconut tree. Coconut is worse because it's always has fruits, unlike durian which only bear fruits on specific months.