What's in My Bag

What’s in my bag? — Charles Platt

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What's in my bag? issue #18

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Charles Platt is a former science-fiction writer and senior writer at Wired magazine, and now the author of Make: Electronics, a hands-on instructional book. He is also building prototype rapid cooling devices for a California laboratory.

Carson Miniature Folding Tripod
This miniature tripod folds to 6″ x 2″ x ¾” approx. Useful when I am doing an interview or taking a public speaking class and I want to set-and-forget my pocket camera in video mode.

Concave (magnifying) mirror ($15)
In case I get a small foreign object in my eye. This happens rarely, but when it does happen, I like to be able to deal with it on my own regardless of where I am.

Little Bag o’ Pills ($5/100 bags)
Pill bottles take too much space. I remove each bottle label with a heat gun and reapply it to a 3″ x 4″ plastic bag. I can fit ten bags of pills into a little plastic box measuring 3.5″ x 6″ x 1.25″ (from Michael’s craft store). Is it legal to transfer the label? I have no idea.

3M Ear Plugs ($28/200pk)
When a friend says, “Hey I’ve got a great idea, let’s go to that bar where they have live bongo music played by teenage crack heads!” Sounds good to me. So long as I have my earplugs, I’ll go anywhere.

About the bag
I’ve had this bag for 20 years. It is a generic computer bag, 12″ x 15″ (smallest I could find), but able to hold numerous little boxes of useful stuff in addition to a notebook computer, which is necessary as I prefer not to use handheld devices.

-- Charles Platt 10/9/19

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