Gadgetory

so here's a question do you want to know what I carry in my bag I mean specifically what I'm going to a really stressful thing which for me is a live blog or like a hands-on situation I mean I'm a tech writer I get to use pretty much whatever I want I'm kind of lucky and so what I have in here must be the best stuff right actually not so much so here's all the stuff that I carry into a live blog and as I unpack my bag I want to tell a really cheesy story so there's this movie from the 90s called the ghost in the darkness and it's it's racist it's terrible it's colonialism anyway in this movie Val Kilmer is trying to build a bridge and he turns out there's a lion that's messing with the village and so he has to shoot the lion and so there's this moment where he has to you know shoot the lion and his gun doesn't work and Michael Douglas the grizzled veteran rolls in and it's what happens misfire ooh and then Michael Douglas looks at him and he says to Val Kilmer you went into battle with an unproven rifle and I know it's terrible but I always think about it when you're going into a high-stress event you actually need to know how to use your tools they need to be tested and you need to be ready to go and so all of this stuff right here that you're looking at these are my proven rifles so I could talk about this stuff for hours but I've already sort of posted it what's in your bag and so I think it'd be more interesting for me to bring in Viren and he can talk about what he carries in his bag for doing hands-on Xand we can just have a conversation about why all this stuff is interesting so hey hello how's it going beater awesome how are you all right this might take a minute okay all right okay I think that's it Wow yeah all right so let's start obviously your video director you've got lots of lenses right and a camera here so why this thing instead of I don't know super dragon red or some like little tiny thing or your phone or whatever so yeah kind of going off to your point that you know you need proven rifle things that you trust and things they even know how to operate I'm just easy to operate yeah so see 100 shoots great video but you don't need 4k you need smaller size files you want to get it up and quick same thing with lenses we don't have the super sharp best lenses this is a 17 255 what's good about it is it's Image Stabilizer okay with because we shoot on actually let me grab it on monopods and not tripods okay you got to keep them stable same thing actually here we don't have the nicest fluid drag you know video head this one is solid because it's not too heavy him to walk around in these events and then we have the wide-angle because if you watch our channel we love our wide angles yeah in macro for any you know connectors headphone jacks although those are extinct right and so on yeah so for me like you'll see I have an iPad here which is like a super don't live blog from an iPad but I have it because if I need to it's a backup but also I have a cellular one and so when I go to an event we usually have a MiFi and then I have a cellular on this and then I have Project Phi on this which can get me sprint and then I also have a third an iPhone which would be on Verizon and so I have at least three ways to get online in case the local Wi-Fi dies which the local Wi-Fi is always dies right so your carry on Wi-Fi as well so it's like having redundancy is super important for me also I see you live the dongle life as well this is my case with oh my god all the yeah so this is actually for the eye button yeah you can use that okay - Thunderbolts - USB HDMI I just have it because I don't know why yeah Ethernet USB 3 USB 3 Apple watch charger yeah headphones 3.5 millimeter male and female and microUSB you know just in case for me the process of like getting to know a new piece of technology is like first thing you do is you learn how to use it like it every time I pick up this camera I have to relearn how to set up bracketed shooting and I have to ask you every time cuz I suck at it but after a while you get to a point where like you feel like you're good at it and I actually think it's really important don't stop once you feel like you've mastered it you need to start playing around with it at that point you need to start experimenting trying new stuff seeing what works seeing what you suck at seeing what's crazy and weird and then when you go and like you're in the high-stress environment you don't do all that experimental stuff but it's sort of subliminally in the back of your mind so you do the thing that you're good at but when you run into a tough spot you like have run in tough spots before cuz you're experimenting with stuff that you weren't able to do and like one of those things might actually help you solve that problem alright one more question what's this that's an intended switch what that's an Intendant when do you have time at an event to play Nintendo well if there's a surprise concert by u2 or something like that oh then yeah you're not gonna want to watch that that's fair now well at least it doesn't download you to music onto it okay so my takeaway here is not that we're trying to teach you how to do a live blog or do a hands-on the point here is you don't have to have the best stuff or even necessarily the right stuff you just have to have stuff that you're really comfortable with and that you've got a bunch of experience using so that when you go in you don't panic true it kind of reminds me of the videos that you see on YouTube one day yeah give a little Barbie camera to a professional photographer send him out in the field and he comes back with a just glorious stuff you basically like know how to use a camera you have a structure for you no job you're doing a hands-on and you just kind of follow the same formula so whichever instrument you use it doesn't really matter way back in the day I would used to talk about how the difference between a coder and a non techie person is when a coder runs into a problem they don't be like all technology sucks they just go in Google and trying to figure out the answer and literally everybody can do that and that sort of can-do attitude applies to really stressful situations where you have to use technology and the only way to be able to handle that and not be totally frozen by technology failing is to have spent a bunch of time using it getting better at it and it's not about being the best at it it's about having experimented with it and having experienced failures and dealt with it so that when you experience failures in a stressful situation you're fine you're like oh well I've props all problems before I could just do it again yeah well been there right yeah I mean we know I'll know what the lesson here is right you know make me say it yeah don't go into battle with an unproven rifle raffle raffle thanks so much for watching if you enjoyed this video I've got another video that I think I like even more is about slime mold which sounds weird but it's actually amazing because it was made by the folks over at Virg science who have a whole new YouTube channel and you should definitely click somewhere to watch it because you love it