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Is a movie prop the ultimate laptop bag?

(blog.jgc.org)
251 points jgrahamc | 1 comments | 22 Sep 25 11:59 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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IanCal ◴[22 Sep 25 13:08 UTC] No.45332926[source]▶
> For me, the ultimate laptop bag is one that looks nothing like a laptop bag; it should look like nothing special at all.

That sounds like almost any regular backpack then. They can also be pretty weather proof, don't need to be carried in one hand, aren't open topped showing what's inside easily, and padded. Any simple and cheap backpack would solve this exact problem but better surely, unless your desire is to be different rather than just to move your laptop from one place to another with little ceremony.

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kragen ◴[22 Sep 25 18:28 UTC] No.45337521[source]▶
When I lived in San Francisco, backpacks were marginalized as being associated with being too poor to own a car. High-school students might carry a backpack, college students might carry a backpack, people on the bus might carry a backpack, but mostly not professionals who drove to work.

Maybe that's changed, though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zwWpqsI_3s purports to be from 02022, and in its first minute, I count 17 pedestrians of whom 4 are wearing backpacks. So maybe backpacks are mainstream in SF now.

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recursive ◴[22 Sep 25 20:14 UTC] No.45338874[source]▶
Even if it's marginalized, you can still just use it. I think I used to think that way in high school, but it's hard for me to understand functioning adults avoiding a type of bag, otherwise useful, because it's associated with being poor.
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kragen ◴[22 Sep 25 20:34 UTC] No.45339089[source]▶
Maybe you're used to being around functioning adults who don't need other people's approval, for example because they're rich.
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bigstrat2003 ◴[23 Sep 25 00:04 UTC] No.45341222[source]▶
You don't need to be rich to have enough backbone to do your own thing, and not worry what someone else might think.
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kragen ◴[23 Sep 25 14:27 UTC] No.45347520[source]▶
Not if you're willing to die. Otherwise you do.
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recursive ◴[25 Sep 25 17:53 UTC] No.45376353{3}[source]▶
Are people... dying for using unfashionable laptop bags? That's terrible.
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1. kragen ◴[25 Sep 25 19:04 UTC] No.45377380{4}[source]▶
No, people are dying because they can't get good enough jobs, which is 100% contingent on what other people think of them, or because they've been ostracized from their previous support structure, or because they're depressed and commit suicide, or because they're divorced and alone. Very few people can get away without worrying about what anyone else thinks of them.

Perhaps it's a coincidence that Joe O'Brien died this week at 48 or 49 https://old.reddit.com/r/rails/comments/1nn3jel/joe_obrien_1... after being ostracized from the Ruby community†. But there aren't many people who die that young. Social isolation is a top risk factor for depression.

______

† for, in my view, good reason: he fired his employee after she turned him down when he sexually assaulted her in a bar. I don't think he deserved to die for this, but I also wouldn't have wanted to hang out with him.