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Is a movie prop the ultimate laptop bag?

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Re: Is a movie prop the ultimate laptop bag?

#121

Post by loloquwowndueo »

sedatk wrote: post #115

- It has a wide base, so the laptop just swings back and forth while carrying. - Gets the rainwater or any other hazardous material in. - Extremely easy to check out what's inside for a thief. - Can slide out easily and fall when toppled. Terrible overall. Could make it to Top 10 Worst Laptop Bags though. Just use a Tom Bihn that uses a separate, rigid, harder to access sleeve inside your backpack for laptops.

I mean, yes, but: how much does a Tom Bihn bag go for these days? $300?

Maybe also add lower-budget recommendations.

Re: Is a movie prop the ultimate laptop bag?

#125

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

bombcar wrote: post #118
jonny_eh wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like generally good advice, with or without a laptop on hand.

I have to admit I prefer living in places where you can leave your laptop on the front seat of your running car and come back twenty minutes later and it’s all still there. But that’s a luxury and I know it.

> I prefer living in places where you can leave your laptop on the front seat of your running car and come back twenty minutes later and it’s all still there.

We have that and it's one of the few perks of our suburban hell. My neighbor was gone for two weeks and had 10-20 packages on his doorstep. Our only concern was that rain might get to them.

Re: Is a movie prop the ultimate laptop bag?

#127

Post by neilv »

You can more easily get strong canvas grocery bags, with and without branding.

Including ones with two sizes of handles (one set of handles for dangling from hands, the others for slinging over shoulder), which I guess you could alternate based on whether you're visible to to muggers.

I even saw a canvas design that had a color and finish to look very reminiscent of grocery store brown paper bags.

The similar bookstore canvas tote bags might be seen as more likely to contain a laptop or tablet (since some people use them just like others do backpacks). So I like the grocery one.

One advantage of the movie prop one -- in the office -- is that I could imagine a stylish designer type carrying it to a conference room table, more easily than a frumpier canvas bag.

Personally, I use a functional plain all-black backpack that looks presentable in the office (including carrying into the conference room, but put on the floor/chair), yet understated on the street.

Re: Is a movie prop the ultimate laptop bag?

#128

Post by dotancohen »

kragen wrote: post #68
IanCal wrote: post #18

> 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…

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 cou…

In this millennium humans have not yet begun using five digit years. Otherwise, nice job covering your time travelling tracks.

Re: Is a movie prop the ultimate laptop bag?

#129

Post by red369 »

CBLT wrote: post #70
ghaff wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even live in SF but I'm a bit skeptical that a lot of people even carry around an obvious dedicated laptop bag at this point. I don't see them.

I've had my car burgled twice for them to only steal a backpack with nothing in it. I'm pretty sure the assumption is that backpacks have laptops.

I really hate this! Long ago, I had a quarterlight window smashed because someone broke into my 20 year old Toyota Corolla to steal a 4L, but half empty bottle of engine oil and a street directory. Obviously the engine oil wasn't expensive, and no-one used street directories anymore, even back then.

This was in nice suburb in New Zealand, so it was a bit of a surprise. The replacement window cost many times the value of what they took, and I was finding small pieces of glass for a while afterwards despite careful vacuuming.

Since then I'm more careful that there is nothing removable visible at all through windows. Ideally, anyone looking through the window should think I am the kind of compulsive person that carries every single thing inside each night. Unfortunately, the trick to making that work almost requires it to be true.

Re: Is a movie prop the ultimate laptop bag?

#130

Post by slickytail »

dylan604 wrote: post #116
xp84 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's just startup life, but living in SF during the 2010s decade, I didn't know many people who drove to work. Who wants to sit in traffic and then pay like $300 a month in parking fees when you can sit in traffic on MUNI vehicles for much less, while doing something useful? Even people who lived in the farther-out suburbs usually drove to BART.

These comments always make me laugh a bit. When the conversation is about cars, people chime in about how owning a car is dumb and public transpo is great. Yet, when the stories pop up about how public transpo is failing, people complain about how horrible the experience of using public transpo is and it's just easier to own a car

Two different groups of people commenting different things.
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