 So here's a question. Do you want to know what I carry in my bag? I mean specifically when 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, I don't know, 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 shoot the lion and his gun doesn't work. And Michael Douglas, the grizzled veteran, rolls in and says, what happens? Missed fire. 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 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-ons and we can just have a conversation about why all this stuff is interesting. So hey, hey, how's it going Peter? Awesome how are you? All right this might take a minute. Okay. Okay. One, two, three. All right. Okay I think that's it. Wow. Yeah. All right so let's start, obviously you're a video director, you've got lots of lenses and a camera here so why this thing instead of, I don't know, a super dragon red or some little tiny thing or your phone or whatever. So yeah kind of going off to your point that you know you need a proven rifle, things that you trust and things that you know how to operate and just easy to operate. So C100 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 17-55. What's good about it is that it's image stabilizer. Okay. Because we shoot on actually, let me grab it, on monopods 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 and we walk around in these events. And then we have the wide angle because if you watch our channel we love our wide angles. Yeah. And macro for any you know connectors, headphone jacks, although those are extinct. Right. And so on. So for me, like you'll see I have an iPad here which is like a super don't lie 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 myfy and then I have a cellular on this and then I have project fy on this which can get me sprint and then I also have a third, an iPhone which will be on Verizon. And so I have at least three ways to get online in case the local wifi dies which the local wifi always dies right. So you carry a wifi 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 all the dongles. It's so well organized. Yeah so this is actually for the iPad. You can use that one. Okay. Two thunderbolts, two USBs, HDMI, I just have it because I don't know why. And Ethernet, USB 3, USB 3, Apple Watch charger. Headphones 3.5mm male and female. And micro USB just in case. For me the process of getting to know a new piece of technology is like first thing you do is you learn how to use 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 because I suck at it. But after a while you get to a point where you feel like you're good at it. 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 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 have run into tough spots before because you were 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? It's a Nintendo Switch. What? That's a Nintendo Switch. 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 going to want to watch that. It's fair now. At least it doesn't download U2 music onto it. Okay so my take away 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 when they give a little Barbie camera to a professional photographer, send him out in the field and he comes back with this glorious stuff. You basically know how to use a camera, you have a structure for the job you're doing hands on and you just kind of follow the same formula. So whichever instrument you use doesn't really matter. Way back in the day I would use to talk about how the difference between a coder and a non-techy person is when a coder runs into a problem they don't be like, ah all technology sucks. They just go and Google and try and figure out the answer and literally everybody can do that. So 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 solved problems before I can just do it again. Yeah well been there. I mean we all know what the lesson here is right? Uh huh. You're going to make me say it? Yeah. Don't go into battle with an unproven raffle. Raffle, raffle, raffle. Thanks so much for watching. If you enjoyed this video I've got another video that I think you're going to like even more. It's about slime mold which sounds weird but it's actually amazing because it was made by the folks over at Verge Science who have a whole new YouTube channel and you should definitely click somewhere to watch it because you're going to love it.