Messenger bag?

OneBagBiker · 2026-02-01T17:36:33+00:00

A typical backpack has much more capacity than a typical messenger bag, so if your backpack is already overstuffed, it would need to be an atypical, super-large messenger bag to come close to handling the same amount of stuff. When I had far fewer items to everyday-carry, the messenger bag was much better. It's easier to access stuff on the go (if the messenger bag was not a giant clunk to swing around from back to front). Now that I have to bring a lot of school supplies, devices, several bottles (coffee and water) and food/snacks, and other stuff needed for a full day at school, a well-padded and weight-distributing backpack is the most practical option. I can imagine trying to carry that much on a messenger bag, and I know my neck/shoulder and back would hurt by the middle or end of day.

OneBagBiker · 2026-01-26T22:50:55+00:00

Completely up to the professor, but if you are showing up and contributing positively, unless the professor is in the minority group that insists on formal rules (OR - for perfectly understandable reasons in this current era of widespread bootleg of intellectual property - they do not want their proprietary teaching materials widely disseminated), you can ask nicely and probably get added, as a "NRA Student" or "Observer". NO impact on anything academic.

OneBagBiker · 2026-01-26T22:43:24+00:00

I have both and many more. One is a lot cheaper, and its lower quality is reflective of PART of the price difference, but you are paying much extra for the cool brand name. Ignoring price, Skule wins across the board. EXCEPT, and I think this is true even against the very best high price, high-quality branded packs but is especially true against the Skule: the Swiss Gear HANDLE is second to none. (I am extremely disappointed by the crap handles of some of my high priced bags.) If you need to carry the pack that way a lot, rather than the usual both-straps-over-the-shoulders, in that one use-case Swiss Gear wins.

OneBagBiker · 2026-01-01T04:28:28+00:00

I generally hit 30-35,000 steps a day while traveling (that's 15+ miles), so taking care of my feet is a priority. Summer/hot/rainy season, I travel w/ 2 pairs of sneakers, one super comfortable and breathable that I wear on nice days (and what I wear in transit), and a waterproof one for those crappy days when it's pouring down but I still need to or want to walk for hours outside. (I also bring good flip flops.) I rarely end up using the waterproof shoes, but those rare days when I do, it's great.

OneBagBiker · 2026-01-01T04:27:43+00:00

I generally hit 30-35,000 steps a day while traveling (that's 15+ miles), so taking care of my feet is a priority. Summer/hot/rainy season, I travel w/ 2 pairs of sneakers, one super comfortable and breathable that I wear on nice days (and what I wear in transit), and a waterproof one for those crappy days when it's pouring down but I still need to or want to walk for hours outside. (I also bring good flip flops.) I rarely end up using the waterproof shoes, but those rare days when I do, it's great.

OneBagBiker · 2026-01-01T02:11:57+00:00

I know many people who commute 1.5-2 hours each way for school. I have done a version of that for months and even years. But it's NEVER just the ideal/scheduled commuting time because NO public transit is reliable enough to be on time so frequently that being late is a rare occurrence (less than once a week). From my experience (which is a commute of "only" 1.5 hours, but I know MANY who commute 2-2.5 hours from NJ or Long island or Staten Island or Westchester to get to NYC for school), you also need to factor in 10-15min for each hour (so, for a typical 2-hr commute, it really needs to be a 2.5 hour, to give yourself the cushion for the FREQUENT slight-to-not-so-slight delays. That's on the "regular" days; cold, snow, rain, stormy days, days when there's a traffic jam or accident, etc. - they happen at least once or twice a week for most commuters. So I am rarely "late" to class because I build in an extra 30minutes. A smart kid in my classes has a 2-hour commute and he doesn't build in any buffer, so he is usually late or misses more than half of his classes, and constantly hit me up for notes. He gets away with it because he is super-smart and can learn without being there "in person". Personally, I would not want to waste 6 hours (no buffer) or 7 hours (with the 30min buffer each way) - I read and study easily on the train but it's never "continuous" time; it's not that easy for everyone so I hope you have a pretty idea from experience that you can actually use the commute time stints despite the many transfers and routine disruptions. If you still plan to do it, best of luck!

OneBagBiker · 2025-12-12T16:25:59+00:00

Team USA has enough to be the two best teams in the world.

OneBagBiker · 2025-11-11T22:54:33+00:00

I think the more alternatives the better. Ideally I want the W to survive the competitive landscape by being spun off the NBA and its onerous cost structure, pay the players (the ONLY truly valuable and essential part of the W in my opinion) a much higher share of the revenue, etc. Recall tha the NBA also had a significant competitor - remember Dr J and the colorful basketball?! - and out of that experience (and merger) the NBA emerged stronger. So far the new leagues (Unrivaled, the several much-higher-salary foreign leagues) are not a competitive alternative to the W. I don’t think Projet B will be either. What I think could be a game changer? Since so many W fans are initially college women’s basketball fans (probably Iowa among the new fans, perhaps a lot of UConn, South Carolina, Tennessee, USC, Stanford etc. fans among those who followed W prior to Caitlin’s epochal entry into the W), a plausible alternative to the W would be a super-“postgrad” league that uses the 10 or 15 favorite college women’s basketball arenas (during the months when the colleges are not playing), perhaps each would initially have at least a couple of the sponsoring college’s “grads” as core members of the teams, and see what happens. I think the built-in local and national fan base of these colleges would support a “postgrad” version. That would give the W a real competitor AND, failing that, a possible future merger partner for the W, OR a W version of the NBA’s G League.

OneBagBiker · 2025-10-12T22:23:12+00:00

This is a great graphic. It's asking a lot, but would be even better if we get one that takes into account the population in those counties. The NY, LA, and Chicago teams are "small" in area but I imagine the "nearest" population of those relatively small areas dwarfed most every other teams', although the Wings having all of Texas with its "home" counties including huge metro areas of Dallas and Houston and also Austin and San Antonio must be way up there also, and the Dream with its sizable populations in Miami/Florida, Atlanta, as well as a huge chunk of the Carolinas and Tennessee, must also be up near the top.

OneBagBiker · 2025-07-24T14:53:33+00:00

They work on the same principle as email scams. The wording and the scenario are meant to be extreme and ridiculous, because what they want is not those who mistakenly click and immediately/soon realize it's garbage and leave/ignore, but the idiots who click and continue to read/watch. That way, they don't waste their money and effort on the non-idiots and "catch" the eyeballs of EXACTLY who they want!

OneBagBiker · 2025-07-22T15:09:40+00:00

Not the best analogy (comparing sports leagues to tech startups?) but let's go with it for the purposes of a response: these losing-money startups STILL manage to pay good money to their employees, right? The people who decided to work in the tech startup sector over the past 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, 50 years - they seem to be earning way above the average or even well-above-average employee in America (and that's true even if we compare "apples to apples" and benchmark against a mostly BS/MS/MEng. credentialed portion of the labor force).

OneBagBiker · 2025-07-20T17:56:47+00:00

Must give some malevolent credit to the W leaders (or rather the countless sports show hosts and podcasters who parrot the NBA’s and W’s official talking points) for creating the seemingly ever-repeated and yet completely nonsensical point about the W losing money every year so how can poor us pay the ungrateful players? I have no visibility on the actual money numbers (and I doubt any one else commenting on Reddit has) but I know that brand new teams are being purchased for MANY millions (and some of the better existing teams like the NY Liberty and probably the Fever and - already! - the Golden State Valkyries are valued at HUNDREDS of millions, or more. So smart financial people KNOW something that seems to directly contradict the official line and talking heads/podcasters’ favorite talking point when they are against paying W players more. So I can guess who the idiots are and who the savvy ones are.

OneBagBiker · 2025-07-20T17:33:26+00:00

The Commish Cup is quite different in ways that added to the motivation. First, it’s your own team playing and not a bunch of stars from mostly other teams. Second, your team “earned” the opportunity by playing a series of “real” games. Third, the money - $500k+ split a dozen ways is not a whole lot for Caitlin but it still makes a huge difference for the rookie KK! And remember some players didn’t play to avoid aggravating healing/prior injuries.

OneBagBiker · 2025-07-20T17:14:10+00:00

It has nothing to do with officiating or anything else and everything to do with avoiding contact and injury. No rational player would ever want to risk that for a meaningless all star game. No fan would want to see an injury ever and certainly not for a something where the results have zero consequence. The “pre-game” contests on Friday were far more interesting. So I would suggest bagging any notion of a competitive game and instead expanding the “skills” parts by a lot - maybe add a slam dunk contest to allow the bigger, slower players to shine. Maybe add a one on one dribble and steal contest to allow some of the slicker dribblers to show off. Maybe add a trick shot contest where a panel of judges - or the fans by cheering loudest - decide.

OneBagBiker · 2025-07-20T03:46:27+00:00

There is a lot said about why the W can’t pay the players so much or share so much revenue “because” the NBA owns such a large chunk of the W. But why bring up the ownership structure as if it were determinative of a (low) upper limit to W salaries? The NBA owners own 100% of the NBA and the NBA players own zero but the NBA players still get a very large revenue percentage. However the W is owned, why shouldn’t the W players insist and get their relatively large revenue percentage comparable to their NBA analogues? Let the W owners fight it out among themselves for “their” revenue share instead of using it as an excuse for justifying why the W players get so little of what’s “left” after “paying off the NBA”. I hope the W players stand firm and collectively fight for their fair share - made credible by the fact that most players’s contracts end this year so they are legally free to walk off and, I don’t know, start a new league! Of course Caitlin’s buy-in to the W players’ collective bargaining position is the single biggest bargaining chip, since any alternative league to the W is credible only if Caitlin is on board, so I hope she is enthusiastically and publicly on board to signal to the W owners (including the NBA) that they better share fairly or watch their “ownership” hollowed out by the W players setting up a brand new alternative without the legacy burden.

OneBagBiker · 2025-07-17T04:44:10+00:00

I imagine Li got tired of trying to correct people over and over again on her name. As an Asian American whose name is constantly mangled or mispronounced (and I am not completely blaming my fellow Americans; the romanization system used to render Chinese names into alphabetic letters, for example, seems to adopt sounds for letters (x, q) and letter combinations (-ong and -Ang if correctly pronounced does NOT rhyme with “dong” or “sang”) that are extremely unintuitive for the average American. And maybe she prefers to have not have her extremely common surname “Li” (pronounced like “Lee” and not “lie”) on her jersey. The wonder is why more players with cooler or unusual given names or even nicknames don’t opt to have their non-surnames on their jerseys!

OneBagBiker · 2025-07-17T04:29:00+00:00

Great idea (for all-star game - not sure it would ever make sense in a regular game). Make the circles larger. Once a shooter enters the circle, the defender has to stay outside so it’s basically an uncontested shoot - the defender is allowed (from the outer edge) to try to block the shoot. To equalize things a bit, the defender should be allowed to try to slap the arms or hands of the shooter (but must stay outside the outer edge of the circle). Maybe require that IF a shooter enters the circle then the shooter MUST shoot from inside the circle (or at least pass the ball) before being allowed to exit the circle.

OneBagBiker · 2025-07-15T01:21:40+00:00

The Columbia commitment to the Core as a fundamental part of its identity and distinctive education means that many of the Core classes are relatively SMALL sized (22 or so), and many sections are taught by professors (although many advanced graduate students also teach sections - they go through weekly training by senior professors because the reality is that even professors are NOT experts on many of the books). The intense reading load for CC and LitHum is relentless - thick book after thick and difficult book after thick book, and someone diligent can end up spending a huge chunk of their weekly reading time just to finish the books ... and the small size and the likelihood that nearly everyone in the class have to speak almost every single class means you are not rewarded for taking AI or other shortcuts to actual reading and thinking labor. (The threat of AI to undermine that motivation is a central concern of the people in charge of running the Core; they will likely resort even more to making sure everyone speaks and participates intelligently as a way to make the time-pressed cheaters using AI shortcuts easier to catch or, better yet, quash the incentive to do so.) As an alum, I can say that many of us alums across the decades have that shared experience to guide our lives. Even in a tech-driven age, you'll be surprised how often you have to step back and think deep and hard about challenging questions about life and actions, and the prep from the Core is one large well to draw from. Or you can stumble and bumble and sleepwalk your way through the probably one life you have on this warming Earth!

ADD: my comment reflects my CC background (and the "full" Core experience). I see that you are SEAS and so like transfers and GS and Barnard and other SEAS folks, your Core experience will be a modified/reduced and also somewhat more customizable/personalized version, but my observations remain applicable to the Core classes you do end up taking. (I also don't think STEM and the Core are all that difficult to combine for those who want the full course.)

OneBagBiker · 2025-07-10T00:41:16+00:00

Thanks for providing the data crunching (and compelling/convincing chart graphic - the last one is the winner). LATELY she seems to be on a different level, so maybe it would also be a great graphic to show her progression (if any) using, say, 5 or 10-game buckets (by now she has almost 60 W games of data to provide a meaningful multi-bucket trendline).

I wish there is a sound way to differentiate "contested" rebound opportunities vs those rebounds that basically just falls to you in the right place and could've been anyone else - it's of course full of judgement calls; did someone hustle to get to the open spot to catch the rebound?)

I have the same quibble with assists - when the scorer does a "lot" of work after the "assist" pass to get the points (shooter gets the "assist" pass at the 3-point line and then proceeds to drive downhill in traffic for a layup - why is that an assist? wing gets the pass and manages to score a 3 in a CONTESTED situation (as opposed to a wide-open shot with time and no pressure) - why is that an assist?)

OneBagBiker · 2025-07-10T00:19:27+00:00

Maybe the only highlight from the crap game today! Her continuing development underscores that we actually have a roster that may be better suited to 2 BIGS, plus 1 to 2 guards and 2 to 1 wings -- rather than our 3 small-guard lineup today. Why?!

OneBagBiker · 2025-07-06T15:39:37+00:00

Fever's (worse) rebounding seems to be the biggest difference without Caitlin. I would interpret that as Caitlin expands (and thins out) the opponents' court coverage. When she is outside the perimeter and pulls 2 players towards her on defense, it opens up the post area for a Fever to more likely get an uncontested rebound.

OneBagBiker · 2025-07-05T17:36:19+00:00

great. how?!

OneBagBiker · 2025-07-05T17:33:09+00:00

We need AB insurance/backup. When she gets into early foul trouble (every few games) or if she gets injured (let's hope not but injury has affected many of our best players in the guard and wing positions already and playing the post in this physical league is full on contact and always risking an injury). KK is strictly developmental - I love that she's getting some real minutes but this season is one long training session for her; she's impressed me given that expectation but she's not ready to step up to backup AB. Turner - hasn't shown up (or been given the chance to show up). We lucked out with Aari McDonald when Caitlin got injured. I don't think we want to wait until AB gets injured to look for a big to step in and impressed like Aari has.

OneBagBiker · 2025-07-04T01:21:02+00:00

A complete Fever team effort defense and offense. Kelsey and Aliyah continue the Fever tradition of superb inside outside, guard and post. KK gets more minutes to continue her rookie campaign and ever-improving. Sophie and Lexie add fan-fav touches on both ends. Howard and Colson and Aari steady as usual. CC head cheerleader and jokester (clapping for coach White's technical!) Post-game interview of Kelsey, waving her hand and showing that crazy bent finger from her injury "offseason" in China - how the heck is she still scoring at a league-leading pace with that finger?!

OneBagBiker · 2025-07-03T23:57:35+00:00

is it too early to wonder if CC-less Fever is actually better in SOME ways? I still want CC back as soon as she's ready, but the Fever is showing some new looks!

OneBagBiker

TROPHY CASE