A year ago, I shared my “go pack”, which is a small bag that I keep loaded with the various cables I need when I travel. Having my go pack ready to go at any time makes me that much less stressed about traveling.

Since I shared a year ago, I’ve rejiggered what’s in the pack. Here’s my new setup:

As with before, let’s go through each item:

A — Tom Bihn Ballistic Nylon Organizer Pouch — $13
This is the pouch that all of the other items pictured live in. I have an unhealthy obsession with laptop and iPad bags; Tom Bihn is quickly becoming one of my favorite brands. Sturdy, functional, well designed.

B — SF Cable 6’ Cat6 Flat Ethernet Cable — $6
This is a very slim Ethernet cable, which I like to bring with me to hotel rooms. Hotel WiFi is notoriously bad, but some hotels still have Ethernet jacks in their rooms. This allows me to connect in an often much more reliable (and comparatively snoop-resistant) way while adding little bulk to the pack.

C — Monoprice 6’ Ultra Slim HDMI Cable — $14
Most hotel rooms these days also have flat panel TVs, and these nearly always have a free HDMI port. Like the Ethernet cable above, this HDMI cable is super slim and light, which makes it no burden at all to carry.
Curiously, however, this HDMI cable is directional. Apparently the RedMere technology that allows it to be so slim requires the cable to be directional. When I first tried using the cable I thought it was DOA, until I looked closely at the connectors and saw they were labeled.

D — Apple Watch Magnetic Charging Cable x 2 — $30
A new addition, I’m now carrying two Apple Watch charging cables. Originally, I tried to get by with just one, thinking that more often than not, it would be just me traveling, and there was no need for another duplicate Apple Watch charger for Erin. As it turns out, I was wrong. We almost always travel together, so I am carrying two chargers. The ones that come with the Watches never leave home.

E — HDMI Coupler — $2
Though I haven’t actually needed it yet, I thought it may be nice to keep one of these around just in case I find an occasion to use it. Small in both size and price, it’s easy to carry it just in case.

F — Apple Lightning Digital AV Adapter — $50
Earlier I mentioned the HDMI cable, so what video/audio am I running through it? This (really expensive) adapter allows me to connect my iPhone or iPad to the TV in the room to play whatever I want. I’ve used it to play media on the device, Plex, Netflix, my Slingbox, etc.

G — Verizon SIM card and SD Card
As I’ve talked about several times in the past, I typically keep a T-Mobile SIM in my RetinaPad Mini, but occasionally find myself in situations where I need reliable coverage. Should that happen, I can pop in the Verizon SIM it came with, and pay for service on it.
The SD card is really there because I like keeping the SIM in that case.

H — Monoprice 6’ USB Male to Female Extension x 3 — $1.50 each
Having a trio of these around makes charging phones at night way nicer. Since the Dynex power strip is likely near one side of the bed, these two extensions hooked together provide for an extra 12’ of slack on the standard charge cable. This way both Erin and I can have our phones on our respective bedside tables.

Additionally, I’ve found that since hotel power outlets are often nowhere near the bed, I like to have an extension for my phone as well. Thus, I carry a third. Two get linked for Erin, and one used alone for me.

These extensions are also driving me nuts. They make up a tremendous portion of the volume of the go pack. I have been searching for slimmer USB extensions to use, but haven’t been able to find any.

I — Monoprice 3’ USB to Micro USB & Lightning Cable — $15
This cable has two ends on it, a Micro USB for charging miscellaneous other accessories such as a battery pack, as well as a standard Lightning charger. Kills two birds with one stone.

J — Monoprice 3’ USB to Lightning Cable x 2 — $8 each
I also carry two standard USB to Lightning cables. The ones pictured are from Monoprice, and they’re my preferred third-party lightning cable. They’re sturdy, but the Lightning side is also thin enough to fit in most standard cases. I’ve had far worse luck with the Amazon equivalents.

Anker PowerPort 5 USB Charging Station — $20
Not pictured, I also just picked up an Anker 5-port USB charging station. I long resisted doing so, because I preferred carrying a slimline power strip. However, upon adding two more USB devices (our Watches) to the mix, I finally gave up and got this charging station. I chose the 5-port because both Erin and I have a phone and a watch, plus my iPad, makes 5.

Amazon Fire TV Stick — $40
Not pictured, I occasionally bring our Fire TV Stick with us when we travel. I love our Fire TV Stick, as it’s super portable, works really well, and allows really easy access to Plex, Netflix, and our Slingbox on a hotel room TV. Furthermore, with a recent update, the Fire TV Stick can now join captive WiFi networks. These are the ones you typically find at a hotel, which force you to agree to terms of use, or enter your room number, before you can use the internet.

The updated total cost of the bag plus the charging station was around $200, not including the Fire TV Stick. That’s a lot of money. However, it was worth it to me to know that at any time, I just have to grab the go pack and I’m ready.

At my parents’ house this weekend, my dad brought out an old Sony DV video camera, and a box of old tapes. One of the tapes was labeled Wedding 2007. As expected, it was our wedding.

I had never seen the video before. It only existed on Dad’s DV tape, and was never imported into a computer for transmission. Thanks to some dodgy Thunderbolt to FireWire converters, and QuickTime, I was able to import it today.

As I was recording it, I looked down, and realized what was going on. Declan was napping, so the monitor was sitting next to the computer.

I was watching our wedding video, for the first time, as our son slept in the next room.

My what a difference a few years makes.

I’ve always been envious of the photographs of so many of my friends. Tiff, Shawn, Marco, and Dave especially have a phenomenal eye for pictures. I’ve long wished for the ability to take a photograph as well as they can.

This morning, I noticed a lovely sunrise on a slightly overcast day at the beach. I grabbed our O-MD E-M10 and ran down to the water. I couldn’t describe what precisely it was I was trying to capture, but I was sure I’d know it when I saw it.

I started by placing the camera in aperture priority mode, as I typically do. I just couldn’t quite get things the way I wanted though.

I swapped to full automatic, and that didn’t help either.

I spent a moment on shutter priority, but that, too, didn’t get me 100% of the way.

Frustrated, I got bold, and leapt into the unknown. I switched to full-manual.

This is the result:

A photo posted by Casey Liss (@caseyliss) on Jul 27, 2015 at 4:37am PDT

I’m pretty pleased with myself.

I didn’t set out wanting to take a great picture in manual mode; I just set out to take a great picture. Since I’ve been taking pictures with this camera for nearly a year now, I’ve built up more and more confidence over that time. Thanks to just being patient, and trusting my instincts, I was able to, well, level up my skills.

As it turns out, there’s no shortcut to lots of practice, and time.

My two Australian buddies, Jelly and Russell, were kind enough to let me crash their great podcast, Topical. On this episode (Overcast link), we channel Analog(ue) and talk about feelings.

It’s only a matter of time before I’m known as that feels guy.

Anyway, the show is great, and unlike most things I’m a part of, short. You should check it out, and subscribe.

For the C# developers out there, today I’ve open-sourced a utility project I wrote a few years ago. It’s a WinForms app called BindingFlagsTester and its purpose is to make it easy to get the right combination of BindingFlags together by way of trial-and-error.

For those that don’t know C#, it allows for really robust reflection. The APIs are very well thought out and really easy to use. Objective-C allows for much of the same introspection — and more — but the API is C-based and, to me anyway, feels comparatively clunky.

BindingFlags are used in many of the System.Reflection methods to signal to the runtime what sorts of members should be included as it performs introspections. Most notably, should only public members be included, or also internal, protected, or private as well? Additionally, should static members be included, or only instance?

While not conceptually difficult, I find myself always fumbling about trying to find the right combination of flags to use. This little app has a sample of nearly any situation I’d run into on a regular basis, including inheritance. By fiddling with the binding flags, I can see what kinds of members are returned.

I thought it’d be useful for the C# developers out there, so I’ve put it on Github.

In 2001, after my freshman year of college, my family and I visited Disney World. As it turns out, it was our last true vacation as a family unit — before girlfriends, wives, children, and a vast geographical separation between us.

At the time, and continuing for years after, Disney was doing a cash grab promotion wherein you could purchase a small tile that would be mounted upon one of many massive pieces of granite. These granite blocks would be placed in the space between the front entrance of Epcot and Spaceship Earth. This program — and the resulting attraction — is called Leave a Legacy.

My parents decided to purchase a tile; ours had all of our names within the outline of Spaceship Earth. We never saw the actual tile at the time, but we were mailed a sheet that included “coordinates” of how to find it within the many granite stones that comprise the Leave a Legacy attraction.

In 2007, for our honeymoon, Erin and I went to Disney World, and we visited the tile. It was a novelty, but we really enjoyed getting in touch with my family in 2001.

In 2013, for Erin’s 30th, I surprised her with a trip back to Disney, and we returned again.

This year, Erin and I attended a wedding in Florida, and decided to make a vacation out of it in the week leading up to the wedding. Since we were going to be renting a car, and only a couple hours from Orlando, we figured we’d spend a couple days in Disney World.

The second day, we returned to my family’s Leave a Legacy tile. This time, however, it was a little bit different.

Fourteen years later, the legacy continues.

Many moments in parenting — too many — are inscrutable, terrifying, or frustrating. Some moments are simply humbling. Bringing my son to the tile that my family bought when I was still a student, over a decade before, was amazing.

My friend and musician, Dave Wiskus, discusses what’s good and bad about Apple Music Connect:

But the worst offense of all is this: I can see no way to invite people to follow us on Connect. I can share the link. I can even tweet about it. Yet there’s no way to know how many followers we have, encourage people to follow us, or directly engage with anyone who hasn’t already purchased a song from us on iTunes. That feels broken. Somehow people were able to comment, which is great, but it makes me sad that I feel no sense of… well, connection. And I really, really want that connection.

He goes on:

As an artist, I want people to listen to my music. In the short term, Connect’s one and only job is to make my audience feel like I’m listening back.

It’s super trendy to hate the Dave Matthews Band. For those that are my age, DMB was popular when we were in high school or college. The band represents — for many — youthful indescretions and poor taste.

My favorite band for quite a few years, I feel that the Dave Matthews Band is, as they say, Unjustly Maligned.

Antony Johnston asked me to join him on his podcast about defending the indefensible. We focused largely on the album Before These Crowded Streets (iTunes, Amazon, Spotify), but discuss all factors of Dave Matthews Band.

While today you’re far more likely to catch me listening to MUTEMATH or something downtempo, you can join me as I get nostalgic and defensive about my first musical love.

Top Gear writer Richard Porter:

If the idea couldn’t pass muster in the office, in particular at the hands of chief scrutineer Clarkson who worried about this stuff more than anyone on the team, then it didn’t happen. Case in point, we once had this notion that we would re-invent the fire engine. Why were we doing that? Because it seemed like they were too big and too slow and therefore took too long to get to emergencies. The solution was obvious; Top Gear would build a small, high performance fire truck.

The trouble is, if you make a fire engine smaller there’s no room on board for all the ladders, hoses and burly men it needs to do its job. So it has to be big. And then it can’t get through gaps in traffic. So you make it smaller. And then it can’t do its job. And then…

We sat in a meetings for hours debating this round in circles before concluding with heavy heart that the ideal design was a fire engine, as in the sort we already have. The whole idea was thrown in the bin. It would have been easy to have plugged on simply for the sake of seeing Richard Hammond trying to fit a massive ladder onto the roof of a tiny van, but really we’d have been doing it purely for the jokes and, much though it may have seemed otherwise, such brazen comedy chasing was never enough for Top Gear.

Link via Horace Dediu

Some people, often those that aren’t sports fans, have described Apple as their “team”. It’s the group they root for.

As in sports, sometimes the team you root for makes mistakes, and disappoints you. Other times, it makes you proud.

Today, I’m proud of my team.