The Chip Bag

Not traveling with my Traveler's Notebook

I bought a Traveler's Notebook cover last year, mainly because they released an olive edition and I needed it. I liked the idea of a modular notebook, though, so I swore I would figure out how to use it. I continued liking the idea and doing absolutely nothing else with it for 6 months. But it's a new year with a corresponding new me, so here I am! Using it!

I will freely admit to dropping about 50 bucks on the cover and having no regrets about it at all, but a lot of the other stuff that Traveler's Company sells is overpriced. Some of their accessories are fine things that someone less frugal would probably be happy with, but others are garbage. I don't want to play roulette with garbage, so I've hacked together the stuff I have inside my notebook with some success.

Traveler's notebook, closedTraveler's notebook, viewed from the side
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Every image gallery sucks (except mine)

Image gallery frameworks! They're everywhere! And yet I haven't found even one that doesn't suck. They're clunky at best and inaccessible at worst.

Here is a sampler of issues I've encountered on various image galleries:

  • Requires Javascript to work (clunky, inaccessible)
  • Doesn't have alt text (inaccessible)
  • Lightboxes (clunky, usually inaccessible, probably requires Javascript)
  • Just a bunch of thumbnails that link to image files (inaccessible)
  • Images open in a tooltip (worse than lightboxes in every conceivable way)

There must be a better way. Right???

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Mind your needles

Hercules beetle and banana eel pin needleminders

I made some needleminders with some unused enamel pins (from Fossil Forager) I had lying around. This is entirely as simple as it sounds: you pull the pointy part off and superglue a magnet on. If you're working with a magnetic pin, you'll have to stick magnets to both sides to stick a needle onto the front. (Not great for aesthetics, but I don't care about that!)

I don't have much use for pins, but the magnets don't compromise wearability, so you could still use pins that you've converted in this way. If anything, the magnets are probably beneficial since neodymium magnets are ludicrously sticky.

Pecan pie brownies

I found this recipe for pecan pie brownies on the Times last week. It was a journey filled with many trials and tribulations and I ended up having to make them twice, but at the end of it I had some damn good brownies. I modified the recipe for my own purposes, and now I share it with you because stealing from the NYT is always morally correct!

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