I try to publish a new post on this blog every Friday. This week, however, I'm on a Skiing vacation, and I have almost no time to do anything not related to the vacation. I already decided not to publish anything this week, but then something interesting happened to me. It's a short story, and it's worth sharing.
There is an outstanding 3D-printable design of a carabiner on Thingiverse: Origami Carabiner by ddf3d.com. At some point, I printed a bunch of them partially because I considered them to be useful, partially as benchmarks for new filaments. Usually, I have one attached to my backpack. It's useful to hook up a bottle of water or a bag of groceries to your backpack. Additionally, it's something that you can always show to other people when you tell them about 3D printing. And finally, it's a distinctive mark that other 3D printing enthusiasts can recognize.
I have one of these carabiners on my outdoor backpack that I'm using here. We were taking a gondola to the slopes, and I decided to change my jacket with the one that was in my backpack. As the floor of the gondola was wet and dirty, I didn't want to put my backpack down. There were no other surfaces where I could put my backpack. Usually, this would end up in silly acrobatics where I'm continuously holding the backpack while switching hands and changing the jackets. But when I was holding the backpack at the level of my waist, I realized the I can use the carabiner to attach it to my pants (or belt). This was very handy — I could do everything that I needed with both of my hands, without putting the backpack down.
Sometimes 3D printing can be helpful without dedicated designs and overcomplicated use cases ;)
