There Are Pandas, and Then There Are Pandas.
And this isn't either of them! The Pandas we're talking about here, are watches, not bears. And what got me thinking about them (again) was a link posted this morning by @cm.rook who pointed a few of us to the very attractive (and not terribly priced) Yema "Rallygraph" Panda which, in it's most traditional arrangement, looks like the one on the left, but can also be had in the version on the right: The model on the left is a true Panda, while the model on the right is called a reverse Panda. The reason for that distinction is clear--Panda bears, only come in the first arrangement. Now at this point, everyone should be thinking about the most well-know Panda, The Rolex Panda, which is actually a Daytona, and among Rolex Daytonas, the most famous of which is the Paul Newman Daytona, which was famous first, because it was Paul's, and second because it sold at auction for $17.8 million (US Dollars). The story of that auction is well-known so I'll only...
Nov 8, 2019
Yes, you could have a couple non-UL items and still be under 15lbs BPW, I understand that. That's why UL is a philosophy. In my opinion it's a scummy marketing/PR decision to call the community "Ultralight" when there are so many items that are blatantly not intended for a UL audience. Lanterns, metal water bottles, knives, etc do not belong in Ultralight discussions, just to name a few.
I think Massdrop would better serve a wider audience if it renamed the current one to simply "Backpacking", OR created a separate one to keep the UL items together and the non-UL items somewhere I don't have to look at them. If there can be "Tech" and "Mech Keys", there can be "Backpacking" and "Ultralight".
For the record, Massdrop's own "Ultralight 101" states 10 lbs as the qualifying BPW for Ultralight. Just think about that for a second when you look at some of the items they list.