I got a binocular microscope.  It’s like VR, but real reality, and bigger,
like if you could shrink yourself down or embiggen the world.

I had seen a professional binocular microscope before at Orion Telescope store in Cupertino and was amazed by how I could see tiny things, like bugs, pop out in 3D.
But it was too expensive and I let it go.   Then last week I saw this cheap one at Kinokuniya Japanese bookstore in San Francisco and couldn’t resist. Relatively cheap, $23.25 (1500 yen in Japan, typical Kinokuniya markup.)
It’s produced by Gakken, that makes all kinds of cool science kits.
I figured I could use it when soldering or fixing or modeling things.

You can remove the eyepiece unit from the stand and take it out in the field to look at stuff.

There is no interocular distance adjustment, but the focus wheel works pretty well.

Ok, so it’s a little blurry and there’s lots of chromatic aberration, but little things do pop out in 3D.  Arthropods look pretty monstrous through it.

Could be good for painting small models.

It’s hard to show 3d here, but here’s a stereo image I made with an iPhone on each eyepiece. Look at the two right images and cross your eyes, or if you can freeview, look at the two left images in parallel until they merge.

If you have red-blue anaglyph glasses, try this image.

I’ll get to work on a Nobel prize-winning discovery, but first I’m using it to clean out my earpods.  ewww…