neonpunch.com. ]]>
Spending the afternoon being surrounded by hot models
Author: p6admin
Private Thomas D. Costello, laid to rest in Arlington after 91 years in the French countryside
World War I doughboy who was fell in action but was listed as MIA for the last nine decades. Private Thomas D. Costello of New York City was killed in action in France near a place called Bois de Bonvaux. His remains were located by a private MIA foundation who searches in France for the missing. As chance would have it, when they found the remains there was an official US government MIA team in the area looking for a missing in action soldier from a World War II tank engagement, so they were able to bring their high tech sensors and skills into recovering Private Costello. His descendants attended the funeral, though they did not even know the story of him being missing. Said his relative (Frisbie):
…had no idea he was a relative until he was contacted about two years ago by a Pentagon genealogist, said he believes that Costello was his great-great uncle. But the distance of the connection “doesn’t matter,” Frisbie said. “He’s a fallen soldier, and if I can honor him, that’s great.”The French embassy also sent their military attache to attend the funeral and say thank you on behalf of the French people. You can see the video below. The US spends nearly $105 million a year on finding missing troops. The CNN article on this story also has some interesting quotes from the family.]]>
Last Flight from Da Nang — video of the most powerful piece of television news ever filmed.
Smallest USB drive, that I own
USB drives to me are kind of silly. I have been living in the cloud when it comes to data for a number of years now and regard USB keys as sort of a throwback to the era of ‘physical media’ when you had to burn something to a disk to transfer it from one party to another. However, due to some business demands, I’ve recently had to go USB drive shopping to pass along about 10 gb of data (that could and should be done server-to-server but that’s another story).
So I went down to Wanchai today to look at drives. I managed to find this little 16gb TDK drive buried in the depths of the computer center. I originally wanted a 32gb drive but then priced out two of these 16gb drives at less than the cost of one 32gb drive. The guys I bought from, who have cut me 10-15% discounts on other items before were able to offer me a wopping $3HK discount per each drive (which is about $0.36 US). Oh well.
Anyway, take a look at this next to some random items on my desk. The drive is currently being loaded with a number of database files and other documents for a pending transfer in the next 48 hours (provided my contact meets up on time). Too bad it’s not shaped like a button or a cufflink–that would give the whole transfer a modicum of coolness a la James Bond.
Not sold in the US just yet but available throughout Hong Kong and Japan.]]>
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Tortue
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Buying a Chumby or Sony Dash in Hong Kong = No Joy
You would think that a place like Hong Kong, which is only miles from the gadget factories in Shenzhen and benefiting greatly from a massive demand for consumer appliances and essentially no customs duties on imports, would have the latest and greatest devices from around the world easily available at the various Computer (grey) markets around town. But yesterday I plodded through one of them with stares of disbelief and wonder, and not just because I was speaking English and showing them pictures on my iPad.
The Chumby and the Sony Dash (which has the guts of a Chumby inside) are two Internet appliances that I couldn’t find in Hong Kong. Both are in heavy use in the US, with the Chumby being out for several YEARS now. Chumby is now expanding into multiple devices. But try as I might, I couldn’t find one in Hong Kong.
Part of the reason might be usage–most people in Hong Kong are on mobile devices and the thought of a stand alone, sit at home (in your small house) Internet appliance isn’t that appealing. I’ll confess that after having my iPhone next to my bed for a few weeks, I rarely used my Chumby for anything besides an alarm clock.
But now that I’m stuck with no iPhone pending the release of the iPhone 4 and no FM radio since we left all of those back in the States, I’m in the market for another Internet device to help soothe my younger son to sleep every night with classical music from Venice, Italy (a station we use because they have no annoying commercials). Unfortunately, these were two gadgets I just couldn’t find anywhere despite looking pretty hard.
Perhaps there’s a business opportunity here…hmmm…
Why some of the HTC/Android features mean absolute nothing to most users.
Best Buy employee fired. Sums up a lot of what I feel when I hear some decidedly non-techies prattle on about development platforms and how it makes their phone so much better. ]]>
The barrio Saint–a Priest with salty language trying to connect to Mexican gang members.
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Video of the Rangers baseball fan falling from the upper deck
tragedy that happened in Texas is pretty frightening. FWIW, he got the ball. Another fan caught it and gave it to an usher. The usher passed it along to the team and they signed it before presenting it and other goodies in the hospital to the recovering fan.]]>