Monday, May 5, 2008

Sleek, Chic, and Ever So Geek

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In Richard Mason's response to last Friday's posting, he mentioned had-powered digital cameras which Sony made -- but, sadly, only as a promotional item. Alas, many of the coolest things in the world are issued in limited, and thus unobtainable, editions. As witness the above absolutely real Chanel USB key. Manufactured in an edition of 250 for an in-house promotion.

You won't be seeing this one on Ebay anytime soon, either. Chanel frowns on its employees profiteering from its brand. In fact, the Chanel employee who showed me the key made me promise not to mention her name.

Pretty cool, though. Anybody interested in getting more young women involved in IT might want to look into this.


And the exact opposite . . .

There are a zillion USB keys out there in the form of twigs, thumbs, rubber duckies, you name it. But if I had to choose the single one that was the exact opposite of the Chanel, it would have to be this one.


Et un amuse bouche . . .

Aberrant Dreams has an interview with me here. Here's a snippet:

I've definitely got a love-hate relationship with the genre. On the one hand, I love the work of writers like Ursula K. Le Guin, John Crowley, Fritz Leiber, Paul Park, and all the others, who've written magnificent works that only fantasy makes possible. On the other hand, too many writers have learned how to write formulaic imitation fantasy. Sometimes looking at the fantasy racks can be as depressing as discovering that the Shire has been gentrified and all the hobbits cleared away to make room for condominiums and Appleby's and Gap outlets. It hurts the heart.

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4 comments:

Linda J. Daly said...

A very nice interview. Thank you for posting the link. (And I'm thrilled to hear that you're working on a Darger and Surplus book. Huzzah!)

Scraps said...

My favorites are the Pantone flash drives, which are naturally in Pantone colors. I want them all.

Michael Swanwick said...

Personally, I use a mimobot (http://www.mimoco.com/mimobots/), which combines the pointlessness of a snazzied-up flash stick with the pretension of Web-based boutique plastic figurines. But it was a gift, so that's okay.

The D&S novel crawls steadily forward. I don't have a title for it yet, though. If I reach the halfway point without coming up with something good, I may throw a contest.

GlenH said...

I never thought I'd be hoping for inspiration to pass you by.