R2D2 USB drive cufflinks

I remain skeptical of high-priced novelty USB drives (because today's beautifully made, high-capacity USB drive is tomorrow's beautifully made, laughably low-capacity USB drive, and gadgets with close-in obsolescence horizons should be designed to degrade back into the materials stream, not to last for the ages), but I confess a frisson of desire for the forthcoming, $200 R2D2 cufflinks, which might also warrant the regular donning of French cuffs.

R2D2 USB Flash Drive Cufflinks

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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niktemadur

For a second there, I thought it said that R2D2 was having USB drive difficulties.
- http://glitch.tl/ Michael Smith
  
  No R2 used some bizarre rotating interface.
gumbowing

Phffft! French cuffs are strictly for plutocratic one percenters. The proletariat insist on Order of Lenin USB lapel pins.
http://lemoutan.blogspot.com/ Lemoutan

I suppose all they need to do is to make the insides replaceable, then when the time comes you can have ‘em carrying petabytes. But I’m not sure that futureproofed cufflinks is a priority.
penguinchris

For years I’ve been putting the smallest swiss army knife on my desk (and occasionally bringing it with me when going places but not usually) for general cutting tasks and such. The knife is very sharp and keeps its edge a long time, and the tiny scissors are useful for lots of things (including grooming).

It’s so small that I’ve lost several of them over the years. I’ve been wanting to buy a purple one (my last one was blue) as a replacement – but, a few years ago my ex-girlfriend’s sister gave me one for christmas, in translucent red. It has a USB flash drive sandwiched in the middle. Neat, right? Well, it’s a 128 megabyte flash drive. Multi-gigabyte flash drives were the norm already when she gave it to me.

But I can’t seem to lose the damn thing. I’ve never plugged it into a computer, but I’ve used the other functions frequently. Since it is thicker than the normal one, I’d never want to bring it with me anywhere so it stays on my desk (and thus never have the chance to lose it). I’ve moved several times with it, but I don’t tend to lose things when I move.

I guess the moral of the story is that you might never even use the flash drive function on your R2D2 cufflinks but you’ll still be able to enjoy it. Cufflinks are all about showing your personality while wearing otherwise subtle clothing. USB R2D2 cufflinks will ensure that you’ll be going home with the coolest lady at the black tie event (this obviously requires so many different factors to align that it’s entirely theoretical and exceedingly unlikely).

Plus I guess you could keep some stuff on them… there are a few options here. Put your resume on it (and remember to update it when you update the resume) and switch to always wearing shirts with french cuffs and you’ll always be prepared (by the way you can put cufflinks in your lapel if you’re not wearing french cuff shirts). Put some photos on it and always have an impromptu slideshow ready. Make a timecapsule of it. Store all your encrypted secrets on it – they’ll never think to look there. We’re at the point that even if this is only a couple of gigabytes, that’s enough to store loads of usable data well into the foreseeable future.

You could write an almost infinite number of paragraphs about your R2D2 cufflinks in plaintext and store it!
Lis Riba

This really needs to ship preloaded with the Death Star plans and a hologram of Princess Leia.
- niktemadur
  
  To be able to load and play those files, R2D2 has to be jailbroken first. And even then, to play those files without transmitting his coordinates back to the Star Destroyer orbiting overhead, R2 needs to be running Little Snitch in the background.
  - Lis Riba
    
    “These are not the drives you’re looking for” {waves fingers}
- AnthonyC
  
  If I had the death star plans, I could think of much more interesting things to do than make cufflinks.
pebird

Do cuff links set of metal doctors at airports? Thinking of going back to plutocratic links, but don’t want the travel hassle. Plastic cuff links?
Bruce Ferrell

let’s see… $200 for a $2.99 flash drive. Even as R2D2, I don’t get it
- http://twitter.com/chuckmonkey2010 Chuck
  
  Agreed. 16GB flash drives are available for $10. Why not charge $250 and provide 32GB of useful storage?
  
  On the topic of flash memory jewelry: hey Apple, how about a 64GB ipod nano for $199 ?
rezmuff

This is like the ultimate cliche viral internet product. What is it with the internet and cufflinks? What’s the deal with cramming a dinky amount of flash storage in everything? Who are you people who’ll buy anything with Star Wars or Mario slapped on it?
Brendan Dwan

I want to see the Venn diagram please: People who love R2, use USB drives, wear French cuffs. Hard as I try I can’t get the overlap to exceed “vanishingly small”. (you can add “willing to pay x-hundred$ if you like”, but doesn’t help to increase the area )
wrybread

Its cute, but it fails for the same reason a lot of USB drives do: they put the anchor point (the cufflink) on the cover, instead of the part with the USB drive. So if the cover falls off, you lose your data.

But yeah, I suspect these weren’t meant to actually store data, so its forgivable. But when a USB drive is supposed to go on your keychain but the loop is on the cover, its so bad its almost like a gag item.