SkyNet's Helicopter

As reported by Wired, next year should see the deployment of Boeing's A160 "Hummingbird" drone helicopter to Afghanistan.  The A160 will fly up to 12-hour missions carrying the 1.8 gigapixel ARGUS-IS camera system that can track dozens of ground targets (as small as individuals) simultaneously and peek downrange as far as 25 miles.

While the military sees this as an especially effective platform for finding insurgents in the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan, the Hummingbird looks like the best friend the Border Patrol could ever have.  Forget fences, start training people to use THIS thing.

Epic Fail

Okay, we've all had bad days in customer service.  We've all probably said something that later on we thought "Hm, wish I'd handled that differently."

But few can claim the level of epic, public, Internet-wide customer service meltdown now claimed by Paul Christoforo of Ocean Marketing.  Mr. Christoforo wasn't content with rude, semi-literate responses to customer inquiries about the shipping date for a game controller his company was marketing, he had to get into a war of words with the guy behind popular net-based comic Penny Arcade to dig the hole even deeper!  Followed by rude tweets exchanged with the editors of IGN after they asked him to quit saying he was a friend of theirs in his rude e-mails to other people.

It's chronicled by the Penny Arcade folks starting here and has gathered momentum with gaming industry journalists worldwide.  Mr. Christoforo has had to change his Twitter handle just to try to get out from under the deluge of negative reaction, he lost the client he was "representing" here, and is now persona non grata at half the gaming trade shows on the planet.  Nice day's work there, buddy!

"Please place all liquids and venemous snakes in clear plastic containers ..."

wtf buddy?

A Czech man has been nabbed in Argentina for trying to board a transatlantic flight with 247 live animals including poisonous snakes and endangered reptiles packed in a bulging suitcase.

The man identified as Karel Abelovsky, 51, was caught while trying to board a flight for Madrid when shocked baggage X-ray technicians and staff at the Iberia Airlines desk at Ezeiza Airport in greater Buenos Aires noticed "organic substances moving inside", local media reported.

When they opened the bag, they found more than 200 reptiles and molluscs, among them nine species of poisonous snakes including South American pitvipers, packed in clear plastic containers.

There were also 15 venomous vipers, including two yararas - which can measure up to 1.5 metres - and several young boas.

The Big Gallery of Prague Pics

It's in the galleries section of the blog and online here!

That's Why I Love Schiphol

Flew home from Prague this morning.  From wheels down at the airport to my door via train and tram in 50 minutes.

You're lucky to be off the plane at Sea-Tac in that long.

Christmas Day Shopping

Very busy in the central square of Prague, plenty of tourist-oriented businesses still open ... really would have done some last-minute shopping at the blacksmith's but you know how the airlines are these days about letting you carry on your sword!