USB Thumb Drives as ... Fashion Statement?

The Fun Guy writes "The New York Times has discovered USB thumb drives: "In some cases, flash drives have suddenly become so commonplace that, as with cellphones, their owners are adding fashion touches [DNA must be on file to read] to lend them a personal identity." Apparently, the most important thing about thumb drives is not that they are cheap, fast, durable, easy to use or hold a lot of data, but that wearing one around your neck identifies you as one of the techno-congniscenti, especially if you personalize it with stickers."

Comments

And remember guys... size DOES matter

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm talking about disk capacity of course.

Re:And remember guys... size DOES matter

[EvilCowzGoMoo]

Size doesn't matter, its what stickers you put on it!

I hate subject lines.

[Chess_the_cat]

I don't remember people thinking I was too cool when I was walking around with a floppy around my neck. I guess the secret is the stickers.

How to amaze family and friends

[pubjames]

Set up a VNC server and put a client on a USB thumb drive, configured to display full screen. Then just plug your USB drive into your friends computer, double click and watch their faces as they see their windows machine instantly converted to a linux one...

Around the neck

[Mateito]

Wearing one around your neck identifies you as one of the techno-congniscenti.

No, it makes you look like a dick. The same way that you look when you walk around with your mobile-phone cord permanently wedged in your ear, whether you are on the phone or not.

Personally, I hate having anything hanging around my neck. My office just issued new ID swipe tags which they supplied with a rediculously short neck cord. (I find it really uncomfortable to have a plastic card banging against my nipples all day. Its really distracting.)

Those little retracting belt thingies are the best, even though they tend to die in the hands of a bored 3 year old.

Re:Sure... now it becomes popular

[stratjakt]

Trust me, noone who wears a USB dongle around their neck is getting the hot cheerleader. They'd be lucky to get the ugly homosexual.

And the word "irony" doesn't mean what you think it does.

Re:old school

[stratjakt]

I've got underpants made out of punchcards, with vaccuum tubes as buttons!

What should they be called?

[waynegoode]

I hear a lot of names for these things. What should it be? In a recently rejected poll submission to Slashdot, I asked

What is it?

• Flash drive
• Thumb drive
• USB drive
• Keychain drive
• Jump drive
• Pen drive
• Memory drive
• Memory stick

I use flash drive, like the NY Times article. The Fun Guy likes thumb drive. However, I think that is a trademark. Same for jump drive. A lot of people where I work call them a memory stick--that's very confusing and a Sony trademark. USB drive can refer to hard drives also. Hmmm.......

Let's settle this (or maybe not). What do you think they should be called?

You're all a bunch of girly-men!!!!

[Thud457]

I wear a ST-506 on a 3/4", chrome-plated chain around my neck! **BLING* *BLING**!!!

Re:Pocket protectors?

[Just Some Guy]

I think it marks you as part of the "choke me with the digital garrote around my neck until I give you the electronic device containing all my stuff, and here have my iPod too" crowd. Think I'll have to pass on this one.

iomega usb thumb drives SUCKS

[PhiberOptix]

i dont know (or care) about stilish thumb drives, but one advice >>

dont get near those crap iomega usb thumb drives. Our ti manager thought they looked cool, and bought about a dozen of them. 3 months later, all of them were broken and were replaced by cheaper and better ones made by kingston.

JOGR 1GB...

[Physics Dude]

This is the best thumb drive I've seen. It's waterproof, shockproof (encapsulated in superball material so it can take 1000G's of abuse). ;)

Brand: JOGR
Capacity: 1 GB
Interface: USB 2.0
Price: $105 shipped ;)

I love this thing!

These fad people annoy the hell out of me

[aardwolf204]

Wearing one around your neck identifies you as one of the techno-congniscenti.

Riiight. This fad is for those who think they're 'in the know' because they picked up some skillz by watched their admin right click my computer and click properties. The crowd that is just dangerous enough to delete their registry. And now they're cool because they keep their super leet document around their necks saying "Look at me, I'm important, I've got 'my documents' around my neck!". Nothing annoys me more than these people. Its like that ITT Tech commercial with the 40 year old PT Cruiser driving soccer mom got a degree as an "IT Professional" by "inventing a database" in Access and is expecting to make $80,000 a year!

Someone please meta-moderate the Slashdot RSS feed so I only see intelligent stories.

Re:Pocket protectors?

[Mr. Slippery]

Cargo pants are out of style.

Getting fashion advice from /., now that's out of style...