WikiLeaks recently reported that 28 terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay were apprehended while wearing a black Casio F-91W or a metal A168WA, a super-basic digital watch that you can mostly find on the wrists of '90s-phile hipsters. For hipsters, the Casio is as important as Ray-Bans and a sense of self-aware detachment as far as accessories go. For Al-Qaeda, these Casio models are prized because they're the cheap, programmable, reliable, and easily acquired. They're handed out at training camps where members learn how to use the the watches to make timed explosives. Moreover, Casio doesn't follow an the ubiquitous built-in obsolescence that plagues modern tech devices, which requires you to regularly buy new products because your iPod's battery turns to crap in two years, or your computer's operating system isn't compatible with anything anymore...when else are you going to spend $19 on a gadget and guarantee that it'll work for the next ten years? Dependability might indeed be a universal virtue—too bad that Casio now needs to deal with this unpleasant connotation. (Guardian)
