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> In a handful of cases the detainee's possession of a Casio watch or the wearing olive-drab clothing is cited as evidence that the detainee is an enemy combatant. No basis is given to explain why such evidence makes the detainee an enemy combatant.
This is also noted on the F-91W's Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_F-91W#Usage_in_terrorism
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seton_Hall_reports#Detainees'_...
AQ training/bomb-making manuals from the 1990s–2000s recommend cheap, reliable digital watches like this as timers for IEDs as they're extremely inexpensive and widely available worldwide, durable, water resistant, and easy to modify as delay timers.
Often these guys would get picked up with two or more watches of the same model, for example. We recovered them in bomb-making facilities and on fighters throughout the GWOT. Ramzi Yousef (Philippine Airlines Flight 434) and Ahmed Ressam (the 'Millennium Bomber') both had them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_El-Masri
> Khaled El-Masri is a German, Lebanese and French citizen who was mistakenly abducted by the Macedonian police in 2003, and handed over to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
> While in CIA custody, he was flown to Afghanistan, where he was held at a black site and routinely interrogated, beaten, strip-searched, raped, and subjected to other forms of torture.
> After El-Masri held hunger strikes, and was detained for four months in the "Salt Pit", the CIA admitted his arrest was a mistake and released him.
Trick question! It was actually that his name is one letter away from someone else's name, and some manager in the CIA had "a hunch":
> At the end of 2003, El-Masri travelled from his home in Ulm to go on a short vacation in Skopje. He was detained by Macedonian border officials on 31 December 2003, because his name was identical (except for variations in Roman transliteration) to that of Khalid al-Masri, who was being sought as an alleged mentor to the al-Qaeda Hamburg cell, and because of suspicion that El-Masri's German passport was a forgery.
> CIA agents discussed whether to remove El-Masri from Macedonia through an extraordinary rendition. The decision to do so was made by the head of the al Qaeda division of the CIA's Counter-Terrorism Center, Alfreda Frances Bikowsky, on the basis of "a hunch" that El-Masri was involved in terrorism; his name was similar to suspected terrorist Khalid al-Masri.
> When the Macedonian officials released El-Masri on 23 January 2004, American security officers immediately kidnapped him. El-Masri later described them as members of a "black snatch team." They beat him and sedated him for transport using a rectal suppository. "The CIA stripped, hooded, shackled and sodomized el-Masri with a suppository—in CIA parlance, subjected him to "capture shock"—as Macedonian officials stood by."
This is like a statistics 101 question. Google says that Casio has sold over 100M F-91W's since 1989. Let's round down to an average of 2.5M a year, or 25M over the 10 peak years of the global war on terror (GWOT).
You named two terrorists who wore them. Let's say that's an understatement by 200X. Some quick math shows that the percent of terrorists who wore F-91W's is 400/25000000 = 0.0016% positive rate, or conversely a 99.9984% false positive rate. Not good!
Now I never actually took a statistics class, so maybe I got this question wrong. But it's obvious that using the possession of an F-91W as a sign of being a terrorist is a mistake.
No they don't, please don't spread misinformation. If this were true, the watch itself would be banned in the country and/or nobody would sell it.
Your own source says the Pentagon refuted the author's claims because they did not have access to classified information, which I believe would suggest that there is more to the story than merely owning a very common watch and nothing else. Otherwise millions of innocent Americans would be in jail.
There is a very, very good reason this was only "in a handful of cases" and never again.
Or more recently, to some officials, showing up at a No Kings rally.
(they did have one called "pickup")
I don’t have the satisfying answer as to why they dedicated a button to 12/24 hour time but my guess is that it’s simply a cool digital feature and stands out against the limitations of analog watches.
A few months without doing them, and it was hopeless trying to remember how to do them again.
Also people who worked in confined spaces who wouldn’t know if it was day or night outside after a days job. My father who worked in an oil rig in Abu Dhabi used one. He gifted me one.
This was 1998.
It’s a little strange that a dedicated button would be needed to switch between them, especially when the math to convert between them is so simple.
https://www.olleewatch.com/
https://www.sensorwatch.net
Is it did that get implemented solely so someone could say "I'll make my own watch, with blackjack and hookers"?
Similar to the current weather feature that grabs the weather for the next 5 days on every sync, I just want to push the local time train schedule just once per day to my watch.
That said, I really like this because the ABL-100WE comes with metal bands and I'd really like another watch with a rubber band :)
https://www.casio.com/de/watches/casio/vintage/product.ABL-1...
When I look at my watch I want to see the time, not wasted space announcing "Casio Step Tracker" or "Water Resist" ( which isn't even proper English).
I moved to Timex a few years ago as their basic digital watches have nice big numerals for the time display.
I'll take some solace in mine supporting lots more alarms (beep when school recess ends) and a bunch of geeky stuff like sunrise, moon phases, tides, and stuff.
I got one earlier this year, pretty awesome project!
You should compare this with the F-91W that gets 7 years on the same battery, and hobbyist hardware mods that get years out of the same battery running ARM chips.
My little temperature and humidity sensors that show an LCD 2x the surface area of a watch and broadcast a BLE packet every minute lasts about 12 months on a CR2032 (~200mah). A CR2016 is ~90mah little less than half. And receiving a BLE packet takes way less energy than sending.
Then you have the on-demand stuff that costs a packet or two, like the lost phone finder -- which is what I'm most excited about.
Though, the CR2016 is a pretty big battery vs typical watch batteries, and in some other Casio watches are used as 10-year batteries.
However, the manual recommends to be sparing with the backlight.
https://github.com/izivkov/gshock_api
The full lifelog (what Casio calls the steps and other metrics) is an opaque binary blob, but we mostly understand it now, so you can access that too.
https://github.com/izivkov/gshock_api/pull/3
I have a Casio PHYS STR-800, nonworking. I got it two decades ago because of the large lap memory (and unusual look, too); I was doing a lot of running, including track training and such.
It short circuited one day. Put in a battery, and it drained the thing in a minute. Put in another one, same thing.
It's been sitting in the top shelf of a bathroom cabinet since like 2011.
Might take another look at these - given the price, it's not a huge gamble to try it out for a few weeks.
which is why i love gshocks, both for design but also specifically the ones with tough solar/multiband 6 (and bluetooth (optional))
they have battery lives in the range of decades (due to solar charging), set themselves (multiband 6 is using atomic clock radio signals) and via bluetooth
you can get gw-b5600-2 and gw-s5600u (auto backlight) for under $200, but usually closer to $100. there are many more models, of course
that sounds expensive, but it's insanely durable construction and battery life means it'll be the only digital watch you'll ever need to buy. and the only configuration it will ever need is the time zone.
This, in the silver ABL-100WE-2AEF model, is exactly what he wants. Same Casio, same interface, just now it has step count. He doesn't even need / want the Bluetooth.
(Me, I'll keep rocking my Pebble Time 2. Absolutely love it.)
IE; My apple watch ais the only one that goes out of it's way to make sure I know my steps for the day, and is always "accurate". Which is nice, but gimmicky for someone like me who doesn't analyze my steps.
I imagine Casio went after similar low hanging fruit, as an acceleromater is cheap/old tech, while still being able to feature compete with something like an apple watch.
Yup. I go for walks specifically to leave my damn phone at home. I do bring an Apple Watch w/ airpods in case I need to take an urgent call and for podcasts, but I don't bother with texts or alerts or any other nonsense.
And while step tracking is not critical, if you have health goals that include a minimum number of steps a day I find it incredibly nice to have. I can check my counter before bed, and take the dog for a 30 minute walk if I'm behind for the day. Just a means to hold myself accountable on those crappy low energy stressful days.
The trend is trickling down into other circles as well. People are beginning to correctly identify needless hyperconverged connectivity as a burden rather than a convenience.
Indiglo WATER RESIST 69m ALARM Chronograph
But then I realized that many people do not keep their phone in their pocket, especially women. For them, a watch, bracelet or ring really is the best option.
Tracking steps helps me stay on track.
I hate watches, but one would be better for step tracking - it is more likely to be on me to track information.
I do try to get my daily exercise. However it is still interesting to know how many steps I've taken. (sometimes my daily exercise is bike or swimming which are obviously not steps)
"Walking briskly for 30 minutes" is a better measure of something healthy than how many steps you took.
The least apps on my phone, the better. And the least I've got my phone on me, the better. I often leave the house without taking my phone.
I don't track my steps but the wife does... Using a watch.
Why do you automatically assume everybody on earth is as tied to his phone as you are?
Another alternative is a smart ring.
I'd love if it was radio controlled and charged with solar. And without phone connectivity.
https://www.casio.com/us/watches.filter.solar-radio_adjust-K...
But hey, seems like people are excited for that, happy for them! Mine will last another 10 years without it.
doesn't mean others can't want a smart casio, but, it's not for me :D
F-91W (old): 38.2 × 35.2 × 8.5 mm
F-B100W-1A (new): 41.9 × 38.1 × 8.8 mm
I bought one with a slick (new) dark red face....which lights up bright pink from the one white LED on the left side of the face.
Even in the marketing/landing page for this watch which is linked in post.....they show the backlight feature, looking like it's missing an LED.
The ABL-100WE has an orange light that stays on for either 1.5 or 3 seconds (configurable) and provides some decent light.
The display contrast doesn't seem to be quite as good as it used to be with older movements, though.
so I guess I'm staying on my third Amazfit Bip since Pebble Time 2 has insane price
Its still a cheap casio resin watch at the end of the day. If this where to be able to push/pull notifications, the watch would be completely different in cost, ui, marketing, etc.
It would go from being charming retro tech with modern features, to dime a dozen bloatware/fitness tracking hardware.
It's not great... but it's something?