Smuggler busted heading for China with dodgy GPUs … and live lobsters Hong Kong authorities have caught a pair of smugglers who attempted to shift a vanload of live lobsters, along with some decrepit GPUs, into China. The loot was intercepted last week as the vehicle moved to enter the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge – a 55km collection of roads (some on artificial islands!), bridges, and tunnels …
Ahem, the (very) impressive thing about the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge is that it is a 55 km bridges and tunnels link across the main channel of the Pearl River estuary/delta, not around it! ;-)
(The rather less impressive thing is that it was only built as a road link and that an extension to the Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway (or a main line railway) wasn't also included as part of the project.)
The other impressive bridge in Macau/Zhuhai is (or was?) the Lótus Bridge where the traffic lanes cleverly spiral around themselves in order to switch from left hand drive traffic in Macau to right hand drive traffic in mainland China, although more recent mapping and aerial photography seems to suggest that the spiral end of the bridge is undergoing major reconstruction in a far less aesthetically appealing way?
> 55km collection of roads (some on artificial islands!),
>the (very) impressive thing about the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge is that it is a 55 km bridges and tunnels link across the main channel of the Pearl River estuary/delta, not around it..
You want bridge-tunnel over salt water and across a major river's channel---- Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. (OK, The Bay is not a single river but several good rivers {Susquehanna, Severn, Choptank, Patuxent, Potomac, James,...} and hundreds of streams, all come together.)
Yes, "only" 17.6 miles (28km). But feels very long. Cuts 98 miles off a trip around the bay. First opened in 1964. And recently doubled-up to keep up with traffic.
CBBT follows the slightly older and shorter Hampton Roads Bridge–Tunnel. Artificial islands and all.
They like tunnels in case of war. If a viaduct or bridge is blown-up the debris blocks a shipping channel. With large lengths of tunnel the ships are not hindered.
My hypothesis (and it was only a hypothesis) was that some gaming machines might be running on (what might be now) ancient hardware, and at the time the machines were made, those graphics cards were suitable for their needs. I don't play on such machines myself, but if you go to a pub which has similar sorts of machines it looks as though their graphics are at least a bit beyond C64 level.
Yes, a modern Raspberry Pi might well trump them now, but didn't exist back then. I'm pretty sure casinos don't become rich by chucking (in their eyes) hundreds of perfectly adequate machines when they don't need to…
Like I said, it was only a hypothesis. Alternative guesses as to what the graphics cards might have been intended for are welcome…
What's the penalty for smuggling 250kg of lobsters?
With 240kg of lobsters at stake, there is bound to be some pilfering along the way... I mean, just how is it to hide 230kg of lobster?
I suppose in the end they are bound to get away with smuggling a mere lobster roll
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