I've written in the recent past about about various reports of Microsoft's upcoming magic operating system update, which they're calling Windows 10, and everything I've seen and read make it look extremely impressive, blending the more-familiar Windows 7 and Windows 8 more closely, bringing back the Start button, allowing users to embed "Metro apps" on the more-familiar desktop, making "Metro apps" resizable, and -- perhaps most noteworthy -- making it the only Windows, using a process called "Continuum" so that it will run on on everything the same, desktops, tablets, touch-screen laptops and phones, recognizing what kind of device it's on and even if there's a keyboard attached, and then automatically adjusting for the size and system accordingly.
Release of the new operating system is due later this year. Whether Microsoft meets that date remains to be seen. But they're clearly headed in that direction, going all-in today with a major event (which is expected to run up to 2 hours) to present what they have. It will be streamed live, beginning at 9 AM Los Angeles time (with the pres-show stream beginning at 8:30 AM). For those interested in such things, you can watch by clicking here. I've been informed by the oft-mentioned her Ed Bott that he has his seat and is front and center, so that fashion-watchers can keep score.... (He's on the left side of your screen, first row.) If that link doesn't work -- CNET is having difficulty with their life streaming feed -- try this direct link here from Microsoft. (Note: the clock below is NOT accurate. This is just a frozen screen shot of the event page.)
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"He will apparently declare victory on the economy tonight, but of course, whatever life there is in the economy is not due to his policies, it's in spite of his policies."
-- Carly Fiorna, former HP CEO, before President Obama's State of the Union Address Well, smack me in the knickers and scuttle me crumpets, dear Carly FIorina isn't willing to give President Barack Obama any credit for the improved economy, which improved during his tenure as president. No doubt other Republicans will back her up. Just like they weren't willing to give the president any credit for having any part or responsibility in the killing of Osama bin Laden. Or any credit for the vast majority of Americans being very satisfied with their health care. Shocked we are, shocked. No doubt, though, Ms. Fiorina would have been thrilled to give the president full blame if the economy had tanked. Unlike her not bleating a peep when the economy imploded under George W. Bush, since that probably wasn't his fault, under the Fiorina Standards. And I think it's a fair guess that if Mitt Romney had been elected president with the same positive results as we're seeing under President Obama, she'd have been thrilled beyond belief to give him full credit. Note: economies don't succeed in spite of bad policies. When there are bad policies, that is like one of the top leading causes of crushing an economy. to smithereens. Ask George W. Bush. On the other hand, lost in the insulting stupidity of Carly Fiorina's lame swipe at the president is one little nugget of unintended gold -- a Republican acknowledging that there is now actually life in the economy. Something that didn't seem possible six years ago when Mr. Obama took office after the Bush Economy crashed. By the way, it's worth nothing a few things about Carly Fiorina. She's preparing an exploratory committee to run for President of the United States. So, any opinions coming out of her must be kept in that perspective. In 2012, she ran for the United States Senate in California and lost to Barbara Boxer. So, any opinions coming out of her must be kept in that perspective. And in 2005, the Hewlett-Packard board of directors forced her to resign after a deeply rocky tenure, which included 30,000 layoffs after merging with Compaq and outsourcing jobs overseas. So...well, you know. Any opinions -- especially about economic matters, coming out of her must be kept in that perspective. Worse, though, is her rousing defense of her record as CEO at Hewlett-Packard. While I understand anyone defending themselves, there are honest, open ways of doing so, and there are ways that make you look blind and foolish, as in -- “I’m extremely proud of what I did at HP. I will run on that record all day long.” That record she's joyful to run on includes a net drop in HP stock of more than 50 percent during her tenure. The day after she left the company, HP stock soared 6.9 percent. Tangentially, in a totally personal note, I spent a bit of time at the Hewlett-Packard booth during the recent CES. I was praising their impressive new "Stream" line of computers and tablets and at one point asked, "How in the world were you able to make such extremely good systems at such incredibly low prices. "We're HP!' the person I was talking with proudly and immediately replied. I gave the person a look and said, "Well...just a few years ago, you wouldn't have said that, since your product line was in the dumps." There was a brief pause, and then the person smiled understandingly, not even attempting to argue with me and then made a correction -- "We're the new HP." So, yes, that's the swell record as head of HP that Carly Fiorina will run on all day long. I think most people would, too. Run and run and run, as far away as possible. There's been an odd news story in the world of sports where Tiger Woods was spotted in a photograph to be missing a tooth. He had gone to Italy where his girlfriend Lindsey Vonn was competing in a World Cup skiing tournament, and she won, giving her a record 63 World Cup victories. But it was the photo that got almost as much attention. The only explanation has come from his agent, Mark Steinberg, who said that the incident occurred at the awards ceremony when a photographer's camera accidentally banged into Woods's tooth, knocking it out.
Now, to be clear, I couldn't care less why Tiger Woods lost a tooth, even with his past-history of domestic issues. And Ms. Vonn has been very supportive and concerned for the lost tooth. What I do care about is getting lied to and treated like a sap, which is what the agent's explanation does. I mean, seriously now. Forgetting for the moment that the explanation is odd, and not many people are buying it because it seems too odd, I don't buy for a specific reason that no one in the media has mentioned. At least as far as I've seen. Okay, this is at a World Cup skiing tournament. It's at the awards ceremony. There are cameras all over -- not just from the professionals, like the one who supposedly banged into Woods, but also all the spectators will cell phones, no doubt thrilled to be photographing and videotaping the world famous golfer, hoping maybe to get him on film with his famous skier girlfriend.... And there are no pictures of the photographer smashing into Tiger Woods??! And no picture of Woods looking for his missing tooth, or blood spurting out all over the place??? Seriously? You expect us to believe that?!! As it happens, the secretary general of the tournament -- concerned with security -- doesn't believe it either, and said that it didn't happen, that Woods was nowhere near the ceremony, but in the finish-line tent. In fact, he said that Woods and Von had requested extra security, it was provided, and the fellow himself escorted Woods from the tent to a waiting snowmobile. "And there was no such incident." Again, I don't care where the tooth is. Maybe he walked into a tree and felt embarrassed by it. I just don't like it when stories are made up, especially ones as lame as that one. On the eve of the State of the Union Address, there are some things in politics I understand.
I understand why I like President Barack Obama. I understand why there are people who have a different political philosophy and therefore don't like him. I understand, too, why there are people who have a similar philosophy politically but are disappointed with the president. And I even understand why there are people who gallingly, viscerally hate everything about President Obama and whose core goes into a a raging, twisted turmoil at the mere mention of his name, because I understand that irrationality exists, as does racism, and that for some people it's easier to let other people do their thinking for them. But there are also some things I don't even begin to understand. Two months ago, the Republican Party won control of both houses of Congress in a sweeping electoral victory against the Democratic Party, led by President Barack Obama. And in a new ABC-Washington Post poll, Mr. Obama's job approval rate shot up 9 points, his disapproval plummeted 10 points, and he now sits at a 50-44 approval, his highest in 18 months. Further, the public says it trusts President Obama by a margin of 40-36 to handle the issues more than it does the Republican Party that they just voted into power, Gee, go figure. One can only imagine how badly the Democratic Party would have been crushed in the election if the public actually disapproved of the job its leader was doing. On one hand, it's easy to see why the president's approval numbers have skyrocketed. The economy continues to dramatically improve, and the public response recognizes that. The ABC-Wapo Poll shows that the public today rates the economy favorably by an huge increase of 14 points over the previous month, now at 41%. Polls show that the vast majority of the public is very satisfied with their health care under Mr. Obama's Affordable Care Act. Unemployment has dropped all the way to 5.8%, lower even than the 6% Mr. Romney had promised during the 2012 elections that he could get it to. (That's the lowest unemployment has been in nearly seven years since the economy collapsed under George W. Bush.) In addition, jobs have increased for 53 consecutive months. And the budget deficit has plummeted a billion dollars, now at $486 billion, down from $1.4 trillion the year President Obama took office. Keep in mind, that all of these things didn't just happen in November right after the elections. They take time, not things that -- whammo -- magically occur overnight. It's the direction that unemployment, jobs and the budget deficit have been going for a long while. And the public shows that they approve of it all. Except for that pesky part of going to the polls and voting that way. Yes, yes, I can do some convoluted analysis to explain why all this happened this way. But it's convoluted, and as much sense as you make of it...it makes no sense. We love you. Now go away. As the song says, you're going to miss me when I'm gone. Or, as voters are now being reminded of that old adage after voting in the Republicans to control both houses -- be careful what you wish for. You just might get it. ,,,on the other hand, inexplicable and head-banging as this might be for Democrats in the immediate short-term, it bodes positively for 2016. Not only is a growing economy likely to continue to improve, and not only are voters who are already approving the president only two months after a crushing defeat likely to continue to approve as we get even farther away from that defeat, but the GOP has shown little inclination to govern, let alone have bold ideas, other than do away with "Obamacare" (which people seem to like) and cut taxes, which mainly benefit the wealthy. Which means as the next election approaches, and voters look to see what little Republicans have done with their two-house control and what growth has come from the president's issues, these current odd poll results could cause big problems long-term for Republicans. Two years is a long time, so no predictions have any value. But the facts before us are intriguing to keep in mind as those two years move forward. And as the House doorkeeper tonight announces to the joint session of Congress -- "Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States...!!" A couple of months ago, I posted a funny video here with Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers doing an official promo for Northwestern University that ran during a national football broadcast. This is an appearance by Colbert when he was a guest on Meyer's Late Night show, and conversation got around to when they were both at Northwestern, briefly overlapping. And they decide to try and remember if they can sing the school fight song. The actual words, by the way, are -- Go U Northwestern. Break right through that line. With your colors flying We will cheer you all the time. (U rah rah!) Go U Northwestern Fight for victory. Spread far the fame Of our fair name And Go Northwestern, Win that game! Let's see how close they come... I've been basically enjoying Galavant. It's a bit more thin than I'd prefer, but done with a lot of exuberance, and some of it is quite funny. The songs, while nothing memorable, have been generally witty and tuneful. And so it was with interesting on Sunday when they introduced the evil king's even more evil older brother. I looked at the screen and though, "Oh, yipes, that's Rutger Hauer."
You may recall the actor, who first became known in the U.S in the Dutch film, Soldier of Orange, and then got Hollywood attention in Blade Runner. I haven't seen seen him in films for a long while, which is actually okay, since we had worked together many years ago on The Hitcher and...well, let's just say we didn't get along. To be fair, it was more one-sided. I got along pretty well with the fellow, and quite liked him up until it became clear that he seemed to hate me and everything I did and stood for in life. At that point, I must admit my opinion changed. I thought we'd gotten on fine. I was the unit publicist on the film, and Rutger played the demonic murderous title character. During the course of filming, I had became friendly with a couple of guys on the production, one was Rutger's stand-in, and the other his assistant (or videographer, keeping a recorded journal) he'd brought over from Holland. We'd do things on our days off, and occasionally Rutger would join us. It was a nice, fun group -- until it wasn't. (I did stay on very friendly terms with the other two.) Without getting into too many details, the issue seemed to be that I liked joking around with people, and apparently Rutger didn't like to get joked around with all that much. Or didn't like my jokes. One day I definitely went too far with a silly quip -- and I realized it almost immediately after. and I went up to him the next day and apologized. I said my joke hadn't come across like it was intended, I had felt terrible about the hard day of filming he'd had, which is what I'd tried to get across, but said it all wrong, and I was sorry. (For readers of this site who've put up with my treatises on apologies, you can see that this is not just something I write about today, but believe in and have long lived by...) I thought that my apology was a thoughtful, nice thing to do. It turned out that an apology wasn't good enough, though. There was all the joking that had built up during the course of the film, and even though I explained that I joked with all the people in our group, not just him -- and did so specifically because I liked them all, and liked him, and only quipped irreverently with people I liked -- alas, that was no good. From that point on, I could do no right. By the way, even at the time, I wracked my brain trying to figure out what on earth other jokes had been bothersome, since, as I said, I had liked him. But life is whimsical. So, from the passage of a few decades, I just can't help out there. Happily, I seemed to get along well with everyone else on the crew. I wrote about my experiences on the movie a while back here, and though the film was too creepy for my taste, and though we filmed for two months out in the middle of godforsaken nowhere in the California desert, it remains one of my more enjoyable movie sets. The two months wandering the desert with loooong daily drives included several offbeat shopping excursions with Jennifer Jason Leigh; pleasant chats with the main star C. Thomas Howell and his friendly, talented acting coach who he'd brought along for moral support, Larry Moss, now one of the top coaches for the New York stage; a memorable day-off when a van of us went into Joshua Tree National Monument, and being given a great, floppy outback hat that our wonderful Oscar-winning Australian cinematographer John Seale gave me, simply because I'd said how much I liked it. (I still have it...) Several months after the movie ended, I was hired to do the publicity on another film, a modern-day updated film version of a classic TV western, Wanted: Dead or Alive. They told me about the movie, the logistics and that it would star Rutger Hauer. I decided to be fair to these good people, and so I explained that it was quite possible that their star might not want to work with me. I could have kept my mouth shut, but since they'd been nice enough to offer me a job, I didn't want to be the cause of any friction on the set. They said they'd check into it. A few days later they called back to say I was right and were sorry but had to hire someone else instead. His career as a leading Hollywood star didn't last long after our "parting" (cause-and-effect? It's not for me to say...), but he's had a very long and successful career in supporting roles that's continued over the next 30 years. And so, there he was in the four-part musical Galavant, making his introduction right before the end of episode 3, leading into next week's big finale, as the even-more evil brother of an evil king. My second thought was, hey, he had a guitar on the set. I wonder if he'll sing? |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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