As it turns out, I have 2-1/2 hours at the Lisbon Airport, and free WiFi, so...I figured I'd jump in here for a moment while I have the (lots of) time.
I'll get to the travel experience later -- and there's more to tell -- but I'd make note of checking out from the Marriott, which has many pleasant, good things about it...and far more problems than one wishes for in a hotel, especially a good one. I've mentioned the horrible WiFi problem -- not the sort of the a hotel would want under any condition, but especially when you've book a convention of about 400 tech journalists from around the world. And that problem is exacerbated when they try to give a Hotel Explanation (tm) about the technological problem -- that the ISP company is based in the United States, so that's where the problem is. That brings up 400 shouts from tech journalists that NO, that is not how it works. The administrative company might be based in the U.S., but the actual service provider is local, in Lisbon. (You also know you have a problem when the convention has a panel with tech experts answering questions of the 400 in attendance at the Marriott conference room, and one of the high-tech questions to these experts submitted ahead of time was, "Why is the WiFi at the Marriott so terrible?" -- which brought forth a roomful of applause. And even the expert panelist (who were staying at the hotel) laughed and acknowledged how bad the problem was. The odd situation at check-out (which wasn't precisely "a problem," though could have been, as you'll see) was that I decided to check out before having breakfast, so that I could eat relaxed, knowing that I was ready to go. The desk clerk said that I could take my luggage around the corner and drop it off in a room there, while eating. Swell, fine, good to know. I headed there and -- it was just an empty room. No guards, no locks, no security, just...an open room! I went back to the clerk and explained the problem, that it was just a room. "Yes, you can just leave you luggage there." "But there's no guard." "Yes, it's just for hotel guests." "That doesn't help. Anyone can walk in and just take the bags sitting there, unprotected." "It should be fine." "I'm not leaving my luggage and computer and equipment and valuables sitting in an open empty room." "Well, you can leave it with the concierge." "Well, yes, that's what I'm going to do." (Thinking -- and okay, so why didn't you suggest this IN THE FIRST PLACE??) More on it all later. That's it for now. I do have a bit o' time (probably 90 minutes before boarding), but there are some other things to get to. I change plans in Philadelphia, so maybe I'll be able to write there, though I may be rushed. I have to go through customs and also change terminals, so I don't expect to have a whole lot of time. Though I hope so, on general principle. I booked flights giving me 2-1/2 hours, so it should be fine, but...we'll see.
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I'm heading back to Los Angeles tomorrow (Sunday) and expect to be back at the homestead in the 10:30 PM or so range. So, I probably won't be posting anything here until then -- and most likely not until Monday morning since I expect to be beat. If I have time before then at any airports to write something -- and can log in -- I'll do so. But I'm expecting Monday. Ta from Lisbon. I expect the elves to have the homestead in good shape. Ahem... Last night, I went to an enjoyable event that was held in an odd, interesting old-world complex with a wide-range of off-beat barbecue, as well as cheese, beer and wine, shoe-shining and tile-painting facilities, along with live music, and more nooks, stairways, patios, balconies and paths than one would expect in such a small, seemingly-contained venue. One of the more interesting parts of the evening was spending a lot of time talking to a tech journalist from Amsterdam who covers, as he put it, washing machines. ("There are two of us in Holland," he said. "Me and the other person.") What stood out was how insightful he knew American politics. I couldn't tell you who the president of The Netherlands was, but he knew details and minutiae. When I brought up the Trump interview on CNBC where he told reporter Maria Bartolomo that he had just bombed Iraq, and she had to correct him that it was Syria, he fellow knew about it and had seen it. No wonder it's the Dutch whose "America First...us seond" video was the first, started the trend and remains the funniest. He watches Stephen Colbert's show the most, likes Samantha Bee, knows of John Oliver and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, but says he doesn't have time for them all. It is not shocking that he thinks Trump is an idiot and a narcissist -- not as a descriptive phrase, but specifically a disease, having known and worked with clinical narcissists in the past. Our conversation was long, involved, and I left very impressed. When I see all the ignorance of so many on Twitter and elsewhere who get their information from "Fox News" and InfoWars and Breitbart, and are actually, factually wrong and ignorant about many realities in their own country, it's pretty remarkable to come across those from other countries (and I've spoken with a lot) who have such an strong awareness of news and politics in the United States -- even if they don't understand how Trump could happen here. Not to worry, I tell them, I'm not quite sure myself.. Today was (finally) the first day of the IFA Global Press Conference. This is the same organization that runs the big tech event each September in Berlin that I write about, but it’s a very different fish. Much smaller and it’s largely what it says it is – there are a few products displayed, but mostly is a series of press conferences and panels. Plus one-on-one interviews for thems that wants them. I didn’t since that’s not generally what I do. In fact, I generally don’t go to press conferences, finding most of them largely self-promotion, so I prefer to focus on the products themselves. That pretty much held here, though there were a few interesting presentations about the future of tech – mostly focused on Europe -- and a couple intriguing products. I won’t go into great detail here since I’ll be getting into it in much more detail in an upcoming article for my The Writers Workbench article on the Writers Guild of America website (which I’ll link to here), but also I’m a bit rushed at the moment since, as tends to happen at this point, it’s fairly late at night here in Lisbon. One product that stood out was The Frame from Samsung. Basically, it's a wall-mounted TV set with no cables (it makes Bluetooth connections) -- and when you're not using it as a TV it goes into Art Mode and will display your digital art or art created for Samsung by artists on assignment. It will be available in Europe the end of May and then rolled out across the rest of the world after that. The 55" model will cost 2,195 Euros, which is around $2,400, though sometimes products cost less here. There will also be a 65" model. I was also intrigued by the talk given by Paul Gray, the principal consumer electronics analyst from IHS Technologies. One thing he was talking about was the next generation of Internet connection for mobile devices, 5G. It's not ready yet though is currently in testing phase and is expected to be ready in 2020, if everything gets worked out. The "if" is the operative term. But "if" so, it will be at least 100 times faster than current speeds, with some applications as much as 300 times fast. If. What this means with a massively bigger pipeline is that the whole platform for streaming is changed, which is why content and service provider companies are forming alliances. Streaming movies to your tablet, phone or even smart TV will now be a completely viable alternative to studio and network product, even far more so than today. This is worth noting in particular because of the current WGA-AMPTP negotiations, something I mentioned to Paul Gray after the event, and he thought it a valid point. What I was referring to is that in the last WGA strike in 2008, one of the issues was monetizing work on the Internet, and studios disingenuously tried to claim that they didn't know if there would be money in it -- and so, they kept offering the writers zero. It was so appalling that eventually companies like Amazon, Netflix and Hulu said, "Hey, we're not signatories to the Minimum Basic Agreement, so if you writers want to sign deals with us to make projects, we'll give you much more control over the work." The point here is that up until then, studios and networks had no competition. They were the only outlet for the movie and TV work. But because they were so egregiously greedy and offered zero, they opened the door to actual competition. And now that 5G with speeds 100 times faster (up to 300 times faster) in the possible, that door may well be flung open wide. And the studios and networks only have themselves to blame. More on IFA GPC tomorrow, the final day of the show. I'll be home on Sunday, which I mention because it gives the elves taking care of the homestead a few days to clean up... So it turns out that the Trump administration has thrown a last-minute wrench into negotiations for a Stop Gap for the budget, which could cause big problems. The White House now insists on including putting The Great Wall of Trump into the mix.
Budget Director Mike Mulvaney -- who is growing to becoming my favorite thoughtless, arrogant member of the Trump administration -- made the point the "Elections have consequences," which is why Democrats should get behind this. Never mind that the Republican Party didn't consider this shibboleth to be of any merit during the eight years of Barack Obama's presidency, the reality is that elections have more than "consequences," but also responsibilities. After all, a president is chief executive for ALL Americans, no just those who voted for him. Furthermore, if one wants to operate solely on the "elections have consequences," then one has to accept two things: first, while Trump was elected president, three million more Americans voted for Hillary Clinton, so those votes have consequences. And second, all the Democrats in the House and Senate won elections, so those hae consequences, too Moreover, another thing to consider is that if dear Mr. Mulvaney wants to make a point that because Trump made certain matters policy issues during his campaign and so those must be headed -- his issue with his Great Wall was not that the U.S. government should pay for it, but that Mexico should. So, if "elections have consequenes," then deal with that, bucko. Get Mexico to pay for the Trump Wall. That was the issue. I also note that Mike Mulvaney is trying to horse-trade to get his Great Wall passed, and the administration is hoping that Democrats will consider White House support for insurance subsides to low-income Americans in the Trump health care bill, in exchange for supporting the Great Wall. Forget for a moment whether even Republicans would go for this, it's my hope that Democrats say "It's your health care bill -- if you want to screw low-income Americans, then it's on you. It's the law now, and we like it the way it is. If you want to change it, then deal with the consequences. Don't drag us into your hell. And by the way, the Great Wall is a suck-eggs idea." I don't think Democrats should (or will) support any Great Wall bill in exchange for a quid quo pro -- it's that horrible an idea -- but IF they ever even consider it, then they should get something in return that is SO major which they've been trying for years to get but have been blocked by the GOP (like single payer)...not a gracious acceptance of something they already have!!! Or -- maybe they'd support it if he'd release his tax returns. The convoluted machinations we went through last night trying to set up today's excursion was almost as much an adventure as the trip itself. Almost, but ultimately not close because the trip was so enjoyable. A group of four of us hired a taxi for the day and drove out 40 minutes from Lisbon to the small town of Sintra, filled with palaces and castles, and then continued our Grand Tour with stops in Cabo da Roca (which is the westernmost spot on continental Europe) and then the resort area of Cascrais. (As far as I can tell, that's pronounced "kish-kris". Sintra started out with a lucky decision. It's a quaint town with a National Palace dominating the square, so that seemed to be the place to go. But after checking inside and seeing some of the other nearby places, we decided to skip it and go instead to the Pena Palace, which was about a 20-minute drive up a winding road into the hills. (We passed the Moorish Castle on the way, which I would have enjoyed seeing, but the others in the group thought it would take time away from the other sites they more were looking forward to. Why did Pena Palace strike our fancy? A brief story. When we were walking through the grounds, I overheard a woman say something in a foreign language that included the word "Disneyland." Later, back in Lisbon, I was talking with someone there who also said how it reminded them of Disneyland. Actually, I said to her, there is a connection. Pena Palace was constructed (re-designed, more accurately, from a monastery) in 1838 by Frederick II. He was a cousin of Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria, who had built a wide range of utterly extravagant castles, including one named Neuschwanstein. And that is the castle that Walt Disney patterned the famous Sleeping Beauty's Castle that is the centerpiece of…Disneyland! So, the connection of the Palace at Pena to Disneyland is far more close than they thought. None of my pictures do it justice. You pretty much need a helicopter doing flyovers, and even then you’d be missing the details. Pena Palace is a spectacular place, which the emphasis on “spectacle.” It’s architecture and design aside, the remarkable thing about the place is how – in that era especially – did they build such a massively elaborate and intricate and sprawling structure in the middle of the forest up a winding, narrow path many-miles from the distant little town. Much of it from the outside gives a reminder of an Escher painting, with different levels, nooks and crannies all over the place. And inside is a morass of rooms, stairways, nooks, cloisters and connecting hallways throughout the place. The design is in the romantic German style. But make no mistake, there is no subtlety here, and the outside colors are overly vibrant. But inside there are nonetheless some deft touches, while still having its extravagances. The view from the outside walkway is certainly is great, with the expanse of land and homes spreading out far, and the Moorish Castle and other palaces below, with the ocean in the distance. The rest of the journey was a pleasure, but more of a relaxing nature. Cabo da Boca was very low-key (most especially after the experience of Pena Palace), but I think I would have enjoyed just hiking around and relaxing there for a few hours. As I said, this is the westernmost spot of continental Europe. It’s not that it’s just an invigorating coastline – it’s not – but the rock formation has a majesty to it, and the color of the Portuguese Atlantic is a rich, wonderful turquoise. And with the wide openness of the water in front of you, it’s a great sight. The IFA event, which is the actual reason for coming here to Lisbon in the first place, finally started this evening. Though it was just an informal get together in the outside garden lounge area. A few more journalists I know from the Berlin show finally got into the city, so it was good to cross paths with them again. The food was mediocre, but a few dishes were tasty, but all was fine. The official conferences begin in the morning. (As a result, I may only be able to post once here tomorrow, Friday -- tomorrow my time, eight hours later than Los Angeles.) By the way, I must note that the WiFi here at the Marriott Hotel is as bad as any I’ve ever had, and it’s driving all the journalists nuts. Much of the time it doesn’t connect – it isn’t connected now as I write this. I’m not using my website software (since I can’t access) but am writing in Microsoft Word and will cut-and-paste later. The “later” is when I take my laptop and head downstairs to the lobby where IFA has set up its own Internet server, and the connection is good and fast. Given that it’s 12:15 in the morning, that’s not the most convenient thing in the world, but I’ve been doing it regularly. Even sometimes when I do have a connection…because the speed is almost humorously slow. The elves back taking care of the homestead find all this about the Internet a hoot and keep telling me that the network back at my home is working just fine… |
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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