If you're in the market this holiday season to get a new laptop, or tablet -- or are trying to decide between them, or what about a "convertible" hybrid that meshes the two...CNET has a terrific, extensive article that makes sense of the whole field. Written by Dan Ackerman, the article starts with explaining his three basic rules -- don't buy too much laptop, buy light, and when all else is close, opt for design over specs. Then he goes into some easy-to-follow specifics about what features are important and which you can avoid. And explains the mass of different categories of computers available these days (ultracompact, desktop replacements, hybrids, tablets and such). He even makes understandable sense of the otherwise-confusing (but very important) differences in processors and Intel/AMD chips. Finally, Ackerman ends with a comprehensive list of Frequently Asked Questions.
Plus, there are two Buying Guide videos embedded in the article, to help out, as well. All very well done, all quite clear. You can read the article here.
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If it wasn't for the real-world ramifications it could have on 99% of all women who have used some form of contraceptives at least once in their lives, I'd find the radical far-religious right obsession with blocking birth control bemusing.
I mean, after all, when you have something like Wheaton College in Illinois complain about the employer-provision in the Affordable Care Act requiring the health plan to provide contraceptives to women...and it turns out that they have the same provision already in their own health care program, how can you take the outrage seriously? Or when no one on the far right complained about the very same provision in the Massachusetts law when it passed seven years ago -- or is protesting it today -- how can one not look at the mournful cries of "religious freedom" and not just hear the sound of bleating hypocrisy? We get it. They don't like Barack Obama. We get it, they don't want to see affordable health care succeed. We get it, they have some problem with women having a voice and, oh, pesky things like rights. But if such people want their personal concerns taken seriously, then they have to act seriously and take the realities and concerns of others just as seriously. Forcing a women to be pregnant and have a baby against her wishes? Man, talk about real birth control. But take a step back from all that. If one looks at what is being proposed by the challenge the Supreme Court has taken up, that employers should be allowed to determine the private health care decisions of their employees, then imagine realistically where that leads. What if an employer's religion says that abortion is against their beliefs. Why couldn't that business insist that it's a violation of their religious freedom not being allowed fire an employee who has one? What if an employer is a Christian Scientist who believes in prayer over medicine? Why then couldn't such a business owner decide that even offering healthcare at all was a violation of their religious rights? Or look at it from the other perspective. Why couldn't any individual create their own personal religion and claim that not only health care is a violation of their religious rights? Or that anything they don't like is a violation of their personal religion? Who's to say what a religion is or should be, after all? (Side note: good news to lovers of sanity, the Supreme Court decided in a case involving the state of Oregon that religious laws don't supersede the laws of government. And Antonin Scalia spoke strongly for the majority.) If one has a religious belief, that's fine. Nothing in the Affordable Care Act prohibits a person from following their own religion. Allowing others to live according to their own beliefs doesn't impinge on yours. Allowing someone else to buy a contraceptive doesn't mean you have to use it, as well. In fact, it doesn't even mean that they have to use it. The ACA just allows them to purchase it. And that isn't against anyone's religion...at least, as far as I know. Of course they're buying it to use -- but it's not a requirement of the law. While I know the situation is complex, it seems to me very simple: If someone doesn't want to use contraceptives because their personal religious beliefs say it's wrong -- then don't use contraceptives. But for people who supposedly believe in Their Fellow Man, personal responsibility and small government, trying to create laws that force women to become pregnant and carry a baby to term, while cramming a trans-vaginal probe into them against their wishes just seems a wee bit hypocritical and...well, creepy. I was going to say, "Don't you think so??" But instead I'll phrase it, "Shouldn't you think so?" Over time, I've tracked down a lot of very special videos. But at the top, a handful of them stand out, to me, as special, competing for my favorite finds. To qualify for that honor, I sort of have to respond, "Oh, my God, I can't believe I found that." This may be at the top of the list. If not, it's competing for it. One of the great performances in the history of Broadway is when Mary Martin starred as Nellie Forbush in Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific, which opened in 1949. However, when the movie was made, Mitzi Gaynor was hired for the role instead, one of many unfortunate choices for that film, I think. The larger problem is that Mary Martin's legendary performance was lost. There's the cast album, and a video from, I believe, a TV appearance with co-star Ezio Pinza on The Ed Sullivan Show. The performance is gone. Until now. Sort of. But it's close enough. This doesn't come from that 1949 Broadway production, but three years later South Pacific opened in London on the West End, and Mary Martin famously went with the production to re-created her classic role. And for reasons I don't begin to understand, but am forever grateful, much of that production was filmed! There's more to come in later videos, but this is the opening 10 minutes of the show. And an impressive 10 minutes, it is. It includes the songs, "Dites-Moi," "A Cockeyed Optimist," and "Twin Soliloquies," sung with baritone Wilbur Evans. It's particular fun to see how Mary Martin's entrance is not only delayed, but the audience is a bit teased with it. And when she does finally appear, even the generally-reserved British audiences for 1952 give her an appreciative welcome. By the way, there's a tale behind why the song with the character of Emil De Becque is a "Twin Soliloquy" and not a duet. When Metropolitan Opera star Ezio Pniza was hired for the original Broadway production, Mary Martin went to Rodgers and Hammerstein and made clear that in no way would she sing with him -- it wasn't personal, it was that she knew that as operatic as her contralto voice was, it was no match for a true opera singer, and that she'd be drowned out and come across poorly. So, they structured all the songs the two perform together in a way that, though they are singing the same numbers, they are always separate. In this particular case, twin soliloquies. It will be clear when you see the scene. And that we have this scene to see (and others to come) is just utterly remarkable. Here then, is 10 minutes of true theater history. Curtain -- literally -- up. I got a phone call yesterday from my friend Myles Berkowitz. I don't always agree with his politics, but I always admire his thinking. And if anyone obsesses with thinking through the details of politics, it's Myles. We do agree often, but when we don't it's not because he's conservative or too liberal. It's not even before he says he's a Libertarian. Because he's not, as much as he thinks he is. His thinking disagrees with Libertarian doctrine much too often. That's why I say he's a Mylsist. His thinking is unique unto himself.
(I always say that his wife Elisabeth is the luckiest person alive, guaranteed a lifetime of entertainment. All she has to do is say, "So, Myles, what do you think about...?" and fill in the blank with anything. She's sure to set Myles off on a wonderful rant. If the blank is filled in with Alex Trebek or announcer Al Michaels, then that rant is even more certain to last longer than most.) As I said, Myles called to say that he'd figured out his position of Barack Obama's negotiation with Iran. He'd given it a lot of thought (of course), and he'd come to the conclusion that it was a very good thing. Mind you, Myles being Myles, he didn't reach that conclusion for the reason most people did. "I decided to give it my new 'What would George do?' test. I realized that George Bush had such a terrible record making foreign policy decisions that whatever he'd do in any given situation must be wrong. So, the opposite is the right thing. And with that in mind, I knew there was no way George Bush would ever have done this deal with Iran. No way in the world. So, that means negotiating a peace with them must be the best thing to do. I'm serious." While I think there are other, perfectly good reasons to support the deal, I can't say that Myles is wrong in his thinking. I can't think of a single foreign policy his Administration made that worked well, and most seemed to be total disasters. And no, Mr. Bush would never have made a deal with Iran, let alone negotiated with them. They were part of the Axis of Evil, after all. The thing is, the deal is fraught with the potential of it failing. It is a risk. But then, many deals are. But that doesn't make them wrong. And I keep trying to think what the alternative is to trying it -- and I can't think of any that are remotely palatable. They all seem to come down to 1) keep piling on sanctions, and 2) war. The first appears to be un-ending and doesn't make the area any less unstable, and the second is too terrible to want to consider. So, that pretty much leaves trying a peaceful solution. I know that Benjamin Netanyahu has been publicly and strongly against the deal. The thing is, Mr. Netanyahu is a lot more conservative than many, even in Israel, so his word alone hardly makes the stance the right one. Besides which there's always the nagging question of how much is his reaction for public consumption, while behind the scenes he's grateful that there might be a solution that doesn't end with Israel being bombed. I know, too, that many conservatives are strongly against the deal because Iran is too untrustworthy, and because the current Israeli leadership is against it, publicly. But then, when Ronald Reagan negotiated for detente with the Soviet Union, many of our European allies were against him doing so -- and the Soviet Union was always considered deeply untrustworthy. Yet that deal has worked out pretty well. Besides, going back to "What would George do?" -- for those who think Mr. Obama's overtures are the wrong way to fly, and we should "remain tough" like George Bush would have...it's worth noting that when George Bush took office, Iran's nuclear program had had zero operational centrifuges, and during his Administration that number rose to over 8,000. So, what would George do? I think that President Obama -- and Myles Berkowitz -- got it just right. As a student at Northwestern University, we proudly hated Ohio State University, for its pomposity and bullying holier-than-thou nature. Among other things, whenever the Daily Northwestern newspaper would do its annual pre-season ranking of the Big Ten football team, they would traditionally have Northwestern listed in 9th place -- despite their being in the midst of some huge losing streak, and have Ohio State (generally one of the powerhouses in the nation) predicted in 10th and last place. Just on general principal. I remember my dad telling me about one game he went to alone (he had season tickets for 49 years -- an impressive feat for following any school's team, but all the more so when that team had the 4th worst record in the history of college. It was in the midst of another long losing streak by Northwestern, I believe this one was when they lost 34 games in a row between 1979-1982, the longest in NCAA history. (Hey, when I said they hag huge losing streaks, I meant it.) They were playing Ohio State this one game, and not shockingly getting crushed, probably something like 49-3. Late in the fourth quarter, with time running out, OSU started on another drive and bizarrely was heading for yet another score, rather than taking the traditional knee and letting the time run out. Even more bizarrely, as the Buckeyes got in scoring position down to about the three yard line, and the clock almost down to zero...they called time out, to give them one more chance to score. The Northwestern home group start booing in annoyed disbelief. Ohio State had time to run just one more play. And for perhaps the only time in the game, Northwestern actually stopped them, and kept OSU out of the end zone that one, final time, as the game ended. And when the clock when to 0:00, my dad said the students rushed down to the field and tore the goal posts out as if it had been a Northwestern victory! Which to the Wildcats, it had been, albeit a moral one. (Hey, when you have the longest losing streak in history, you take any victory you can.) I might have had some of the details wrong, both from what he told me and my memory at the passage of time. But the story is pretty close. The point being that Northwestern really has always disliked Ohio State, deservedly, down to the idiotic "The" that they try to stupidly put in front of their name. So, it speaks volumes when I say that Ohio State University does have a great marching band. And they did a remarkable tribute to the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address the other day. Though this says 13:45 minutes, it's actually less than 10. The remaining time is a tribute to the graduating seniors in the band. |
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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