Microsoft Tablets

Plop Plop, Fizz Fizz.

Microsoft is launching their first batch of tablet computers.  I have been hearing those words for about six months now but haven’t actually seen one yet.  Back when I gave a squat about what Microsoft was babbling about, they were constantly talking about a Courier tablet.  Looked cool.  Never materialized.  I seem to remember that being several years before the iPad arrived.  Another case of “what if” for Microsoft.

The Courier seemed breathtakingly innovative compared with “keyboard covers in fancy colors” that look good, and are obviously meant to make them stand out from the iPads they are (desperately?) trying to compete with, but since the Apple iPad already has an outstanding Bluetooth keyboard available (full disclosure – I love my Apple Bluetooth keyboard) that feature isn’t as Earth-shattering as it might otherwise appear to those with no knowledge of the Apple iPad accessory market.

The last time Microsoft entered a market segment this late in the game was with the Zune, when they absolutely couldn’t ignore the iPod any longer.  Microsoft was one of the last, and easily the largest of the iPod killers, to end in the graveyard of hopelessly lame electronics.  The Zune is now referred to as the Edsel of electronic devices but just like the Edsel there are some who still sing the technical virtues of the device.

Two Routes Tablets to the Celestial Kingdom. success.

In the spirit of mixing politics with, uh….everything, and a keen eye on educating the US public on the bizarre religious beliefs of one of their leading candidates, I shall refer to the two Microsoft tablet models as Urim and Thummim, with Urim being the stand-in for the cheaper unit and Thummim taking the starring role as full blown tablet.

That the “cheaper” tablet is doomed to fail couldn’t be more obvious to me if it were written on Golden Tablets and decoded by Joseph Smith himself.  It won’t be long before chants of “The Urim is Vermin” begin to appear.  My guess is that will happen about the time the hapless consumer clicks into the “apps” section of the Microsoft store.  Since Urim doesn’t support full scale Microsoft products, the Urim clients will be tethered to the Microsoft store just like the Apple iPad crowd.  I venture to guess that the Microsoft store will resemble the bread lines in former Soviet Russia as people stand around waiting (hoping, praying) that their favorite app will get ported to Microsoft.  This is the tablet that will really show how much Microsoft was “forced” into producing this on their own when everybody else knew better.  Prediction: DOA

Microsoft’s upscale version$$$ of their newfangled tablet (Thummin) is purported to run full-blown Windows.  See all those extra dollar signs?  Prediction: Narrow adoption by those with very specialized needs, and that is fully dependent on the unit actually performing in a manner consistent with the high expectations Microsoft is prepping everybody for.

Clear winner in all this?  Ipad Mini.

Enjoy.

Wanker Alert

Andrew Sullivan, the right-wing, self-hating homosexual Catholic, has a rant on how Obama is in dire straits after one mediocre debate with Romney.  What a freak show this Sullivan character really is!!  For those of you unfamiliar with Sullivan, he is best remembered as a gung-ho rightwing Bush war supporter, before he eventually pulled his head out of his ass (see also John Cole at Balloon Juice for a similar postwar conversion).

For those too young to remember, see this and remember this is a three round bout.

Here is Huffington Post take now that they have noticed.

Enjoy.

Clean Sweep

Having called the election for Obama sometime after the failure of the slobbering Texas governor, and the promiscuous demise of the Pizza Guy, I am now ready to make another bold prediction.  Despite what the press has been leading everyone to believe, the sentient center of the nation clearly had my first prediction already floating around in their heads back then anyway. I consider that one a gimme.

Now that the Republicans have settled on the new-age version of Joseph Smith, it is looking like the Republicans are going to be heading out into a desert of their own making very shortly.  I bet Joseph Smith would be proud of Mitt’s capacity to fabricate gold tablets lies out of thin air.  Mitt is consistently repeating false timelines and misquoting the actual narratives of the brave and selfless Americans who were involved in the embassy attacks (as if denigrating the commander-in-chief during a time of crisis wasn’t declasse enough in its own right!)   But the thing is, it isn’t confined to Mitt.  This propensity for false witness and fabrication has so thoroughly infected the entire Republican establishment that “normal” Republicans (the ones your Dad admired) have been chased away, banished and sidelined.  If only there was a way we could do something about it?

Elections have coattails.  This election is going to have a coattail so long that it’ll be the envy of coattails all over the world.  A blowout of EPIC proportions for the entire Republican party.  I promise you that within a couple more election cycles it is going to be so shameful to have been associated with the Republican party that people are going to deny membership with a fervor not seen since the protestations of innocence by Nazi prison guards post 1945..  Those who can’t deny membership will plead involuntary circumstance and throw themselves on the mercy of their countrymen.

Okay, the second part about total disintegration of Republicanism is a bit of a stretch.  I am no Nate Silver, but you can bank on the Obama blowout as well as the swift and hard kick to the groin that is about to befall the party of Nope.  I will be tagging articles that I see to Twitter with the hashtag #cleansweep.  Posterity demands it.

Enjoy.

Atheist Sects – June 2148