Welcome to The Hoosier Illuminati. Macintosh bigot, clothes horse, motorsports fanatic (as long as they turn right), Anglophile.

Clothes and manners do not make the man; but when he is made, they greatly improve his appearance. --Arthur Ashe

Things I’m really beginning to hate

Comcast. I wonder if it has ever occurred to them that while I’m on hold waiting to report my cable being out (again) may not be the optimum time to ask me if I’ve tried to contact them through their website or to try to sell me Digital Voice telephone service.  Well, if I could contact them through their website I wouldn’t need to be calling them.  If I had Digital Voice I couldn’t contact them. 

‘Cause the cable’s out. 

Where’s Verizon with my FiOS cable? 

Brown. Yes, the color brown.  I am f-ing sick of the color brown.  Sick to death.  There ARE other colors.  Really. 

The MSM. You know, the fundamentals aren’t really all that bad, but they’re going to talk down the economy every stinking chance they get until until they get their guy elected.  But Obama is going to magically fix it all.  Yeah.  Meanwhile a whole lot of people are going through a whole lot of pain. 

Thunderstorms. Is it possible that we could go three consecutive days without a friggin thunderstorm?  That’s not so much to ask, is it? 

NASCAR.  To be completely fair, I’ve always hated NASCAR with a burning passion, but it has been SO obnoxious lately that I’ve actually begun to hate it even more.  It’s professional wresting in automobiles. 

GM. It’s hard to imagine how one company can be so consistently clueless, but by God they manage to accomplish it.  Can anyone explain why GM needs twelve divisions, all of which sell largely the same crap with different name tags?  Can anyone explain why GMC even exists?  Toyota manages to get by with just Toyota, Scion and Lexus.  Honda does with Honda and Acura.  Betcha GM could whittle away a division or eight.  They should have been doing this for 30 years instead of waiting until they went bankrupt. 

Microsoft.  They’re making GM look really bright.  Go ahead, Monkey Boy, quit selling XP.  Know who’s smiling about that?  Apple.  People don’t want Vista, Fester.  They’re not going to like it any better now that you’re trying to ram it down their throats.  But hey, it’s going to sell a ton of iMacs and MacBooks.  Bill knew when to get out. 

Muncie.  The entire city of Muncie.  Why can’t they figure out that nobody goes downtown because there’s nowhere to park?  They still can’t figure out why their hotel closed.  Gosh, I don’t know, maybe it’s because there’s about twelve parking spaces in that lot?  And it’s right next to a railroad track.  And because it’s DOWNTOWN where there is absolutely nothing else.  Ball Stores and Ball Corp and Chevy and Delco and Westinghouse and Warner Gear are gone.  There is a reason for that.  I know what it is.  Why don’t you?  Why can’t they figure out that Prairie Creek Reservoir shouldn’t go into its third decade of operating at a loss, even if favorite son Ron Bonham was the janitor superintendent there for all that money losing time. 

Everyone screaming for property tax reform. You morons didn’t really think you weren’t going to give the government that money if they did away with the property tax, did you?  Yeah, you did.  Because you’re idiots.  They’re the government.  They’re going to get that money.  Got a war to pay for.  And pay and pay and pay.  Doin’ a helluva job, Bushie. 

Emeril Lagasse. Bam this, wanker.  See also: Rachael Ray.  Just a little hint, Rach, if you tell us that EVOO is an abbreviation for ‘extra virgin olive oil’ every time you use it, the abbreviation loses some of its worth.  I don’t even know how it’s possible for Paula Deen to still be alive.  Put a pound of butter in everything and it’s just a matter of time. 

Did I mention brown?  Because I really, really hate brown anymore. 

I’ll probably think of some more later, this is right off the top of my head. 

Asthma:  Not Recommended

I haven’t had an asthma attack in a long time.  Until I mowed the yard yesterday, that is. 

That is really, really unpleasant. 

A Gentleman’s Umbrella

With all of the recent monsoons Indiana has suffered through, I’ve been giving considerable thought to acquiring a true luxury item, and honest-to-God British gentleman’s umbrella. 

Mind you, an English umbrella is nothing like the crap you buy in Wal-Mart or at the mall for a ten spot.  An English umbrella is a work of art and architecture.  The English consider the umbrella not so much an implement one carries to keep the rain off as a finishing accessory that a gentleman always carries and is incomplete without. 

The most well known makers of traditional British brollys include Swaine Adeney Brigg, James Smith and Fox Umbrellas. 

Brigg is probably the most well known manufacturer, but when I think of the most quintessentially British maker it MUST be James Smith.

A proper gentleman’s umbrella is not a cheap piece of tube steel as are most umbrellas we see here.  A gentleman’s umbrella is made of a single piece of solid wood.  I could explain it, but Cigar Aficionado already has and why reinvent the wheel?

How is a Brigg umbrella made? Production begins with the most commonly used woods for handles--malacca and polished chestnut, Eastwood says. The ends of the stick are dipped in wax to protect the soft interior wood. Then the hard silica shell of the outer wood is removed by dipping it repeatedly into acid. Residual acid is rinsed off, the wax is removed and the wood is ready for bending.

Bending, or hand-crooking, is accomplished by controlled application of heat and steam, resulting in a unique crook for each umbrella. The craftsmen use a torch to achieve just the right amount of softening to facilitate a perfect bend. Certain woods such as whangee, a gorgeous bamboolike wood from Japan, are beautifully detailed with the slow burn of the torch. The wood is baked overnight, then carefully inspected and hand-sanded to remove any imperfections. After sanding, varnishing begins until, as Eastwood claims, “the wood retains a heavy viscous coat with a lovely satin gloss.”

Some of the most distinctive umbrellas have exotic leathers stretched around the wooden crook and then carefully stitched by hand. These include crocodile, ostrich and lizard, but even more common leathers, such as calf or pigskin, have a certain smartness when combined with an elegant black rolled umbrella.

The shaft of a Brigg umbrella can be constructed in two ways. The first is a solid, one-piece construction; the umbrella is essentially a walking stick with an umbrella built around it. These are generally made from coarse woods such as cherry, walnut or ash. In England, their additional heft and sturdiness make them ideal for country use.

Other umbrella shafts are made of two elements, combining an exotic wood handle with a shaft made from straight-grained Swedish birch, a high-density wood that is very consistent in quality. Each stick is turned to size, graded, sanded and stained to match the color of the handle. Even the insides of the slots are stained.

“Brigg insists on using the very finest fittings to complete the umbrella,” says Eastwood. All the runners and notches are made from solid brass and finished with a bronze coating to prevent tarnishing. These critical moving parts are built to withstand many years of the stress that occurs when an umbrella is opened and closed or is subjected to high winds. “These umbrellas simply do not turn inside out,” assures Eastwood. The ferrule at the tip of the umbrella is also bronzed brass and capped with steel to withstand wear when the umbrella is used as a walking stick.

Perhaps the only part of the umbrella that Brigg does not make from scratch is the frame, which is produced by the famous Fox English Frame Co. It is made from oil-tempered Sheffield steel, which ensures even tension and flexibility throughout the hood. The springs in a Brigg umbrella are made of hardened nickel silver and never fail to respond. Instead of being riveted, which is a common point of weakness in most umbrellas, Brigg’s ribs and stretchers are wired together by hand. Rust can’t intrude because all the metal parts are coated with a protective finish.

Even though the frames are made elsewhere, Eastwood insists that the distinctive domelike shape is Brigg’s alone. “It is because the patterns employed in cutting the fabric to fit the frame have been perfected for over 100 years.” The fabric for the hood can be nylon, a pure cotton twill or even silk.

As you might imagine, Brigg, Smith and Fox umbrellas are hardly inexpensive, but the best rarely is and who would know umbrellas better than the English? 

Yes, I’m thinking it’s time to invest in a proper piece of kit.  As much as I’d like to simply pick up a Smith (which are custom cut to your particular size while you wait) the next time I’m in London, I’m not figuring on being in London for, well, quite some time.  Since they’re not readily available by any other means, that means I’ll be investing in either a Brigg or a Fox.  Probably a Brigg in cherry or oak with my initials engraved near the Royal Warrant.  Yes, Brigg has the distinction of having the Royal Warrant to provide umbrellas for HRH Prince Charles.  They’re probably good enough, eh? 

A conversation between Charlie Rose and Luca di Montezemolo

One of my favorite people.  Montezemolo is the chairman of Fiat, president of Ferrari, a Formula 1 mover, a true style icon in the mold of his predecessor at Fiat, Gianni Agnelli, and a generally brilliant guy.  I enjoy listening to what he has to say, it’s a pleasure to listen to a charming, engaging gentleman who truly gets it.  Rose always does a nice job with him, too. 

Martin the Tailor

Martin Greenfield, who does a lot of custom work for Brooks Brothers.  It’s an interesting story.  Greenfield came here in 1947 after being liberated from the concentration camps and started with nothing, building a fantastic business for himself, eventually becoming Bill Clinton’s tailor and a community leader. 

It sounds sappy, but you’ll really get an understanding of the power of America when you watch this. 

Martin the Tailor from Ed David on Vimeo.

The $300 Million Dollar Battery

Senator McCain recently announced that if elected president he would offer $300 million dollars to anyone who could come up with a better battery to power electric or hybrid cars.

I can’t tell you how many ways I have a problem with this. 

For the first thing, a patent for the kind of battery he’s talking about isn’t worth $300 million.  It’s worth $300 billion, maybe, but not $300 million.  The kind of money he’s talking about might almost cover the costs of the R&D.  I doubt it, but it might. 

For the next thing, why is this just now becoming a sufficiently important issue that presidential candidates are talking about it?  We’ve known that we have an energy dependence problem since 1973.  That’s 35 years and seven presidents.  As fun as it is to call Bush an oil president and blame him for $4 gas, that doesn’t explain why Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I and Clinton didn’t press the issue.  Those savages in the Middle East have had us, if you’ll pardon a pun that is way overused, over a barrel for going on four decades, and only now is a guy who is watching his election chances evaporate by the day trying to salvage something by talking about handing over a relative pittance for a better battery?  Way too little and way too late. 

What we need, what we have needed for years, is a Kennedyesque call for energy independence to become our national priority.  There is nothing more critical to the future of our nation than for us to be free from the need for imported oil and to cut off the Arabs’ flow of cash.  Yes, we have sources of oil we haven’t yet tapped in ANWR and off the coast, but that is, at best, a short-term remedy.  The long-term answer is to develop next-generation sources of power for vehicles, homes and industry and to develop some mass transit alternatives where those make sense. 

Look at what we’re throwing down a hole in Iraq.  Over $500 billion so far, congressional testimony says that the final cost could be as much as $2.7 trillion, God knows how many thousands and thousands of lives, and there’s no end in sight. 

Now, imagine if President Bush, after 9/11 when he could have done anything, had announced that one of the things this country was going to do was starve the Middle East by eliminating American dependence on their single source of income forever.  Imagine if he had stated that our national scientific priority was now to develop and deploy new sources of energy to power our cars, our planes, our trains, our homes and our industry.  If he had stood on that pile of rubble at Ground Zero and announced that not only were we going to hunt down and kill the savages responsible for this, we were going to do away with imported oil forever and if it took $2.7 trillion dollars, by God we’d pay that and more because our future depends on it.  If he had just said that and then done it he would go down as the greatest and most visionary president in the history of our republic.  Instead, he led us into an economically ruinous war for reasons that it turns out were questionable and for which we have no clear strategy for ending. 

But that was then and this is now.  Are either of our presidential candidates offering the moon shot of the next century?  Uh… no.

I at least give Obama credit for having an energy tab on his issues list, even if it does have to share space with the environment, as if the two are, or must be, tied at the hip.  McCain doesn’t even list energy as one of his issues, although he does have a link to an energy advertisement front and center on his homepage.  Obama wants to force the issue by mandating a reduction in carbon emissions and to spend a paltry $150 billion in ten years on alternative fuel research.  BFD, no call to arms there.  McCain?  Well, he wants to drop tariffs on imported ethanol, force E85 as a national standard, establish a tax credit for any automaker who can build a zero-emission car, and, of course, build a better battery.  No call to arms there either.  Neither of these guys gets it.

Energy independence has to be the reason our country gets up in the morning until we solve it.  Our entire energy and transportation infrastructure is built around fossil fuels.  It is going to take the government, the oil companies, the utilities, the auto manufacturers, the mass transit companies and authorities, educational and research institutions all working in concert to get this job done.  This is literally going to be the biggest thing our country has attempted since the revolution itself, and yes, it’s going to be rife with corruption and a whole lot of money is going to disappear.  What is the cost of not doing it, though?  And neither of the men begging for my vote are even talking about it.  You want my vote?  Prove you can lead on this issue and you’ve got it.  And it’s going to take more than $150 billion and a battery. 

Listening to George Carlin on XM

Sonny Fox is rerunning an interview he did with Carlin a couple of years ago for XM, and an audience member asked him what comics he thought were great. 

Carlin’s answer:  Lewis Black.  He said that he thought Black’s “theatrical anger” was brilliant and that he has a great mind for comedy and that the kinds of things he thinks about are interesting.

Two things:  First, if you’re Lewis Black, how happy are you to hear that?  Second, it’s cool that I hear Carlin say that one of the only guys left who makes me laugh makes him laugh too. 

Dammit.

I’m running out of people who can really make me laugh.  If Lewis Black goes I’m screwed. 

The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A Death! What’s that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you’re too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you’re young enough to enjoy your retirement. You do drugs, alcohol, you party, you get ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months floating…

--George Carlin

Here’s perhaps my all-time favorite Carlin bit:  The Ten Commandments.  Enjoy.

Win Ben Stein’s Necktie

Ben still rules.

You see this lovely silken thing around my neck? It’s called a necktie.

When I was a lad and a younger man, men wore these to show they did not work with picks and shovels and pitchforks.

Ties were a symbol of white collar status, although even some workmen wore them under their leather aprons.

If you had on a necktie, it showed you had some sense of organization, some sense of dignity about yourself.

Even schoolboys wore them. At fabulous boarding schools like Cardigan Mountain in New Hampshire, where my handsome son went, boys still wear them. It showed, to use a word that you rarely hear, class.

Now, I read in The Wall Street Journal, on the front page, if you please, that men don’t wear neckties any longer unless they are in subservient posts.

This will probably come as a bit of a surprise to Senators McCain and Obama, as well as to President Bush. They generally wear neckties, at least on TV.

It will probably come as a shock to all of the network newscasters and the late night talk show hosts. They’re the coolest guys on the planet, and they wear neckties.

But never mind. The Journal says only 6% of men wear neckties to work, and the necktie is being run down by history.

I hereby quote my late great friend Bill Buckley and say, I am going to stand in front of the train of sartorial history and shout, “STOP!”

The necktie is a sign of a man who is there to work, not to play. It’s what a man who takes his responsibilities seriously wears. Men who want to look and act like small children dress like small children, or surfers, or hoboes, or something.

Plus, the necktie covers over a little part of one’s paunchy stomach. And it just generally makes a man look better, smarter.

My fellow men: stop dressing like children. Start dressing like grownups and acting like grownups. The necktie is a start.

Kids, it’s the perfect time of year to get your dads a necktie. Get with the program, before we become a nation of open-collared slackers.

I mean it. Right now. And then straighten up your room.

Ferrari finishes 1-2 at Magny-Cours

Unfortunately, I couldn’t watch the race on Speed TV as I normally would since their corporate overlords at NASCAR/Fox decided to air the race themselves, albeit on a tape delay at 1:00PM. 

Attention Fox: I do not want to watch the race three hours after it finishes, I want to watch the race live.  So I watched it on an internet feed, you are cordially invited to kiss my backside.  In fact, now that I’ve discovered a stream of the far superior non-Foxified English ITV broadcast, I will not be watching it on Speed anymore either.  So congratulations to you for driving me away from your stinking NASCAR station.  In fact, I encourage you to just rename the damn thing NASCAR TV because that’s all you give a crap about anyway.  Last week the 24 Hours of Le Mans was running, and you cut away from that for a NASCAR truck qualifying session, so I think we know where your head is.  If it weren’t for all the babes on Fox News, Fox wouldn’t have any redeeming qualities whatsoever.  Fox still thinks The Simpsons is funny.  That’s the great thing about the Internet, it frees me from the idiocy of American television.

But I digress. 

Ferrari was clearly the class of today’s field, everyone else was racing for best-in-class, which was won by Jarno Trulli in the Toyota, who finished in P3, 28 seconds behind the winner, Felipe Massa.  Kimi Räikkönen had the race well in hand until his right exhaust pipe failed, burning away half of the engine cover, but he still managed to finish only 18 seconds behind Massa.  The story of the weekend was BMW Sauber’s failure to keep any momentum after the win in Montreal, Kubica finishing in P5 and Heidfeld well out of the points in P13.  McLaren didn’t really stand much of a chance today with Lewis Hamilton having been penalized ten spots on the grid for his bone-headed ass-ending of Räikkönen at the pit out in Montreal, and Heikki Kovalainen taking a five spot hit for blocking Mark Webber in qualifying.  (I thought that was a bit of a tough penalty as Webber really wasn’t hurt, but whatever.)

Massa is now first in the driver standings, two points up on Kubica and five over Räikkönen.  Ferrari’s lead is considerable over BMW-Sauber in the constructor standings, 91 to 74 with McLaren trailing badly with only 58 points. 

In other pseudo-racing news, the Danica Racing League is running Yet Another Roundy-Round, this week it is the (and I am NOT making this up) Iowa Corn Indy 250, presumably at some waterlogged dirt track outside of Des Moines or Cedar Rapids.  Oddly enough, if you want to see a driver turn right again today you have to watch the taxicabs at Infineon Raceway.  The DRL really should be ashamed of itself, letting the good ol’ boys run a road course while they’re (still) running in circles.  And there’s yet another oval at Richmond before they finally get to run a real race at Watkins Glen over the July 4 weekend.  ALMS is off until July 18-19 at Mid-Ohio as they recover from Le Mans.  Oh, and those god-awful hideous Grand Am things ran yesterday.  The big news from that race is that they suck even worse on wet pavement than on dry, but it’s just NASCAR with doors so what can you expect? 

Royal Ascot is Upon Us

I wish we had an event in the States that permitted us, just once a year, to dress in proper morning wear.  That Ascot is a sporting event just makes the wearing of morning dress that much more brilliant.  As much as I enjoy my own morning wear, I’m more excited to see the ladies in theirs.  There’s little better than a lady dressed in her finest.

There are a number of rules for a gentleman’s dress at Royal Ascot. 

One decision that you can take without anxiety is whether to order a black or grey morning coat. Both are equally appropriate.

Cravats really stand out as the wrong choice at Royal Ascot. Wear a tightly knotted tie.

Shirts should be pale but never white, with corresponding white collar and cuffs. One can play with colours but do not match your tie with your waistcoat and your handkerchief. It looks too much like wedding attire.

Although the tradition for waistcoats is for buff or grey, I will be wearing a blue and a French lavender one and BBC presenter Willie Carson is wearing a buttermilk colour. Colour is much more acceptable than pattern.

Socks should be grey or black. Coloured socks are no longer considered eccentric: they just tend to look second rate.

One does want to attempt to dress appropriately when a guest of Her Majesty.

It has been suggested that the Kentucky Derby is the American equivalent of Royal Ascot, but I cannot agree.  Yes, the ladies wear their hats, but the gentlemen dress in standard business or lounge suits if they dress up at all, there’s not a morning coat to be seen but on persons working at Churchill Downs.  The English sense of formality only occasionally visits upon England itself these days, but I do wish it made it here every now and again as well. 

OK, enough is enough.

The rain can stop any damn time now, enough already. 

Having Conquered American Open Wheel…

I guess we all knew this was coming.  I mean, what does she have left to prove here?  Yup, it’s time to introduce the world to the unstoppable force that is Danica Patrick.

Below:  Gratuitous Danica Cheesecake Pic

Danica Patrick, who races for the Honda-powered Andretti-Green IRL team, has spoken of wanting to make the jump to the world’s premier form of motorsport, Formula 1. Later this year, according to Honda F1 CEO Nick Fry, the team is going to give her that chance. Danica will be put into Honda’s Earth Dreams F1 car in November, probably at the Barcelona or Jerez tracks in Spain, for a full-scale test. Said Fry, “We will put her into our car after the season at the latest and see how quick she is.”

If we were talking about any less a phenomenon than Danica Patrick I’d be tempted to think this was nothing more than a cheap publicity stunt, but with her astonishing record I’m shocked that F1 didn’t snap her up a long time ago. 

When asked about her inevitable ascendancy to the top of the World Driving Championship rankings, Formula 1 chief Bernie Ecclestone said that he thought it was long overdue and he was anxious to personally welcome Patrick to the paddock and treat her with the dignity and respect that a racer of her caliber deserves. 

Nah, just kidding.    Bernie said he was happy to see Danica in that white bra because he still thinks that women should be dressed all in white like all the rest of the kitchen appliances. 

Say… You know, there may be another reason why Danica might be getting this test… I’ll bet she’d look hot as hell in a leather and latex Nazi uniform.  Go get her, Max.  Rowr. 

My Hemrajani Brothers suit arrived today

Wrinkled as hell, but no more so than I would have expected for it having been folded up in a box for over a week in the cargo holds of various airplanes, in trucks, trains, semis and so forth, but it arrived today.  The fit is brilliant, I couldn’t ask for much better, particularly the trousers, but the jacket also fits better than anything in my closet.  Sleeve length is right on, the jacket skirt is just right, the shoulders aren’t overly padded, button stance is good, trouser waist and length are perfect.  (No belt loops, of course.  Buttons for braces, because a gentleman’s trousers are meant to hang from his shoulders, not be tied to his waist.  It’s probably unnecessary to say so, but yes, Albert Thurston boxcloth braces.) It’s off to the dry cleaner tomorrow for a professional pressing.  My dinner suit and a few shirts need to go anyway. 

Will I order from Hemrajani Brothers again?  Oh, absolutely.  Will I do anything differently?  Certainly.  I thought the fabric was going to be a little darker than it turned out to be, I need to make sure to get the books over in the sunlight whilst flipping through them.  I’m not disappointed by the color, it’s just not quite what I expected.  Now that I know they have the sleeve lengths right on I’ll have them put working buttons on the cuffs.  Probably one or two very minor details.  Is it Savile Row?  No, it’s not Savile Row, but I can’t afford Savile Row either.  And this suit is probably 90% as good as the suits I’ve seen from the Row. 

My next effort will probably be a single-breasted in navy, maybe a chalk stripe.  I’ll certainly have them make up a waistcoat with lapels when I order it.  I’m still waiting on my shirts, they’re due to arrive on Wednesday.  In a leap of faith, I ordered a couple of shirts made from Thomas Mason fabrics, and if they’re as brilliant as the suit I’m going to be a very happy customer for many years to come. 

Apple Announcements

Underwhelming, to be honest. 

The 3G iPhone is great, of course, except that it’s still tied to AT&T so it’s a non-starter for me.  Nice price adjustments though, $199 for the 8GB, $299 for the 16GB, apparently no 32 or 64GB can be had at any price, which is disappointing.  Now, in light of the price reductions to the iPhone, what about the iPod touch?  Can anyone explain why a 16GB iPod touch costs $399 compared to $299 for the iPhone?  Something there isn’t quite right.  Hopefully there will be some price adjustments to the iPods in the next few days or weeks. 

The big new functionality, other than the App Store where you can finally purchase 3rd party applications is the inclusion of Exchange syncing and Cisco VPN into the iPhone 2.0 software.  Presumably they think VPN is going to drive the creation of enterprise apps?  I’m not sure I see it. 

The other big announcement was ‘mobileme’ (dumbest name ever), which replaces .Mac.  Apparently with mobileme I can create an appointment on my iPhone and it will show up on my Mac or PC automatically and vice versa.  Sort of like what I’ve been doing with my Blackberry for years.  Presumably they’re still doing the iWeb hosting and whatnot, although Steve didn’t get into that.  The other thing he didn’t get into was whether they were finally going to let us use private domain names with e-mail.  I’m guessing the answer to that is “No” since Steve didn’t mention it.  I guess we’re going to have to wait until the site actually comes up to get any detailed information apart from the fact that it’s better than “Active Stink” (Schiller actually said that… ) and it’s $99.  There’d better be way more to mobileme than they showed in the demo if they want me to fork over $99/yr since my Hosting Matters account costs me $132 a year.  OTA syncing is cool and everything, but I’d rather pay a few extra bucks to use my own domain name (and as many others as I want to register) than have cool syncing. 

That was really about it.  There are still as many questions as answers, but overall not the most exciting collection of announcements I’ve ever seen.