GM has a good quarter.

So sayeth the Wall St Journal.  Sales of high margin SUV's and pickup trucks is way up.  The article goes on to do some back patting, and noting GM's plan to buy into (buy up?) Lyft.  And worries about Brexit messing up the European market more than it is. (GM's Euro operations have lost money for years and years).
    No discussion of GM's bread and butter business, selling sedans in North America.  Take a drive on Rte 128, half, maybe two thirds of the vehicles on the road are smallish four seat sedans.  That's where the real volume is in the car business.  Pickups and SUVs are a niche market, granted a large niche, but still a niche compared to small four passenger sedans, the family get-to-work and go-to-market car.  GM is still a huge company, and it must compete in the big markets to survive.  A behemoth needs a lot of feeding to stay alive.  Pickups and SUVs don't have the volume to feed a GM.  They must got for the big market, small sedans.
   GM does have some product for this segment.  First thing GM needs to do is find some better names for the vehicles.  Low end ($14K) is called "Spark", a name that makes me think of blown fuses, electrical faults, crapped out VCR's.  Not an auspicious name for a car.   The next step up is called "Sonic".  Everyone knows that Sonic is a computer game hedgehog.  Both Spark and Sonic are very simular looking hatchbacks, with the road snuffling forward lean styling.  Not very good looking.
  Next step up is Cruze, a decent looking conventionally styled sedan for $16K.  The name suggests only a certain sawed off movie actor.
    GM needs a good car in the low end of the market.  Say a MRSP of $10K, with distinctive styling so you can tell it's a Chevy when you see one on the road.  Distinctive styling helps two ways.  It attracts buyers, and it serves as a rolling advertisement for the car line if it looks like a Chevy rather than just another econobox.  And find a decent name for it.  Actually GM owns a bunch of decent car names that it doesn't use anymore.  Corvair, Pontiac, GTO, Roadmaster, Oldsmobile, all come to mind.  Surely GM can do better than "Spark".  

The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming

   Bogger, this blog's host, supplies a "Stats" page showing the number of pages views, where the viewers come from, and hit counts on your most popular posts.  Being a blogger of ordinary vanity, I check "Stats" every so often to see how popular my humble blog might be.  For the last few years it's been jogging along at 50-100 pageviews a day.  Yesterday, bingo, 350 pageviews.  Today 800 page views.  Wow, a ten X growth in viewership. 
   Where does all this traffic come from?  Would you believe Russia?  Today I have 528 page views from Russia, as opposed to only 39 from the United States.  Either I have gone viral in Russia, or Blogger's Stats function has gone crazy.  Hmm, I wonder.  Actually, I think it's more likely that the Stats function has ceased to function properly, but who knows.  

HP Support Assistant.

It's one of those vaguely documented programs that comes on HP computers.  Far as I can tell, it's the HP version of Windows Update.  It keeps track of the versions of the HP code in your machine, device drivers mostly, and updates them when it feels like it.  I don't believe the version on FlatBeast (which came from the store running Win 8.10  ever worked at all.  I remember running it a few times and over the course of a year, I don't think it even did anything other than whine.
   Win 10 took offense at HP Support Assistant and claimed it wouldn't work, it would give the computer rabies, and other offensive stuff.  So after getting Win 10 squared away I googled on HP Support Assistant, just to see what others had to say about it.  Best advice I found, was to just re install the damn thing from the HP website.  The writer claimed this would fix all evils.  And it did. 't
   I ran it, and it wanted to replace seven or eight bits of software.  So I let it have its head, and it took awhile, it wanted to reboot after three or four downloads,  but it got to the end and it didn't break anything. 
   Suggestion to you HP owners out there.  Should you find that HP Support Assistant ain't doing much, try downloading a fresh version from HP.  This might get him going again. 

Rolling up the windows

My driveway lacks shade.  On hot summer days the car heats up like a furnace.  To combat this, I like to leave the windows down.  We have maintained the social order up here and I don't have to worry about having the car stolen.
   What I do worry about is the sudden rainstorm.  Really messes up the upholstery when it gets rained on.  Right now, should I hear a rumble of thunder, I must get up, go out to the car, with the key in hand, turn the ignition on, and hold the power window buttons down till all is rolled up.
   I have a remote control for the car on my keychain.  Wouldn't it be nice if said remote had a button to roll up all the windows.  The remote already has a button to pop the trunk lid, and work the door locks.  Surely one more button wouldn't be a cost breaker.  The remote has enough range for me to pop the trunk lid sitting at my kitchen table, so I wouldn't even have to get out of my chair. 
   And while we are at it, how about a rain sensor that makes the windows roll up automatically at the first drop of rain?

So I upgraded to Windows 10

And the laptop survived the experience.  Like all things Micro$oft it's slow.  Took 6 hours to install Win 10.  Now that I am upgraded, the laptop seems a scosh more lively.   My custom login screen survived. Word 2002 still works, Picassa still works.  Haven't tried everything yet.  Win 10 threw out CCleaner claiming incompatibility.   It also raised a fuss about some nameless program, and and the HP auto update program.  (It's an HP laptop). 
    I'd been holding off on Win 10, fearing it would be slower and fatter than Win 8.1.  Experience tells me that each new Windows is fatter and slower than the old one.  But, a couple of web searches failed to find anyone raving about Win 10 bugs, and Micro$oft started threatening to end the free updates next week.  So I weakened and updated.
   Lets hope I don't regret it. 

Obama's "Justice" dept OK's giant beer merger

The US Justice dept signs off in a merger of Anheuser-Busch Inbev NV and SABMiller PLC.  The merger is $108 billion and creates the larger beer company in the world.  And it will pretty much eliminate competition in the US.  After this merger, if you want to drink beer, you gotta buy it from the one beer company left.  What ever they will call themselves.  And they can charge anything they want, and we have to pay it, or do without beer. 
   A merger this big should never be approved.  It is so big as to create a monopoly.  And fleece consumers left and right.  So much for Obama looking out for the people.  He's looking out for crony capitalists.   

Donald Trump's family do good things for him

The children all look really good on TV.  Grownup, articulate, well spoken, properly dressed, well groomed, well educated, and solidly loyal to their father.  Speaking as a veteran parent, a guy who can raise that many good children is a guy deserving of respect.  And his wife Melania, showed great love and loyalty to Donald, in addition to being really hot.  Donald must be a pretty decent husband to attract and keep a woman like that.  Too bad they sabotaged her speech.  Melania would make a helova lot better First Lady than snooty Michelle Obama. 
   Anyhow, family counts.  Trump has some really good family.