Hasta La Gadget!

The Inaugural Edition

Hi there, and welcome to Trail to the Chief, HuffPost’s weekly trip through the folds of time-space to the peculiar world of the 2016 presidential horse-race and media coverage of it.

You probably have heard (because we are telling you) that the 2016 contest has begun, and that, like every other presidential contest, it will be THE pivotal turning point in American history.

We’ll leave pivotal — and watershed, seminal, sea change, groundbreaking, transformational, etc. — to hype and history.

All we know is there IS a campaign, and attention must be paid. The question is how.

For depth, breadth and seriousness, nothing beats the political coverage of HuffPost.

Then there is Trail to the Chief.

Each week we will pre-ponder the ponderous and de-hype the hype. We will collect Data (Polling, Big and Meta), political science, research, media buzz and our own survey of conventional thinking (which we disdain and never propagate) — and feed it all into artisanal algorithms devised by our team of Brooklyn-based quant-lumbersexuals, who do this work for us before band practice.

We will chart candidates and campaigns, flacks and fixers, pundits and the press, TV ads and position papers, donors and demographics. We’ll talk about it on HuffPost Live each week at 12:20 p.m. EST.

We will take this process just as seriously as the candidates do. In fact, here is our firm promise to you: Should the candidates pull off the unlikely feat of staging a high-minded, responsible and substantive campaign, we will go away.

In the meantime, we will kid because we love. We love politics. We love democracy, even our flawed one. And, truth be told, we love presidential campaigns.

This week we set the stage by ranking leading contenders. Naturally, Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush top the charts, if only for the allure of a race larded with more ’90s nostalgia than a season of “Portlandia.” In our TTTC Image Of The Week, we show you the logo for Jeb’s new PAC. He calls it “Right To Rise.” But is it to rise … from the dead? (Basically, yes.)

A brace of GOP big dogs, Chris Christie and Scott Walker, primaried each other at Lambeau Field this weekend, each supporting an opposing team owner in the NFC Divisional Playoff. We’re just sad we didn’t get to see Christie execute a Lambeau Leap. And finally, as if the baby boomer theme weren’t suffocating enough, let’s all raise a glass of milk to Mitt Romney’s return.

Ok, now here’s our first list.

RANK		CANDIDATE	PARTY	RISING OR FALLING
1		HILLARY CLINTON Hillary machine idles with nothing to do, but somehow minor foes are getting leaked on	Democrat	▼
2		JEB BUSH Today’s Mr. Sensible ran as wingnut in ’94. Oops. And annoying Mitt won’t quit	Republican	▼
3		RAND PAUL Media can’t help but hang on his every word because he could easily hang himself	Republican
4		SCOTT WALKER Union-busting governor in birthplace of progressivism: a perfect theme for the ’50s	Republican
5		PAUL RYAN Might have won in 2012 if they used “dynamic scoring” to count votes	Republican
6		ELIZABETH WARREN It’s been weeks since she denied she was running. … What is she hiding?	Democrat
7		MITT ROMNEY He 100 percent wants to be president, but only 47 percent wants to run	Republican
8		CHRIS CHRISTIE Mitt claimed kinship with NASCAR owners; bro-hugging N.J. governor does him one better	Republican	▼
9		MARCO RUBIO Holding first fundraiser at Manhattan restaurant; Yelp says oysters are subpar	Republican
10		JOE BIDEN Grandfathered into the top 10. Joe knew his way around a selfie long before the smart phone	Democrat
11	<img src="http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/JohnKasich2014_TTTC.png"	JOHN KASICH Speaks blue collar, raised Catholic and from Ohio. Pre-tea party, that was enough	Republican	▲
12		BOBBY JINDAL Enough with the Ivy League position papers, give us some “God, Guns, Grits and Gravy”	Republican
13		MIKE HUCKABEE Enough with the “God, Guns, Grits and Gravy,” give us some position papers	Republican	▲
14		TED CRUZ We know you’re trolling us, but we can monetize that	Republican
15		BERNIE SANDERS Unlikely to get Democratic nomination, but shoo-in for a Ben and Jerry’s flavor	Independent Socialist Democrat
16		JIM WEBB Hard-to-pigeonhole longshot, but reportedly got the attention of the Hillary machine	Democrat	▲
17		RICK PERRY New glasses don’t make him look studious, more like Warby Parker spokesmodel	Republican
18		BEN CARSON Wasted no time meeting at least one campaign requirement: a plagiarism apology	Republican	▼
19		ANDREW CUOMO Can count on one softball CNN interview	Democrat
20 (Tie)		RICK SANTORUM We still have our ‘12 sweater vest, but has he lost the ‘16 evangelical play-in game to Huck?	Republican
20 (Tie)		MARTIN O’MALLEY Relentless dinner-circuit travel and self-promotion save him from teeny type list below	Democrat

Even More Obscure Candidates
Cory Booker, Jerry Brown, Steve Bullock, Julian Castro, Mitch Daniels, Rahm Emanuel, Russ Feingold, Carly Fiorina, Newt Gingrich, Lindsey Graham, Luis Gutiérrez, Nikki Haley, John Hickenlooper, Amy Klobuchar, Joe Manchin, Jack Markell, Susana Martinez, Jay Nixon, George Pataki, Deval Patrick, Mike Pence, Rob Portman, Ed Rendell, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Mitt Romney, Joe Scarborough, Brian Schweitzer, Donald Trump and Mark Warner

Candidate Photos: Getty, Associated Press
TTTC Image: Right to Rise logo via https://righttorisepac.org/, Day of the Dead poster via Imp Awards

As the Italian astronaut bid Twitter a goodnight yesterday, this was her view from bed. Not bad, eh? [Sam Cristoforetti]

Read more…

Unlike previous versions of Microsoft Office where you’d just pay for it once and you’re done, Microsoft has introduced Office 365 which involves a subscription service. Of course this ensures that you’ll always have access to the latest features and updates and whatnot, but it’s an ongoing subscription that we’re sure not many might be willing to pay for.

Well the good news is that if you go to school in the state of Maryland, Microsoft has recently announced that they will begin to offer free access to Office 365 to all of the state’s public schools, both in the school itself as well as at home. It is unclear as to how much this deal could cost and it was not revealed by either party, unsurprisingly.

According to Maryland State Superintendent of Schools Dr. Lillian M. Lowery, “The Microsoft Office 365 tools and IT Academy programs provide Maryland students with new opportunities to learn marketable skills and acquire an edge as they prepare to compete for careers in a global marketplace. We chose Microsoft tools because their programs enable every student access to the tools for learning, collaboration and creativity in school and also at home.”

In addition to this program, there will be 25 new IT Academy Programs for schools introduced across the state. This is expected to bring industry recognized certifications and give skills to students in the state of Maryland.

Public School Students In Maryland To Get Free Office 365 Subscription , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

While Samsung has launched both the Galaxy A3 and the Galaxy A5, the rumors had suggested that there would also be a Galaxy A7. Earlier rumors had suggested a possible launch on the 14th of January, but it looks like Samsung has launched the phone a couple of days earlier than expected.

Yes, if you were waiting to see what the Samsung Galaxy A7 had to offer, Samsung has made the handset official. The handset will be launched at the end of Q1 2015, although pricing has yet to be determined but we expect that this will differ depending on which market it will be launched in. Samsung has also announced that there will be two different variations of the phone.

One of the variants will be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 64-bit chipset, while the other will be a 32-bit Exynos 5430 chipset. Both are of the octa-core variety with the former offering 1.5GHz/1.0GHz configurations and the latter will offer a 1.8GHz/1.3GHz setup. Other than that both phones are expected to be identical.

It will feature 2GB of RAM, 16GB of onboard storage, a 5.5-inch HD Super AMOLED display, a 13MP rear-facing camera, a 5MP front-facing camera, Cat. 4 LTE connectivity, a 2,600mAh battery and will measure an impressive 6.3mm at its thinnest.

Samsung Galaxy A7 Has Been Made Official , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

When I tell people that I used to live and teach in Hawaii, I always need to brace myself for the responses. And by responses, I mean deeply problematic stereotypes.

Chances are that you, reader, might be traveling to Hawaii for a vacation or honeymoon in the near future — and lucky you! Hawaii is amazing.

But Hawaii is also an actual residence for people (and a specific group of peoples), and it’s important for us to recognize the harmful stereotypes we often perpetuate when we talk about Hawaii.