I’m not going to bother explaining what the iPad is. If you’ve been anywhere near a computer today, you’ve seen it and formed an opinion on it. My opinion, predictably, is of the OHMIGODITSTHECOOLESTTHINGEVERIHAVETOHAVEIT variety. That said, I understand that some people aren’t as enthusiastic. They ask why it’s preferable to a laptop. They say it’s essentially an oversized iPhone or iPod Touch. They question its purpose, and the purpose of tablets in general. In short, they don’t “get it.” That’s understandable, and honestly there’s nothing wrong with that. And while I’m not an expert in theories of media consumption, I have been thinking about the issues raised by the iPad and by other recent technological advances in some depth, and would like to offer my perspective.
Continue reading ‘On the iPad’
I finally decided to dive headfirst into Wodehouse – that is, Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, famed British novelist and playwright. I had been recommended his work over the years, but never actually made a serious effort to read any of it. His most famous creations – bumbling playboy Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves – were brought to life in an acclaimed British television series starring comedy geniuses Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry, and were also the subject of a Lovecraft-inspired short story included in Alan Moore’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier (which I should say is thus far my favorite installment in that particular series). Given that Wodehouse’s works had influenced the works of those three titans of British popular culture, I figured I might as well give him a chance.
Continue reading ‘On “Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves”’
Hold your horses, it’ll be back eventually.
Does that headline seem a little overblown? Well, don’t worry, it’s not from me. But it’s entirely possible that in the wake of Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts’s special election to fill the Senate seat left vacant following Ted Kennedy’s death, you’ve seen a few similar headlines around the blogosphere. I know I have. Not shockingly, they’re all from liberals. Now I’m not going to say that liberals shouldn’t be upset about the Brown victory. After all, if you subscribe to that particular political philosophy, then Brown’s election is a stinging rebuke, and will almost certainly derail the “progressive agenda” for the time being. That’s a hard pill for some people to swallow. However, I think that a little perspective is needed.
Continue reading ‘“The End of My Faith in Democracy”’
Note: This post was originally dated July 22nd, 2009, but in light of the series’s debut last Friday, I feel obligated to repost.
I’m a big fan of Ronald D. Moore’s Battlestar Galactica, which finished its run on the channel formerly known as Sci-Fi earlier this year. Having spent years wrapped up in the drama unfolding in Admiral Adama’s ragtag fleet and in desperate need of a quality science fiction story, I was anxious to see what Moore and company were going to do with their recently commissioned but long-gestating prequel series Caprica. Billed as more of a political and family drama than a space story, Caprica promised to be a very different experience from its predecessor.
Continue reading ‘Caprica’
I’m in love with Twitter and have several accounts that I update with some regularity. However, I’m still searching for that magical desktop Twitter client – the one that’s going to make Tweeting from my Mac as natural as Tweeting from my iPhone. I’m fascinated by Seesmic Look, but for the moment it’s Windows only. I’ve also tried Seesmic Desktop and TweetDeck, but despised both of them. Not only are they incredibly taxing on my system’s resources, but I also simply loathe the column view. I understand that it’s popular among many people, but it’s too much an information-dump for me. I like a clean, simple user interface.
The two desktop clients that I’ve been using with some regularity are Tweetie and Echofon. In terms of appearance and UI, Tweetie is untouchable. It’s beautiful to look at, allows easy access to multiple accounts, and just plain does the job. However, the long-awaited update – Tweetie 2 – is still in limbo. And while we’re all waiting, the thing has just fallen behind in terms of features; it still uses old-style retweets, doesn’t support lists, doesn’t support geo-location, etc. All of those things are on the Tweetie app for the iPhone, and are presumably coming soon, but the wait has been a killer.
Echofon, on the other hand, has those features, and is both simple to use and very powerful. Unfortunately, it’s interface makes multi-account use a bit of a pain. It also does sync with Echofon for the iPhone, but I don’t use that app with great regularity. Right now, Echofon is more or less my default Twitter tool on the Mac, but I can’t help but think that there is a better one out there.
So any of you out there who may be reading this, I’m looking for advice. What is the end-all be-all of Mac Twitter clients?
For those of you who may not have noticed, I do not update this blog with tremendous regularity. I regret this, as during my college years I made it a point to blog frequently, either here or on one of my now-defunct sub sites. Unfortunately, as the responsibilities of real life and adulthood have set in, I have found myself visiting this space less and less. I haven’t intended to neglect the site, but I have, and there’s no excuse for that.
Continue reading ‘My Lost Art of Blogging’
Yeah, I think it’s that time.
Scott Brown’s electoral victory is nothing less than the single most cataclysmic electoral event of my lifetime, and yes, I’m including Obama’s election in 2008. The pendulum of national politics swings back and forth between Republicans and Democrats with some regularity, and despite the fervor that surrounded Obama during his campaign, he was still ultimately another Democrat who won a small but decisive majority in a national election. Scott Brown, on the other hand, ran a quixotic campaign in the bluest of all blue states, and literally came out of nowhere two weeks before the election to claim victory. No one was prepared for this, especially not Martha Coakley, who seemed content to twiddle her thumbs until her preordained coronation. The implications of Brown’s victory are far-reaching, and will doubtlessly have a tremendous impact on the national debate between Right and Left, the legislative process, and the Obama presidency. It will be seen, justly, as a referendum on the direction the country has taken under President Obama, and moderate Democrats who were already leery of being associated with the party’s Left wing will begin to hedge their bets (as Evan Bayh has begun to do).
In short, a tremendous night, and one with huge implications.
UPDATE: It begins!
I commemorated the New Year by reading George Orwell’s Animal Farm for the first time. I came away with mixed feelings. I’m not generally enthusiastic about allegories, mainly because they’re usually so focused on making observations about history that they fail to present these observations in a compelling way. By applying the narrative of the Russian Revolution, and particularly the rise of Stalinism, to a British farm, Orwell removes his readers from the realities of the Soviet Union and allows them to view the events in a dehumanized, almost more objective way. It’s an interesting idea that has been used successfully in other tales. But the novel ultimately left me disappointed, for two reasons. First, Orwell uses the farm to parallel the Stalinist regime, rather than symbolize it. Second, Animal Farm reads much more as a subjective history than as an individual’s story. As a result, readers are kept at arms distance throughout.
Continue reading ‘On Animal Farm’
