StefanClaypool.com

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.

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.

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.

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 [...]

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. [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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.