Men's Memes: iPad mini

Monday, November 26, 2012

iPad mini

Long term readers will know that I bought an ipad when they were first released in 2010. At the time, most of us basically thought: I like it, but I'm not sure I know what I need it for. It was largely a luxury item (as opposed to the iphone, its more diminutive forerunner, which I use constantly wherever I am). The main reason for this, at least for me, is that its just a little bit too large and heavy to be truly portable. If you are commuting to work with a laptop and smartphone, there just doesn't seem to be the need to also take the ipad. Also, if I want to read on the train I will use my Kindle (way easier on the eyes than reading for extended periods on a backlit screen, and also less reflective glare), if I want to read emails or surf the web I will do so on my iphone, as its smaller screen means that fellow travellers are less likely to be superstitiously peeking at what I'm reading/writing! Equally, if I am travelling abroad, there is always pressure on the weight/volume of what I'm carrying, and, again, there seems to be only a weak case for burdening myself with the weight of the ipad if I already have a smartphone, laptop (and usually Kindle) with me. A couple of exceptions this are when I want to use an app to gain remote control of my desktop back at home (the larger screen is more practical for this than trying to do it on the iphone), and if I'm on a very long flight, the ability to play games and watch films on the ipad's larger screen is useful (both more comfy than the iphone's smaller screen, and helps me avoid draining down my iphone battery. Yes I could get a portable charger for the iphone, but still haven't found one I like). Given all this, the ipad essentially became what I would call a 'sofa-surfer' device for me: something to browse the web on whilst sitting at home.

But now the iPad mini has come along. I played with one the other week and instantly fell in love. Much smaller and lighter - therefore solving the problems I had with the original ipads - but whilst not having a dramatically smaller screen. I have ordered one and will post my thoughts when it arrives!

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Turn of the tide: feminists begin to regret

Cosmopolitan (The women's magazine that urges women to use men for sex) Editor Lorraine Candy has a change of mind and now urges women not to have "Soul-less sex":

"We didn't feel ashamed about one-night stands...this, we thought, is what feminism is about."

70s feminist Fay Weldon now says:

"It is the fault of me and my like, who... got it wrong.

So were we wrong, we feminists, setting women free? The results have been devastating – greater than we ever imagined.

We steamed ahead, changing the world with too little caution, and I hope the future will forgive us.

The pendulum has swung too far over. But it may yet swing back again. Societies, thank God, tend to be self-righting."

"Once a man could look forward to starting a family and the dignity that came from being the provider. Forget it. At best as a man you're decorative, look after the kids and earn a bit sometimes; at worst you're a write-off. Women are elbowing the men out. The boys get anxious, the girls swagger. The male suicide rate goes up, female down. Twenty-eight per cent of us now live in single person households - a lonely and unnatural state - and most of the 28 per cent consist of young men. It is strange that it is left to a woman to suggest, in the normal nurturing way, that men start some kind of movement to promote their gender's status and self-esteem - call it masculinism, brotherism, machoism, what you want - and some mark of the success of the feminist movement, that it needs to be done."

60's feminist Doris Lessing now says:

"It is time we began to ask who are these women who continually rubbish men. The most stupid, ill-educated and nasty woman can rubbish the nicest, kindest and most intelligent man and no one protests.

Men seem to be so cowed that they can't fight back, and it is time they did."

An excerpt from an interview with Joan Rivers:

"She's not with the feminists when it comes to matters of the heart. For her, they're to blame for the current parlous state of our relationships, as depicted in these television Shows (Such as Sex in the city) and films. "I saw this coming. You cannot be equal to a man, you cannot make a man feel 'I don't need you' or 'I'll take my sex when I want it'. All these shows are so sad."

Camille Paglia :

"Women have been discouraged from genres such as sculpture that require studio training or expensive materials.

But in philosophy, mathematics, and poetry, the only materials are pen and paper.

Male conspiracy cannot explain ALL female failures.

I am convinced that, even without restrictions, there still would have been no female Pascal, Milton, or Kant.

. . . Even now, with all vocations open, I marvel at the rarity of the woman driven by artistic or intellectual obsession, that self-mutilating derangement of social relationship which, in its alternate forms of crime and ideation, is the disgrace and glory of the human species."