Can we just settle something? Please?

Without explicitly stating from whence my aggravation of these issues comes, I'd like to simply, accurately educate the world. Those of you on my f-list pretty much know this already, but humor me. It won't take long. I just have two common misconceptions that I would like to correct. Right. Now.

1) Do you think women are people, with all the inherent complexities, strengths, and failings thereof? CONGRATULATIONS, YOU ARE A FEMINIST.
Contrary to what you may have heard, women, you don't have to stop shaving any part of your body--legs, "down there," armpits, mustache--nor burn bras, nor hate pornography, nor change the spelling of words to either "feminize" them--WO-mandatory, for example--or "neuter" them--"hyr," "womyn," "semyn"--in order to be a feminist. You just have to think women are people. Men, you do not have to encourage your female friends and significant others to do any of those things nor is feeling emasculated a necessary prerequisite of being a feminist. You can be a feminist by thinking women are people! It's just that simple!

2) You know who likes to molest little boys and girls? PEDOPHILES.
Being sexually attracted to people under the age of 10 is a disease, currently an incurable one. It's a psychological pathology. Some times, that pathology manifests in way that might appear "gay" to you, and not in that Johnny Weir, "That's gay," locker-room-towel-fight gay way. We're talking male-on-under-age-male gay. So I understand it is confusing when I say it's not gay, it's PEDOPHILIA. It is not gay because it's not about having sex with someone who has the same genitals as you. It's about abusing someone who has the same genitals (or will, when they, you know, fully mature) as you. People who are sexually attracted to under age boys or girls are sick, sick people. They're not gay. Even if gayness is sickness to you (and if it is, I'm now 99% sure you're a self-hater), gay is a different sickness, a different pathology entirely from the one that makes you want to abuse kids. Please correct your thinking.

Oh, come ON, Consumer Reports, you can do better than that

Having bought a netbook to handle most of the things the iPad wants to do for me, I'm a little annoyed at the iPad's second coming. I say "second coming" because the lackluster response to it at first seems to have been eradicated now that people are starting to get their hands on them. For every person who goes, "I like Flash, actually, and would like to be able to use 99% of the internet that seems to require it these days," or grouses about a 64 GB hard drive computer costing them $900, or who might not want to sell their entire multimedia-consuming soul to Apple, you get articles like this one saying THE iPAD IS THE JESUS CHRIST OF MEDIA. WELCOME BACK, SAVIOR. I get why a magazine would be excited--they really do have to hope the hype is true because they are otherwise fucked as a medium.

I generally expect the hype to fall short at Consumer Reports, though. So I'm reading this and not only am I pissed about the credulous, easily-swayed author basically writing hundreds of words to express an emotion easily summarized in one (that word is "shiny"), but this guy isn't even getting anything...right. It's supposed to be a cogent argument about how the iPad isn't $499, it's easily twice that or more to get out of it the RESURRECTION OF MEDIA MACHINE that Steve Jobs promised you.

( Le sigh. )

::rolls eyes::

The apps are a big problem financially speaking, but Apple owning your ass is just not acceptable. Some people, as noted in the Newsweek article, will like Apple streamlining everything for them. I use iTunes myself--it is great for pod-collecting--but iTunes keeps its fucking hands off my everything else. No, you can't play my movies. Stop trying to get me to buy TV series at $2 an episode when I can DVR or Hulu it. If I want to read comics on a computer screen (not my reading method of choice, I assure you), I can do it with any number of programs or, the way I've been doing it 'cause I'm lazy, which is by setting a slide show in fucking Windows Preview. (WORKS JUST FINE.) Thing is, iTunes, you are NOT the best thing for my media browsing. You, in fact, do not please me in my media browsing. You do stupid things like interrupt movies for songs when I just want to check things. Perhaps I can learn to turn that off, BUT I DON'T WANT TO. You don't even support my non-iTunes movies. Why do you want them so badly? Fuck off, I'm using VLC...GAWD, iTUNES, I AM A GROWN WOMAN, I CAN MAKE MY OWN DECISIONS...

And that, in a nutshell, is why being against the iPad makes you look like a crazy person. Because it's crazy not to want something to decide everything for you. (I love you, Google. Let's get married.) I'll take my 250 GB, 3-lb netbook over that damn iPad. Is it weird and a little awkward to carry down the street, reading comics? Yeah, but it's weird (apparently) to read walking down the street regardless, and I have hefted heavier books. You know what my netbook will do, though, that the iPad won't unless you buy a gadget for it? It will let me put it down on table and the screen will stay perpendicular to said table. Isn't that amazing?

ETA: Forgot to mention: Apple is using its bullying power to get rid of Flash-only stuff, btw. So soon that will be taken care of and then you can't object to their shit any more. WE ARE MAKING THE INTERNET IN OUR IMAGE. IT SHALL NOT EAT FROM THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE...