When you’re jaded by the Iraqi war, what do you do? Why, see one artist’s cynically ironic take on Iraqi war action figures, of course! That was my thought as I visited the Pepper Gallery in downtown Boston this weekend to see Peter Smuts’s “American Force Dolls” exhibit.

Using Barbie and G.I. Joe dolls, Smuts created a series of action figures (in packaging, with accessories) centering around the recent events in Iraq. Without going into detail on each of the half dozen or so dolls, rest assured that some dolls have shock value — such as the Homeland Bound soldier with attachable arms and legs.

Other people may get it, but I personally don’t. I mean, sure, there’s something to be said about a war throughout which we’re shown just a few archetypal roles. Yes, we often find ourselves stereotyping the players in this game; setting them up as action figures shows us the absurdity of trying to idealize the face of this war. However, I’m missing the deeper message. Viscerally, I couldn’t really appreciate the message being conveyed by this exhibit. Am I supposed to be shocked into recognition of the atrocities of the war? Am I supposed to feel like I’ve been duped by the focus of the media? Am I to sympathize with the characters on display? Should I feel angry with the administration?

I’m not exactly the target audience here, though. I don’t usually go to galleries. I’m not one of those people who go to a gallery, and utter, “Oh, I simply must have that for my living room!” I know very little about art, and even less about why people go to gallery exhibits. I just thought the exhibit sounded interesting, so decided to check it out. (Side note: the gallery scene really isn’t my idea of a good time.)

Now, if he had tossed in some My Little Pony cavalry attacking the Millenium Falcon, that I could dig! I wish I could still play with toys.

Apple’s latest foray into the MP3 player market, the iPod Shuffle, has been met with rather lukewarm reviews from the tech community. Why all the hatin’? I recently picked up one of these players, because I had been waiting for something like this for a while. The thing the critics don’t understand is that this hits a specific market. Let’s consider the main complaints I hear…

Complaint #1: The price point is terrible. It’s $99 for 512 MB, or $149 for 1 GB. That’s between $0.14 - $0.19 per MB, which seems high, considering their other offerings ($0.06 per MB for the iPod Mini, or $0.009 - $0.014 per MB for the regular iPod). Why so expensive? It’s not the same. This is for flash memory, and hence, should be compared to flash memory player prices, not hard drive based models. In terms of that comparison, Apple comes out very favorably. There is competition, such as with the Sandisk MP3 player, so it’s not like they’re the cheapest — but they are quite competitive. On a side note, price points are essentially double the price of a USB thumb drive…but it can play MP3s too!

Complaint #2: It doesn’t have a display. That’s the point, jerky! The idea here is small and simple. Less controls. Less hassle. You’re not meant to browse screens to find a song. It’s not that sort of player. One of the complaints people had was trying to find a song and having to click through several different songs. If you’re looking for that, you’re missing the point of this player.

Complaint #3: It’s missing feature X. Ibid. It’s not designed to be everything for everyone. It does not have a voice recorder. It does not have an FM tuner. It’s designed to pull your music via Autofill, and present it all to you in a light, simple interface. That’s it.

Complaint #4: Shuffle is not new; it’s been on every MP3 player ever. Not quite. Shuffle is more of a software feature and lifestyle thing than anything. Imagine you took your playlist, randomized it, and peeled off a selection of songs for a playlist. Now, imagine you could do that every day, just by plugging in your iPod Shuffle before hopping in the shower. That’s the idea behind shuffle — get a random assortment, sort of like on-the-go commercial free radio. This is more than just the random feature on an MP3 player. For example, I set my iPod Shuffle to pull only songs with a rating greater than 3. It can pull randomly all it wants, and I know it’ll pull songs I like.

Complaint #5: The battery life is anemic. This is targeted at people looking to work out, essentially. It has 12 hours of continuous playback time. Even a long hike shouldn’t take that long. I find the playback time more than enough for my purposes.

Now, for why I like iPod Shuffle:

It’s flash-based. My biggest gripe with the previous iPod offerings has been the focus on hard drive-based technology. That’s okay, but if you’re working out or moving a lot, that can be a problem. The hard drives they use are pretty robust, but are still subject to mechanical failure if you, say, work out with it. Moving parts tend to operate rather strangely in cold weather, too. I’ve been waiting for them to offer a flash-based player, and am glad it’s finally here.

It replaces a USB thumb drive. I’ve been meaning to get a USB thumb drive, and this thing fills that void rather nicely. That, and it plays MP3s. While firewire would have been faster, USB is just so ubiquitous.

It’s simple. I mean, really simple. No cables necessary to plug it in the computer. No charger. No extra buttons. No display. Very intuitive. Autofill works great.

It’s small. I mean really small. There may be shorter players (such as the aforementioned Sandisk MP3 player), but it’s hard to find a smaller one. When they say this thing is the size of a pack of gum, they weren’t kidding.

It works with iTMS. Yes, I know it’s proprietary and another in the DRM-protected evils of the world. Yet, I like the fairly loose restrictions of iTMS versus anything offered by the other DRM stores, and the selection is pretty good. If only I could find a player that worked with both formats, but maintained the ease of use.

So, at the end of the day, iPod Shuffle is not for everyone. (Especially Podcasters; no iPod Shuffle for you!) However, it’s perfect for people like me, who have been waiting for something like this for quite some time. I sadly gave mine away, but may find myself back at the store before too long — at least they’re cheap!