Unbooked

No more fox

So Mozilla is cracking down on thoughtcrime. I need to find an alternative to Firefox that runs on my Mac. ((Safari remains my primary browser, but there are some operations that Firefox does better, and I’ve kept both handy.)) I experimented with several yesterday, and while they mostly worked tolerably well for my purposes, none were astonishing — except for Opera. WTF? Am I missing something? What kind of browser doesn’t allow you to use bookmarks?! ((Yeah, there is a “bookmark bar,” but it’s useless for storing more than half a dozen sites.)) I have a large, organized and frequently edited collection of bookmarks, which I need. Why the hell is this joke is being recommended as a replacement for Firefox?

For what it’s worth, Chrome seems to be the least annoying. However, it’s part of Google, and I don’t want to have anything more to do with that particular borg than absolutely necessary.

Update: Show Mozilla your frowny face.

Ken the Brickmuppet recommends Epic.

Question

Does anyone have any experience with Rakuten Global Market? I found a musical toy there I’ve had in mind for a while at a significantly better price than I’ve seen elsewhere, with free shipping. I wonder if it’s too good to be true.

Sprung

Eranthis

For a while yesterday it seemed that spring had finally arrived, with temperatures around 70°F. There even were thunderstorms in the later afternoon and evening, with hail. All that was missing was the tornado warning. It couldn’t last, of course. It’s back to winter this morning, with north winds and temperatures down in the lower 30°s.

While it was pleasant out yesterday, I made a trip to the botanical garden with my toy camera. Very little was in bloom, but I did find some color.

Continue reading “Sprung”

One kind of efficiency

I’ve been skipping around in The Stuffed Owl: An Anthology of Bad Verse recently. Here’s a bit of practical advice from Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Earth, crowded, cries: “Too many men!”
My counsel is, kill nine in ten,
And bestow the shares of all
On the remnant decimal.

Most of the verse is subtler than that — if an encomium to the London sewer system, for example, can be called “subtle.” If you all are very good, I won’t quote any more of it.

A hot cup of heresy

The truth about coffee:

  • Decaf is Docetic because it only appears to be coffee.
  • Instant is Apollinarian because it’s had its soul removed and replaced.
  • Frappuccinos are essentially a form of Monophysitism, having their coffee nature swallowed up in milkshake.
  • Chicory is Arian, not truly coffee at all but a separate creation….

(Via First Things.)

Snark for a Thursday morning

Theodore Dalrymple:

Physiognomy is an inexact science, but it is not so inexact that you cannot read the bemused feebleness on the faces of people such as Van Rompuy, Hollande, and Cameron, the latter so moistly smooth and characterless that it looks as though it would disappear leaving a trail of slime if caught in the rain.

Still silly

Here’s “Grace O’Malley” as she stands, this time with a proper virtual piano. I’m sick of her. I may return to this catastrophe later and do some severe pruning and rewriting, but right now I just want to work on something — anything — else.

Grace O’Silly

I found a couple of free prepared piano sample libraries and thought I’d see what my current project would sound like as played by John Cage. This used to be an Irish tune.

Notes from saccharine sweet hell

A question of taste

My minimum standard for singing is Hatsune Miku. If a vocalist can’t sing at least as well as software, he has no business near a microphone. Similarly, I can define a minimum standard for art: if an artist can’t paint or sculpt at least as well as Hozuki no Reitetsu‘s Nasube, he needs to master his craft before exhibiting his efforts. If his works are easily mistaken for trash by the cleaning staff, they’re not art. ((John C. Wright: “Go into a modern art museum and look at the trash on the walls. Bomb the museum. Go back through the wreckage and see if you or anyone can see any change.”))

Art

Continue reading “Notes from saccharine sweet hell”