Safari On Windows

Last week Apple announced that the newest version of their browser, Safari, was going to also be available for Windows.  I’m not much of an Apple user.  I used one as a kid, but these days the computers in my room either run on XP or Ubuntu Linux.  After hearing about Safari being available for Windows, I became curious enough to download it.  So did over one million other people.

I played with Safari for a few hours and I have to say it is very fast.  That is, however, about the only thing it offers that stands out.   Tabbed browsing is nothing new anymore.  RSS integration is nice, but I read my feeds via Thunderbird.  I’ve never found a web or browser integration I really enjoyed.  The lack of plugins, like Firefox, or widgets, like Opera, really turned me off as well.  My Firefox browser is deeply customized, and my Opera browser, via their speed dial feature, opens everything I use in it with a mouse click.

Safari also has some serious security issues.  TechCrunch reports that there is a variety of known problems already.  Wired goes as far as to ask who in their right mind would run Safari on Windows?

I uninstalled Safari the morning after I downloaded it.  There isn’t any reason for me to use it; with good options like Firefox, Opera, and the new, admittedly nostalgia ridden download of, Netscape out there, Safari offer nothing that would compel me to use it.

 

Two New Publications From The ELO

Via Scott Rettberg, GTxA, and the Electronic Literature Organization itself, I am happy and very proud to pass along word that there are two new publications available from the ELO.  I will let the ELO’s own descriptions speak for themselves:

N. Katherine Hayles’s “Electronic Literature: What Is It?” establishes a foundation for understanding e-lit in its various forms and differentiates creative e-lit from other types of digital materials. This primer serves the twin purposes of reaching general readers and serving students and institutional audiences by providing descriptions of major characteristics of electronic literature and reflections on the nature of the field. This piece will also appear as the introductory chapter of Hayles’s book Electronic Literature: Playing, Interpreting, and Teaching (coming from Notre Dame Press in fall 2007). The book will also include the CD-ROM of the Electronic Literature Collection, Volume One — a compendium of 60 digital works of poetry and prose, published by the ELO in October 2006.

Joseph Tabbi’s “Setting a Direction for the Directory: Toward a Semantic Literary Web” outlines and analyzes the critical issues relating to the description and classification of e-lit. Tabbi describes an approach that will allow the ELO Directory and other digital resources to be more useful, maintainable, transparent, and integrated with evolving technologies. The work organizes the terms of the problem into a call for an overall strategy of editorial and community-driven discourse about e-lit that will also be dependent on metadata solutions that are convergent with those described and implemented in other ELO publications.

I was very impressed by Hayles’ keynote address last month at the ELO’s symposium.  I look forward to reading both of these new publications.

 

Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut is dead at 84.

I don’t really know what to say.  The first time I read Vonnegut was when I was fourteen.  A friend told me about Breakfast Of Champions so I went to the local library and borrowed it.

Reading that book broke my brain I think.

So much of what I was thinking, and still am thinking, Vonnegut wrote on those pages.  It is hard to put into words how great reading Vonnegut felt.  A few of my friends were also very interested in him and, despite our later differences, we could always talk about Vonnegut or reference Kilgore Trout together.

As I have said before, it is a pretty troubling thought that someone sixty years my senior is one of the people whom I relate to the most.  Into his eighties Vonnegut’s writing about contemporary issues was frighteningly right on.   When I was reading A Man Without A Country last year it was somewhat comforting, as the world spirals into the void around us, that someone else understood.

Take care, old friend.

 

Quick Fix Magazine: April 2007

I am sorry I missed last month’s column. Graduate school is keeping me really busy…who would’ve thought! My time is broken down into the hour at this point. I have a desktop widget that loads my Sunbird calender so I can keep track of what I need to accomplish each day. I love playing with widgets; I have a bunch on my desktop. Right now this is the best way for me to keep my life in order. Technology has greatly assisted me. I have a very short attention span and can be quite unorganized at times; Sunbird and desktop widgets help counteract it. Maybe sometime soon I’ll write a full column about that.

This month’s column is a bit brief also. I am really busy these days between school, research, paper proposals, and planning for conferences. I think what I might do in the future is just plan a day to belt out the entire column at once. That might be easier for me to do.

Reviews

Lion Of Judah

Universal Peace

Youngblood Records

I have had mixed feelings about all of Lion Of Judah’s previous records. I enjoyed their performance in a live setting, but on record they just haven’t really been able to move me. A lot of people say LOJ sound like Burn, but I don’t hear it at all. I do hear a variety of influences: Early Fugazi, I Against I era Bad Brains, and honestly I keep thinking of the band Heroin while listening to this. This is pretty good I guess. A few songs drift into “too much rock” for me however. I don’t see myself wanting to listen to this record that much.

Ludicra
Fex Urbis Lex Orbis CD
Alternative Tentacles Records

I know very little about black metal, so I am not sure how to review this. Ludicra are on Alternative Tentacles (?!?) and remind me a lot of Cradle Of Filth, I guess. Like I said, I know very little about this stuff. I read online that a lot of this band’s lyrics are inspired by Les Miserables. That is pretty cool I guess. Check with Chris Alpino before buying.

The Good Book
Demo 2006

This band has apparently already broken up, but this demo fucking rages hard. The Jersey Shore pedigree here is impressive: members have spent time in bands as varied as Ensign, Full Speed Ahead, Human Remains, S.O.V., and Tear It Up. In fact 3/5 of Full Speed Ahead were in this band. The five songs on this CD sound a lot like a median between Tear It Up (where vocalist Dave Ackerman spent time in before this band) and Full Speed Ahead. Fast, right to the point, hardcore in the vein of Bl’ast!, Black Flag and other early eighties classics. Back in the days of Full Speed Ahead a song with a mosh part as hard as the one in No Encore would have had kids from the shore killing each other.

Scapegoat
S/T
Painkiller Records

When I first got this record a friend sent me a zip file of mp3s so I could listen to it in the car. While walking across campus down at Stockton one day after meeting with a former professor about graduate school stuff I toggled through my player and queued up Mind Eraser, Rupture, Crossed Out, and this new Scapegoat record. I didn’t really think about it; I just got in my truck and bolted back onto the parkway. On my way back into Manahawkin I looked down at my player because I thought the Crossed Out record was going on for a long time. Turned out the Scapegoat record had been playing for the past five minutes. Scapegoat play really authentic, obviously, sounding hardcore in the vein of Crossed Out, Rupture, DropDead, etc. How good is Painkiller Records? They just keep turning out more and more excellent records. Word on the street is a Dry Rot seven inch is next.

Please send stuff for review to the address at the end of this column. I am happy to review vinyl, CD, DVD, or book/fanzine as long as your band or label is not associated with the RIAA. Please send the “final product”-I will not review advanced versions or promotional material with DRM on it. I have little interest in promo sheets and reserve the right to ridicule them.

Check Out

  • There is only a Spanish translation, as far as I know, so far, but if you like Harry Potter you need to check out The Decline Of The High Elves, a series of Harry Potter fanfics that being published by Random House. How cool is that? It is nice to see good fan fiction taken so seriously. I hope there will be a English translation soon.

  • One of the great things about the web right now is the ability to watch streaming episodes on network websites. I have classes at night during the week so I miss most of the shows I watch. This morning, on their respective networks websites, I was able to catch up on the latest episodes of Bones, Friday Night Lights (the BEST show on television), and CSI. Sure, some of them are ad based, but if you miss an episode having to sit through a thirty second ad for car insurance sure beats waiting for a torrent to download or the show to air again.

  • If any of you are in the Maryland area, I will be down that way in early May for the Electronic Literature Organization symposium at the University of Maryland. I will most likely be in town for only a day or two, but if anyone else is going please get in touch.

  • Speaking of electronic literature, next month I should have a big announcement about a hypertext project I am working on. Stay tuned.

Finally, Top 10 For April

  • Miles Davis-On The Corner
  • The Avengers-We Are The One
  • Cleanse The Bacteria Compilation + Bonuses
  • John Coltrane-Ole
  • Sleater Kinney-Call The Doctor
  • Youth Of Today-We’re Not In This Alone
  • The Mahavishnu Orchestra-Birds Of Fire
  • Tragedy-Vengeance + 3
  • Mountain-Climbing!
  • Curtis Mayfield-Superfly Soundtrack

Contact Info
William P. Wend
289 Bulkhead Ave.
Manahawkin NJ 08050
william at wpwend dot com
www.wpwend.com

Download complete issue 

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Prom Queen

I am interested in following the new web series Prom Queen.   It doesn’t look that interesting plot wise, but I like the medium, and constraint, of two minute episodes.  There is an RSS feed to follow, but no easy way to download episodes.  Downloading seems to involve also downloading some sort of video software.  No thanks; I will just stream them for now.  Still, stay tuned. 

is also following it; I am sure she will have more to say soon.