Roel Haveman enretigis la duan numeron de Literatura Mondo antaŭ kelkaj tagoj. Tio ĉi estas laŭ mi tre grava ebleco konatĝi kun nia historio. Tamen legante la enkondukon al la unua numero, mi estas kortuŝita. En ĝi vere estas sentebla la esperego kaj timo kiujn oni investis en la revuon, kaj rigardante ĝin kun nia futura perspektivo, vidante ke esperanto ankoraŭ estas malgrava afero laŭ la monda politiko, mi ne povas ne tristeti.
Today, I found out that Elliot Smith has died. This came as a complete shock, and it is very sad news. Not only was I fan of his music, but I was also a fan of him: at least in the sense that someone who didn't know him personally can be anyway. Facts (or even speculation) about the events surrounding this sad occurance seem difficult to come by, and perhaps that is as it should be in these sensationalist times. However one thing seems certain: he was a man who was deeply unhappy, and that is a profound injustice. The one consolation is that he had so many fans, and that his grief in his life is now shared by many in his death.
The Register have a great article up (its old, but I've only just noticed it) about where Microsoft is, and the fact that Apple are trying to get there.
This line really made me laugh: "...Mac owners are collectively suffering from Stockholm Syndrome...", and I think of it all the time now when I see Apple discussions and promotional material.
I bought the new Belle and Sebastian album the other day, because I can't resist B&S. I am somewhat ambivalent about it though. A few of the songs on it seem half hearted and uninspiring. However, at the same time the heart-wrenching masterpiece Lord Anthony is one of the saddest songs I have ever heard. The album flirts between multi-layered symphonic tides of music and basic bop-style disposable tunes. Where Tigermilk sits consistently in a happy medium, spreading the creative juices roughly equally, the polarisation in this album seems to leave some songs lacking, while juicing up others into overdrive.
On the whole, this album feels more mature and directed than the somewhat chaotic prior outings. It feels very much like it was made with the intention of creating a good album and giving it to listeners. It obediently provides the expected mixture of non-sensical humour, next to the expression of the inner pathos of everyday life: the kind of music that makes you wonder about what strangers on the street are actually thinking and what they did that day.
There is definitely enough on this record to keep me interested, and although I can't see myself listening to every track for years to come, the best songs of the album will undoutedly remain among the best songs in my collection. I reccomend it.
I am constantly, and serendipitously finding new ways of working with Mac OSX. There more I find, the more I love it. For example, the other day I was typing a URL into Safari, when I suddenly I decided I wanted that URL to open in another tab, not the one I was typing in. So on a whim I held down Option (or was it Command? I always get those two confused) while I pressed enter, and to my pleasent surprise it did exactly what I wanted it to.
The other day I tried out DragThing, and although I wasn't overly impressed with it (probably because I didn't try it for very long), I did decide that being able to put Mail addresses on the Dock was very useful. I was thinking that there must be a way to do it for free, when I remembered that you can drag URLs from Safari onto the Dock. Hang on, I thought, email addresses can be URLs with the "mailto:" qualifier. So I typed in an address in that form, dragged it onto the Dock, and low and behold, when you click on it, it loads into Apple Mail. It's clever enough to not have to load Safari first to interpret the URL as well. Very nice.
Update: I have now gone a step further. I quickly decided, predictably, that I would like lots of different addresses available under one icon. So, I created a new folder in my home directory and dragged all of those addresses as mailto shortcuts into that folder. I then gave the folder a nice customised icon and dragged it onto the Dock. Now, I can right-click that icon, and see all of my frequently used addresses come up in a little menu.