pantheistic crosstalk + insatiable ears

Yeah, that's right, I've jumped ship from Opera, at least for now.

FYI, we're talking about the latest version of Firefox 3 for the most recently Software-Updated PPC variant of Mac 10.4.11 and the latest version of Opera browser for the Mac, Opera 9.51.

Opera began crashing repeatedly a couple of weeks ago. I don't know if it's the browser. I opted out of doubleclick ad cookies around the same time. It's taken the past week to remember that detail. It's not like you get a receipt for opting out.

So is it Opera itself that's crashing, or the lack of certain tracking advertisements that's crashing it? I haven't been able to tell. I stopped loading Opera a fortnight ago.

I've been trying to get by with forcing Firefox to do all those little refinements about browsing that I've learned to depend on thanks to Opera. Quick Dial, ad blocking, pop up blocking, source hacks, downloading movie trailers, and my parallel browsing multi-tab reliance.

So far I can tell you Firefox is slower. I click for or use the key combo for a New Tab and there's a hefty pause while it slaps up another tab, then another while it blinks and loads Quick Dial buttons.

I feel I'm rushing poor slow Firefox to keep up with expectations set by using Opera for the last year or so. Redraws are slow and scrolling is choppy even when set to smooth. Some pages randomly reset the window size no matter how many extensions and prefs I tell NOT TO.

The first thing I noticed that truly annoyed me was that dragging and dropping an image from the browser in Firefox snaps the icon to the right hand side of the screen. Dragging and dropping from an Opera window puts the icon RIGHT where I dropped it, without fail.

For a graphic artist, even a n00bish one such as myself, dragging an image out of a browser is a daily, sometimes hourly activity. Now I spend a fair amount of time shuffling the Firefox window from one side of the screen to the other, looking for dropped images that just lo-o-ove to hide behind said window.

What else? There's no true Full Screen mode, no Author mode, and the username/password storage function just sucks. I usually let my browser store unimportant usernames and passwords for forums and low security risk sites like that.

I never store sensitive info, just the dozens of avatars and usernames I have at dozens of recreational sites. It never helps to discover my first choice of username is taken, because I usually make up a new one on the spot and can't remember it two days later.

Rather than riffling through emails to find missing passwords, the browser pinch-hits for me. Slight security compromise or not, I've grown used to this feature, when used appropriately, of course.

Ad blocking, even with ABP for Firefox, is a joke. All those annoying motion-heavy distractions known as Adobe Flash ads are still impossible to click away. ABP needs a lot more prep time than the right-click option in Opera to Block Content.

Using ABP in Firefox 3 you have to refresh to get the page WITHOUT the annoying ad. This sometimes works, but more often brings another ad of the same type down on you.

If not another ad of the same type, a different type but usually just as annoying. Even just text ads can have blinky ass backgrounds. Trying to climb back into ABP and block the 2nd annoying ad in the same space isn't worth my time. And it doesn't work.

Block Content in Opera is as simple as 'click' and it's gone, no reload necessary. ABP for Firefox is so clumsy that I've stopped trying to use it.

So that's what's up a fortnight into using Firefox in place of Opera. Firefox looks entirely too much like the inferior and unstable Safari. I know it's skinnable, but the default GUI is Cloned Safari.

It's an interesting conundrum that Safari is the IE of web standards on the mac. The default performer for most internet banking and other https uses - uses that Opera and Firefox randomly fail, unfortunately. While it's unuseful for anything else, at least I can say that Safari does what it needs to.

Safari's also a great browser to have on your system for the internet n00b in your life who 'just needs to check x website' while they're at your house/using your laptop.

It's common enough that you don't need to coach or babysit them - as you would with a more configured and personally advanced browser experience like Opera provides by default and Firefox can with diligence and patience.

I can't imagine dropping my mom into my config of Opera - or even the inferior Firefox3. She'd need at least a 15 minute primer on The Way The Web's Supposed To Be and How I Make It That Way.

Formerly respectable and insightful technical news organization Ars Technica was purchased by irrelevant dinosaur Conde Nast in May.

Bringing to a close any hope of a future for the publication, this now lumps them with door-to-door teenaged slave labor selling cheap magazines.

If you've ever been mistakenly put on a mailing list and began receiving Conde Nast Traveller without your consent, you know how misled and irritating Conde Nast is.

So join with us for a silent moment of reflection as we mourn the passing of Ars Technica. I believe the words of Adrian Cronauer channelling Walter Cronkite will suffice.

"What it is, what it shall be,
what it was..."

Whenever old munny buys new media, the outcome will always be the same. Irrelevance and legitimate FUD.

***

and then he goes and finds out that the conde ass cartel ownz reddit.

*total facepalmage*

next thing I'll find out Opera's been sold to the Cylons.

Hey sister Twisty (who's unlikely to read this), didn't Ry have a song about the drugs not working? I'd have to say tonight that I agree with him.

Psychoactives like booze and smokes, or prescription drugs that r supposed 2 b more predictable - NOT LESS - than the shit they keep illegal...doesn't seem like any of it's doing me any good.

Beer tastes like shit and most places that make coffee drinks BURN any sense of flavor right outta their damn beans. Starbux tastes like burnt dirt to me lately.

You don't need to be elderly to be crotchety and bitta. I'm doing fine on ogre attitude and curmudgeonliness long before I've seen any grey hairs.

Lately my predominant reaction to the madness of the werld outside my door is to HIDE FROM IT whenever possible and sustain my own equilibrium as cheaply as possible.

Only I don't bite off my words and fire them back atcha from behind a mic all b-boy style. At least not anymore. Long gone is the me reading iambic pentameter out loud with friends in the park or shouting 'crrannk it upp fuckkaaz!' onstage with a mic in my hand.

I can hardly believe I'm the same MF that's read/spit/spewed/seethed at poetry slams. I've got so much more to say now than I ever did ten years ago.

But the will to stand up and spit is weak at best. *sigh*

---

I am sitting here in the sweaty summertime between the noise of the fans. I've been idly watching Cruel Intentions. It's amusing, and I'd like to see SMG play more ruthless bitches.

I've got a couple of cats lounging on the other end of the couch from me. There's a grey legal pad I've been writing random lyrics down on. Later I'll turn that sheet over and use it for a grocery list and nothing else will come of it.

Doesn't matter if I've been sitting here sipping my iced coffee, rapping the lines out loud like Sage Francis or Brother Ali. They're dust.

And there's no beats, just the whine, rattle and buzz of the fans cuz I'm too cheap to turn on the A/C till after dark. No one'll ever hear these lines I just wrote b/c I haven't sat down to slice up beats to rap over in months.

Inspiration isn't as lacking as motivation...my wife's never even heard me try to read my rhymes over a beat. No one has. Fuck they probably never will. I'm not longing for thug life or rapper cred either, I could give a fuck.

I just want to give back something that's MINE after a lifetime of hungry listening.

All that posing I was doing as a creative writing student at kollidge, late hours at kinko's running off 'zines, the lamest hints of recognition as a teenaged writer...that's all dust too, innit?

---

Oh and 'Cruel Intentions'? WTF?!?!

Didn't I see this movie at least 2x and perhaps 3x under different names? I saw Dangerous Liasons _and_ Valmont back in the 80s. While mildly amusing for having the actress who played Buffy during her SMOKIN hot days...I don't think we needed another run around this tired script.

Talked to the wife earlier. Wedding went off without a hitch. It sounds like there were a few moments with minor personality differences between a few of the guests. But that's common at any large gathering of people who've most likely never met before.

I find myself considering a drive to the cities on Friday for a few acts playing downtown. Live, open, free outdoor stages featuring the Owls, the Honeydogs and Haley Bonar. Yet another chance to road-test my new mics and recording rig.

Maybe if I can pursuade someone somewhere to hire me for a job of work again someday I can afford a lossless recording device. Till then my poor old ATRAC-compressed minidisc will suit me fine.

I just can't expect torrent users to feel the same about ATRAC. So my recording of Wilco back in April is collecting dust. No one's heard it but me.

I keep thinking of upping it to a one-click site and sending the link to Owl and Bear.

Somewhere between fruity and nutty, between a stone cold new jack man inna suit and a strait-jacket, between mister a$$hole and docktor mocktagone. That's out in the ozone where I'm at tonight.

so I'm obviously not the only one who hates rapidshare, am I?



yousendit's not quite as bad, but do any of these hosting companies think about how hard it is to do a CAPTCHA if the user is blind?

I ran across that criticism of hosting services when a blind user commented on it in a forum I frequent. "Too bad rapidshare/megaupload/etc HATE blind people." Touche, my sightless friend. I'll think twice about which I use in the future.