I use eMusic’s download manager to handle album downloads from that website, and on one of my computers I haven’t bothered to install Firefox, and instead use Safari. Safari 3.x on OS X Leopard (10.5.x) restricts automatic opening of files downloaded from the internet, which is a bit annoying if you want an application to do its thing without a lot of irritating clicking about. Automatic opening is restricted to “safe” files by default, a setting that can be overridden in Safari preferences, although removing this restriction seems to simply prevent any files from opening automatically at all, which is even more useless. There is a way to work around Safari’s overbearing nannying, though. (more…)
0 comments 2008-07-22 21:54 Categories: Computers, Geek Stuff
Like Lighthouse at the End of the World, Master of the World was one of Verne’s last works; it was published not long before his death in 1905. Unlike Lighthouse, it’s not very good. I don’t know any of the details regarding the writing of this story, or about the English translation available on Project Gutenberg, but Verne clearly wasn’t testing his abilities with this Voyage Extraordinaire. A sequel to Robur the Conqueror, it is flimsier that that already lighthearted work, with little to recommend it beyond a sketch of a fantastical vehicle, named the Terror, capable of high-speed travel on land, on and under water, and in the air.
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0 comments 2008-07-12 14:52 Categories: Books, Reviews
Robur The Conqueror lives aboard the Albatross, an “aeronef” - a platform suspended from thirty-seven electrically powered dual-propeller rotors, driven and steered using further propellors at the front and rear of the vessel - and spends his time taunting and flummoxing the rest of the world from above. He is a man of mystery, both in his origins and his motives, who arrives unannounced at a meeting of balloonists in order to point out how superior his own means of aviation is. Upon a less than enthusiastic reception, he kidnaps the president and secretary of the club, as well as the president’s valet. His reasons for abducting the members of the Weldon Institute balloonist club are unclear. Perhaps he wishes to educate them, to show them by example the folly of their ways, pursuing as they do the ridiculous avenue of “lighter than air” travel. If this is his aim he fails, and the kidnapped men do their best to thwart him and make their escape. The whole thing plays out like a flippant version of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, but above the clouds, with Robur a sketched caricature of Nemo and the three abductees a comic version of M. Arronax. Apart from the patronising, racist treatment of the black servant Frycollin, which is very irritating but par for the course in 19th century literature, it is an enjoyable, lighthearted novel, perfect for reading when one has significant distractions to contend with.
2 comments 2008-07-05 14:18 Categories: Books, Reviews