If I think about it in the other direction, taking Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities and Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (which I cut some slack since I have never read it in Russian), I am even less convinced. Both of these novels belong to the canon. I think both of them are unworthy of their status and their places as great art. I imagine that for most readers they meet your professor’s criteria for greatness, and they certainly seem to have even lasted the test of time, but they are both deeply flawed for me personally. Both of them need to be edited and cut to improve their readability. I find the former politically appalling, and I think the narrator is a painful reminder of how the “moral majority” thinks and continues to think — thus I hate it. I find the latter stultifying in its characterizations, and I wanted everyone, not just Anna, to kill themselves by the last page — thus I hate it.

So all of this to say, I suppose, that the ultimate arbiter for each of us is ourselves. Just because the vast majority see something as art means nothing. The vast majority have no taste.

One last parting thought: those who argue that no one man named Shakespeare could have written everything he wrote are fools (although I do still think it is possible that Shakespeare was someone else). We often miss the fact that Shakespeare, in his time, was a bit of a hack. He wrote for the masses, and while he occasionally injected his work with serious gravity, he lasted because he was popular first and appreciated artistically later. We will see the same future honoring of Michael Crichton and other popular writers of today, while it is entirely possible that the David Mitchell’s and China Mieville’s of the world will be forgotten outside of their own loyal circles.

About the “three computers”: yes, I knew this. Being able to install these three operating systems into a single machine was perhaps the major reason to make the move. I plan to use OS X for all my design purposes, and keep windows for the odd development and game session.

I started trying Camino after writing this construction, and while I enjoy it so far, I agree that Firefox seems way more powerful. Camino seems faster, which I guess is the advantage of being a light-weight application.

Safari sucks, plainly. The browsing is slower and I feel it does not respect web standards as well as others. My site does not display exactly as I want on Safari, while Camino displays it right.

Thanks you very much for your expertise and for letting me know about the other browser, I’ll have a peek at it!

First, congratulations for switching to mac:-) hope You’ll enjoy it:-)

- Maybe You know, You have bouht three computers. First of course, with Mac OS X. If You want, You can try the Bootcamp (http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/bootcamp.html) and You have a shiny PC with windows.

- Or, If You miss the Linux, of course, can install on it: http://www.mactel-linux.org/wiki/HOWTO

As I read your demands, maybe the Firefox will be the optimal solution for You. This browser is compliant with all web standards, extensible, popup blocker. If it’s not enough fast, You can try the optimized builds from here: http://www.furbism.com/firefoxmac/ It’s shame, but I don’t have Safari on my Mac:-) I use Firefox.
If you are a web developer, this small browser will be very useful: http://www.sunrisebrowser.com/en/

Greetings from Hungary:-)

Nuwan.