Opera is 15 years old! I first started using the browser back in 1997 or so when I was working at OU doing support and web design for the financial departments there. I had gotten interested in web design in 1994 or so and was completely self-taught, but I had become interested in CSS and standards as soon as I’d learned about them. After I moved here to Norway in 1999 and was looking for a job, I checked out Opera’s website for job opportunities, and lo and behold, they were looking for a webmaster. I applied and had an interview with Jon and Håkon. They seemed to be impressed by my code, which was a major ego boost for me, given who they were and what they represented.

I got the job. I think I was their 26th employee. I was 22, and I felt like my career was really getting off to a good start—this was just the kind of work I wanted to do, and Opera was really the place to be for someone interested in standards. It still is! It was a really fun, informal environment and I enjoyed working there.

Just a few months thereafter, however, my grandmother died, and I fell into a seriously disabling depression. I was on sick leave for a year, and tried to come back to work after that on “active sick leave”, but didn’t manage to make it work out, so I had to quit. That’s still upsetting to me to this day, almost 10 years later, as I see the direction they’re gone in and how it still mirrors my interests in usability and standards. It was such a missed opportunity. I’m trying to get back into the workforce now, but I don’t think I’ll ever have the chance to make a difference as I might have had working for Opera.

After Firefox, and after Chrome, people have been quick to predict Opera’s demise, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon. Opera’s rock-solid grounding in and commitment to usability and standards—both on desktop environments and other platforms—ensure it a place in the game for a long time to come. Their research in these areas and promotion of these values is still sorely needed. Here’s to another 15 years—I look forward to seeing what they do next.

I submitted some pics of Ada to the lol Builder on the Cheezburger network. Some of the results were really clever—this one actually got chosen to appear on their site. I’ll post more of the results here over time.

I want one! Johannes won’t object.

Three things, not necessarily in order of importance or interestingness:

1. I have just placed an order on e-bay for what will be my first real pc mod, if putting an aftermarket GPU cooler into a system I built myself from stock parts is considered a pc mod, and I’m not sure it is. My 4870 is, not surprisingly, running hotter than is ideal, so I have ordered an Arctic Cooling Accelero S1 Rev. 2 with the turbo module for it. I’m looking forward to getting back into the case.

2. I am apparently nerdier than 99% of all people.

   
   

   That’s saying a lot if “all people” is understood to mean “all people who have taken the test”, but then, we don’t really know how they’re calculating their statistics, do we? In any case, they’re not controlling for gender, so I figure I can be extra-proud of that score, given that I am a cisgendered female.

   On v2 of that test, they do control for gender:

   
   
   

   Which leads me to my final point…

3. I am very thankful to have learned about the internet at the point in time in my life when I did. I grew up around computers to the extent that I am very comfortable using them. The first time I remember using a computer in school was in first or second grade. I used them a lot in school and after school hours in the library from then on, and took my first “programming” class in seventh grade (in Apple BASIC, and thank you, Jared Housh, for teaching me all that fun sparkly stuff—perhaps it was you who set my feet upon on the path I walk today!). We got a computer at home in 1989 or so, a Tandy, and then I remember doing some gopher searches in the computer lab in high school, but it wasn’t until my first year of college that I really got seriously involved with computers.

   I am glad I had some time in my youth when I wasn’t connected to the ‘net intravenously, because if computers and the ‘net had been so omnipresent when I was growing up as they are today, I would never have managed to built the tenuous grip on the social world that grants me the “cool” part of that nerd rating above.

   And I would write more, but I’ve been up and on the computer for a huge number of hours now, and have promised my (internet-won) husband that I’d go to bed at the same time as he does tonight.

I’ve put up more photos from our summer vacation in the North of Ireland. Some are just from around Belfast; the ones from the Black Taxi tour we took are the most interesting of this newest lot.

I’m finally getting around to sorting out the pictures from our summer vacation.

The ones we took on 11th night in Belfast are probably the most interesting.

I have just built myself a new computer from scratch. I bought the best components that aren’t unreasonably expensive–e.g. the q9450 and not the qX9770; the Radeon 4870 and not the GTX 260 or 280. Here are the specs:

ASUS Rampage Formula

A highly tweakable motherboard based on the x48 chipset.

4 GB Corsair Dominator PC2-8500 RAM

1066 MHz with CAS latency 5. I have not installed the included fans.

HIS Radeon 4870

Yes, yes, I know that ATI graphics cards suck. Except that this one doesn’t.

Intel Q9450

A quad-core 2.66GHz CPU.

Mist 1000w Power Supply

This is a Norwegian-made power supply. It’s gotten excellent reviews but I haven’t been able to find any information about it in English. It’s completely modular and almost completely silent.

Western Digital Raptor X

Here shown installed in the same kind of case I got. This is a 10,000 RPM 150GB SATA drive with a 16MB cache. It’s noisier than hell, but it sure looks pretty!

Clear Computer Case RaptorX

Their site is down for maintenance now, but you can still see the case on the front page.

Samsung DVD Burner

Does the job quietly.

Western Digital WD4000KD

The old 7200 RPM 400GB SATA drive that has my life on it.

3 Nexus Real Silent 120mm fans

Virtually inaudible.

The most hardcore technical bit was when I had to rewire the connector for the front USB ports.

Everything worked perfectly the first time I powered it on and has continued to work perfectly since. With the exception of the clicking of the Raptor X, it’s virtually silent. It runs a little hot, but I understand that’s typical for these motherboards. The video card runs very hot, but from the reading up I’ve done, that’s normal for these 4870’s. I have played with the fan speed a little to get the temperature stable and quiet–25% seems to be the magic number.

The only disappointment has been with the new mouse I bought—I wanted a rechargeable mouse, but it turns out that the one I bought doesn’t work with the old Intellipoint software that allows the user to change the mouse orientation. I was able to get a driver filter to reverse the y axis, but this disabled some of the mouse button functions I use the most, like middle-clicking to view the desktop. Thus I have switched back to my trusty Wireless Intellimouse Explorer with Intellipoint 4.12.

My monitor is the same HP F2304 23″ LCD I’ve been using for the past few years, although it now has to be propped up by the orb Johannes bought me for my birthday a few years back. And, of course, I continue to enjoy using my vintage Model M keyboard.

Next I will put some pretty lights in it, and then I will water-cool it.

In researching why I haven’t been able to access ModBlog or Feministe for the past week or so, I learned how the Internet works, and am now absolutely terrified.

Here’s some stuff I’ve made lately. Thumbnails are for pussies!

Orange Chicken. This is another of my favorite dishes from
The Chinese Kitchen.

Kitchen Curtains. These I just made on the fly with my new sewing machine. Pretty dark green gingham to go with the green trim in my kitchen. I’m hoping the color keeps these from looking too kitschy.

Wavy Scarf for my Mom. This was her Christmas present and it took FOREVER to make. I used Idena Bamboo…that stuff’s the best yarn EV4R. Durable yet soft. Splits like a mutha, but it’s a joy to have sliding through your fingers and it’s worth it for the end result.

And now, for some pots. I think I’ve only posted one pot here before. Here are the pots I’ve made that I’m more or less proud of:

This one I gave to my brother-in-law for Christmas. I think it’s the best pot I’ve ever made, so I hope he damn well appreciates it. :Þ

This was my favorite pot before the one above. It was one of the first pots I made.

This pot I gave to my in-laws for Christmas, with a gift card inside informing them that we’d donated an XO in their name. No, you’re really not supposed to throw pots with this coarse clay.

These were originally meant to be a set of three, but one of them split during firing. Pain teaches: I learned to cut out the slabs for only one pot at a time. I still like ‘em as just a pair; they’re sitting out on my kitchen counter.

Another of my first pots. This one I sent to my Uncle Scott.

Chun glaze experimentation.

Another pot.

This one sits in the hand so nicely. I gave to to HansO because he likes dark red.

Another very early pot. A gift to my in-laws.

Sadly, it seems like the best pots I made were the post I made a long time ago.

In the future, I’ll try to be better about posting pictures as I finish things as opposed to posting them all in one big glut.