Thursday 7 December 2000

Pic of the day: Bergen, the largest city of Norway's west coast and its one time capital city. Evidently they have their limits, though. (Picture taken during my west coast trip.)

Bad news, good news

To cover the least funny stuff first: I was recently informed that the hospital in Bergen gave up on operating my mother's brain tumor. She is sent home, basically to die, though this may take some time. (Well, it has already taken more time than I thought.) She doesn't live with me, so it does not immediately impact my life. But it's not like we have heaps of mothers. It is a somewhat strange feeling. It's not like I'm crying in my pillow or anything, but I guess I may be slightly subdued at times. It's certainly not something to celebrate. Though it's not like losing a child, the way I know several of you have. (Is it really that common, or do I just bump into these people?)

***

I haven't bought any train tickets yet. I feel a bit uncertain. I know the Super family expect me to pop up again, as I've done more or less for a decade or some such. True, Superwoman hasn't invited me this year, but she's actually not the only stakeholder here. Besides, I'm not entirely sure how seriously miffed she was over the whole Cutie beauty incident. I guess I could talk with one of them. Or I could just wait till it's too late, in which case I don't have to make a decision either way.

Besides, as indicated above, there is a certain chance that I may be required to go elsewhere. Sadly, public transport tends to fill up for christmas, so after a certain time I can't travel anywhere unless I have arranged for it now. That bites, though I can understand it.

I feel that I'd like to be alone, but I'm not sure if that is the smartest move. And I'm not a big defender of the right of feelings and emotions to rule our lives anyway. We'll see, come the mornings.

***

Onward to considerably more cheerful news! Possibly the best browser in the world, Opera, is out in version 5. It is not a huge upgrade from version 4, not enough to warrant a new version number, except for one big thing: It is now free. Well, sort of. It is ad-financed. There is a banner on top of the page, the general content of which you can decide for yourself. Registered (paying) users won't have the banner. The ads will be kept unobtrusive and decent, and no personal information is transferred back to the advertisers. Basically you choose the type of ad you want and Opera loads itfrom its ad database, then caches it at your harddisk so it won't influence the legendary Opera speed.

It is true that AOL's Netscape and Microsoft's Internet Explorer are completely free already. On most configurations, however, they are not as fast. They also take up a lot more disk space and system resources. Besides, they are both wholly owned by would-be monopolists, who work tirelessly to bend standards to their own advantage. Opera is the working class hero that rises against the tyrants and all that jazz. And it's cute. Try it and see. I'm certainly quite satisfied with it.

***

One of my coworkers, who shall remain unnamed even though she won't read today's diary, complained to me today. She had switched to ISDN phone connection, and now her computer would not connect to the Internet. It turned out she was still using her old modem; she had not bought a network card for ISDN. (These are popularly called "ISDN modem", which is just plain wrong: ISDN is, as the "D" indicates, a digital network. So there is no need to modulate / demodulate the digital data before sending them to the line.) Evidently no one had mentioned that special hardware was needed. The lady also had only the vaguest idea about the existence of card, slots and such. Oops.

Perhaps we are moving toward a society where people are expected to be technology nerds. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? And how will things be if we survive to a ripe old age - will those who have not continually updated themselves find that they are like stone age hunters in New York City? It is a slightly disturbing thought.

But as they say regarding opera: It ain't over till the fat lady sings. (Stay tuned!)