The Good Life... a weblog about life, technology, and the Opera Web browser

Eponyms, for those of you that don't know (I didn't know two days ago), eponyms are words derived from someone's name (i.e., sandwich, baud, and America). You can easily find information about eponyms on the web, including lists of eponyms. Reader's Digest has a nice article on eponyms in their current issue, which gave me the fuel for this post. Anyway, just another cool English thing I thought I'd share.

Jeremy and I were talking the other night about Centralia, Pennsylvania, where there's been an underground coal fire burning since 1961. He was relating it to the World Trade Center, which is still burning, making them the longest building fire in United States history (link requires free registration at NYTimes web site). The interesting thing about the second article is that it mentions a company in Lynchburg, VA called Pyrocool that I drive by every time I travel home.

Links via LightningField.com

My step-brother ships out for SEREs on Sunday. He's in the Navy, but all I can find online is information about the Marine or Army SEREs'. It sounds like he'll be gone for about four days, unlike the Marine's two weeks. Oh well, wish him luck anyway.

I think I over-achieve in the art of confusing myself. -- Trina, college friend and confidant

On November 13, Opera Software released the latest version of their Opera for Windows browser, Opera 6 Beta 1. This is, by far, the best version of the browser I've used. Every time I end up using Internet Explorer (usually for my school's web mail account, grrr), I'm struck by how difficult it is to use compared to Opera. Opera Software just keeps making the browser better and better. Microsoft is looking at some real competition here.

If you haven't used Opera yet, give it a whirl when the final version of Opera 6 for Windows is released. The current beta has a couple of issues that need to be ironed out before it's really usable as an alternative to Internet Explorer.

Just so you know what you can look forward to, Opera is small, quick, and feature packed. The browser is MDI-based, so you can open multiple browsing windows without filling up your taskbar or wasting system resources. Opera allows you to open documents in the background, making it easy to keep track of interesting links while not losing your place on the current page.

Another virtue of Opera is its security-oriented features. The user interface allows you to easily control popups, cookies, and Javascript. While Internet Explorer has suffered heaps of security issues, the first security issue in Opera was found just last week.

Of course, Opera does have its weak points. Opera can run into difficulty displaying some pages due to it's strict adherence to HTML and CSS specifications. Netscape 4.x, Mozilla, and Internet Explorer are all much more relaxed in this area. Opera also lacks a full implementation of DOM, an interface allowing dynamic restructuring of a web page after it's been loaded.

For more reviews, check out the following pages:

• CNet.com User Reviews
• A Web Design Community's Review -- thanks for defending Opera, Scott
• BetaNews.com User Reviews
• A Pro-Microsoft Community's Review

You can also read the Opera press release about Opera 6 beta 1. For a more biased opinion on the new Opera, check out Brett Tabke's Opera 6 tour.

All I ask is that you give it a try once the final version of Opera 6 is released (I'll let you know, don't worry). It might just change the way you use the Internet!

The more I read on the 'net, the more interesting stuff I find and the more I have to post about. I think that's a problem inherent in the Internet: the wealth of information just leads to more information. That's annoying.

Cool flash sites:

News, complete with mixed audio

Virtual Audio Mixer (via Evhead)

From Cnet.com:

The unfinished conclusion to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, A Salmon of a Doubt will apparently be released in a compliation of Douglas Adams' works. Here I was thinking the series had concluded with the fifth book, Mostly Harmless. Hopefully this book will end the series on a happy note, unlike the previous concluding book. Rest in peace, Douglas Adams.

We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

-- From Church and State in the United States, circa 1863

On slavery, equality, and why God can't answer every prayer:

Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully.

-- From the March 4, 1865 Inaugural Address

From the Reader's Digest:

You've got to help me, Doc, the Irishman said. It's me ear. There's somethin' in there.

Let's have a look. Why, my goodness, it's true. You've got money lodged up in there.

The doctor proceeded to pull out a $100 bill. Wow, he said, and there's still more.

Out came a few more hundreds, then some fifties, and some tens. Finally the doctor said, Well, that seems to be it.

How much was there, all told?

One thousand, nine hundred, and ninety dollars.

Ah, yes, that'd be right, said the Irishman. I knew I wasn't feeling two grand.

Mmm, there's nothing quite like a good pun to wake you up in the morning, eh?