cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/51095100
It is a vineyard now.
this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2026
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It was a vineyard prior to the picture as well, it had been cleared due to an phylloxera infestation.
Bliss is still in my rotation of wallpapers. Something about a standard KDE install with the XP default wallpaper tickles me.
The nostalgia is for sure a big factor. Windows 95/98 were my first memories of computers, but XP was the first OS I was really allowed to discover on my own. I was quite the fan, when my family "upgraded" to a barely-meets-the-minimum-specs Vista Ready™ PC I soon after tried to "downgrade" it to XP.
During which I managed to bork something and nothing would boot, not even the recovery disc I had burned. Thus started a three day troubleshooting journey to fix the family PC. I think my parents were too startled by my determination to figure it out to get angry at me.
And here I am almost two decades later, spending the last three days trying to manually setup a seedbox despite there being a myriad of easy deployment methods. Most of those three days have been focused on setting up a firewall, restricting access to docker containers behind a VPN, and of course the ol' troublemaker DNS.
The feeling when I figure out something I've been struggling with is still just as exhilarating as when I saw Windows XP boot up for the first time on the family PC way back when. Seeing the familiar rolling Californian wine-country hill, immortalized by Charles O'Rear on film in January 1996. I often wonder if Charles knew at the moment, when looking upon the bucolic scenery, that one day the image would become synonymous to many with the advent of the digital age. The hill is forgotten, but the 1s and the 0s live on forever.
I often wonder if Charles knew at the moment, when looking upon the bucolic scenery, that one day the image would become synonymous to many with the advent of the digital age.
he was successful national geographic photographer, so he knew what he was doing when he took the photo, but of course, he had no idea what would happen...
there is nice write-up on wiki
Microsoft said they wanted not just to license the image for use as Windows XP's default wallpaper, but to buy all the rights to it.[9]: 3:37 [24] They offered O'Rear what he says is the second-largest payment ever made to a photographer for a single image; however, he signed a confidentiality agreement and cannot disclose the exact amount.[6][11][25] It has been reported to be "in the low six figures."[4] O'Rear needed to send Microsoft the original film and sign the paperwork; however, when couriers and delivery services became aware of the value of the shipment, they declined since it was higher than their insurance would cover. Instead, Microsoft bought O'Rear a plane ticket and he personally delivered it to their offices in Seattle.[4][9]: 3:57 "I don't think the engineers or anybody at Microsoft had any idea it would have the success it had," he said.