I finally bought a Kindle

After much trepidation, I’ve finally gone and done it. The 10th generation Kindle makes both the first e-ink device I’ve ever owned, and the first Kindle I’ve actually bought.

A good number of years ago I ended up “Winning” an HDX 7 from a developer raffle that a certain audio company was doing at the time. But I’ve never had one of their dedicated e-readers, and the only Amazonion devices I’ve bought over the years have been their Fire TV boxes, a product I’ve come to enjoy.
For me the HDX7 was both surprising and novel. On one hand, it was pretty much free; on the other it was pretty cool. The device’s battery life and performance was spectacular for its day. Comparable hardware for the day would have been a Nexus 4, if you traded all the Googly services for battery life that was more like a week of mixed us / when the heck did I even plug this thing in, kind of idle time.
Back then my content was more mixed. Amazon Kindle, Google Play, and various odds and ends made up my repository of books. I have gigs of files on my private server from back when I was a heavy use of Calibre. I’ve made pretty good use of the lit’ HDX for reading over the years.
Amazon would go on to become the dominate source of e-books over the decade. But still I never bought one of their readers. In fact, I posted nearly a decade ago about how unlikely me and an e-reader were. That was before tablets came to dominate my computing life. So even after the Tabletination I never really saw the point in a purpose built e-reader versus a standard tablet.
At best: my freebie HDX has always been an auxiliary device. A device that I would mostly use for reading books, many of them converted via Calibre, or passing an insomniac night. Typically I’ve stuck to my regular tablets, since last year: an iPad, and much the earlier decade Android tablets from Samsung and Asus. Even for reading, I’ve usually used a regular tablet about 80% of the time; maybe more.
Lately, I’ve been using the HDX more as a book reader because of its small size. Something that is pretty damned perfect for reading. The folks that designed that generation put much TLC into its build, IMHO.
My iPad is rather large and I’ve always valued the little Kindle Fire’s superb build for reading. Thus not a big surprise when the device still works (hehe). Yes, I preferred paperbacks over hardcovers to the face back when I still had shelf space. After seven years though: the battery life under load isn’t as Hercules strength as it once was, and honestly there are more than a few “Yeaaah pal, your software is so frakkin’ old this ain’t supported no more”. Considering the age, I of course have no right to complain. Especially when it’s a really nice device that I didn’t pay a dime for, lol.
In fact in the past couple years it has spent some time as a clock or a photoframe. Being repurposed for reading once in a while, or to curiously see if the old thing was still turning on.
I’ve recently given some mind to whether or not to trade it in towards some regular tablet purchase, or to buy a modern Fire just for the non-reading parts. But I’ve not seen too much of a point to trading it in. Unless it’s a killer deal, like Samsung / Best Buy sometimes run, it’s too damned old to be worth much to anyone shy of being an alarm clock that reads books. Likewise, I don’t really care much about Amazon’s app store, so much as it can be convenient to read Wikipedia on a 7″ device.
Well, after a while of thinkin’ on it: I finally caved in, and bought a Kindle. So far, I rather like it.
I remember being tempted back when the 3rd generation came out with an accessible price. Think folks call that the “Keyboard” now. It helps that for some years now: the basic Kindle has been pretty cheap. Even more so with another year older, coming up soon.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m going to be dead a few thousand years before I catch up on my reading backlog.

From tonight’s movie:

鳴る神の 少し響みて
さし曇り
雨も降らぬか
きみを留めむ
[A faint clap of thunder
Clouded skies
Perhaps rain comes
If so, will you stay here with me?]

鳴る神の 少し響みて
降らずとも
吾は留まらむ
妹し留めば
[A faint clap of thunder
Even if rain comes not
I will stay here
Together with you]

That was kind of beautiful enough, that I almost wonder if there’s any collection of the poems that are in both Japanese, and a worthwhile adaption to English.

My first experiment making sweet tea involved a bunch of old oolong tea that I had sitting on a shelf, and was deemed successful.

Repeating the experiment with some fresh tea, well, it was successful—but it was more like a great success.

Personally, I’ve never cared very much for hot tea, nor regular iced tea. So much as dealing with friends and family caused me to tolerate them. And then there’s sweet tea. Now that’s something that I’ll drink with pleasure, lol.

Pissed off: Willow’s affront at my eating a cookie, and not sharing.

Happy doggy: Willow’s elation at being offered an actual dog treat.

Things I will miss after the pandemic: traffic being so darned light, as most of those able to work from home, actually do.

Thing’s I won’t miss: finding a dozen mega rolls on the store shelves, and being thrilled!

Upside of email notifications: knowing you’ve got email.

Downside of email notifications; “Huh, why the @#$& am I awake now?”

Which makes me remember this morning, that I had a dream about people being disappointed by my unwillingness to work twenty days straight without sleep. That was an interesting dream….lol

Microsoft Just Showed An Uncomfortable Truth About The Xbox Series X And PS5

Not a commentary I ever really expected to see published, given the norm is closer to frothy mouthed eye candy and marketing spiel. But surprisingly well noted.

Something I would also add to this is the implications for developers has evolved as well. For a damned affordable price, the Xbox One delivered some impressive gaming hardware that would be difficult to match for the price; those of us who build gaming desktops, or buy laptops for the purpose, know how painfully expensive they are. Meanwhile for the price of a laptop that doesn’t suck, you can get a game console that can pump out stellar graphics.

I feel that with the evolution of hardware, we have reached a point where decent graphics is now more in the hands of the art and engines under the hood. Not the hardware. That is to say, the modern console has the resources that you don’t need to worry—the same way as melting laptops that shouldn’t even be running your game to begin with, lol.

The last several decades were full of “Holy crap, how can they do that and not melt the machine?” leaps in fidelity, and performance. Even in my childhood, we had massive graphic leaps like DooM and Resident Evil. Games whose graphics today, we would hardly get impressed over without a realization of what limited  they had to run on. Pumping out awe inspiring graphics is still a lot of work, and doing it in a performant way is still challenging, but it’s still impressive what you can do with a humble Xbox or PlayStation at this point. The next generation will just bring more headroom 🙂.

Willow’s log, supplemental

Human slept in late. He was tired.

We went for a morning walk, it was nice. I got to sniff many plants, and pee on a few of them.

After Misty’s walk, human disappeared to do stuff. I was told to stand guard.

Human came back. He gave us hash browns. Also treats. I love treats.

Human sat at his desk typing things. I took a nap. He was still typing when I woke up.

There was a loud ringing sound, and then human had to go do some actual paper work.

When he came back, I got another walk. It was great, but I wish that we had gotten a few more laps in.

Foolish human went back to typing. I went back to a nap, after treats were given.

Human made this thing called sweet tea. He asked my thoughts, but drank half a glass without sharing.

There was more napping and typing.

Watched human start making dinner, and cleaning the kitchen. Foolish human, you should take nap like me.

Human made much deliciousness, but did not share the food. I was sad.

Oh my gosh, treats! Honest to goodness, meaty delicious treats! GIVE ME!!!! OM NOM NOM!!!!

I am so full. I wish human would give me more treats. For some reason: he says I must eat dog food now.

Human says paw prints are hard to clean off keyboards. I do not understand this.

Wait, am I getting a treat for all this good typing?

Well that’s neat. Blogger’s post editor is now showing a visual makeover, much like the Pages and Stats sections.

Seems like the formatting and such is all still here, but it’s a refreshed design.