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Kindle Fire, One Year Later

One and a quarter years later, actually.

Is it still the “Gee whiz!” tech toy it was when I got it? Yep. Do I use it in all the ways I had envisioned when I got it? Nope. For instance, I rarely use it to browse the web and almost never use it to check my email. So, how do I use it? In order of frequency:

    1. To read ebooks.
    2. To watch videos (movies/TV shows)
    3. As an mp3 player.
    4. One or two apps, besides the file management app. The most-used app? The bubble level. It’s a seriously useful tool on projects around the house. If somehow one could use the USB connection and a OBD-II app for automobile diagnostics on the Fire, that’d be killer.

Between #1 and #s 2 and 3 above, big gap. I read 7-10 books/week (7 has long been my base I have almost never fallen below since I first began reading), and since the advent of ebooks (on either computers or specialized devices), my reading has tilted toward that medium, simply because of space and convenience–there are no decent bookstores closer than a couple of counties away. Now, my reading is generally mostly ebooks, some hardcopy from county library and from our own library (fairly large private collection– some I’ve not read yet, some worth re-reading for various reasons)–some hardcopy from used bookstores, and a few (perhaps 10-12) hardcopy books a year bought at retail. So, the Kindle Fire has been a BIG help in saving space and feeding my “need to read”.

Given the brilliant sound (when using a decent pair of earbuds) and really, really nice display–even on this first gen device–I find watching HD videos on the Fire to be a delight, and listening to mp3s (again, when using a decent pair of earbuds) yields sound that’s as good as it gets with mp3s (mp3s are necessarily lossy, but with my tinnitus *sigh* it’s less noticeable than one might think).

I’ve not been all that surprised that I’ve not found more apps I’ll really use. As far as calendaring and scheduling apps–something many have found useful on portable devices–nah. I’m still more of a pen and paper kinda guy there. I thought one of the Bible reading apps might be appealing, but I really do prefer hardcopy there. An AV, a file management app and the bubble level app really do pretty much define my app use. *shrugs* It gets many hours of use every week anyway.

Yeh, I “rooted” it once to play with it but didn’t even try to make it permanent, so Amazon overwrote with an update, which was fine with me, as. . . see above usage breakdown.

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A Blurb Only a Mother Could Love. . .

. . .probably written by the author of the book. Here’s how the blurb starts out (read it with a faux “Texas” redneck accent in your mind’s ear, wouldja?):

No matter how hard she tries to escape her Texas roots–and her mother–Jolene Jackson finds herself dragged back to Kickapoo to deal with both. . .

Oh, please. Please, someone, stop me before I “buy” the thing (for $0.00) and read it. “Jolene Jackson” is NOT going to “escape her. . . roots” until she changes her name, publishes “Jolene Jackson’s” obituary and moves above a garage in Buffalo (where Really Leary, Timothy Leary’s brother *cough*–according to George Carlin–taught that our souls go when we die).

*sigh* Too late. Now, I just have to know what “turkey ranch road rage” is. It’s now become essential to my continued sanity, urm, something-or-other–I’d say “Je ne sais quoi” but that just doesn’t go down well with a dose of protest rallies, naked lizard girls in cages, iced tea and a chicken basket.

I do these sorts of things so you don’t have to. Thank me. Thank me very much.

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Sequester, Summing Up

The 2.3% all the way up to the highball 3% “cuts” the Dhimmicrappic sequester threatens (so-called “cuts” will actually take place over a matter of stretched out months) are B.S. as are the lies The Zero and his minions, co-conspirators and fellow travelers (largely in the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind, A.K.A., “Bubbies for Barry”) are spewing about it.

There are no “cuts”. Even with no budget (Barry’s co-conspirators in Congress have spiked every budget since his first term), the U.S. will spend (and borrow) over half a trillion dollars MORE than last year. That makes the 85 billion dollars affected by the sequester small change.

0-bullshit

No more bullshit, Barry.

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Semi-Sorta “Geeky-Lite” Fun

So, nothing on TV appeals to my Wonder Woman, but there’s a show I’m sort of, halfway, kinda interested in, just to kill time letting dinner settle a bit before some inside chores (yeh, still electrical stuff). Well, sure I could watch it elsewhere, but here we are, side-by-side. She’s watching something streaming from Hulu on her notebook, ear buds in. I’m here on my lil funbook. Networked, WMC-connected TV across the room. (No, I don’t have some wireless headphones to connect to it.) But. . . remote connection to the WMC box, complete with computer audio. Set TV to be tuned by computer. Watching TV with TV muted, listening on ear buds plugged into my lil funbook.

Yeh, yeh, I could watch it on my lil finbook’s screen, too, but it actually displays a bit better on the TV.

It’s a kludge, but if it’s stupid and it works, it’s not stupid.

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I Blame the Hivemind

For at least a couple of decades now, anyone who has watched the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind so-called “news” shows has been programmed to eliminate the ability to discern clear distinctions as to many things, but the most egregious–and most consistent–destruction of reason has been the twisting of time. How many times have you heard *cough* “news” *cough* readers refer to events that occurred some time in the past as happening contemporaneously with the reader’s babbling?

Past tense for past events, idiots. But no, in *cough* “news” *cough* readerland present tense is fairly consistently used to refer to past events. And so an essential anchor of reason is eroded daily and common folk attempting to be writers begin to write such drivel as,

The sun rose rose over San Antonia [sic] de Bexar as a Blood [sic] red omen of what the day will [sic] bring to the men of the Alamo.

Good Sharkey, Colonel god! Past tense, properly used, mixed with future tense speaking of a (long) past event! Oh, why not. *sigh* If the past is present, then surely the past is future as well. Time means nothing.

OTOH, any literate person who’s not been lobotomized by watching *cough* “news” *cough* shows would have written,

“The sun rose rose over San Antonio de Bexar as a blood red omen of what the day would bring to the men of the Alamo.”

It’s still a bit overwrought for me, but at least the conditional is dealt with properly. It’s not just aspiring web “journalists” committing such gagamaggot faux pas with English, no. Such superbly dumbass writing abounds in traditionally published works, from newspapers to books from traditional publishing houses (which at one time employed literate proof readers and editors) and in the speech of *cough* “news” *cough* readers inhabiting the Hivemind, the political and entertainment classes and even Academia Nut Fruitcake Bakeries.

Is it any wonder these dumbasses who consider themselves an elite that’s fit to rule the hoi polloi are making a mess of everything they touch? They cannot consistently deal with speaking clearly and rationally on simple subjects.

And the sheeple eat it all up with a spork (because they cannot be trusted with a real fork).

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*sigh* Looks Like It Has to Be This Year. . .

. . .when I get serious about finishing up electrical work here at twc central.

*profound sigh*

I do so very much dislike doing electrical work, but the only electrician I really trust here in America’s Third County retired a couple of years ago, and I really, really, really don’t want to pay someone to just screw things up, so that leaves me, my “consultant” (“Hey, X, can you tell me what to do/where to go for parts/etc., for such and so?”) and my several references on electrical work, codes, etc.

See, there are several ESSENTIAL circuits. Some I’ve already reworked, and they’re OK, but there is one seriously, majorly [messed up] circuit that serves stuff all over the house in ways that make no rhyme or reason that I’ve been putting off simply because it is the single weirdest electrical circuit I’ve ever run across. It serves parts of serveral rooms and one room entirely–the small room I have used as an office that is now pretty much simply a computer junk room and place with my most comfy chair for sitting at a computer.

(Yeh, yeh, I know, whine, whine, whine.)

Well, that circuit decided today was the day to go crazy. Dead. Live. Dead again. No, the circuit breaker doesn’t pop. It’s the live bus bar in the main box. *sigh* Yeh. Best solution is simply to replace the main service panel. *groan* I do NOT want to do that. Second best: call the manufacturer and order a new bus bar. Now, while that’s nearly the cost of a completely new circuit panel and still involves working around the live mains, I can do that. (Good insulation all over, including properly insulated tools, gloves, shoes, etc., then terminating the live mains with appropriately-sized insulators; still a PITA and still a bit scary. *shrugs* I have life insurance. :-)) But that, of course, will still leave me with rewiring to do, since circuits wired by a jackleg electrician and added to later by someone’s retarded pet monkey still need to be cleaned up (*cough* rewired completely *cough*).

Ah, well, in th meantime, I can bring in those three (or four–there is room in the box) circuits someone added to the house in a box outside about 30 years or so ago (going by the manufacture date of the circuit panel outside). . . coming straight off the mains! *sigh* I suppose I could cut off two of the rooms on this bad circuit and use one circuit apiece from the outside box for them. That’d (temporarily, in a hash-up sort of way) solve a world of ills. Another for an appliance circuit that I think is overloaded, although it’s never had any problems. I could almost do that recycling the conduit that’s outside, although I’d want to use new wiring.

Looks like my Spring task list has pretty well filled up, cos I do electrical work v e r y s l o w l y.