Amazon broke my Kindles, old and new

 I am thoroughly disgusted with Amazon right now, especially as regards their treatment of my Kindles.

I have owned four or five Kindles over the years.  My oldest, my Kindle Touch, is in many ways my favorite. I've also owned two or three of the 2015 era Kindles, including an HD model I gave to my sister.  Both my 2015s I rooted so I could run Google Play on them.  Worked fine, such as they were.  My latest is a Kindle Fire HD 8+, which includes Alexa functionality.  I added Google Play on that too, without having to root it.  Really quite useful as a low-cost Android tablet, and plenty for my purposes.

And then...

The other day I got a notice that the tablet was archiving apps I hadn't used for a while.  I hadn't asked for that so I was a bit disconcerted.  Then I wanted to use  the Fire to look at my medical records via my local hospital and Firefox, my chosen viewer.  Not there.  Checked the archiving app.  Not there.  Google Play is gone along with the apps I'd installed via Google Play, including my web browser.  And my access to my medical records -- I'm dealing with Multiple Myeloma -- is no longer available on my best Kindle Fire. (Amazon doesn't call it a Kindle anymore.  Fuck 'em.)

I can still consume Amazon content on my 8 incher -- gee thanks guys -- so I'm reading a barely adequate book via my Kindle Unlimited subscription.  Yes, I still have that, I have read a lot for a long while, and I can at least see on the Kindle.  So, warm sunny day out, sat out on the porch to read.  The 8+ doesn't do well in bright sun, so I went to switch to my aged Kindle Touch ...

 And was asked for a Passcode.

I never put a passcode on my Touch.  Didn't want to, didn't know it was even possible.  So I couldn't access my Touch anymore.  Did a search and found how to reset the thing with just a Passcode, did that, and then found re-registering doesn't work.  So my Kindle Touch is useless to me, too.  Supposedly it'd work, but now Amazon no longer considers it to be my Touch.  And yes, I found another entry on how to register using the OTP, that didn't work, either.

Of the two remaining Kindles that I rooted, one quit to black -- probably the battery -- and I haven't tried the other.  I want my 8+ back, with all the apps I added.  And Google Playstore, too, given Amazon decided to dump their own Appstore.

I'm old, I'm on Social Security, and I can't afford another tablet.  Sigh.  Amazon, what the hell are you doing?

 

 

Terrified

 Right now I feel terrified.

I'm living off my Social Security checks.  I have a number of debts I can't afford to pay, and keep getting hit with more judgements demanding money I don't have and am not earning.  I tried to contact a lawyer through something called Justice North and was told pursuing bankruptcy for me would be pointless, since Social Security -- and SSDI, which I aged out of -- aren't subject to garnishment.  That was the last and only thing the Justice North lawyer offered.

I have five medical conditions that leave me mostly unemployable, including cancer. And I have no idea who to ask for help.  One of my medical conditions is PTSD, which leaves me terrified about just about everything anyway.   Osteoarthritis, glaucoma, Autism, PTSD, and Multiple Myeloma.  Honestly, if I ran a business and had a choice, I wouldn't hire me if I could hire a younger healthy person.  I want to be able to pay off my debts, but I can't see how I can.  I don't own anything to secure a loan -- don't own a home or a car.  And the Myeloma, ironically, means I couldn't even sell a kidney if that was legal.

I have a little writing ability, and I used to be a podcaster. So I guess I have some talents.  But my talents, my skills, my jobs, are now done by AI. 

I don't even know who to ask for help.  American Cancer Society? Maybe, I dunno.

 

And a little dictation?

 Decided to try a little automatic dictation using the mechanism built into Windows 10. Basically by pressing windows dash H, you get a mechanism that is designed for speech to text transcription, what they call dictation, that should allow large scale recording of input. It isn't ideal, but if one is one of those folks that could speak off the cuff and produce quality output, I can see it being very useful indeed.

 

A little fun with old tech

 Having a bit of fun tonight with some old tech that I used to use heavily (and may I say brilliantly) back in the 1990s.   WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS.

 I have an ancient copy of WP from way back when, and used a setup with a DOS... emulator?  Anyway, a DOS box running inside Windows 10 called vDOS, which is pre-configured to work specifically with WP.  Nice thing about WP DOS (not so much the Windows versions) was its focus initially on inputting content -- creating correspondence or news articles first, long before one gets to the point of worrying about formats and layouts.  I prefer this way of working.  Create good content, and formatting is a matter of not screwing it up.  Format first, and to me the content is weaker and less valuable.  Maybe "The medium is the message," or part of it.  But it isn't all of the message, and after a certain point the medium gets in the way of effective messaging.

WP DOS lets me write the way I write this blog, content first.  But it also does fully-justified text by default.  Software that can import from WP DOS produces output that may be simpler, but has a better shot at high quality content.  Hard to explain, I suppose.  If you know what I mean, it's obvious, and if you don't, you might never get the point.

I'm not a brilliant writer.  But WP DOS, I think, allows me to be a better writer than I might otherwise have been.

 Another thing I suspect from my experience.  I was an early adopter of what was called "desktop publishing."  I'd create newsletters and flyers, taking advantage of the fairly new graphic tools available in the 90s.   But the impact of Microsoft Word and other software with similar design philosophy has created so much "pretty" junkmail that I don't think people even look at a lot of the content.  It's a blur and discarded before reading more than the apparent headlines and glancing at the pictures.

 Even DTP based on work from WP DOS tended to be better, because the first task was saying what needed to be said.  Layout and art and such was all secondary.  You got more meaningful material, and people expected that -- back when news was news and not just clickbait and top 10 lists (said the old guy).

 

Back in the Saddle Again?

 Had an inquiry for some voicework, narrating a poem by GK Chesterton. So possibly back in the saddle, albeit in a small way.  Or a more suitable title might be "40 Days in the Saddle, by Major Assburns."  :-)

We'll see how it turns out, okay?

Griz

 

Beginning to Start Initial Efforts to ...

My longform content has, well, been mostly nonexistent for a long time.  Last time I posted a new podcast was 2023, obvious when you look.  And I said at the time I was going to record John Stuart Mill's "Subjection of Women."  And then, well, I didn't.  And haven't.

Not even sure I spelled Mill's name right, it's been so long.

I am trying to get my butt back in gear. With the chaos of the last few months (since being diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma), it's a big step forward to be wearing pants.  Okay, maybe a little exaggeration there.

I will likely have to do podcasts in quick and dirty mode for a while. I'm way out of practice, and the quality tricks I used habitually Back Then are simply forgotten now. I have to sand off the rust and recreate such skills as I used to have, or more likely new techniques entirely.

Bear with me.  Turns out cancer is kinda stressful, and moreso when one adds in PTSD. (Read about the symptoms of PTSD for yourself from your own search.  Even my apparently casual tone may derive from PTSD itself.)  I definitely have the former, and appear to have the latter according to what I've gotten from the local County Veterans Service Agency or CVSA.  Though I had inquired about it on the off chance, I was surprised when they came back with "we think based on our records that you actually do have PTSD."  I ended up putting myself in-patient in the Psych areas of Essentia Health - Duluth to find out what exactly that means, what to watch for and so on. Learned little -- and found that some folks close to me aren't entirely convinced I have PTSD.  As usual, I'm baffled and confused, but it does make sense of some recent behavioral changes on my part.

Anyway... I'm dusting off some old hardware and software and seeing if I can regain some old skills I used to have.  For example, there was a time when I was very effective with WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS.  Yes, I mean DOS from Way Back in the Last Millenium.  There was a time when I was very employable, not really for skill with that software, but for skill writing correspondence and articles, which derived from using that tool, much better for Actual Writing than Microsoft Word.  Tricky to get WP-DOS working under Win10, but doable.  Still figuring out how.

I might also look at whatever is current for WP under Windows -- not an ideal solution, but likely easier to implement. If the newer versions don't allow for creating the content before creating the format of the content, then they are simply a step backward.  WP-DOS was best for typing what I wanted to say, and then figuring out how to format it, selecting fonts and such. If I can make it work, I may even regain some of my old abilities as a writer. This blog seems better than it was, simply because I'm just writing without first formatting.  Maybe my need to do that is rare?

So please be patient with me, and I'll try to become once again that fella I used to be. Who would not have used "fella" in the above sentence.  Baby steps, okay?

-- Griz

Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa

As it turns out, (a) although my service was during peacetime (I was stationed in New Mexico, and we aren't at war with Mexico ... yet) I am considered a fully-fledged Veteran with all the whatchamacallits and doohickeys thereunto appertaining, etc.  Whatever those are.  (b) I have been told by fellow veterans at Essentia "well of course you're eligible," which is nice.  Eligible for what, I don't exactly know.

 I've had several moments of "flying off the handle," as the saying used to go When I Was A Boy.  It was at best extremely unpleasant to those impacted by my behavior, including me.  Likely this was due to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD.  The VA appears to have concluded that I actually suffer from PTSD. I'm not particularly shy about it.  Four years with the 148th Tac Recon Group, which I gather now is the 148th Fighter Wing, last I looked.  A little Inactive Reserve time and most of another two years active USAF, making up my 6 year obligation.  If I hadn't been discharged (don't get me started ... no, really, DON'T), I'd likely have retired more than 20 years ago.

I spent the last several days in the Essentia Psych wards trying to find out what the term actually means, what I should watch for and what I should expect.  As to who else was there, those are not my stories to tell.  In older terms, none of your damn business, and for that matter, none of my damn business either.

I'm going to do what I might have done before I sent myself to the Psych wards and do a bit of Googling to learn some more.  I knew (from movies and TV) that combat veterans could be subject to PTSD, and it looks damn serious there.  I do keep getting asked whether the VA is covering my care -- but of course their coverage of my PTSD only applies to that, not the cancer, glaucoma or other conditions that did not arise from my service.  I am not entirely baffled by it -- only mostly baffled.  Oh, well, once more into the breach dear friends, once more...

Griz 

PS.  Mike McLaughlin from the St Louis County CVSA... call me if you can.  Not sure if my one remaining VOIP line can get inbound calls.  (sigh)