!No-phone bedtime, project setback, bird stuff
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rawtext.club:70/~xiu
2023-03-18
Boorloo/Perth, Western Australia
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# Going to bed without my phone

Lately I have been going to bed without my phone on the
bedside table and it has been great. Except sometimes it
is not. I miss having easy access to the time and my
crosswords app, and it used to be nice to wind down by 
reading stuff on gopher and gemini.

But whether or not it's something I'm happy with,
I feel it's useful to stick with this awhile longer in
order to weaken the synaptic connections driving my
habits and urges, so I can decide with clearer
perspective whether this is something to continue.

It has been harder to fall asleep at night. Not sure if
this is related or just a coincidence. I'm thinking
coincidence, as we are in an equinox season now, which
always seems to fuck with my sleep. It seems there's
never a good way to properly experiment with stuff
because there always so many factors involved and
conditions always seem to be changing. Oh well! I'm not
a labcoat person doing labcoat stuff. Whatever is working
is working for now.

## Project setback: Kindle dumbification

My Kindle dumbification[1] is not off to a smooth start,
because I'm on the 5.14.3 firmware. Last year, Amazon
released an update that would make "fix the
vulnerabilities" allowing "hackers" to jailbreak their
device.

Imagine making your hardware less customisable for the
people who paid good money to own it. Then imagine
referring to those people as if they're filthfolk trying
to do something shady, just because they want to
customise the way they use their personal property. Now
imagine what kind of bhole company actually does this in
real life.

In the interest of making lemonade from lemons, I'm
working up the courage to try two things: 1) a different
software method that claims to work on any firmware, and
2) some hardware hack with the whole soldering and
rooting shebang. Can I admit now I have a fear of
soldering irons and heated tools, which stems from a fear
of fire I've had since childhood?

## Bird stuff

This morning there was a flock of New Holland honeyeaters
flitting and twitting outside our house. I love hearing 
the crazy birdsong where we live. It's so grounding
and reminds me that life is more than internet and tasks
and greedy corporations and the hellish screaming of a 
cat who can't tell how loud she's being.

When I can slow down and broaden my scope of focus, I
feel a lot more capable and less heaped-upon, and
grateful for what I do have. Not complacent. Complacency
happens when I am too overloaded to care. But those
precious, fleeting, stop-and-smell-the-roses moments
leave me recharged and with capacity to go and do the 
next thing that must be done.

Yeah, I love birds. They're so weird and cute and smart
in ways I can't fathom. You know that silly question 
that often comes up: "What's your ideal date?" I think 
mine would be a nature birdy walk--binoculars, field 
guide, packed sandwich, and such--followed by a quiz 
night and small batch stout/IPA at a pub. Then, you 
know, home for computer games because the contrast and 
balance keep life interesting.

[1] gopher://rawtext.club:70/0/~xiu/phlog/2022-12-19-projects-not-goals.txt