Silver linings

My Kindle has had a couple of problems for a very long time: the indexing is slow, and it doesn't actually download anything automatically anymore. Once I connect to wifi, to prod the download into happening I have to do a search for the title, wait for the results to show, then tap on it. Sometimes a couple of times. Then it finally downloads (and hopefully I've tapped on the actual book and not the sample, because a number of samples aren't properly labeled).

This is highly annoying, as you may surmise, and I've had a go-round with Amazon tech support over it* and so far the only thing I haven't tried is to completely wipe the Kindle and start over. Which I am not inclined to do because there are many non-Kindle documents on there, and lots of samples on there, that would be seriously tedious to replace. I know, because when I buy a new Kindle I have to do it, and given that this one is coming to the end of its lifespan and I'll be buying a new one** I am just going to hold off on that until the new one.

However it's recently developed a new symptom, which is quite interesting. Not only does it not automatically download new items, but it fails to recognize and delete expired items. I am currently holding 16 Kindle Unlimited books of which the KU program believes I have returned 6, as well as 7 library books that were due--and automatically returned--over a month ago.

I consider this a decent tradeoff for my hassle, and now have no plans to attempt to fix it until it finally dies and I replace it.


*Worse than useless. They could only repeat "It's been delivered to your Kindle." "But it's not ON my Kindle." "It's been delivered to your Kindle."

**Yes, yes, stuck in Amazon ecosystem, not owning books, etc. I don't want to hear about it. We're actively buying from places that are not Amazon for physical items; I'm not going to throw digital items into the pot as well at this time.

(no subject)

Drink Cronk. (Twitter thread)

If you were interested...

If you were interested in the paper about an early modern doctor’s casebook that I posted asking for, let me also point you in this direction: the Cambridge Casebook Project: “In the decades around 1600, the astrologers Simon Forman and Richard Napier produced one of the largest surviving sets of medical records in history. The Casebooks Project, a team of scholars at the University of Cambridge, has transformed this paper archive into a digital archive.”

(What’s different about the guy the paper is about is that he’s not an astrologer-physician, but a more modern learned physician.)

And also in historical stuff, YouTube helpfully reminded me that Janet Stephens, the “hairstyle archaeologist” exists, by throwing my way her video of a period 1870s hairstyle done up in magenta pink for steampunk purposes. I’m fairly sure I mentioned her before, although I can’t be arsed to look it up. But while waiting for my repaired computer to arrive (it was shipped overnight...on Thursday*), I whiled away the time watching her demonstrate lots of Classical hairstyles.

*I am sympathetic to them being overwhelmed due to the pandemic. I am notsympathetic to them claiming the computer was on the truck Friday, then not attempting delivery Saturday, then claiming the thing was on the truck this morning, and delivering it at 8:50 PM, after they said the delivery window was 1-3. If they’d just SAID the damn thing was delayed, I’d not be so annoyed and panicky that it had been stolen. (See: my Wacom Companion 2 several years ago that was shipped to FLORIDA, and the terrible run-ins with Wacom’s terrible customer service, and them not giving me any response until I threatened to reverse the charge on my credit card.)

I have also got inspired to buy hair extensions because I am tired of not having hair long enough to do really nifty updos, and since it looks like we’ll be wearing masks in public for the foreseeable future, and pulling my hair into an updo reduces the amount of poking at my face I do, well, it seemed the logical next step. I sent pictures of my hair to a couple different companions for color-matching purposes, then ordered swatches, and pulled the trigger on that earlier tonight. The second set of swatches also fell victim to postal shenanigans: this time instead of UPS delivering four days late, the post office just didn’t bother to deliver on Friday, when they said the samples were on the truck, or Saturday, claiming there was an obstruction and they couldn’t get to the mailbox. (We have a video doorbell. At the time they claimed, there was nothing parked in front of it.) We’ve had delayed-delivery weirdnesses with this post office several times in the past few months, starting from before the pandemic, so I think it may just be employees scanning things as delivered so they don’t get in trouble for forgetting it or not getting to our house.

So we shall see. My hair is too thin on top to clip extensions in higher than my ears, but that’s totally fine for the purposes of twisting and braiding into various buns and such. If these work out, I shall consider investing in a set in a ridiculously fake color for the hell of it.