2024-09-08
Update 2024-09-10: I installed KOReader and the gemini.koplugin and am off to the races browsing gemini on the Kobo. I'll post a review later this month.
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i am having fun. it is 6:30pm and i am on top of the hill that passes for a mountain in brooklyn, a pleasant wind sound swaying all of the leafy green branches above my head. the occasional acorn makes a play, knock, whizz, then lands somewhere near my feet or elsewhere. all is well as long as it lands outside the range of my head.
i am a bit cold and have been most of the time i've been here. i'm wearing sandals with socks and jeans, the only acknowledgement to the recent change in weather i've made. not wanting it to be fall yet i had stupidly gone out in my t-shirt and have been half shivering for hours.
today is sunday and in BK from may through september that means it's food cart festival day. besides the fact that the food is overpriced, generally unhealthy, and packed with long lines, i usually enjoy it when i come. i ride up on my bike, survey the options for the day, weigh price and hunger and what the relative healthiness of the food i've eaten over the previous few days and then make a selection. today i picked "Treat Yourself Jerk" where i purchased half a chicken and cooked plantains.
i carefully biked one handed, holding my feast in the freehand and navigating through the park trails to a relatively quiet area. i bike through the woods on the peninsula, sitting near the pond. but it seems impossible to hit my goal of finding some quietude. louder and louder i hear the bumping bass pumping out of the southwest corner of the park where carribean vendors sell jamaican food and families gather in large reunions, that i had biked past earlier that day. i eat my food and try to read, eventually forgetting the bass while i snack. but after my meal i decide to try another corner of the park and work off some of the chicken. i wind up a dirt path that spirals up the tall hill. at the top on its far side from the fields i find an area farthest away from the party zone, and start to set up. but even here i begin to hear competing middle eastern music, egyptian? no matter, thankfully the sound pleases me and i'll be able to read with that, though it soon ends after a few minutes. i take out my ultralight folding chair i purchased on ebay (the REI camp chair) and set up under the trees. i pull out my new kobo clara bw ereader and queue up The Old Patagonian Express, which i've been reading for the past week and a half, checked out from my library via the Overdrive app.
Kobo Clara BW eReader and bike in the park
I love this little ereader. it's so light and comfortable in one hand. it fits comfortably in my cross body bag and can be stuffed, barely, in a back pocket of my jeans if need be, when i'm transferring subway lines.
the text is easy to read and adjust. the backlight at night in bed is warm and light. the battery has lasted me weeks at a charge. and the body is well made. i love that you can buy parts and there are repair guides on ifixit. my previous ereader lasted 12 years, so i hope this one lasts at least that long.
i made a tiny nick on the front, a scratch on the screen that i guess is permanent. so i ended up ordering the $30 official case with folding screen cover and it is worth it. the device is just as compact. it still fits in the pocket, though it's now an even tighter squeeze! the magnetic cover makes it so the ereader automatically switches to sleep mode when closed, and wakes up automatically when reopened. if after 5 minutes of sleeping i haven't come back to the book it shuts itself off. a full button press is required to turn the device on, and it takes a couple seconds longer than i'd like, about 17 seconds total to turn on! sheesh. i also wish there were physical buttons to get to the home screen and to advance pages in the book. i don't mind tapping on the side to advance but a physical button would be more pleasant feeling.
pocket, the service purchased last year by firefox, works on the device. you can save articles in your browser or anywhere, sending them to the service, and then when you have your ereader in wifi you can sync and download your articles. there are various hacks to use koreador with caliber and wallabag but i haven't explored them yet as pocket works fine for me.
there is an experimental browser. i guess i'd call it a web 1.1 browser. it's slow and button presses on links don't always work. i've set frogfind, the duckduckgo alternative for old computers, as my homepage. this helps make things more readable. i've also bookmarked a few gemini proxy urls, including a pointer to Antenna. i would go crazy for a gemini client on this thing, but i'll settle for the web 1.1 browser, and using a gemini -> http proxy. that at least seems to work fine. it would be nice to be able to ssh, give text input through an external keyboard. this isn't a hackable android device however and maybe that's for the best. it prevents me from turning this into a time suck like my ipad mini.
so where does that leave this? it means this is one hell of a damn good basic book and article reading machine. it "just works" really well and while it's not as perfect as a bike or a book or a bench it's still pretty darn nice. i liked it so much, i bought a second one! as a gift for my mom.
oh no, an interruption, the song Sweet Caroline comes erupting up the hillside from some bbq'ers far below. and with that and the increasing cold and gradual sunset turning to darkness my time here is coming to a close.
i recommend the kobo clara. it's a great ereader. cheers.
P.S. This month is ROOPHLOCH, announced by solderpunk, where you post from the great outdoors. Does anyone have a suggestion of how I could do so (via tethering to my phone's wifi) from the Kobo? Is there a web 1.1 style website that takes text input, or anyone have any other suggestion? hack the kobo and install a gemini client? access a titan server?
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