Reading

Table of Contents

Changelog

2026-04-02

Initial publication

Background

For many months I’ve been trying to migrate away from my Boox Palma. I’ve had it for pushing 3 years now (I think, definitely over 2 years now) and the Android updates have stopped. This worries me because the Android version is old enough now to risk going unsupported by Google. This won’t happen ‘soon’ but it will happen. For me this is A Problem. That said: I adore the Boox devices and still strongly recommend them if you’re ok with an Android based device.

Table of Contents

Changelog

2026-03-30

Initial publication

A Critical Note

I live in America, I’m a career programmer and I have horrific health problems.

Normally I’d assume folk know what that means but I need to be explicit: this means my survival requires me to have a practical, useful and ‘reasonable’ understanding of Generative AI. Particularly models that programmers use.

Table of Contents

Changelog

2026-03-11

Add section about reading statistics 2026-03-07

Initial publication

Preface

I’ve been eyeing the XTeink X4 for awhile now but the whole ’no book metadata browser’ gave me significant pause for quite some time. Historically I’ve used readers like the Kobo Clara HD, Moon+ Reader Pro and Librera Reader which provide me a good way of viewing books by tags, series and similar metadata which I rely on to filter my ’to read’ list.

A workflow dedicated to reading web content

Over the last 15-20 years I’ve kept up a reading habit that is driven by only content I find online. I read an average of 10-20 “articles” per day and they range from single panel comics to forum threads to blog posts to mainstream news. If it looks interesting, I’m likely going to read it at some point.

If that seems like an absurd amount of reading day to day: it is! But! I do not consume much television, movie or other video content. It’s incredibly rare for me to sit and watch video of my own volition. I’ll go as far as skipping video content when I come across it. Yes, I’m “different” and “weird” about video and I genuinely don’t give a shit ; video isn’t for me.

Prelude

Awhile ago I spent some time reviewing how I read books, news and random internet articles day to day. My goal was to bring a Kobo Clara HD back into regular use as I greatly prefer e-ink displays for reading. As with most things in my life, a “straight forward tech rework” was just the beginning of something far bigger.

I read a lot: an average of one hour plus per day with some days being over four hours of reading. I also cannot listen to audio books due to some speech processing and memory issues. Nor do I watch much video as it can cause me to turn into “a lump” that’s borderline catatonic. Video also does not relax me or help me unwind, recenter, or similar. It’s a pure time killer that has zero benefit for my physical or mental well being on the whole.