I installed GrapheneOS for the first time on Wednesday last week on a used Pixel 7a, and I’m impressed. Installation was almost seamless, and I was able to do it from another Android phone. I’ve run into very few wrinkles, even using Google’s proprietary apps with GrapheneOS’s “sandboxed” version of Google Play Services. The main problems I’ve noticed: I can’t cast, and Google Timeline doesn’t seem to work (though I imagine the intersection between people keen to use GrapheneOS and keen to have Google log their location history is pretty small).

Inversion by Aric McBay was another random library pick. Like The Fall of Io, it’s the most recent in a series, though I think this series is pretty loosely connected. In contrast, the villain in this book is simple and cartoonishly evil. The book presents a design for utopia which was interesting but a little cloying. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to want to live there, but I don’t think I do. I enjoyed the book as easy reading, and might try the others in the series some time. (4/4)

I read Starter Villain by John Scalzi. Enjoyable, like his other books that I’ve read. Somewhat sillier. (¾)

I’m enjoying Wesley Chu’s Tao and Io series. Spies, action, ancient aliens. Some funny parts, some interesting world-building parts, some action-filled parts. I picked up The Fall of Io at random from a library a few weeks ago, and it turned out to be the last in a series of six (technically two series), so after finishing that I read the first and am partway through the second. Usually I try to read series in order, but this way is interesting. One thing I liked about The Fall of Io was that it it followed many points of view with somewhat conflicting interests, some more evil than others, and I felt sympathy for most of them. (I was kind of hoping it would be about Jupiter’s moon Io, but it wasn’t, but I’m satisfied with what I ended up with.) (2/4)

Diving into mblaze, I think I’ve nearly* reached peek email geek.

Just a bunch of shell commands I can pipe together to search, list, view and reply to email (after syncing it to a local Maildir).

EXAMPLES at https://git.vuxu.org/mblaze/tree/README

So far I’m using most of the tools directly from the command line, but I might take inspiration from https://sr.ht/~rakoo/omail/ to make my workflow a bit more efficient.

*To get any closer, I think I’d have to hand-craft my own SMTP client or something.

Morphotrophic by Greg Egan is built around an idea for how life on Earth could have worked out differently. It gets increasingly strange and interesting as the story progresses. My partner and I finished it last night and thoroughly enjoyed it. The beginning is free online: https://gregegan.net/MORPHOTROPHIC/00/MorphotrophicExcerpt.html #scifi #reading

I learned a #Toronto #hex club just started! I’ve played since ‘98 or ‘99, but rarely in person. https://www.hexwiki.net/index.php/Hex_clubs