The Male Hysteric

XTEInk x4 Initial Thoughts

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 03:25:58 GMT

A few days ago I impulse purchased the XTEink x4. For those who don't know, the x4 is a tiny ereader that is smaller than most phones, and is in fact advertised as being able to stick to the back of your phone with a magnet, though because most people conceptualize it as an anti-scroll device I don't think most people use it this way. Anyway, a main reason I got it was because my current ereader is a Kobo Libra Color which, while very nice, is also a larger model and pretty frequently I find that it's too large to throw in a pocket or fanny pack. So enter the XTEink x4:

As you can see, very tiny. Also I went ahead and immediately flashed it with the CrossPoint firmware which I heard was better than the original, which is super limited. But the device is limited anyway. It is not a touch screen device which is rare nowadays, and doesn't read PDFs at all (which would be super difficult, given the size and again no touch screen). Unlike most ereaders in my experience, you can't just plug it in and access the file system. You either need to take out the SD card and plug that into a reader and into a computer, or you can send things through the local network, either over a browser or there are multiple apps to do that. The CrossPoint-compatible apps have a nice feature that lets you clip articles from your browser and queue them up to download onto your device when your device joins the network.

Before I realized this, I was trying to get my raspberry pi to work as an ebook server. I set up calibre, set up a news source out of my Instapaper feed and managed to push it to my device, though I was looking at how to automate the process to trigger whenever it found my ereader on the network, which might be a big ask. My instapaper feed is mostly articles that I find and want to read later, and I put them in instapaper because that means they go to my kobo, but I never get around to reading them. So I thought that I would finally get around to reading them if I put them on the smaller, more portable device! And I started reading them! and after a few articles... I realized the reason why I had been putting them off was because they were a bunch of downers!

Anyway. I've been experimenting with putting things on the device. Sometimes the CrossPoint web clipper works better than others, so I need to figure out the conditions under which it works well. There is apparently a way to sync up an XTEink x4 with crosspoint with a kobo through KOReader and calibre but I'm not sure I want to fuss with that because I don't use KOReader and am not sure I want to start. So I think I may just end up using both devices separately.

It's a little early to make any grand proclamations about this device but it is seriously stripped down to the basics and one thing I do miss is a backlight, because it does feel like a perfect device to read on right before bed. I do have a book light that I'm hoping I will be able to clip onto the case when the case arrives, or, failing that, the company does sell a magnetic book light for the x4. There's talk of a new XTEink device coming out soon that may be upgraded but I went ahead and purchased the x4 now because the new device looks to be android based and I preferred something without android.

Anyway, it's interesting. I'm hoping that it will get me to read more.

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The Internet Is Becoming Unusable and Thoughts for the IndieWeb

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 03:19:55 GMT

The internet (or, well, maybe, mostly social media) is quickly becoming unusable for me because of the rampant amounts of antisemitism literally everywhere. It is honestly worse than my experience with transphobia online and I say this as a trans person.

My other thought right now is about the indieweb as an alternative and there seems to be significant problems to the point that I'm thinking of writing an essay. As with most things in tech there seems to be a major disconnect in what people want and what tech people want to do. So much of the face of the indieweb is retroweb material built by high school and college kids who can design beautiful retro aesthetic layouts because, frankly, they have so much free time on their hands and no real responsibilities. We know right now probably more than ever that grown up adults with jobs and such have interesting things to say and especially because the indieweb does not generally have straightforward monetization opportunities, they should be able to publish simply without sacrificing all of their precious free time.

And in saying this I think there needs to be more focus on really simple text-based websites that people can just bang out if they have something to say and just need somewhere to put it. The competition with non-indie sources is really fierce for this niche but I think at least some people can be pulled, especially given the privacy garbage happening on social media. While I know the back end of, for example, Ao3 is quite complex, the front end being well-formatted text shows that sites that are simply well-formatted text are worthwhile in themselves. I feel like Zonelets is probably the most complexity one can realistically ask of people, and even that might be too much because it is still Javascript. But still having packages like that for people who aren't super tech-minded to be able to deploy simple, text-based static websites that are usable on mobile to a host of their choice should probably be the priority.

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Microblogging Blues

Tue, 07 Oct 2025 18:10:48 GMT

I am not sure if anyone is aware of the drama ongoing at BlueSky, but uh... essentially, Jay has been dismissive and making fun of users who do not want Jesse Singal on the platform, and moderation has gone on a spree of banning people who criticize her, including permabanning original long-time users. So naturally people are talking about alternatives.

And it's very disconcerting because the lifecycle of these sites are getting shorter and shorter, and people are pointing out how BlueSky is meant to be a protocol that can be used by other servers (? I am still not quite sure how this works and how it's different from Mastodon in that respect, but we will see) but lots of people are talking about jumping ship and going to Tumblr or even DreamWidth and the thing is these people seem to want microblogging and yet microblogging platforms continue to prove themselves to be terrible, and it's like... maybe there's a reason why microblogging platforms, specifically, tend to be terrible.

There was at least one user recommending microblogging from Dreamwidth (I guess several short posts per day on DW?) which I guess is possible but I'm not sure how that wouldn't drive people nuts. I do follow one person who does this, which I appreciate, but if everyone on my feed posted that way I think it would become unusable. I haven't been using my bearblog but I'm wondering how much it could be used for microblogging... as in, I am wondering if it would be worth it to test the character limits of the titles, and maybe it could be done. It definitely wouldn't be the same as BlueSky or even Dreamwidth at all but it could possibly be something?

I don't know, microblogging has created a unique niche in the ecosystem that I'm not sure can be replaced, and it's easy to question whether it should be replaced and even if I hate it I'm really not sure it should be.

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Kiwix Zimit: An Easy Way To Save Small Sites Locally

Fri, 03 Oct 2025 04:01:32 GMT

So as I spend more time on Dreamwidth and in indie web spaces I'm finding people are actually posting more actual content, as in essays, stories, art, etc on their small websites rather than just making them into nostalgia retro pages and that's really cool! However one thing to remember about small sites is that, well, they tended to disappear almost as quickly as they showed up. The WayBack Machine may have pieces of a website but not everything, so if you find a cool site, you might want to be able to save it locally. Or maybe you're somewhere with unreliable internet and just want a copy of your friend's fanfiction archive locally so you can read it when you want to and not when the internet is cooperating. I get it!

One of the more convenient ways to do this I've found is with Kiwix. Kiwix is an organization that makes an app that was primarily designed to be able to download and browse various Wikipedia projects in areas where internet access is difficult, impossible, or dangerous. This works by compiling websites onto .zim files, which you can find pre-compiled through kiwix, but you can also find .zim files elsewhere or even make your own, and a very simple way to do that is through the Zimit tool. Zimit has a lot of limitations, but it usually works fantastically well on most small static sites like the kinds you find on the indie web. The resulting .zim file from the tool can be used with any Kiwix application, either on a computer or a mobile device, and you can browse through the webpage to your heart's content without an internet connection. Enjoy!

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Some Free Audio, If You Want It

Wed, 01 Oct 2025 04:03:54 GMT

I have been messing around with the Innioasis y1 and while it's definitely got bugs I have been enjoying using it and have been generally filling it with lots of stuff. So, instead of keeping everything to myself, I'm sharing these:

Listen Notes is one of the few podcast streaming websites I've been able to find that still has an audio download link on every podcast and does not take you to an app (Podbean does this for most but not some -- I have not found any feeds that do not link to actual mp3 files on Listen Notes yet). So, if you're using an mp3 player without apps, this is a good choice to download your podcasts from. I generally use Swinsian (not free) to clean up the metadata before I upload it but that's definitely not strictly necessary.

The Current radio station allows free downloads of The Song Of The Day going back five days. A long time ago iTunes used to have this feature, where they had a free to download song every day, so this is similar. The Current is an alternative station but they're pretty eclectic so it's worth checking out even if alternative specifically isn't your jam.

And a pay-what-you-want album, Blank Banshee 0 by Blank Banshee, which has been in my heavy rotation for me for a while, though may partly be because it comes up early in the album listing, haha. It's considered pretty foundational vaporwave with other influences. I had the surreal experience a few nights ago listening to a song on the radio that was very clearly sampled in here.

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New Toy: Innioasis Y1

Sun, 24 Aug 2025 04:52:08 GMT

I just got the Innioasis Y1. Why? Well, frankly the other DAP had frustrating limitations that I am hoping this one does not have, primarily with respect to audiobooks and podcasts. It kind of seems like the easiest way to get an inexpensive device that can handle audiobooks well (as in, keeping bookmarks) is by having an android base, but having an android base also causes other issues. So it's a tradeoff. I got the Y1 for $50 so right now if it doesn't work out I'm not going to beat myself up too much about it, and also if I hate the original android OS I can choose to install rockbox (though I don't know how good rockbox is for audiobooks... have not done research.

I'm not going to do a full review because I haven't used it much, and have barely uploaded all my music onto it. The Innioasis Y1 is designed to look like an iPod but feels way cheaper than an iPod, because, of course, you are only paying $50 for it. I got the blue (which is a teal color) even though my first choice would have been the teal (which is a blue color), but it still looks nice. Honestly in terms of first impression of builds, I think the Snowsky Echo Mini is probably nicer. I am definitely contemplating getting a screen protector for this thing.

The sound quality is ok -- on first impression I am not sure if it is slightly worse than the echo mini or I just haven't found the right volume (I think the Echo Mini can get way louder). One thing it does have is the ability to create themes. The Y1 is advertised as being "for kids," I guess because it doesn't have any web functionality so you can control what your child is listening to, so most of the default themes are kinda goofy looking. So the first thing I did was download a bunch of themes and am currently using a Windows 95 theme I found on Reddit.

I'm going to give it at least a week to see how it compares to the echo mini, or if I want to try running rockbox on it.

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