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Amazon are withdrawing support from their older Kindles on May 20th - Is mine now defunct ?

  Amazon’s Kindle eReaders were ahead of their time when they first emerged in the late noughties, and were the first of the e-ink long battery life specialist readers to hit the mass market. They have amassed a large following of dedicated reader fans since then, and have proven themselves robust and long-lasting devices. They are also the preferred vehicle for reading eBooks, given the probems associated with long-term use of LED screens.  Amazon have been steadily phasing out support to their older devices for the past couple of years, but there has been considerable concern voiced amongst the Kindle fan-base over the recent 'final' announcement   by Amazon that they are withdrawing support from all of their older devices from May 20th. This applies to anything manufactured before 2012, and means that readers will then no longer be able to use their device to buy books from Amazon, or access any books they have stored in the Amazon cloud. The range of devices affect...
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UK Energy and Net Zero: Solar Panels vs Heat Pumps

Update 17.4.26: The recent announcement of Miliband's long-awaited Warm Homes Plan sadly does little to inspire confidence that government is anywhere near getting onto the right track regarding domestic energy supply.... Although the fine detail of elegibility and scope of the measure isn't yet clear, it's obvious from what has been published that this will be yet another scheme to 'Rob Peter to pay Paul'...as you might expect from a socialist government obsessed with redistributing our wealth....and making stringent economies to try to cover its frequent and lasting policy errors.  It's obvious that heat pumps are an expensive item which commit the owner to much higher electricity bills, and are not affordable for the majority even with a sizeable grant . Feedback from those unfortunate enough to have suffered the disruption of an installation, and the consequences for their power consumption after the event, amply confirm this.  By contrast, any grants for so...
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To Pray, or Not to Pray….

  I first published this in summer of '22 around the time of the mini-budget and the ensuing financial crisis, when prayer was back in fashion, particularly for those with risky investments...it remains relevant at a time when our uncertainties seem to be increasing by the day, rather than starting to resolve themselves..... Introduction As is often quoted: ‘..there are only two certainties in life – death and taxes…’.   In the UK recently we have all heard quite enough about taxes recently, so I’ll focus on the former in this article, if I may, as a diversion, albeit a brief one, from our economic woes.... As we age, our thoughts naturally turn to the prospect of our own deaths – and what might or might not happen to us afterwards. Although death itself is a certainty for all of us, there is a surprising reluctance on the part of society to discuss its practicalities and consequences, both physical and spiritual.  In my view, this enduring taboo makes the subject m...
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