Kindle battery life - when things started going wrong

Now for details on what exactly plagues me on the Kindle 2.

The issue surfaced on my mini-kindle vacation -- a long weekend that I spent just reading and experiencing 'the device just disappears' experience as promoted by Amazon.

Around the same time Amazon released a software upgrade which I duly installed and updated. The upgrade promised PDF compatibility and longer battery life.
The PDF compatibility fell short of expectation, since it allows only change of orientation of the document on the kindle but no zooming in and out on the pdf. So if you have a file with smaller fonts (which seems to be the case with most pdfs i have) then it's quite illegible. Guess we need to wait for the next update on this.

But what I was looking forward to most was the upgrade in battery life. But I was disappointed. I had to recharge my kindle twice in 3 days.

Worse, I found that a couple of hours of reading saw the battery charge moving from 90% to 30%-- that too with wireless off. Way too fast a discharge. Especially, since Amazon claims that the Kindle should last 2 weeks with one full charge.

I am not sure what the culprit is, the upgrade or my device-- as I had not tested the Kindle out before applying the upgrade.

But since numerous searches on the new upgrade gave me no other result of anyone else facing this Kindle battery life issue, I assumed it had to be the device.

So I decided to call up the customer service numbers for help and device. More on the experience in my next post.... .

Kindle in India brings me back

Ok, so I have not been regular at all, joining a legion of internet bloggers who sign up but drop out from adding their 2 pence worth to the information jungle.

Not that I had no information to share, just that was not inspired enough to log in and write.

So what wakes me up from this blogging-slumber is this new addition in my life. The addition arrived last month, and I was as excited as a 5-year-old in anticipation of a big gift.

I got an Amazon Kindle 2. Those who I am acquainted to, know me as this absolute book worm...so this was the best gizmo I could ever dream of owning (barring a big flat LCD TV and a BMW Four Wheel Drive with lifetime free fuel supply! -- but that's for another post).

What made having the Kindle more exciting was that I was in India -- and Amazon had just launched it's International Kindle. And at the cost of sounding smug, I was perhaps among the few hundred Indians to own a Kindle in India on Nov 23, 2009. And I fell in love almost immediately.

I took a mini-vacation (one day off from work *wink), sat up cuddled in bed to read from it...read up the Twilight series (2 books), the Last lecture and Superfreakonomics -- all in tandem.

I even got a special side table with drawer stool made -- to house my kindle safe and close to my bed, and ensure it faces no inadvertent accidents!

But 2 weeks on and many downloads of all the 'FREE KINDLE BOOKS' and Free Project Gutenberg books for the Kindle later, the dream threatens to turn a bit sour.

And that's what brings me here so that i can pour my heart out as i wait for my beloved kindle experience not to turn completely Kaput. So that my love affair does not end in a fling....so that...melodramatics aside, I also want to record my experience of the famed Customer Service of Amazon in India.

And the start has not been exactly the very best yet.

P.S. Let what's been kindled not dwindle away just because someone wants to swindle.

We surely love the fakes?

The huge success of the blog fake IPL player just proves that. The blog claims it's a fake, but netizens are busy contemplating his true identity. Several blogposts and twitters and forums are flooded with analysis (serious and bogus) trying to guess who this 'insider' could be.

You can see this immense fascination with the 'fake' in the enhancements actors get or even when a colleague turns up to work in an Ed Hardy T shirt!! I actually went up to him and got the lowdown on the whereabouts of the tshirt, would i have bothered if i knew it was an original...probably not.

After all being original or having the original is boring...it shows you are gifted, you've made it in life etc etc...so what can the others do but bow to em.

But a fake? Now that's about cheeky gut. So what if you don't have it. You just snook it to the original and get your own version. Fakes have the audacity to say 'i too can have it. Even if it's not it, but who cares, i can bask in the glory of the original without the pain of being one'.

And fakes get interests going too, after all those around you feel much closer to the fake. No airs and highbrow original snoot, it's just the neighbourhood darling 'fake'.

No wonder then that the fake ipl player has generated so much interest. If it was the original player, then he would have been in awe of his originalness. The cheeky care a damn entertainment can come only from the fake--who has nothing to lose. And soon as the fake gets popular, people even forget that it's a fake. Rather they want to know label it as the original... and be the first ones to prove that as well.

So, all the very best to those trying to analyse this original fake IPL player...may the fake reign till then.

P.S.: What do you do when the cook changes but the dinner still needs to taste the same? You change the menu.

Shah Rukh Khan: Poor show by the star

A good recipe, my grandma said, needs to have the right ingredients in the right amount. This way each does what it's meant to do and you get a good dish.

This piece of advice holds true in life too. And the latest example of such a dish going completely wrong came from Shah Rukh Khan or SRK.

SRK's acting histrionics (or hamming as you want to call it) are well documented on reel. 

But give the man a podium and a written speech-- a dissertation on the 'utopian thought of art overcoming hatred'(don't ask why)-- and he really really comes a pauper.

To his credit SRK started off well at the India Today Conclave, with diggs at India Today Group journalists, Kaveri 'Bam'zai, Aroon Purie and Prabhu Chawla. He even pulled a good mimic act on Prabhu. But then he opened up his ledger and put all on snooze.

You can watch SRK's funny introduction of being bullied into the conclave here. Skip the rest of speech though. But if you have the time then check out the panel discussions here and here. Quite interesting.

Tip of the day:
Let people do what they're best at. And actors should not even try to done the intellectual hat--not even the mighty Shah Rukh Khan.

Violence -- acceptable for the Dalai Lama?

There was an interesting moment at the India Today Conclave today. His Holiness the Dalai Lama wound up his speech on the importance of compassion in today's changing world.

Then during the QnA round, the chairman of the India Today Group, Arun Purie had a tricky question for the last guardian of non-violence in the world.

'Can under any circumstance violence be justified instead of nonviolence' or as he put it in other words...'If you were the President of US with all its power and might at your disposal, how would you deal with China to get something for your country?'

The Dalai Lama was visibly caught off guard, he stumbled a bit and then said, yes violence is acceptable...as a method if the motivation and end-goal is based on compassion and peace.

Just before I could blink, His Holiness quickly clarfied that this was possible only in theory...in practical world it is impossible since violence begets only anger and hatred. He also added that only the highly trained or skilled professional can possibly follow the theory in practice, but for the world at large this should never be an option.

Watch the video here. Refer to part 10 for this specific QnA.

Not too sure if I get His Holiness's comment in the entirety...but it makes me wonder can this comment be cooked up to validate violence? Can compassionate motivation and a greater good as the goal mean that violence as a means is acceptable?

I know I'm probably brewing the pot a bit more, but who is this 'skilled practitioner'? If I stir it a bit more, can't a Jihadi also believe himself to be a 'skilled practitioner'?


P.S.: Got another cooked theory from a colleague. 'Practice before you preach'. Well that ain't possible you see, cause you practice what is good for you and preach what's good for others. How can you practice what's good for others?--- hmmm now that tastes spicy.

Just a bite about this blog

Cooking food used to be the most boring job for me. The prospect of chopping, cutting, and stirring patiently while the food cooks itself was just not my way of spending 1-2 hours precious hours daily.

Why bother when you had mother/order in services/instant food at hand? And so I reveled in my 29-happy years of existence without spending anything more than 2 minutes in the kitchen.

But all of that changed overnight (OK may be not as quick but every bit as dramatic). I got married, set up house...and learnt to love cooking... well almost. After all--a hungry spouse who does not think of oats-in-milk as hauteur-cuisine leaves you with very little choice.

Especially because I failed to find anyone else to take up the task on my terms. (The Professional Cooks/maids/tiffin/dabba wallahs I found didn’t seem to agree with my timing or sartorial tastes) and the better- half was worse-off in the department.

So after many an evening of high cholesterol ordering-ins, yours truly decided to take matters into thy own hands.

So there I was apron on body and spatula in hand rustling up dishes that I can bet no one has tried or eaten before but which nonetheless turned out to be quite delectable. And just then, a year into leading this ‘grown up life’, I had a realisation.

Isn’t everything in life also about cooking? Add the ingredients, stir a little, brew some more and voila you’ve created something new. Next comes the part of devouring it…just like taking in the many experiences of life… some sweet, some bitter, some half baked, some over girdled, select few that somehow got burnt and those that turned out as simply delicious.

This blog is all about my journey to find that ‘perfect cook’ in the kitchen of life. Join me if you like to follow all of what’s cooking in my kitchen, life and the world.

Caution: Please try the recipes mentioned here at your own risk. The author holds no responsibility to the reactions these experimental dishes may get you. (But do pass on the compliments if any )