Paul Kater ⁽²¹⁷⁾

Yes, it’s crazy but it happened. A few weeks ago I bought an iphone. The very first I actually own. I’ve used one for/from work for many years, but I was a dedicated Android user ever since the HTC G1 / Dream came out in 2009 (in the Netherlands). Yes, that long. I went from HTC to Samsung, to something else, to Fairphone. Why the change? After putting a non-Google OS on the Fairphone (Calyx OS) things were well until…

Age. I am 66 years of age as I write this. No, not 'old'. Just 'of age'. I'll leave it to other people to be 'old' at 66. Next year I'll retire from the day job in IT. After a bit more than 8 years with Cambrian Technologies. 8 to 9 years has been my average stay at a place, which is kind of fitting. And no, this has nothing to do with the title of this post. During my…

Alexander and Sherida are happy in their pub, the Secret Cellar. Their friends from Magic School drop by at times, and Sherida has a bit of a scare when she finds out what they are, what they can do, and that her boyfriend and his twin sister Alexandra are also wielders of magic. That knowledge makes Sherida a part of the community at the Magic School as well, and in more ways than one. When her father gets a job…

Hilda and her family find a note from Charisma, who needs a little help in dealing with "a situation". The wicked witch wouldn"t be herself if she stepped away from this, so with William and Oona, she travels off to a place she"s never heard of before. Once they reach Hana-no-min Na-mura, the village of the Flower People, there is more than one "situation" waiting for them. A woman with an ear screamer, a man who can"t die, and -…

Angie's surprise couldn't be bigger when she receives a call for help from a renowned archaeological institute. The sender of that message mentions something about a strange sarcophagus and she gets contacted because of her emails about a falsified Egyptian book. Together with Morris she gets to visit the institute, but once there they venture out to many more visits to places that Morris had never thought possible. The Djedjet plays a role in this story and Angie discovers a…

And yes. So it happened. Amazing Amazon has pushed "ai" into its ebook readers. As the website "Writers Beware" pointed out: Kindle’s New Gen AI-Powered “Ask This Book” Feature Raises Rights Concerns My friend and also author Hannah Steenbock dedicated a serious rant and blog post to this and I wholeheartedly underwrite this. And we're not the only ones. Hannah mentions leaving Amazon with her books. This is something I am going to do as well. As Hannah wrote: But…

Most authors who have some books and stories published will want to know what happens overall with respect to sales. So do I. I used a spreadsheet for a long time but that became so huge and clunky that I needed a better way. I didn't find one, so I made one. Being a programmer it was easy to come up with the framework for my own sales tracker program. Note: I did not have earnings and income from the…

It won't be a surprise that strange things are happening in and near the village of Sunrise, where Hilda and her family live. Queen Isla reports things gone missing, while Krypteria, now head mistress of the Magic School, sends someone over to Hilda's house because they have 'a problem' on their hands. As Hilda and family find out, more things have gone missing in various places, and they're all the same things. Suits of armor. Unsurprisingly it's up to Hilda…

Daniel Zacharias has a new body. Injured by space pirates, in the line of duty for the Intergalactic Military Forces, he's now a Rebuilt. After a failed mission, he's sent off to a remote planet simply known as NGC6637-VIII, to protect sailing ships. Against more pirates. Not only does he have to work with strange technology, visit odd bars and dangerous waters, his boss's daughter isn't making life easy for him either. Is he destined to fail again or will…

The twins Alexander and Alexandra, and their parents, inherit a house from suddenly and inexplicably deceased relatives. Uncle Reggie and Aunt Henny hadn't been close relatives lately, so this inheritance is quite surprising. A suitcase is the twins' legacy, which looks like a very small thing, but with the items they find inside it, a new world is opening for them, and that in the most literal way. The Other World gets them in touch with magic and a lot…