I was today years old when the USB-C revolution came for me.
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It occurred to me this past week, when I was finishing a book for the IU Summer Reading Challenge (update on that in a sec), that my Kindle Paperwhite seemed to be running awfully slowly. Page turns weren't as crisp as they should have been, and searching for a book in the online store was pretty much a nightmare.
Do you remember that meme about Microsoft Explorer? There are several variations, but here's one: Someone is leading a cheer amongst Firefox, Explorer, Opera, and Safari. The first question is, "What are we?" "Browsers!" three of the browsers reply. "What do we want?" "More speed!" the same three browsers say. "When do we want it?" "Right now!" those same browsers say. And Explorer finally yells out, "Browsers!"
Shopping the Kindle store on my Paperwhite was like that.
So I checked my purchase history on Amazon. Come to find out my device was an 8th generation Paperwhite, purchased in 2017. (I also recalled that I bought it then because someone had swiped my previous Paperwhite off my desk at the law firm, but never mind that.) The newest Paperwhite is generation 12.
It then occurred to me that maybe I hadn't been so keen on reading lately because my old Paperwhite was making the process less than pleasant. So I shelled out for a new one.
It arrived yesterday. It's a titch bigger than my old one, so I've ordered a new case. And I discovered something else when I went to plug it in for a full charge: the plug is different. My old Paperwhite has a micro USB port. The new one has a USB-C.
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| Micro USB on top, USB-C on bottom. Lynne Cantwell | June 2026 |
I regarded the new cord for a minute, and then I texted my daughters. I'm the only iPhone user in the family; they both switched to Android several years ago. And they confirmed that their current phones take USB-C cables. "You'll be using that, too, next time you get a new phone," Kitty said.
She's right. The new iPhone models all come with USB-C ports. Thanks a lot, EU.
Don't get me wrong -- I am all for standardization. It's just that I've gotten whiplash from all the tech changes I've lived through: for audio, vinyl to 8-track to cassette to CD to vinyl again; and for video, Betamax (anyone remember that one?) to videocassette to DVD to Blu-Ray to streaming to the gods alone know what will come next. And that doesn't begin to cover all the different connectors for different devices and purposes.
If USB-C is the final iteration for chargers and cables, okay. One port to rule them all! I just hope it stays that way. I'm tired of buying new tech just to keep up.
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I am going to have to keep at least one micro USB cable, though; my ancient Anker five-charge portable battery still needs one for recharging.
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Oh, right. The reading challenge. I have finished two books this week! And that was on the old, slow-as-molasses-in-January Kindle, too.
(I debated whether to resurrect the Rursday Reads blog for this project, but it hardly seems worth it for only six books.)
First, Heinlein's The Door into Summer: Published in 1957, this is sci-fi for fun. The novel opens in 1970. Dan Davis is an electronics engineer who is a genius at developing robots that make life easier for human beings. He hooks up with a partner, Miles, who has a head for business, and they get along swimmingly until they bring in Belle Gentry to be their bookkeeper. Belle pulls a grand con on both of them, swindling Dan out of his share of the company. Dan drinks himself into a stupor, then decides that he and his cat Pete should take what's called the Cold Sleep -- suspended animation -- for 30 years and wake up in 2000. Belle screws that up for him, too, or so it seems; Belle reengineers Dan's plans and Pete runs away. When Dan wakes up in 2000, he discovers he is flat broke. It takes him a while, but he hatches a plan to time-travel back to 1970, rescue Pete, and make sure Belle doesn't get all his money, after all.
Here in 2026, it was entertaining for me to see what Heinlein got right about 1970 (not much) and 2000 (even less). This was written well before his Lazarus Long period, so while there's misogyny in the book, it's not as bad as Heinlein got in his later years. I ended up enjoying it.
The second book I read was Wok Walk by Melissa Bowersock. This is volume 50 in her series featuring an ex-LAPD detective named Lacey Fitzpatrick and her husband, a Navajo medium named Sam Firecloud. Together they investigate cases in which a dead person's spirit stays earthbound for some reason; between Lacey's research and Sam's talent for contacting those spirits, they are able to get them to move on to the next world. In this volume, the client is a family who own a Chinese restaurant. The patriarch is shot to death, out of the blue, on the back stoop of the restaurant while on a smoking break; as Sam discovers, even the victim doesn't know who killed him or why. The police, too, are stymied. Eventually the truth is uncovered, the shooter is not who I expected, and the family members are able to get closure on more than just the patriarch's death.
I'm not gonna lie: One reason I like this series is because the books are short. They are more like novellas than novels. But I also enjoy the dynamic between Lacey, Sam, and Sam's children, and it's fun watching the kids grow. And the horror is usually minimal. Plus Melissa is a friend and fellow Indies Unlimited contributor, and she writes well. What more can you ask?
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So that's where we're at. Next up is a book recommended to me by Kay Robinett, This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews. I'm not sure whether I've read anything by Andrews before, but Kay loved the book, so I'm going to give it a whirl. I'll report back.
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These moments of technological blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. I promise to keep reading if you will.