I read a lot (my wife gets mad at me because I read so much faster than her), and these days I do most of my reading on Kindle. Fortunately there are ways to do this for little or no money. If you're interested here are some ways to get more ebooks without spending a lot of money:

1. Project Gutenberg is the grandparent of free book sites, with 60K+ public domain works.
2. MobileRead has an entire forum for fresh uploads of public domain works in Kindle format (they have other formats too).
3. The Libby app (iOS/Android) makes it trivially easy to borrow ebooks from your local library.
4. The Hoopla app (iOS/Android) is another way to borrow from your local library.
5. The Library Extension browser add-on (Chrome/Firefox) will alert you when a book that you're looking at online (say, on an Amazon product page) is available at your local library. (This covers print as well as ebooks)
6. BookBub will send you a daily email with books that are currently on sale at the major ebook stores.
7. I'm not sure how I got into this one; I think it was when I registered a new Kindle for Christmas. But in any case, Amazon is currently in the mode of offering me a $1 ebook credit on every order I have shipped, as long as I'm willing to take non-prime shipping and wait a few days. As far as I can tell this option is available on every Prime order, so I shamelessly take advantage. Need a $4 USB-C cable to replace one that's fraying? Hey, I can get it a few days later and add $1 to my credits. Until they stop this, I'll keep breaking every order up into individual single-item orders. It's not even worse for the planet, because their warehouse software recombines everything into as few boxes as it can anyhow.

Special thanks to Max Woolf and Project Gutenburg for resources, and the Brothers Grimm for such inspiring material.

The Fae in a Bottle

By Reverend William Howland

"Dear brother, thou seest the water
crystallizing, go and show it to the merchant. I will make him a
little bottle of water of the same kind; put it in a corner, and
not open it too quickly, until the reflection shall let him see it."

The merchant, who was standing behind the glass, said, "If that is
the case, I do not see why the name of the fountain should be
changed." "Why not?" asked the merchant. "Because my name is
Dummling." "Dummling, what is that?" "Is a rare and wonderful
name; I do not know how it is to have it." "If you do not see why
the name of the fountain should be changed," said the merchant, "I
will pay you three thalers." "There! now I see what is in my head;
I will pay you thaler, but you must wait until I come back."

Then he disappeared behind the glass. The poor man was forced to go back
on his begging; he had no more money but the three thalers which the
merchant had given him. He had long ago left the village, and wandered far
off, and when he came back, his brother had forgotten him, and thought,
"Why should I travel farther? I have not seen my brother." Then he came to
the town where his brother was again living. "Dear brother," said the
brother, "how are you? How are you getting on?" "Oh," said the brother,
"not well."

"Then just come and eat thy bread."

"That would be very good," said the brother, and went away.

He walked a long time, and came to a great forest. Then he said to his brother,
"Go and bring me with you to-morrow morning." "Nay," said the brother, "I
can't go. I have heard so many lies and stolen things from my brother,
and they have not served me very well, I see very well that they will
do me no harm." Then he went to the gallows, and told them that there
was a poor shivering, peering there from the window. "If you let me in,"
said the brother, "I will do you a favour. In grey hairs you can see
a piece of a horse's heart." So he went into the forest, and saw there
how a greyhound which was his neighbour, was dead. Then he was sad,
and made himself known to the brother. "Dear brother," said he,
"how are you getting on? What hast thou been saying there about
a piece of horse's heart?" "Ah," said the brother, "how can I say that
on the gallows, when I have not a drop of blood on me!" Then he gave him
the greyhound's heart, and had it put in his own. The brother felt for a
while in his pocket, and then he said, "I have a small bottle of wine,
and if thou art inclined to drink, thou shalt find the courage
to hold thy tongue." "To what use is the bottle put," said the
brother, "but to some end I should like to have a sip?" "To win the
Rosen Cup," said the brother with great joy. "To me that is enough,"
said the hare. "To thee alone, it is the most valuable thing that
the world possesses," said the brother. "To me, it is my most valuable
thing." "To me, it is my most valuable possession," said the hare. Then
he turned himself around and went to the gallows. "To-day it was
announced that the very gallows were to be, and to-morrow they were
to be," said the brother. "I do not know to which I should place myself,"
he replied, "but, to-morrow it will be to-morrow, and to-morrow
I will go." Then he was led to the gallows, and was once more there
in the place where he had formerly been. He again said to the greyhound,
"I wish you were still standing there." "To-day it was announced that the
very gallows were to be, and to-morrow they were to be." "I do not know to which I
should place myself," said the hare. "To-morrow it will be to-morrow, and
to-morrow I will go." Then he turned himself round and went to the gallows,
and was once more there in the place where he had formerly been.

"To-day it was announced that the very gall

(E/N: The story stops here abruptly, as the author ran out available memory. I wouldn't like to enforce my interpretation of the story upon it, so I'm leaving it as written.)

Tonight ten songs competed to represent Norway in Eurovision.

Akuvi - Som Du Er

Didrik & Emil Solli Tangen - Out of Air

Kristin Husøy – Pray for Me

Liza Vassilieva – I Am Gay

Magnus Bokn - Over the Sea

Raylee - Wild

Rein Alexander - One Last Time

Sondrey - Take My Time

Tone Damli - Hurts Sometimes

Ulrikke - Attention

(I couldn't find tonight's performance for all of these, so some of them are from the semi-finals.)

The winner was Ulrikke with her song Attention, which will go on to represent Norway in Rotterdam. Did we make the right choice? Let's hear your opinions in the comments!

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

Gaming Blind Dates Event

For Valentine's Day, the Tildes Game Gifting Group is offering up a number of "blind dates" for any gamer who is interested in trying out something new. Each gift is a game, but you won't know the game's name -- only the top 4 tags describing the game. Select the tags which most interest you, then find out the exactly who the game is once it's given to you! Hopefully it's a keeper!

How can I participate?

You may choose to:

• gift a game/games as a blind date for others,
• go on a gaming blind date (i.e. receive a game gift),
• or both!

Steps to enroll:

1. Comment either in this thread here on Tildes, or in the thread on the Steam group (if you are already a member).

2. In your comment, identify whether you would like to gift a game, go on a gaming blind date, or both!

3. If you are not already a member of the Tildes' Game Gifting Group on Steam, PM me with a link to your Steam profile so that I can friend and add you (the group is invite-only).

4. If you are gifting a game, PM me or message me on Steam with the name of the game, how you will gift it (e.g. store purchase, key, etc.), and the platform it's on (if not Steam).

Timeline

You may enroll up through Thursday, February 13. Once all the participants have enrolled, the blind dates will be set up and will begin on Valentine's Day, Friday, February 14.

Additional Info

To ensure that giftees will have a good chance of liking their gifted game, we are requiring that gifted games have a combined user review score of at least 80%. You don't need to worry about getting a bad or junk game!

Games are given freely by their generous donors, and there are no strings attached or hidden catches. You ARE allowed to receive a game even if you don't gift one!

For other questions/specifics, full details are available in the event thread in the Steam group.

Note: If you do not wish to see this thread in your Tildes feed, please use the ignore function to hide it!

This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?