Demoted Society

To finish out 2025, here is a quick rundown of the key tech that I used in 2025.

Stepping up from a system unable to handle an Elder Scrolls: Oblivion remake speaks volumes about the previous hardware's limitations. In the current volatile market for GPUs and RAM, finding a capable machine without breaking the bank is a win. I’ve spent the last six months putting the Acer Nitro V 16” through its paces, and while it firmly occupies the "budget gaming laptop" tier, it punches well above its weight class in raw performance.

As an avid reader who has been locked into the Amazon Kindle ecosystem for years—most recently utilizing a reliable, albeit aging, 10th-generation Paperwhite—I found myself facing a dilemma rooted in proprietary file formats and digital rights management (DRM). While e-readers are fantastic for carrying a vast library of free, public-domain titles from sources like Project Gutenberg, Amazon’s historically closed system created friction.

In an effort to help my learning how to use Linux, I decided to take my Raspberry Pi and host this site on it. This is a detailed account of that process.