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Show HN: Estimated Reading Time API

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Re: Show HN: Estimated Reading Time API

#21

Post by fiatjaf »

tony-allan wrote: post #17
fiatjaf wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not when the HTTP request itself is more complicated to do than actually reimplementing the thing in Javascript. NOTE: If you are using a library for easily doing HTTP requests, than you can probably use a library for estimating time to read.

I like the notion that a service can continue to improve under the covers without me needing to do software updates to get a new version of library. I know you can just include an external JavaScript library but I only do that for sources I trust.

The service can also be discontinued. And that is what mostly often happens. Big improvements like what you're imagining are rare.

Re: Show HN: Estimated Reading Time API

#23

Post by mklopets »

stevekemp wrote: post #22

Remember that URLs don't always point to websites: http://klopets.com/readtime/?url=file:///etc/passwd http://klopets.com/readtime/?url=file:///etc/shadow

Aaaaand now there are tens of IPs trying to access /etc/passwd. Tailing my "failed hack attempts" log is kinda fun now.

But if you wrote this to warn me, then thanks!

Re: Show HN: Estimated Reading Time API

#24

Post by gedrap »

jimmytucson wrote: post #11

To those folks saying, "this is easy to code up in JavaScript" or "Pelican already does this for you" -- does it do it for you for other people's content? I like this because I can just plug in the URL of any old article I might want to read and see what I'm getting myself into, e.g. http://klopets.com/readtime/?url=http://www.newyorker.com/ma... . Now that I know it's a 15 minute read, I'll probably save it for late…

Great to hear that you have this problem, because in the evenings, I am working on a little extension of Pocket that automatically groups saved links by the length of content :) so it's not only me who has the problem, heh.

I have a lot of quality content marked for later and not knowing how long it is (especially when e.g. commuting to work when I have 10 minutes only) is rather annoying. And managing the list isn't something I fancy doing myself (we have computers for that!).

Drop me an email (in my profile) if you want to talk a bit more about this problem.

Re: Show HN: Estimated Reading Time API

#25

Post by alexbecker »

mklopets wrote: post #23
stevekemp wrote: post #22

Remember that URLs don't always point to websites: http://klopets.com/readtime/?url=file:///etc/passwd http://klopets.com/readtime/?url=file:///etc/shadow

Aaaaand now there are tens of IPs trying to access /etc/passwd. Tailing my "failed hack attempts" log is kinda fun now. But if you wrote this to warn me, then thanks!

Also be careful about redirect handling: http://evil.com might redirect you to file:///etc/passwd

Re: Show HN: Estimated Reading Time API

#26

Post by nstart »

Curious as to why the reading time is estimated as 2 minutes and 96 seconds. Wondering if it isn't supposed to be 3 minutes and 36 seconds?

I plugged one of my own posts in and it read 3 minutes and 166 seconds (5 minutes and 46 seconds).

Re: Show HN: Estimated Reading Time API

#27

Post by mklopets »

nstart wrote: post #26

Curious as to why the reading time is estimated as 2 minutes and 96 seconds. Wondering if it isn't supposed to be 3 minutes and 36 seconds? I plugged one of my own posts in and it read 3 minutes and 166 seconds (5 minutes and 46 seconds).

It's not showing x minutes AND y seconds, it's x minutes OR y seconds. Minutes is just there for someone who doesn't need precision and can let the API handle the rounding. Seconds is for people who want to do more advanced stuff.

Re: Show HN: Estimated Reading Time API

#28

Post by ca1668afa68 »

jimmytucson wrote: post #11

To those folks saying, "this is easy to code up in JavaScript" or "Pelican already does this for you" -- does it do it for you for other people's content? I like this because I can just plug in the URL of any old article I might want to read and see what I'm getting myself into, e.g. http://klopets.com/readtime/?url=http://www.newyorker.com/ma... . Now that I know it's a 15 minute read, I'll probably save it for late…

https://github.com/gabconcepcion/chrome-extension-read-time-...

Re: Show HN: Estimated Reading Time API

#29

Post by stevekemp »

mklopets wrote: post #23
stevekemp wrote: post #22

Remember that URLs don't always point to websites: http://klopets.com/readtime/?url=file:///etc/passwd http://klopets.com/readtime/?url=file:///etc/shadow

Aaaaand now there are tens of IPs trying to access /etc/passwd. Tailing my "failed hack attempts" log is kinda fun now. But if you wrote this to warn me, then thanks!

> But if you wrote this to warn me, then thanks!

I did.

You're not the first person to make that kind of mistake, and I assumed it was an obvious enough "attack" that trying to communicate it privately wasn't required.

Re: Show HN: Estimated Reading Time API

#30

Post by mklopets »

stevekemp wrote: post #29
mklopets wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aaaaand now there are tens of IPs trying to access /etc/passwd. Tailing my "failed hack attempts" log is kinda fun now. But if you wrote this to warn me, then thanks!

> But if you wrote this to warn me, then thanks! I did. You're not the first person to make that kind of mistake, and I assumed it was an obvious enough "attack" that trying to communicate it privately wasn't required.

Though I now have an extra if statement in my code to detect and log this type of 'hacking' attempts in addition to some others, the code was never vulnerable to this in the first place. No file contents are displayed at any time anyway.
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