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Show HN: ReadKinetic – a free, local-first speed reader for your own books

readkinetic.com

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Re: Show HN: ReadKinetic – a free, local-first speed reader for your own books

#61

Post by SamuraiLion »

jodysalt wrote: post #60
SamuraiLion wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are the third person this afternoon asking for this extension, therefore the obvious next task is creating it. One person emailed me this morning asking to paste a url and have the article read to them, and it came up again in another thread here. Of your two options, I think the forwarding version is the better primitive. Selection is always a possibility, but right clicking on the highlighted text and telling i…

You are welcome! If you do go ahead with the browser extension, let me know. I will keep an eye on this thread.

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Re: Show HN: ReadKinetic – a free, local-first speed reader for your own books

#62

Post by satvikpendem »

dombiscoff wrote: post #57

Sounds like a pointless endeavour to me. This infinite efficiency quest for speed reading is chief pursued by those who don't read regularly, and so don't understand that ones comprehension comes from the pauses, the page turns, and the backtracks which make up reading traditionally. If one has no time to digest, are they truly reading a book or just an impromptu script?

Or someone like me who reads often, and at great volume, and wants to read more. Not everyone is like you.

Re: Show HN: ReadKinetic – a free, local-first speed reader for your own books

#63

Post by SamuraiLion »

satvikpendem wrote: post #62
dombiscoff wrote: post #57

Sounds like a pointless endeavour to me. This infinite efficiency quest for speed reading is chief pursued by those who don't read regularly, and so don't understand that ones comprehension comes from the pauses, the page turns, and the backtracks which make up reading traditionally. If one has no time to digest, are they truly reading a book or just an impromptu script?

Or someone like me who reads often, and at great volume, and wants to read more. Not everyone is like you.

That's the profile I keep bumping into, people who already read a lot and want the volume rather than a shortcut. What does your load actually look like, out of interest? I'm trying to work out where the line sits between the reading you'd want this for and the reading you'd want to slow down for. Everyone seems to draw it somewhere slightly different and I don't think I've got it right yet.

Re: Show HN: ReadKinetic – a free, local-first speed reader for your own books

#64

Post by satvikpendem »

SamuraiLion wrote: post #63
satvikpendem wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or someone like me who reads often, and at great volume, and wants to read more. Not everyone is like you.

That's the profile I keep bumping into, people who already read a lot and want the volume rather than a shortcut. What does your load actually look like, out of interest? I'm trying to work out where the line sits between the reading you'd want this for and the reading you'd want to slow down for. Everyone seems to draw it somewhere slightly different and I don't think I've got it right yet.

It depends on the book, if I'm reading Lord of the Rings or something dense obviously I'd slow down. But for pulp fiction or nonfiction even, I'd go fast. I typically read between one and two books a week, generally pretty decent sized ones too.

Re: Show HN: ReadKinetic – a free, local-first speed reader for your own books

#65

Post by SamuraiLion »

satvikpendem wrote: post #64
SamuraiLion wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the profile I keep bumping into, people who already read a lot and want the volume rather than a shortcut. What does your load actually look like, out of interest? I'm trying to work out where the line sits between the reading you'd want this for and the reading you'd want to slow down for. Everyone seems to draw it somewhere slightly different and I don't think I've got it right yet.

It depends on the book, if I'm reading Lord of the Rings or something dense obviously I'd slow down. But for pulp fiction or nonfiction even, I'd go fast. I typically read between one and two books a week, generally pretty decent sized ones too.

That's a good way to phrase it, and it makes me question my own approach. I've been sorting things into fiction and non-fiction, but what you're saying suggests it's more about why you're reading. Are you there for the words themselves, or just to get to the point? With someone like Tolkien, you're absorbing the language. But with a thriller or a business book, you're mostly focused on the information or plot beyond the sentences.

Reading a couple of books weekly, and switching between these reading styles, also makes me think the reading speed should be set per book, not as a general setting. If you're reading Tolkien at 250 words per minute and a fast-paced paperback at 450, you shouldn't have to adjust the speed every time you pick up a different title. Since it already tracks where you are in each book, remembering the reading speed for each one seems like a logical next step.

Anyway, that's a really helpful point.

Re: Show HN: ReadKinetic – a free, local-first speed reader for your own books

#66

Post by Arshad-Talpur »

The idea looks cool , i think along with optimization reading time if it also allows you set your frequency and then read the book accordingly it would really make an impact , for i sometimes want to read slowly if the topic is of my interest. Just a suggestion

Re: Show HN: ReadKinetic – a free, local-first speed reader for your own books

#67

Post by kesor »

Nice. I made a similar thing as a TamperMonkey script that I can turn on and off on any website, it even includes a speed-controlled-voice that can read it for me.

One small annoyance with your app is the instructions in the welcome were tiny. Took me well over a minute to figure out how to control the thing, until I finally found those small hand icons in the right corner. You should consider adding these to the first page of welcome using a large-er size or something.

Re: Show HN: ReadKinetic – a free, local-first speed reader for your own books

#68

Post by SamuraiLion »

Arshad-Talpur wrote: post #66

The idea looks cool , i think along with optimization reading time if it also allows you set your frequency and then read the book accordingly it would really make an impact , for i sometimes want to read slowly if the topic is of my interest. Just a suggestion

We've got up and down arrows, or you can drag vertically to adjust. Funny, you're not the only one who missed that today, so the interface definitely isn't making it obvious. Fixing that is definitely a priority for me.

What you're getting at, about having a separate speed for each book, that’s a good idea and worth exploring. Right now, the speed is just one setting for everything. So if you slow things down for a book that needs a more leisurely pace, you have to remember to speed it back up manually when you switch to something else. Someone else mentioned the same thing earlier. It makes sense that it should remember the pace for each book, just like it remembers where you stopped reading.

Re: Show HN: ReadKinetic – a free, local-first speed reader for your own books

#69

Post by SamuraiLion »

kesor wrote: post #67

Nice. I made a similar thing as a TamperMonkey script that I can turn on and off on any website, it even includes a speed-controlled-voice that can read it for me. One small annoyance with your app is the instructions in the welcome were tiny. Took me well over a minute to figure out how to control the thing, until I finally found those small hand icons in the right corner. You should consider adding these to the fir…

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