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Show HN: I made a site where you practice typing by retyping entire novels

typelit.io

281–290 of 394 posts

Re: Show HN: I made a site where you practice typing by retyping entire novels

#281
I'm a non-native English speaker and I used to struggle as a teenager to read e.g. Harry Potter in English with a dictionary by my side. Literature is full of words you will never encounter in a casual or professional setting and that ESL learners won't know from having been schooled in English lit. So some way to quickly open en.wiktionary.org for a given word or some option have that in a tooltip on hover or when pressing a special key could be helpful, but I'm just guessing.

Very neat website, and very well made, congrats!

Re: Show HN: I made a site where you practice typing by retyping entire novels

#282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Amazingly it's like music. Maybe he means like jazz musicians? (I'm one.) Every musician I know has transcribed solos. You pick some solo you like but have no idea what they're doing, transcribe it, and learn to play it along with them. Bits and pieces perhaps will rub off in your own playing. You don't want to sound like them, but it's good to be able to if you want – and for that you need to absorb their style, s…

> transcribe solos Do you mean learn other people's songs from sheet music, or do you mean write down, from the sheet music, the same song again on blank sheet paper? Edit: Or do you mean write down the song via hearing?

Transcription is the latter -- create a paper version from a recording. Same as medical transcription is typing up dictated notes.

Re: Show HN: I made a site where you practice typing by retyping entire novels

#283
This would be a great exercise for primary school kids. Touch typing is an important skill and once it's learned it's with you forever. On a platform like this they can also practice reading and comprehension, and the teacher has a way to ensure that the reading material was indeed read. Ideally it'd be coupled with some comprehension questions to make sure the kid didn't go on autopilot.

I'm not an expert in pedagogy though so take that with a grain of salt.

Re: Show HN: I made a site where you practice typing by retyping entire novels

#284

I remember that at least in the past you could copy books (and sell those copies) as long as you did not automatically copy the content. I.e. Copyright would not trigger in this case. Re-typing a book was expressly allowed. Is that still the case? A site like this could then used to make legal replicas of books.

I doubt it, and that's probably a good thing.

There's no such thing as "moving" digital information. It's like the transporter on Star Trek, you can only fake it by copying the information and deleting the source copy.

So, I... guess you could transcribe into a pipe which appends straight to a USB stick drive, and sell the drive? Good luck reading the contents though.

Re: Show HN: I made a site where you practice typing by retyping entire novels

#287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Amazingly it's like music. Maybe he means like jazz musicians? (I'm one.) Every musician I know has transcribed solos. You pick some solo you like but have no idea what they're doing, transcribe it, and learn to play it along with them. Bits and pieces perhaps will rub off in your own playing. You don't want to sound like them, but it's good to be able to if you want – and for that you need to absorb their style, s…

> transcribe solos Do you mean learn other people's songs from sheet music, or do you mean write down, from the sheet music, the same song again on blank sheet paper? Edit: Or do you mean write down the song via hearing?

Ear training gives you this skill

e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhyyjRcrn84

Re: Show HN: I made a site where you practice typing by retyping entire novels

#288

I remember that at least in the past you could copy books (and sell those copies) as long as you did not automatically copy the content. I.e. Copyright would not trigger in this case. Re-typing a book was expressly allowed. Is that still the case? A site like this could then used to make legal replicas of books.

No, that's not how copyright works. Copying a book, whether you do it all at once or letter by letter, would violate copyright.

In this case, all of these books are older and their copyright terms have expired.

Re: Show HN: I made a site where you practice typing by retyping entire novels

#289
post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait the US doesn't have a centralized/shared medical records service? I never realized that! In France, I suppose like in the UK, we have our "Carte Vitale" ("Life/Vital Card"), which is scanned each visit to a doctor, hospital, pharmacy, etc, each updating your personal database nationally. It also serves as a link to your insurance provider in each location, so reimbursements are automatic.

Nope, doctors can't see you medical information unless you give it to them.

Usually by fax.

Re: Show HN: I made a site where you practice typing by retyping entire novels

#290
1984 is especially interesting since the generation before mine in the Soviet Union would've only been able to read a manual copy of the book. My father was lent such a copy for one night. I'm thinking of copying it out in the dark as a form of LARPing of the samizdat.
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