I like e-readers now • Hacker News Board

Re: I like e-readers now

#201

Post by asdff » Tue, Sep 21, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

jsjohnst wrote: post #186

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, reMarkable is _precisely_ what I had in mind. Distraction-free is just an excuse for obviously unfinished software; just go and see which con most reviews agree on. The hardware is quite capable, but held back by the software.

Show me a general purpose computing device, like you are seem to be insisting every device should be, that has a month or more of battery life despite moderate to heavy usage, yet weighs as little and is as thin as the reMarkable. Products necessarily have trade-offs due to current technology limitations, so it's not just about "excuses".

It's not a technology limitation to withhold root access from the user.

Re: I like e-readers now

#202

Post by dont__panic » Tue, Sep 21, 2021, 6:01 PM UTC

fullstop wrote: post #72

dont__panic wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Kindle Oasis is probably large enough at 7" to make it work. If you're reading PDFs, you probably want something that's 10" or so -- I believe Kobo's Ellipsa fits the bill. Or you could end up in-between with a Forma or a Libra, which I believe are both 7.8". As someone who used a 6" e-reader for years and switched a few months ago to a 7.8" e-reader... it makes a massive difference. Technical material is actuall…

I have an Oasis and think that an iPad would be a better choice for content with a significant number of diagrams or where color is important.

Definitely true on color! I think the long battery life of an e-ink device at 10.3 or 13.3 inches would give the iPad a run for its money in terms of usefulness, but totally agreed -- if you need color, e-ink is probably not the best choice.

Re: I like e-readers now

#203

Post by asdff » Tue, Sep 21, 2021, 6:02 PM UTC

sharikous wrote: post #68

I really like e-readers and e-books, mainly for the reasons commenters pointed out (much lighter than physical books, configurable font size, etc..). But there are big downsides too. Mainly the market discourages ownership on the one hand and encourages piracy on the other hand. The result is that DRM protections are everywhere and some authors like Jonathan Lewin were burned up by e-book piracy and reverted to only…

Anyone know why ereaders are so bad with this stuff? Rendering latex math is like 40 year old techology. You'd think there were a dozen open source libraries that these companies could utilize to do this. Maybe they figure only 1% of readers look at math formulas and its not worth the developer time to make a reasonable solution.

Re: I like e-readers now

#204

Post by ChuckMcM » Tue, Sep 21, 2021, 6:04 PM UTC

As reference data I find e-readers are hard to beat. I've got my entire library of No Starch books on my iPad and it beats trying to find some obscure command on the Internet. It also wins when I'm "off grid" and don't have access to the Internet. I also use a ReMarkable 2 with PDFs of data sheets for reference material as well. When doing embedded programming its like having a third screen dedicated to holding the page in the datasheet that describes all of the register bits.

Re: I like e-readers now

#205

Post by matthew-wegner » Tue, Sep 21, 2021, 6:05 PM UTC

maltalex wrote: post #16

As someone who's reading a lot of technical material, I'm on the fence about e-readers. On the one hand, many technical books are thick and heavy, and can benefit from having a search function. But on the other, e-reader screens tend to be small and require a lot of scrolling back and forth (like between a code sample and an accompanying explanation). Does anyone have experience with reading technical books on an e-r…

You can go up to 13.3" eReaders. These are direct out of Japan--I think this might be the only US source that isn't a re-ship service or random eBay?

https://goodereader.com/blog/product/gen-2-fujitsu-quaderno-...

Re: I like e-readers now

#206

Post by siver_john » Tue, Sep 21, 2021, 6:05 PM UTC

As someone who tried e-readers back around the original Kindle launched, I ended up just giving it to my grandmother because it wasn't as satisfying to read as an actual book.

Recently however I gave them another shot (specifically the Onyx Boox Nova) because I started trying to refresh my Japanese and reading manga was easier than other forms of media (lots of pictures rarely wall of texts). The problem is buying manga from Japan and shipping it across the world was a pain and after reading on my tiny phone and that really straining my eyes, I decided to invest in an e-ink tablet. (Partially to use kaku on it but that did not work, however the ability to switch to a dictionary is nice).

I also used kobo similar to the author for my app because apparently their DRM was the easiest to break out of everyone which means if they go down at least I still keep my e-books.

Re: I like e-readers now

#207

Post by asdff » Tue, Sep 21, 2021, 6:05 PM UTC

akho wrote: post #140

nindalf wrote: post #21

I prefer reading on my e-reader for a number of reasons you’ve probably come across elsewhere. But the most underrated thing for me is that I can read large books. I feel they’re too unwieldly to carry around and also heavy enough that I feel too much friction actually starting to read. I had The Gene on my shelf for 3 years before I realised this was why I hadn’t even read 10 pages of it. I bought the ebook and fini…

There seems to be a weird reluctance in the American publishing market to split larger books into volumes. "War and Peace" editions I see on Amazon are typically single-volume; Russian editions are either two or four volumes. Unfortunately, translated books are (in most cases) published in the same way as the original, so the tradition of multi-volume editions is dying out, being replaced by these awful bricks you ca…

I think part of that is the fractured expectations that publishers have set upon readers, especially of these longer classics. You have all these editions, translations, etc., sometimes of dramatically different page number lengths, with no standard or clear way to differentiate between different printings without diving into some literature forum where the users have read both copies and can summarize these differences for you. It can be hard to know you are actually getting the whole thing without buying a huge tome explicitly.

Re: I like e-readers now

#208

Post by jacurtis » Tue, Sep 21, 2021, 6:06 PM UTC

maltalex wrote: post #16

As someone who's reading a lot of technical material, I'm on the fence about e-readers. On the one hand, many technical books are thick and heavy, and can benefit from having a search function. But on the other, e-reader screens tend to be small and require a lot of scrolling back and forth (like between a code sample and an accompanying explanation). Does anyone have experience with reading technical books on an e-r…

I use my Kindle Paperwhite everynight, because I just love the reading experience on it.

But I have to agree that technical materials are still best consumed physically. Novels and even non-fiction stories are great on the kindle. But if you need to frequently stop and take notes, analyze diagrams or figures, reference illustrations or sidebars, which are all common in technical books, then the physical book is the way to go.

An acceptable alternative is a PDF copy on the iPad paired with an app like GoodNotes or ReadWise. These allow highlighting, notes, and other tools to improve the experience. I still prefer digital books, but this is an acceptable alternative. I recently bought a book set from CiscoPress (Cisco technical manual) and got the eBook + Physical combo. Well after I spent $100+ then Cisco sends me an email that the book is backordered for several months. So I only have the digital versions for a month or more until the physical one arrives. So these apps make for a reasonable alternative, but I am waiting to really dive into the content in detail until I get the real thing because it is just the best way to consume technical information, even though I am a heavy Kindle user for normal books.

Re: I like e-readers now

#209

Post by asdff » Tue, Sep 21, 2021, 6:09 PM UTC

pfranz wrote: post #47

maltalex wrote: post #16

As someone who's reading a lot of technical material, I'm on the fence about e-readers. On the one hand, many technical books are thick and heavy, and can benefit from having a search function. But on the other, e-reader screens tend to be small and require a lot of scrolling back and forth (like between a code sample and an accompanying explanation). Does anyone have experience with reading technical books on an e-r…

I think e-readers are awesome for linear, text-based material. I don't think they're great for reference or things that need specific formatting or have a lot of visual data; like textbooks, something with code snippets, cookbooks, or newspapers. But tablets or desktop computers work fairly well. Since those aren't single-use machines and don't have great vertical integration they can be cumbersome (and a bit of an e…

>Academics seem to have the most motivation for finding a solution to something like this, but that may be tailored to their own needs.

The solution is screen real estate. Everyone I know in academia has at least one monitor in an office somewhere on campus. The standard monitor you get from the IT department pretty much anywhere is a 27" 1080p dell. Big enough to fit two PDF pages side by side with no scaling. I have also seen people with two monitors turn one vertical. A lot of people just opt to use the free printing from the department and print something out if they really need to read something on the go.

Re: I like e-readers now

#210

Post by hosh » Tue, Sep 21, 2021, 6:11 PM UTC

That's pretty much my experience with ebook readers years ago. I still love dead-tree books, but I find it easier to use the ebook reader in places I normally can't, or shouldn't:

- Reading in places without a lot of light. It is that or bring my headlamp.

- Travel, definitely, but also while running errands

- Reading while eating (not healthy)

- Reading while smoking (also not healthy ... )

- Trying to search for keywords in a book

Most recently, with having to help take care of an infant, I find myself unable to put in long, uninterrupted hours to read. It was easier to read a ebook on my phone or on my Kindle. And if my son spits up, it is easier to clean a device than it is my dead tree books.

However, I remember growing up with my father's library filling up an entire wall, and my mother regularly bringing my family out to the library. That's an experience I'd like my kids to have. I have a wall of books, though these days, I am much more mindful about curating them.