Live data from Hacker News

KOReader

koreader.rocks

81–90 of 253 posts

Re: KOReader

#81
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing inherently special about Japan or Japanese people. You can pull similar examples from many other countries.

I agree. I didn't say it's special, only different. Can you say adult adoption is something common in the US? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_adult_adoption

I have always found the adoption loophole to maintaining a family business hilariously smart.

I also understand why it’s not something common outside of Japan. Selling your family name in exchange for (maybe) keeping your business alive is distasteful at best.

Re: KOReader

#82
post #46
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing inherently special about Japan or Japanese people. You can pull similar examples from many other countries.

I take it you've never been to Japan... Wouldn't wanna live there permanently. Wouldn't want to have been born Japanese. But my god the products and services are head and shoulders above my baseline expectations; it's simply nicer.

I have lived in Japan.

> Wouldn't wanna live there permanently. Wouldn't want to have been born Japanese.

So I take it you understand that there is no free lunch.

Re: KOReader

#83
post #65

I use it since years on my PocketBook Touch HD 3. I especially like the statistics. You might not care about them, but I find them very interesting.

If you like the statistics you might enjoy BookOrbit. I'm a sucker for stats like this and love having them centralized so that it's not just on my e-reader (in case it dies or if I read on another compatible app that syncs progress/stats).

Re: KOReader

#84
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I didn't say it's special, only different. Can you say adult adoption is something common in the US? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_adult_adoption

I have always found the adoption loophole to maintaining a family business hilariously smart. I also understand why it’s not something common outside of Japan. Selling your family name in exchange for (maybe) keeping your business alive is distasteful at best.

It's weird and shows how heinous the working culture is, salarymen are almost property of the company they work for

Re: KOReader

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the only proprietary software companies with any shot at longevity are Japanese companies. First Japan leads by far the ranking of oldest companies in the world ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies ). Then we have actual software like Zelda Breath of the Wild which is a technical marvel comparable to the original Rollercoaster Tycoon considering how well it runs on the severely limited arc…

Bro has never played the thousands of shitty visual novels. Hell even from software games, which are beautifully well designed, are technically embarrassing

They are, but the central theme of the convo here isn't quality but longevity

Re: KOReader

#86
post #10

I installed it on my Amazon Kindle and I couldn't be happier. It shows once again that free software is superior to proprietary software. Free software grows slowly to make users happier and not to attract them with useless features to extract more value from them. Congratulations for this great piece of software.

I think the only proprietary software companies with any shot at longevity are Japanese companies. First Japan leads by far the ranking of oldest companies in the world ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies ). Then we have actual software like Zelda Breath of the Wild which is a technical marvel comparable to the original Rollercoaster Tycoon considering how well it runs on the severely limited arc…

This podcast about the history of zaibatsu, hardware, and software comes to mind. https://www.disruptingjapan.com/the-forgotten-mistake-that-k...

> Software was not viewed so much as a product, but more like a service, similar to integration, training, and ongoing support and maintenance. It was usually sold on a time-and-materials basis, and sometimes it was just thrown in for free to sweeten the deal. The real money was in the hardware.

> Software development was considered rather low-skill work. It didn’t pay well and was viewed as a kind of clerical work. The job was simply to write software that was close enough to whatever sales had promised the client while they were out drinking last week.

Re: KOReader

#89
post #10

I installed it on my Amazon Kindle and I couldn't be happier. It shows once again that free software is superior to proprietary software. Free software grows slowly to make users happier and not to attract them with useless features to extract more value from them. Congratulations for this great piece of software.

What extra features has over regular kindle software? I find kindle features enough but I want to know if I’m missing something

- Better and faster UI. I always thought the Kindle was just slow, nope, it's just really bad software

- Customise any/everything. Font size, line spacing, paragraph spacing, margins, header/footer content, the list goes on

- Ability to use things like BookOrbit (or alternatives) to manage your books and sync your progress/stats.

- LLM-integration through plugins like KOAssistant, highlight a word/phrase/passage to get it explained to you. This was invaluable for me when reading through a series from the 1950's about the late 1700's, lots of phrases I'd never heard. Many I could grasp the meaning from context but it was way more fun to hear the "why" behind the phrase. Same with historical events that I am less knowledgeable about than I wish. Let's me stay "in the book" instead of picking up my phone.

- Full control, some people don't care/need this but I love being able to SSH into my Kindle and do whatever I want. I love having my entire book reading experience end-to-end be fully open source and self-hosted.

Re: KOReader

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the only proprietary software companies with any shot at longevity are Japanese companies. First Japan leads by far the ranking of oldest companies in the world ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies ). Then we have actual software like Zelda Breath of the Wild which is a technical marvel comparable to the original Rollercoaster Tycoon considering how well it runs on the severely limited arc…

I think you know nothing about Japanese software. You're assuming long lasting soy sauce companies have anything to do with software development. Japan produces great video games despite how terrible otherwise the developer environment and culture is there and nearly all of the other software shows it.

Didn't say they are good quality, or the working environment is nice or anything, just that they have higher chances or living a long time. The reasons might not be any more or less commendable, but they are different than chasing the highest profit margin possible in the next quarter
Post reply on HN