I was really surprised to find myself enjoying using this. Great work! Taking the test really emphasised that it's not only faster, it's also "easier" to read. I used the Dark colour scheme, as it was less distracting than the bright default one for me.
Show HN: Ditch Black Text to Read Faster, Easier
211–220 of 273 posts
Re: Show HN: Ditch Black Text to Read Faster, Easier
#212Have anyone viewed the generated DOM tree? It looks like every single letter has a tag around it, which will make it painfully slow on older computers if you have a pretty long blog post.
It already makes their homepage very slow on my Surface RT. Colors appear only after several seconds and IE 11 is asking if it should continue or stop the long-running script all the time.
I like the effect, though. I hope they can optimize it technically.
Re: Show HN: Ditch Black Text to Read Faster, Easier
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
I read at 146 words per minute, and that is average text. I probably read slower when the material is hard. Over the past year or so I went through roughly 90% of Plato's work (like, really), The Quran (partially), On the Nature of Things, Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Discourses by Epictetus, How to Read by M. Adler, Alchemy of Happiness by Ghazalli, etc.... I also read several short text including James Allen, Xe…
None of those are works that should be speed-read. Thomas Aquinas, Plato, Epictetus, the Qur'an, and (above all) the Bible should be rolled around the mouth, tasted deeply, and either made a part of you or thoroughly spit out if they are found indigestible. If your mechanical reading speed is the limiting factor in reading these works, you're doing it wrong.
Why the Bible above all?
Re: Show HN: Ditch Black Text to Read Faster, Easier
#214I am a voracious reader and I read pretty fast(never measured it though), and this really sped up my reading a lot. That was impressive.
But "patent pending" ? Like someone has already pointed out here, patents like this are destructive and I too hope that it is rejected.
Re: Show HN: Ditch Black Text to Read Faster, Easier
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
It might not be a problem for you - it isn't for me either - but many others suffer from this problem. My other half struggles to read because she has so many line transition errors. And she has to spend all day reading. I see a huge market for this.
But how you make money? Whatever they believe is patentable, I don't see it holds in the court. Good luck patenting colors of text. Further, the major places where you would see this going major: schools, libraries, law school, law field, etc, most of those places are extremely reluctant to new technologies. To them its not a matter of doing it better, its a matter of doing it the way we know how to do it and been do…
It doesn't have to make money. Sometimes people do things for the benefit of others :)
edit: although in this case, they have a patent pending and apps in development, and are offering licensing agreements.
Re: Show HN: Ditch Black Text to Read Faster, Easier
#216can i get this as a firefox extension?
We're working on native integrations, and we realize the bookmarklet is a somewhat kludgy first step. Thanks for your interest!
I can't believe it but it is faster and more enjoyable to read with the gradients. I can't get the bookmark to work with firefox. Extension would be great!
Re: Show HN: Ditch Black Text to Read Faster, Easier
#217Wow why don't they use this idea in printed books as well?!
Re: Show HN: Ditch Black Text to Read Faster, Easier
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think they're claiming this as a "speed reading" product in the traditional sense. They're saying it increases reading speed when reading the way most people do, which is line by line. It's certainly not likely to be useful for the kind of reading where you need to scan. But for fiction and other writing that is meant to be read linearly, the claims they're making seem plausible. What it doesn't help with is…
That's a good idea. I have the same problem with fiction, for some reason--except for Nabokov. His books are written so well, each line just flows on to the next.
If you're curious, this is what the end result looks like: http://i.imgur.com/NURV2N3.png, and if you use calibre, here's the CSS: https://gist.github.com/osuushi/6461324
You can change the font size and line height by a little bit without needing to adjust anything (since the color gradient is continuous vertically, it is a bit tolerand), but if you make a dramatic change, you'll need to adjust the background height from 72px to the height of three text lines.
Re: Show HN: Ditch Black Text to Read Faster, Easier
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
None of those are works that should be speed-read. Thomas Aquinas, Plato, Epictetus, the Qur'an, and (above all) the Bible should be rolled around the mouth, tasted deeply, and either made a part of you or thoroughly spit out if they are found indigestible. If your mechanical reading speed is the limiting factor in reading these works, you're doing it wrong.
Why the Bible above all?
[deleted]
Re: Show HN: Ditch Black Text to Read Faster, Easier
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
None of those are works that should be speed-read. Thomas Aquinas, Plato, Epictetus, the Qur'an, and (above all) the Bible should be rolled around the mouth, tasted deeply, and either made a part of you or thoroughly spit out if they are found indigestible. If your mechanical reading speed is the limiting factor in reading these works, you're doing it wrong.
Why the Bible above all?
That was a personal remark. He's most probably a Christian. For others is Qur'an above all. And so on. For me is Bible+Church Fathers above all. :)