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All Kindles can now be jailbroken

kindlemodding.org

321–330 of 438 posts

Re: All Kindles can now be jailbroken

#321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was actually trying out KOReader (on Android via F-droid) last night and it... looks promising... but better than the Kindle app, really? It doesn't have a dark mode which is basically baseline for me reading at night. Or am I missing something?

E-ink screens usually don't want dark mode, because of the weird way they have to refresh[0]. The effect of that is much more visible with white text on black background compared to the opposite. There's however a dark mode still if you need it; go to the gear icon, screen, auto warmth and night mode. Tap the mode line to switch it from automatic settings (either on time schedule or coordinates) to manual. [0]: Basic…

Thanks, I must have missed it, so that's the task when I go to bed tonight.

I hate the idea of my book collection being chained to Amazon by DRM, absolutely hate it. This whole DRM mess is one reason I haven't bought a dedicated e-reader.

Though, to be frank, it's not the only one, I spent a jaw dropping amount of money on a really good hardcover copy of The Lord of the Rings recently, and I feel like no ebook will ever come close to the reading experience of that thing. There is something about this immense, weighty, hardcover tome that just commands your attention and I still find that print on good paper causes less eye strain than even the e-ink screens I've used (though they are pretty good).

Re: All Kindles can now be jailbroken

#322
post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The American distinction is jail v prison. In practice, the distinction is overblown. Jails do hold long term prisoners, and prisons get pre-trial prisoners too. There’s literally a market for jail beds. So prisoners are often sent where there’s an open spot, with little distinction between “short term” and “long term”. A better distinction is that jails are run by a law enforcement agency, while prisons are not.

A county jail is commonly used for defendants accused of state crimes until their sentencing, after their convictions. Post conviction, the prisoner will be moved to a state penitentiary to serve out their sentence. I don't know how these distinctions work at the federal level.

Depends on the state. Some states “allow” prisoners to serve short sentences in jail. Including short consecutive sentences, so, long sentences.

Re: All Kindles can now be jailbroken

#323
post #154

The amount of DRM and locking down Amazon bolts onto its ereaders and ebook formats feels insane to me. I can understand the profit motive but god damn.

Loading F-Droid onto a modern Kindle Fire is quite simple.

You can also install FFUpdater (either via F-Droid or directly) for a huge range of browsers.

What do you see as locked down?

Re: All Kindles can now be jailbroken

#324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only Americans (to the extent I know) differentiate jail and gaol. Jail and prison. You inhabit a very different reality than everybody else. Americans do not differentiate jail and gaol; Americans don't use the word "gaol" under any circumstances, ever. It is not a part of American English.

I dropped out in the first semester of 9th grade and even I know the word gaol, because I read books written before last year.

I graduated from high school and even got a bachelor's degree. I've read several books written before last year, and have talked to dozens of people. I've never heard or seen the word gaol. And if I had, I'd probably assume it was "goal" misspelled. I make no assertions of being particularly smart or literate, but only typical.

Re: All Kindles can now be jailbroken

#325
post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Australia, gaol is far more common than jail. Neither are used anymore really. It's more often just prison or penitentiary. Some of Australia's more popular historical sites are old gaols.

Strictly speaking Australia doesn't seem to have jails, although some "Community Correction Centers" serve the purpose of jails (i.e. holding suspects before trial): https://vanessaash.com.au/whats-the-difference-jail-and-pris... Prisons are where convicts go. Jails are where suspects awaiting trial go. People in prisons have been convicted and sentenced. People in jails might be proven guilty or not.

The simple rule you provide doesn't describe any real system; it seems to be an approximation drawn from how felony charges under state law in the US usually work, but more generally, in the US, Jails are local (usually county) facilities that both house suspects awaiting trial on state charges and convicts serving state misdemeanor sentences, while prisons are either state facilities that hold felony convicts or federal facilities that can house anyone from pre-trial detainees on federal charges to convicts on any kind of federal charges.

There are some variations among states, too; e.g., in California, some state felony convicts serve their sentence in county jails rather than state prisons.

Re: All Kindles can now be jailbroken

#326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I gave up on my first paperwhite last year (10+ years old). Would randomly lose its charge, which was annoying when bringing it on trips (and often not having an old micro-usb charger lying around). And from being stuck into all kinds of pockets and bags without a protector (half the use was it fitting in my pants) had seriously scratched up the screen. The new one I got is nice, but other than the old one being beat…

Mine would have longer and longer delays on each page turn when I started using it again last year. It's a 10+ years Paperwhite as well. I jailbroke it and installed KOReader. Suddenly, no delays, great interface, wi-fi sync with Calibre. I might replace the battery one day, but it still lasts 2-3 books.

Books as a unit of time. Interesting :D.

Re: All Kindles can now be jailbroken

#327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It benefits Amazon obviously, but otherwise it's a massive shame to ebooks as a whole. I was really excited about ebooks when they started, but DRM has completely stagnated the format so much that I've almost completely given up on ebooks now, and read hard copies instead unless I really want to read something and it isn't otherwise available.

I never even got into ebooks in the first place, precisely because of the DRM and "your so-called purchases can still get yoinked" problems.

You definitely had better foresight than me then! I wrote off a lot of the "your purchases might get yoinked" talk at the time as "it would never happen in reality", but have had this happen to ebooks I've bought.

Re: All Kindles can now be jailbroken

#328
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it have machine translation? That would be a killer feature for me. Edit: it has AskGPT!

For translation of more than a couple sentences on demand, you'd more likely translate the epub before you put it on the device, like with the Calibre plugin https://github.com/bookfere/Ebook-Translator-Calibre-Plugin . There are better solutions that have a dictionary for consistent name translations, too.

which engine has the highest accuracy? how reliable is it?

Re: All Kindles can now be jailbroken

#329

It’s interesting reading that the reasons for jailbreaking a kindle are so trivial, amounting to adding some minor functionality to reading books and not much else. Kobo jailbreaks from back in the day gave you root on a stripped down Linux install, complete with telnet ssh and ftp. You could even install python and essentially do anything the cpu/display permitted. Another cool aspect with those older kobos was that…

I think you're mistaken, the Kindle is also Linux based and you can also do anything the cpu/display permits on a jailbroken Kindle. Most people install alternative reader software that supports more formats like epub, but you can do whatever. For a while I used an old Kindle as a "monitor" (connected over ssh) for a server that was otherwise headless. Obviously you can't do anything that moves too fast, but it was nice for doing simple maintenance & system monitoring tasks.
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