Just FYI, this is only the additional “live books” thing.
The actual books are all there as normal downloads.
Ehhh, if I haven’t had to learn it yet, I’m probably good.
Never say never! I worked on the original Dead Space (2008). There’s a minigame in chapter 4 where you have to defend the ship’s hull from incoming asteroids by shooting them with a cannon. On completion of the challenge, there’s some explanation as to why the cannon’s auto-targetting system is back online and you can leave the minigame and the cannon automatically continues shooting asteroids as you wander off. While I was rummaging around the code for this, I stumbled across a quadratic formula implementation. On closer inspection I discovered that some smart cookie had actually implemented the cannon’s auto-targetting system for real! It actually tracked each asteroid’s velocity and speed and aimed ahead of the target to hit it with its slow-moving projectiles. I just assumed the whole thing would be playing a canned animation faking the cannon shooting at the asteroids. My hat goes off to the programmer that decided to solve that problem - it’s one of the very few times I’ve ever seen the quadratic formula used in gamedev!
The hard math is figuring out the path (because small imprecision in the guessed location of the object over time can pretty easily cause meaningful errors.) If you control the engine and know the real vectors, projecting their path out isn’t super complicated.
But I’m all for the idea that knowing a variety of math allows you to solve a lot more problems.
I’ve bought a few of these bundles but could never get into reading the science or tech books on my small laptop. And they are useless on a phone. They might be best on a big desktop monitor, especially in portrait orientation. I have an easier time with narrative ebooks. History, fiction, etc.
Some of the books in the bundle do look good.
I’ve bought a few of these bundles but could never get into reading the science or tech books on my small laptop.
I know the feeling. eInk finally solved that for me.
If you’re in the market for an e-Ink device that’s not locked down, I’m a fan of the Boox series. I don’t trust their proprietary services, but they work great stand-alone with a home NAS.
I might get an inkplate 10 (same size as Boox) but really want something bigger, like 14 inch or more, to read arxiv.org PDFs.
There’s a 13.3" boox that’s pretty decent. I have the older max 3, and I’m waiting for them to get a color version that size to replace it.
Thanks I didn’t know about that. Interesting though pretty expensive and runs android 11 (I’d prefer to stay all FOSS). A convertible laptop is another idea, e.g. thinkpad yoga. Also would want easily replaceable battery which the inkplate has. The Boox sounds more like a giant smartphone, is that reasonable? This type of device should be nearly BIFL imho. 13.3" inkplate would be great.
Laptop means an emissive display, which generally results in excessive brightness in lower light scenarios and inadequate contrast in very bright ones, because it needs to power through the ambient light. Epaper is way easier to read because it inherently matches the lighting of your environment (or you can use a front light to boost it slightly in the dark) by being reflective instead. There are interesting efforts at reflective LCD screens, but they’re even more expensive and limited to monitors and TVs for the most part. For text based content, eink and other epaper devices read like actual paper, and you can’t match that with other display tech currently. The display is most of the cost of those devices, though, because they’re still pretty low volume and hard to manufacture.
I’m not sure the distinction you’re making with “big phone”. The bigger ones support pens for you to write on them, and it feels similar to using my iPad to read, just without animations and with a more paper like display that doesn’t get blown out in the sun. (The current version would be the tab x, just to clarify.) I think Apple’s tablet experience is a lot better than android’s, and there are a bunch of apps that I like that aren’t on Android, but I wouldn’t say it doesn’t feel like a tablet.
Big phone means same mostly proprietary software and spyware apps, hard to replace internal battery, limited software updates after which the device becomes obsolete, non upgradeable memory and storage, etc. By comparison my 2011 era laptop still runs current gnu/linux distros and has a swappable battery, HD/SSD, and other replaceable parts.
Yeah. When an eInk laptop running Linux hits, I’ll be very happy.
With USB-C to occasionally drive an external display, I think the technology might be close to ready for prime time.
I might get an inkplate 10
Oooh. That is cool. Thanks. I’m not quite ready to give up Android, but I’ll keep an eye on this project.
The Hacker News crowd likes the reMARKable but I don’t see what’s so great about it. Inkplate is the only one I find interesting for now, and I’d want it to be bigger.
Yeah. I love the reMarkable on paper. I was waiting eagerly for the reMarkable to come down in price when I got my Boox.
But I bought a recent model Boox for my significant other that does everything the remarkable claims for about half the price - like $300 instead of $600.
I haven’t checked remarkable’s price lately. I would definitely consider it next time, if it’s a closer price.
Though I’ve had such a good experience with Boox that I might not switch brands for awhile.
But long term I want to be on a device with fully open specifications, so I’ll be watching Inkplate with great interest.
What size boox did you get for $300? If it’s 13.3" that is pretty interesting despite it being Android. The current one is around $800. I think I’m ok with a normal backlit screen in the right format.
I got the 10" Air for around $300, if I recall correctly. It’s $500 now (direct from Boox), so either the price went up or I must have caught a good sale (or both).
Same. If I am reading for please, I am reading the book sequentially and love the convenience of ebooks. If I am reading a reference or text book, I like being able to quickly flip between (physical) pages and skim previous chapters for a section I want to reread.
