Today the vast majority of people I know rarely use the browser on their phones. They interact with the internet through apps from various walled gardens, and even for news on the open web they are likely to install…
Art is perennial and omnipresent in human societies, but the sort of art that operates through a language foreign to the aficionado’s own, and learning that language would be beneficial to appreciation of it, is…
Did you not notice that I specified “developed-country Gen Z above” and also China? That was to leave a carve-out for the still very vibrant multilingualism of the Indian Subcontinent, sub-Saharan Africa, etc. But for…
Learning a foreign language in order to get more out of art, literature, or poetry is already a very niche hobby and one risks being accused of snobbism or privilege for suggesting it. Art, literature (of the kind where…
We’re on a nerd forum, so of course some of us love OSMAnd. But the general public finds that app too confusing. I know this firsthand because I’m in a travel subculture where OSMAnd provides a very useful tool that…
Sadly, this beneficial activity doesn’t look promising in the longterm. Real-time interpretation of foreign languages through earbuds is already available in its nascent phase, and China at least has begun cutting…
Please do not use German-based transliteration on HN. It is foreign to most readers. Both of the Arabic terms you use have established English transliterations.
It is not common for American for-profit corporations to accept donations. What you are paying is a retail price for Apple products. (Edited post after a check of the legality, but donating to Apple would still be…
When I was in Almaty and Bishkek in the summers of 2007 and 2008, the overlander haunts occasionally saw the arrival of frantic motorcyclists who learned only then that they couldn’t continue on into China, they would…
I’ve been reading optimistic things like this on HN for long years now, but the world keeps moving in the opposite direction. Your post doesn’t confront the fact that the vast majority of people interested in your…
Even most of my nerd friends are consuming less and less longform text. It has been years now since budding hackers can pick up their coding skills entirely through YT videos and now TikTok, and suggesting reading…
Substack blogging is very different from old-school blogging. The Substack culture puts much more emphasis on writing daily in order to maintain engagement, and to closely target those daily posts to a market that will…
Even if Old Reddit still exists, the vast majority of users are on New Reddit or the app on their phones. Those are designed to keep people endlessly scrolling, not sticking around in any one place and building…
Maps.me got sold to a series of subsequent owners. It was those subsequent owners who enshittified the app, not the original developers mentioned in your quotation. The original developers only later returned to the…
This sounds like an optimistic comment from a decade ago. Cost of storage has gone up recently, as a glance at data-hoarder fora will show. Phones have less storage capacity nowadays inasmuch as many manufacturers are…
It's a fork from Maps.me, the streamlined map app popular with normies. I myself use and love OSMAnd, but in the travel communities I am active in, most people react badly to OSMAnd as something arcane and nerdy.
OSMAnd is similarly OSM-based, offline, and FOSS (available from F-Droid) and does tracking. It is not typically recommended in pists like these because its wealth of options is daunting to the general public, while…
LOL, not realistic at all. The differences between book versions lie in more than the raw text. Moreover, an archival project would be loathe to favour or disfavour a version unless an actual human made the call.
Funny that your example is Chinese. Have you seen the reports that Chinese universities are cutting back on foreign-language programmes because the expectation is that AI translation is the way of the future? So, your…
Things have changed a lot. The kind of people you imagine, who can live full-time off writing, are responsible for a vanishingly small amount of the books that appear today. Piracy has little to do with it; this is…
> Someone violates an open-source license and we grab our pitchforks. If you look back through the annals of Free Software, one often encounters the claim that the GPL was a way to use copyright against itself, and if…
AA compiles from everywhere; LibGen and Z-Lib served as the major sources of books. This has unfortunately led to search results for a particular book containing multiple versions of that book, and it is not readily…
I’ve noticed that people today often bristle at any suggestion that one connect a device to a phone or computer with a cable – on Reddit, one will often get downvoted for this. Apparently, a lot of younger people are…
Like the GP said: in offices the floor is often a big open space where light from windows can extend a long way. But once you start dividing up that big space into smaller residential units with walls, that light gets…
This ship has sailed for academic publications. The shadow libraries started off as a way for scholars in ex-Soviet countries in particular (but also India, SE Asia, etc.) to access literature that simply wasn’t…
Today the vast majority of people I know rarely use the browser on their phones. They interact with the internet through apps from various walled gardens, and even for news on the open web they are likely to install…
Art is perennial and omnipresent in human societies, but the sort of art that operates through a language foreign to the aficionado’s own, and learning that language would be beneficial to appreciation of it, is…
Did you not notice that I specified “developed-country Gen Z above” and also China? That was to leave a carve-out for the still very vibrant multilingualism of the Indian Subcontinent, sub-Saharan Africa, etc. But for…
Learning a foreign language in order to get more out of art, literature, or poetry is already a very niche hobby and one risks being accused of snobbism or privilege for suggesting it. Art, literature (of the kind where…
We’re on a nerd forum, so of course some of us love OSMAnd. But the general public finds that app too confusing. I know this firsthand because I’m in a travel subculture where OSMAnd provides a very useful tool that…
Sadly, this beneficial activity doesn’t look promising in the longterm. Real-time interpretation of foreign languages through earbuds is already available in its nascent phase, and China at least has begun cutting…
Please do not use German-based transliteration on HN. It is foreign to most readers. Both of the Arabic terms you use have established English transliterations.
It is not common for American for-profit corporations to accept donations. What you are paying is a retail price for Apple products. (Edited post after a check of the legality, but donating to Apple would still be…
When I was in Almaty and Bishkek in the summers of 2007 and 2008, the overlander haunts occasionally saw the arrival of frantic motorcyclists who learned only then that they couldn’t continue on into China, they would…
I’ve been reading optimistic things like this on HN for long years now, but the world keeps moving in the opposite direction. Your post doesn’t confront the fact that the vast majority of people interested in your…
Even most of my nerd friends are consuming less and less longform text. It has been years now since budding hackers can pick up their coding skills entirely through YT videos and now TikTok, and suggesting reading…
Substack blogging is very different from old-school blogging. The Substack culture puts much more emphasis on writing daily in order to maintain engagement, and to closely target those daily posts to a market that will…
Even if Old Reddit still exists, the vast majority of users are on New Reddit or the app on their phones. Those are designed to keep people endlessly scrolling, not sticking around in any one place and building…
Maps.me got sold to a series of subsequent owners. It was those subsequent owners who enshittified the app, not the original developers mentioned in your quotation. The original developers only later returned to the…
This sounds like an optimistic comment from a decade ago. Cost of storage has gone up recently, as a glance at data-hoarder fora will show. Phones have less storage capacity nowadays inasmuch as many manufacturers are…
It's a fork from Maps.me, the streamlined map app popular with normies. I myself use and love OSMAnd, but in the travel communities I am active in, most people react badly to OSMAnd as something arcane and nerdy.
OSMAnd is similarly OSM-based, offline, and FOSS (available from F-Droid) and does tracking. It is not typically recommended in pists like these because its wealth of options is daunting to the general public, while…
LOL, not realistic at all. The differences between book versions lie in more than the raw text. Moreover, an archival project would be loathe to favour or disfavour a version unless an actual human made the call.
Funny that your example is Chinese. Have you seen the reports that Chinese universities are cutting back on foreign-language programmes because the expectation is that AI translation is the way of the future? So, your…
Things have changed a lot. The kind of people you imagine, who can live full-time off writing, are responsible for a vanishingly small amount of the books that appear today. Piracy has little to do with it; this is…
> Someone violates an open-source license and we grab our pitchforks. If you look back through the annals of Free Software, one often encounters the claim that the GPL was a way to use copyright against itself, and if…
AA compiles from everywhere; LibGen and Z-Lib served as the major sources of books. This has unfortunately led to search results for a particular book containing multiple versions of that book, and it is not readily…
I’ve noticed that people today often bristle at any suggestion that one connect a device to a phone or computer with a cable – on Reddit, one will often get downvoted for this. Apparently, a lot of younger people are…
Like the GP said: in offices the floor is often a big open space where light from windows can extend a long way. But once you start dividing up that big space into smaller residential units with walls, that light gets…
This ship has sailed for academic publications. The shadow libraries started off as a way for scholars in ex-Soviet countries in particular (but also India, SE Asia, etc.) to access literature that simply wasn’t…