Show HN: HN to E-Book – Read HN on your E-Reader
https://github.com/abishekmuthian/hntoebook
I read HN on my kindle as I find it useful for reading under sun(while walking in a controlled environment) and taking notes. I was running hntokindle.com to offer this as a service for others.But Amazon has recently made sending bulk emails to the Kindle impossible by requiring 2FA over registered Amazon email address for each item sent to the Kindle.
Hence I've stripped down HN to Kindle code to enable local transfer to any e-book reader which supports .mobi format and made the project open-source.
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[0]: https://github.com/JuanJakobo/Pocketbook-Miniflux-Reader [1]: https://github.com/JuanJakobo/Pocketbook-Read-offline
Very nice!
I didn't scrap articles when I was running hntokindle.com(It opens in Kindle browser) because of copyright concerns, But now since hntoebook is individual liability I'm thinking of implementing scrapping articles too and perhaps attach as a chapter with hyperlink to the title?
HN comments often serve as a high quality comprehension of the article and useful for deciding whether it's worth a ready. I've saved lot of time since I've started reading HN on Kindle.
Reading hacker news and rss feeds on an eye-pleasing display is something that used to be a pain and require workarounds like this script, but now is just as easy as doing it on my phone.
I worried that having apps on my e-reader would lead to too much distraction, but I've found that I naturally use it for reading-heavy things, but am not tempted by the real productivity sinks such as YouTube and games, neither of which are very fun on an e-ink display.
As a bonus, it's also replaced my moleskine for note taking.
I use a tool Denoflow [0] I developed to this thing, this is my workflow file [1].
[0]: https://github.com/denoflow/denoflow
[1]: https://github.com/theowenyoung/personal-flow/blob/main/work...
Amazon has enabled 2FA(even from approved email address) for sending to kindle after the 'KindleDrip' vulnerability disclosure[1], So you might need local transfer as well.
[1] https://medium.com/realmodelabs/kindledrip-from-your-kindles...
Putting HN, or any news-ish site, on my e-reader makes me recoil in horror.
It’s halfway between reading news and reading books. But It does require leisurely reading to take notes. Then I delete them.
Though I happen to be self-disciplined enough to concentrate on the task at hand, I recognize that not everybody is.
It's likely that the trailing slash wasn't included in the .mobi path set by you.
Can you try this?
If you still receive any error, Deleting the 'db' folder can help. If it didn't I'd be happy to receive a bug report over GitHub.Thanks for sharing this project
Are there any quirks for local transfer of .mobi files to Remarkable? hntoebook just requires a path to put the files, I haven't implemented any USB mass storage protocol.
Do let me know if HN To E-Book works out, when you find some time for it.
Edit: I previously mentioned Kindle taking its own time to show the files after transfer, It was my bad (I had a filter set to show docs). Files are shown instantaneous and the new Kindle OS is very responsive.
As a person who skimmed over this, has a Remarkable and is interested, I'd just convert the mobi to epub (e.g. open-source Calibre has a way to fo it) and then send the files via scp to Remarkable. It doesn't seem to difficult to do for someone who knows their way around. Maybe it's difficult to automate, especially the sending part
I would send PDF. I believe epubs are actually converted to pdf on device.
TBH Kindle still allowing files to be transferred like any flash storage is surprising, expected it go iTuney way long back. I hope reMarkable gets USB storage done soon.
It wasn't my idea, but i really like it.
If you could articulate it into a problem statement i.e. Like why you needed it, Why current solutions don't work for you etc. Then you can post it at https://needgap.com (My problem validation platform) and if there's enough interest then some one would pick it up for a side-project.
For the former, Each E-reader have a service of their own (or from community) and for the latter I think local file transfer enables better value for an general HN user even if just for the offline reading.
That the Kindle is slow to use and doesn't have "apps" and other distractions is a feature (at least for me). The only actions I want to perform are:
- Selecting a book
- Turn the page
It's day and night difference from previous versions and even browser is out of experimental.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29225964