Thread

1. tombert · 1789921845 · focus · HN ↗

   I read a lot, and I own a lot of physical books, but I almost never actually read physical books anymore. I'm one of the happy few that used my Kindle for more than a week after getting it as a gift.

   I find that reading on an ereader is many times easier for me, primarily because I can make the text gigantic and I don't lose track of my place on the page nearly as often. I'm not dyslexic (I've been tested), but I do think that there's some issue with my brain where if the text is small I really can't follow it. On all my computers the text is gigantic and even then I will click and highlight text as I'm reading so don't lose place. I would love to be paid to read but I don't think I'd love to be paid to read physical books.

   I remember my grandmother was wholly unconvinced that my Kindle was a different thing than an iPad or a Game Boy, and that it was not "real" reading, for whatever reason.

   1. mulderc · 1789922312 · focus · HN ↗

      One thing I do with my students is show them how to adjust text size and have them try out larger sizes. I think a surprisingly large number of people have never even attempted to change the text size on their devices and many can benefit from something different than the defaults.

      1. tombert · 1789925021 · focus · HN ↗

         I sort of discovered this accidentally twice.

         First was when I go the Kindle I realized I could make the text as big as I wanted so I would do that, as stated before.

         Another time is when I wanted an external monitor and I bought a big TV because it was much cheaper. Because the TV was bigger the text was also bigger, and I realized how much easier it was for me to work.

         I think I used to feel like there was a "coolness" factor to keeping the text small. I don't know why I thought that, but I think what's much cooler than having lots of small text is actually being able to read and understand the text on the screen.

         Now I have no desire to impress anyone, and I keep my text in the browser at like 200%.

         1. podocarp · 1789994395 · focus · HN ↗

            For me it's not coolness it's just context, 16:9 is too short to fit enough lines and scrolling and jumping is as annoying as tabbing in and out.

            This is also one problem with ereaders for me, especially for anything technical. With paper when the textbook says refer to fig 13.2 or we covered this in section 4.3 I can just flip to that page with my fingers as a bookmark, read it, and go right back. Just not as tactile on computers. Even if you did like lsp assisted jumping all over the place you quickly forget what the heck was going on and where you came in from.

            Of course maybe someone will come and correct me but this is just what I experience. It's still better flipping pages for technical stuff. It's like scribbling a DJ disc, imagine doing that with a mouse or keyboard. It's just… different.

            1. tombert · 1790006070 · focus · HN ↗

               Technical papers are the one of the few things I still print out, actually. I have never been able to read them from my Ereader.

               That’s primarily because papers are PDF and thus the formatting isn’t as dynamic.

      2. cheschire · 1789925644 · focus · HN ↗

         Even on computer monitors, I always bump the scaling to 125% on modern high resolution screens.

         1. mulderc · 1789934735 · focus · HN ↗

            I tell everyone to set it to what you find comfortable and then adjust it up a notch.

            1. Toslink · 1790030596 · focus · HN ↗

               [dead]

         2. juujian · 1789937775 · focus · HN ↗

            150% gang here. Actually 200% on my laptop but the resolution of that display is just ridiculous.

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