fonix232

To date I still quote this whenever even marginally relevant.

Have a wank, have a Kit Kat. Rinse, repeat.

I can help with the latter, got 12 tonnes of the stuff as a deal recently

by concurrency I meant multiple devices of the same user, not multiple users. I don’t know why you’d even consider that I think other users’ progress should be exposed on a single call?

and yet again, that progress doesn’t mean anything when you base it on a number. locator patterns that find the SECTION you’re in based on first-last word (or rather, sentence, for actual precision) are the way to go. you can try hacking this simplified protocol as much as you want, it will never work as well as a dedicated one.

Resolution is a pretty standard 1080p@90Hz for most devices. For your purpose I guess a single fixed monitor setup would be ideal, as multimonitor setups mean you can’t get both screens in your view, and it increases latency too.

general latency in single monitor mode is pretty okay though, around 12-16ms on most models I tried. Not as good as a dedicated monitor, but it’s a solution. A lot of people use these glasses with slabtops (generally macbooks with the display torn off), handhelds (Switch, Steam Deck, etc.), and other on the go devices.

It doesn’t necessarily have to topple. I have my ~10kg TV on a similar stand and even though the main vertical element is off center, it’s super stable.

My main concern is that OP’s approach is with two - potentially different size/weight) monitors, with movable arms, which does mean the center of weight moves around a lot with every change.

Most of Xreal’s models don’t have cameras. And you’re not forced to use their software, by default 99% of these devices works as a simple DisplayPort device + USB hub for the attached accessories (microphone, speaker, camera).

Somehow I doubt that a 30yo model will have its manual hanging around, or to be in one piece after 30 years, especially knowing the paper quality of that era…

Chances are you’d find someone who’s into that…

Oof, I really wouldn’t.

The main issue is weight distribution. You’re looking at a very imbalanced fulcrum here, with the foot (which is usually mounted to the desk, therefore providing more stability) needing to be super heavy to counter the weight of the monitors.

Even a lightweight monitor - say, a ~2kg one (my 34" Samsung ultrawide OLED, which has its PSU completely separate), would put enough weight on it that any kind of movement would risk tipping this entire structure over.

The reason why it’s so expensive is because 1, it’s a very niche product and 2, because it’s so risky to use on anything larger than a dual 17" setup.

If you want to DIY, of course you can go with a pole on a rolling stand and then buy individual pole mount arms for the monitors… but you’ll need to make the base super heavy. we’re talking at least 15-20kg, a big concrete block with some lead blocks embedded, or using the base as a weight rack for workouts, to prevent tipping.

Alternatively, have you considered replacing your monitors with AR glasses? Something like the Rokid/Xreal/Viture brands’ offerings. They can do both fixed monitor (the entire glass display is a single monitor so it’s always in front of you), as well as virtual monitor (one to five monitors arranged in a virtual space anchored to the glasses’ position but not orientation so you can look away from them). We’re talking a $300-400 expense for a much more portable experience with no DIY.

Which is fucking pointless to point out because 80% falls into that 15 point deviation.

If you want true average, a 5-6 point deviation is more useful. Especially given the vast difference between someone with an IQ of 86 and the IQ of 114 - former will be failing most of their classes whereas latter will be excelling in most (not accounting for other personality traits that affect scholarly results, of course).

And that’s why IQ tests are fucking useless. They test a few key areas of what we consider intelligence - pattern recognition and continuation, logic - but entirely fail at the actual intelligence. You can be amazing at recognising patterns in a standardized test and utterly fail at recognising patterns in real life.

Not to mention emotional/social intelligence, which is a much larger aspect of our entire life, is not part of the test, nor is general knowledge. You could be super up to date on historical events, recite entire presentations about specific topics, write amazing poems, and still score an IQ that puts you firmly between a rock and a slightly rotten orange.

which is fucking useless for actual progress sync of books because it doesn’t handle concurrency (multiple readers reading the same content, potentially offline), and more importantly, modern ebook formats have no concept of “page” in transit. Oh, you read page 10? Awesome! Now do tell, is it page 10 on a 5" 800x480 eink display with 48px font size and giant margins/lineheights/word paddings, or is it page 10 on a 13" display of 2480x1860 resolution with 11px font size and barely any margins? Since you’ll get wildly different results in both cases, and OPDS doesn’t really allow for adapting this simple integer to a precise position.

No, for that you require a proper locator scheme, something OPDS doesn’t provide and cannot enforce.

Page based progress is fine for fixed format publications - comics, PDF/DOCX files, etc., but that approach breaks irreparably the moment you switch to dynamically formatted content. In case of EPUV/MOBI/the various Kindle formats, you want to determine the reader’s position based on the first and last paragraph/sentence visible on the reader and correlate that to a position within the actual files of the book, which is actually dynamic, as it can be resolved regardless if it’s XML formatted EPUB or if you dumbed the book down to a simple TXT file.

So no, OPDS’s PSE is at best a stopgap solution for syncing progress.

PSE is page streaming, not progress sync…

OPDS doesn’t do progress sync, at all… you’re running something else there if that works for you.

The hardware weakness is super obvious if you try to add any third party apps. Slow loading times, badly exposed pen API, among other things.

I tried Kavita and immediately recoiled at the fact that basic features like progress sync or metadata matching are behind a paywall - literally features that don’t cost the developers anything, while having open, active bug reports going back a year on these “premium” features.

All while licensing the code under GPLv3…

Sorry but no. Abysmal hardware, shitty software that’s locked down AND crap when opened up, and horrid QA. Talking from experience.

A docker container is preferred, but again, CW isn’t Calibre. Same database but completely different management system + also lacking a lot of the sync opportunities.

The issue is that there’s no open protocol for library syncing. It doesn’t exist because all big players (Amazon, Kobo/Rakuten, B&N, etc.) have their own proprietary system, and need no open alternatives.

OPDS is a thing but it’s meant to replicate a physical library (one you can walk into) in behaviour and approach, not a personal library (list all books I have and give me easy access to them). It’s essentially just an RSS-style feed that has no defined structure, thus isn’t software navigable - e.g. there’s no guarantee you can list all book series, or all authors, and most implementations usually give you very roughly defined “recently added”, or “hot now” book lists…

I’ve actually been working on a solution for this, something that provides an almost Kindle library experience (see all your books from a remote server, sync down the remote ebook file, sync back read progress, filter/search based on book properties, etc.), while being flexible enough for non-readers applications as well. But I haven’t even gotten to the point where I can define the API contract properly, let alone the backing database and mapping to Calibre. Honestly at this stage I feel like the best approach is starting from scratch, establishing modern requirements, and going from there.

Yay, enshittification

Not to mention the super abusive stance of Amazon to writers and publishers, the sooner people stop buying Kindles and giving Amazon their money, the better.

Here’s a reminder that Boox makes amazingly good e-readers in all form factors Amazon does (including a variety of tablets!), with stylus support (USI 2.0 for smaller devices, EMR for their Note series and above), fully open (recent Android versions, regular updates, unlockable bootloader, straightforward to root devices), support KOReader, with a solid built in reader (plus support for cloud sync, including syncing books to a free 10GB Boox server storage), support for OPDS (a better way to access your library than Calibre’s sync, plus it can be utilised with most digital libraries too), and altogether quite well priced devices.

At the moment I have on my hands a Go Color 7 gen2, a Note Air5 C, and a Palma2 Pro. The experience is surprisingly good for a “random Chinese brand”, the hardware, compared to similarly priced devices, is superior (seriously, 4/6/8GB RAM, 64/128GB internal storage, SD card support), not to mention their customised e-ink waveforms (which give you near LCD-like scrolling with minimal trailing effect and little to no ghosting, something I can’t say about my Kindles…)

The only downside I found of these devices is the relatively bad battery life in locked/standby (due to Android, but you still easily get over a week per charge with average use, or about 20-22 hours of active use!), and the speakers… definitely not meant for audiobooks.