Zshelf: Z-Library books downloader for reMarkable tablet
github.com
github.com
Somehow I missed there are a bunch of things out there written for these tablets!
Maybe by the time there's a reMarkable3.
I was pretty sold on RM2 but then I read about the slow development pace, the apparent nonsensical lockdown of the device etc (yes I know it’s less locked down than an iPad) and I just think about getting a boox device.
Edit: see https://youtu.be/QoVIpCSpaFs
Custom templates are possible without modifying the device at all, using free tools online. Bookmarks you can get using the DDVK hack (but they aren't anywhere as slick as the implementation on the Supernote).
I'm not sure what you mean about the lockdown of the device. There's a thriving third-party community, including a package manager (Toltec), you get a SSH password out of the box, and you can even install a full Linux desktop environment on it (Parabola-RM).
I'm pretty satisfied with mine. My biggest gripes are: (i) PDF searching is poorly implemented; (ii) no searching of handwritten notebooks apart from metadata; (iii) although you can get bookmarks with a hack, there's no way to bookmark notebooks like you would with paper notebooks, e.g., with several different style sticky notes that are easy to find and access. The built-in eBook reader functionality is poor, but since it's so easy to install KOReader, that's not an issue for me.
It's clear the developer intends for the device to be heavily restricted by default in an attempt to mimic a notebook as closely as possible. You are given a free escape hatch, but that's it.
Nothing's really locked off. The filesystem is fully accessible, the file format is not obfuscated in any way and was easily reverse-engineered (there are several libraries for reading/writing the format now), and it's possible to interact with the main "xochitl" UI by intercepting/simulating events and drawing to the framebuffer after the main UI draws.
It is true that they haven't opened the UI framework behind "xochitl", but I'd guess that it's probably pretty rudimentary and not particularly general given how simple "xochitl" is. Most third party apps for the device just use QT or draw directly to the framebuffer. (And why not use QT?)
>It's clear the developer intends for the device to be heavily restricted by default
They want the UI for average users to be fairly restricted, but IMHO they're intentionally leaving it open to people to hack on it. The CTO even has a crosswords app up on Github.
I would say this is radically not locked down. You can ssh it!
If they tried to accommodate custom “mods” it could crash their updates. I don’t want them spending dev cycles on such an accommodation.
Besides my desktop computer, this is the best technology purchase I’ve ever made. I continue to use it for practical things.
Ultimately the functionality didn't interfere with the built in reader software or OS because it was entirely orthogonal the extra functionality was more icons on the launch screen. It didn't need the developers to create much in the way of extension points save for the expectations that the launch screen wasn't hard coded but rather it would let you select from whatever apps were installed. Something pretty common in basically every OS.
If your work doesn't have some degree of natural separation between A and B I don't know how you can possibly have made it work in the first place.
I use it for some notes, and that's about it, so it's fine for what I use it for.
All it takes to side-load is ssh.
I tried the Boox Air, and it felt like trying to write on an overhead projector (for you youths, it felt like writing on a piece of stiff plastic). The one thing the remarkable does extremely well is simulate the actual feeling of writing on paper. That is very, very nice.
I wish I was able to modify my tablet, because there are so many super handy things you can do with it!
1. I have the book in print but want the convenience of reading while traveling without a bunch of books in tow. This one is, IMO, a morally grey area.
2. I have put books on my daughter's Kindle which she checked out from the local library through overdrive. Far too many e-books from the library require Adobe Acrobat with some DRM garbage which realistically allows you to read it on a PC or an iPad.
I do not feel the same way about audiobooks, even if I own the book, there is additional cost and value added to producing audiobooks and I can't justify pirating those even if I already own the physical book.
I don't know if that adds to the conversation or not, but I did want to thank you for that distinction!
> Here you can always find the relevant information on the available domains for your region.
Was the only tip-off for me, and that's quite subtle. While I have conflicted thoughts on piracy, I could see casual users using this site without knowing it was piracy, which definitely seems off to me. Maybe if I click through further it becomes more obvious?
Not true for me. The front page had 3 links (Books, Articles, Sign up). I had to click Books before I could see content and _then_ it was obvious.
> And the website itself isn't indexed if you don't explicitly search the name.
Most people aren't going to know what that even means.
If you had never interacted with any of that over the last 20 years then you could be forgiven for not knowing that a site offering unlimited downloads of millions of drm free books without limit, payment, or even login was piracy.
Otherwise its every bit as obvious as napster or the pirate bay.
There's another tool for rM that fetches articles by URI and sends them to reMarkable as PDFs: https://sendreadable.utrack.dev/
There's a value if you provide a CLI tool for that, for automation.
It's the functional equivalent of someone buying the book and then passing it on to the next person who wants to read it.
With pirating, perhaps one person bought the book originally and then it gets sent to an infinite number of people who permanently have it in their collection. The author gets paid practically nothing.
The short answer is that libraries buy books, pirates don't.
In regards to physical books, a good place to start is understanding "first sale doctrine"[1], which allows both libraries and you to do what you want with a book once you're purchased it.
First sale doctrine does not apply to DRM-encumbered ebooks, so libraries must buy as many licenses as they wish to loan, paying three-to-five times the retail price for each limited-time license, and re-purchasing those licenses when they expire (typically after two years).
[1] https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/the-first-sale-doctr...
Here is an interesting answer on the topic.
https://www.quora.com/How-does-a-library-pay-royalties-to-th...
They also provide a net benefit to society by encouraging knowledge and literacy. There is a social expectation that physical goods are sold in most cases without expectation that seller will retain contractual control in order to derive maximum profit. Example nobody liked when Keurig sold coffee pots that wouldn't work with generic or indeed even older official pods via electronic tags in pods.
Also keep in mind that that we all exist in a society there is no reasonable expectation that you have a moral right to be able to use societies apparatus to maximize profit if its at societies expense. Limits are the norm.
Some of us see the virtue in authors getting incentivized in theory but think copyright at least as practiced is a net negative for society because it stops the free spread of information that would otherwise better enlighten the world. This way of thinking actually dates back to some of the founding fathers.
Nobody "deserves" to be paid because someone has arranged a pattern of bits in a way that they "own". Different laws have different up sides and down sides and we ought to pick the set of rules that results in the highest benefit/lowest cost to society. This unlike ownership of imaginary property has moral force. By choosing to treat the current rules as given good you have missed out on the opportunity to make a useful argument about the relative utility of different strategies.
Arguably the current dynamic where piracy is technically easy but practically discouraged might be far more optimum than one in which copyright was actually maximally enforced because the people who have plenty of money value convenience and pay out at a substantive portion of what they would pay in a maximum enforcement scenario whereas those who would otherwise go without are able to.
On net you end up with multiple times the positive effect of a maximum enforcement scenario while still funding authors having a decent life.
For myself I think artificial scarcity of any variety is an attempt to preserve a business model based on actual scarcity that doesn't make much sense in modern context. Ultimately it wasn't the VCR inventors job to justify to the copyright industry that home video industry made sense. The logical step towards phasing out copyright would be limiting it to a sane time frame like 7 years wherein most of the money is actually made in the first place.
It would be cool if you would set up abilities to "donate" or direct pay you. I love getting ebooks but often its really difficult to find a drm-free version (sometimes I can get one on the publishers website).
Because there's so much friction around it I get virtually all my books from pirated sources. For books that I really enjoy I'll then go pick up the book at my local bookstore, but I'd love to have an easy, digital way to pay you.
Would be even cooler if you had a cryptocurrency address (ideally monero or maybe bitcoin) I could pay.