Hacker News Reader

I normally read around 600 to 1000 wpm (depending on how dense or vapid it is). This speeds up my reading wayyyyy past that. 1500 wpm? And I was barely trying. It does look super fucking ugly, but it totally works for me. They need to bring in an army of designers and make software geared towards legal assistants / lawyers because they need this desperately.

What techniques do you use? I read at around 600wpm, and increasing it by 50-100% seems pretty daunting.

I trained a bit speed reading when I was in higschool from some book that was translated from Russian (sorry, no idea what was the book) the main idea there was to: 1) not saying words with inner voice 2) not reading letter by letter (seeing whole word at once) 3) reading by connected words not only word by word 4) there was eye training exercise, the idea was that you had to train vision a bit to be able to read more text with less eye movement, i.e. to read word by word you have to be able to see whole word at once (so your brain recognizes word with 1 lookup, not letter-by-letter lookup) whether this helped - I don’t now but that spreeder says that I can read more than 1500 wpm on casual texts (when there is a lot of material I want to realy comprehend, ofcourse it is slower even by factor of 3)

I have no idea what speed I read at but it's weird seeing this stated... I never imagined anyone but a 4 year old would do 1 and 2 and would have thought that 3 and 4 were basically just normal adult reading. I did read a lot when I was a kid

It is a normal transition for childhoods filled with reading. I read about 10k pages a year until I graduated university.

For a hacker, it is normal to not subvocalize.

I think it is also one of the reasons that we hate meetings so much. An email can be written at about 40 wpm, and read much, much, much faster. So past 2 or 3 people, the dominant strategy should be text, unless sidechannel meaning is needed (where emotions are involved or whatever).

"1) not saying words with inner voice"

That's been debunked a while ago. There's no such thing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocalization

We are going to be integrating with Casetext (YC S13), which is an upstart competitor to Lexis/Westlaw. They're looking to revolutionize legal case research, and we're glad to be a part of it!

when i read that fast i dont have time to think about what i read. thus the colors just disturb me as well.

I read at 146 words per minute, and that is average text. I probably read slower when the material is hard. Over the past year or so I went through roughly 90% of Plato's work (like, really), The Quran (partially), On the Nature of Things, Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Discourses by Epictetus, How to Read by M. Adler, Alchemy of Happiness by Ghazalli, etc.... I also read several short text including James Allen, Xenophon, etc... Currently I am reading Jacques Rousseau, and getting back soon to Adam Smith Wealth of Nations... I also started but did not finish yet the Communist Manifesto, How we think (slightly), Prior Analytics (slightly) and perhaps my hardest read ever, Suma Theologica. I am 100% sure I forgot a couple of books I read. Many of these writings I re-read a few times because they are hard to grasp for me. AT 146 words/minute. I am an inefficient reader, and I never knew it. I am going to thoroughly research ways to improve this.

I like spreeder:

http://www.spreeder.com/

Set the chunk size to three for best effect. Just gradually increase it each time, and also try using it occasionally with the speed far too fast. You'll get used to subvocalizing less, and reading multiple words at once.

Of course, for complex texts like the ones you read, it's natural to read much slower. I read 600 WPM for most internet articles, but I'm sure I wouldn't read plato that fast, nor as continuously.

Since I don't find RSVP mentioned in the comments here:

That technique is called Rapid Serial Visual Presentation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Serial_Visual_Presentatio...

(The Wikipedia article should mention saccades (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccade) but strangely it doesn't.)

I wrote an RSVP reader in the mid-to-late 90s in QuickBasic. I'll have to see if I can dig up that code. :)

That's odd. I wrote an RSVP reader in the exact same timeframe in RealBASIC, for a Cornell Psych class (I got an A).

I am still annoyed that things like the Kindle don't have that mode.

maybe it's just me but I feel like I have a stutter thought when I read using that. It's just doesnt feel right; I think books/articles reading will be less enjoyable if I'd have to use it.

I agree. I use it as a training tool, not for pleasure. I found it increased my paper reading speed, without reducing enjoyment or comprehension.

The duration needs to be based on syllables, otherwise the rhythm is totally off.

Has anyone made a syllabic RSVP reader before? Might be interesting to see how much more natural it would be (my hunch is "a lot").

None of those are works that should be speed-read. Thomas Aquinas, Plato, Epictetus, the Qur'an, and (above all) the Bible should be rolled around the mouth, tasted deeply, and either made a part of you or thoroughly spit out if they are found indigestible. If your mechanical reading speed is the limiting factor in reading these works, you're doing it wrong.

I agree, but god damn, I am jealous. I have two small children and I've finished one book this year. (Coders at Work by Peter Siebel, I highly recommend it.)

My wife reads 10x faster than I do but completely eschews the kind of reading I like (viz, literature). But of course, now that, y'know, she has kids too, her overall reading speed is strangely reduced as well.

Anyway, at a first glance I found the line coloring helpful.

I have three small children, and I heartily sympathize. Any reading I do comes out of much-needed sleeping time.

Plato is mostly dialogues and it is only hard in the sense that I have to extract the philosophy out of the text, plus Socrates goes around and around. Epictetus is ok as well, the text is simple to read, and I found myself taking many notes and comparing his text to others. Modern interpretation of the Quran with commentary is helpful, the thing about it being that each chapter is somewhat separated from the rest. Bible, I picked than put it back down with humility because I just knew I could not grasp it. Aquinas is hard to follow, imo he is a logician before a theologian and I know nothing of the first and very little of the second science. However I am very interested in the subject of his writing. I agree it is "accidentally" mechanical reading although my goal is "understanding." I just started to read heavily the past 2 years and this is my beginner's eagerness.

I don't know if you're reading the Bible out of cultural or religious motives; if it's the latter, I find that praying for understanding helps me understand. You could try it, if you choose.

Religious curiosity, although I am not Christian. I certainly will pray for understanding. Thanks J..

Why the Bible above all?

That was a personal remark. He's most probably a Christian. For others is Qur'an above all. And so on. For me is Bible+Church Fathers above all. :)

Because the King James bible had considerable effort to translate original texts into best possible English, preserving meaning but also creating a suitably "glorious" text.

Very many concepts, words, metaphors, etc come from the King James translation.

Ignoring any religious stuff - it's a good read.

EDIT: corrected my st / king error!

Personally I agree, I love KJV (mainly through choral music written with biblical texts), just wondered whether he was making a subjective point like you are, or whether it was a religious point.

I'm very late to respond, but I wrote what I did as a religious point. After a lot of years of doubt on the matter, I've come to the conclusion that what the Bible contains is critically important truth. I honestly think it fails as literature, because it is incoherent unless comprehended by faith; but it is a source of comfort, encouragement, and guidance to those whom God has freely given faith beforehand.

But if you choose to read it as literature, I certainly won't stop you!

The King James Bible is not a that close translation of the original texts. It contains many translation errors and additions by later scribes not present in older texts. Generally more recent translations of the Bible are way more accurate, due to better access and more study of sources today and due to better understanding of ancient Greek and Hebrew.

A point of view on King Jame Bible: https://bible.org/article/why-i-do-not-think-king-james-bibl...

The KJV is a rubble translation influenced strongly by the desires of the king. He had translator beheaded for not translating it the way he wanted.

Besides we have MUCH better access to older sources now, and what do we find? Contradictions, contradictions everywhere.

He was not reading it for the historical / religious insight - he just liked to read English prose written as best it can be.

Try the Knox bible, ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knox's_Translation_of_the_Vulga... ):

"It was my resolve to live watchfully, and never use my tongue amiss; still, while I was in the presence of sinners, I kept my mouth gagged, dumb and patient, impotent for good. But indignation came back, and my heart burned within me, the fire kindled by my thoughts, so that at last I kept silence no longer.

"Lord, warn me of my end, and how few my days are; teach me to know my own insufficiency. See how thou hast measured my years with a brief span, how my life is nothing in thy reckoning! Nay, what is any man living but a breath that passes? Truly man walks the world like a shadow; with what vain anxiety he hoards up riches, when he cannot tell who will have the counting of them! What hopes then is mine, Lord? In thee alone I trust. Clear me of that manifold guilt which makes me the laughing-stock of fools, tongue-tied and uncomplaining, because I know that my troubles come from thee; spare me this punishment; I faint under thy powerful hand. When thou dost chasten man to punish his sins, gone is all he loved, as if the moth had fretted it away; a breath that passes, and no more. Listen, Lord to my prayer, let my cry reach thy hearing, and my tears win answer. What am I in thy sight but a passer-by, a wanderer, as all my fathers were? Thy frown relax, give me some breath of comfort, before I go away and am known no more."

-Psalm 38 (39) from Knox's Translation of the Vulgate.

Knox's translation is lucid when compared with the "correct" and dead modern translations of the bible. Try it if King James does not speak to you.

That verse is perhaps the clearest explanation I have ever read of why religion exists. Thank you.

If you're not reading these works purely for edification then I assume you are working through a Great Books curriculum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_books ). Congratulations. The trouble will soon be finding anyone to with which discuss what you've read, especially if you work in technology where ideas are assumed to have a shelf life. Being well read can be alienating.

In terms of increasing reading speed, you may want to try the utility "dictator" for those texts which are electronic. For physical books I would run a finger under text to maintain momentum as Adler suggested in "How To Read a Book". Make notes in the text, being sure to use a custom set of symbols to speed notation. Write concise thoughts in the margin, don't go overboard.

Good luck.

I am definitely going through the G.B., with other writings from Middle Eastern background. It started when I was researching Islamic & Western texts on a particular subject and similarities. Somewhere along I happened upon Adler's book on How to Read. I agree on having no one to discuss it with, but it's ok, "I am having a discussion with the authors on the margins." If you are going through the list I'll be more than happy to have a long term dialogue (email in profile).

I wasn't skeptical at you saying the increase was this big, and then I went to try it for myself. Wow. This definitely allows my eyes to track better. I'm a bit dizzy now, too ... Reading felt as fluent as my own thoughts.

I don't think they're claiming this as a "speed reading" product in the traditional sense. They're saying it increases reading speed when reading the way most people do, which is line by line. It's certainly not likely to be useful for the kind of reading where you need to scan. But for fiction and other writing that is meant to be read linearly, the claims they're making seem plausible.

What it doesn't help with is transposing from adjacent lines when reading the middle of a column, which happens to me all the time. The middle of the column is always black, so there's not much of a cue to keep you on the same line.

In making my workaround to get a similar effect in calibre, I made a variation I much prefer which cycles red->green->blue, so that column centers are always easy to separate.

That's a good idea. I have the same problem with fiction, for some reason--except for Nabokov. His books are written so well, each line just flows on to the next.

If you're curious, this is what the end result looks like: http://i.imgur.com/NURV2N3.png, and if you use calibre, here's the CSS: https://gist.github.com/osuushi/6461324

You can change the font size and line height by a little bit without needing to adjust anything (since the color gradient is continuous vertically, it is a bit tolerand), but if you make a dramatic change, you'll need to adjust the background height from 72px to the height of three text lines.

I suspect that there's a threshold effect going on: if you naturally read faster than a certain speed, certain design tricks will actually make you read even faster. If you naturally read slower, then those same tricks slow you down.

Would love to see it confirmed or falsified.

(As a note, I am probably under this hypothetical threshold; I'm not a slow reader, but I find that efforts to speed up my reading speed generally push it down instead.)

I cannot understand why it would slow you down, why do you think it might?

Anyway, my experience from this is that it was much easier to differentiate, parse, and scan with the ugly colours (43% faster apparently). However, my natural slowness in reading is in both understanding and committing to memory. I get the feeling that this did not help much with regard to this..

I cannot understand why it would slow you down, why do you think it might?

For me, I found the changing color to be too distracting. My eye was constantly being drawn away from the text I was reading to another color on a line below or above.

It may be worth noting that I only have one eye, and it's not a very good one - 20/100 visual acuity with about a 15deg. visual field.

Amazing, it had the exact polar opposite effect for my eyes. I often have trouble keeping my place in black and white text. I find it like trying to focus on a single conversation in a pub but I end up hearing everyone at once.

If you don't mind me postulating, I wonder whether this difference is something intrinsic to the focussing effect of binocular vision, or if your field of view has maybe trained your brain to be more urgently perceptive to peripheral vision?

then again, maybe its just colour perception.. or different strokes (and thanks, I just learnt about binocular summation.. fascinating)

I slowed down considerably as well. I found myself rereading the same lines over and over for no apparent reason. After a very short time I started to get a mild headache as well. Of course, that could also be the fact that it's getting late but I usually read for 30 minutes before going to bed.

I think it depends how close the text is too, and how long the sentences are on a single line. If it's heavy reading then you don't necessarily want to be or able to read as quickly, though might be good for skimming it.

I don't understand why you'd change foreground colours instead of background colours....

Either way, quick experiment shows it to be horrid for me.

There's an existing, broadly used method for solving the line transition errors - you background color every two lines in an alternating set of colors. There used to be ribbon-feed printer paper pre-colored with this for certain applications that involve reading across lines a lot (like database output.) Seems like that is a more practical solution.

Here's what I mean: http://www.stationerytrade.com/upfile/images/big/20122221112...

What about using eye tracking? A device could just detect you're at the end of a line, and put a small marker at the start of the next line.

I'm not aware of eye tracking setups that are reasonably priced and that accurate, but I like the idea quite a bit :) I'll have to test it out some time - should be relatively fake-able by just moving a marker up/down with keys.

I thought it was every three lines, but yeah.

I think you're right. It's been a few years since I saw one of these in person.

Here is a quick hack that does line-by-line background colours (excuse any crappy code; I'm not a web developer). http://jsbin.com/avuku/166/edit

I was actually surprised at how good it was for linear reading - i.e. reading everything without skipping or missing any line. I'd use it for things like contracts and important tutorials/ebooks, where every word counts.

But I agree that it sucks for quick scans - the different colors just add another layer of complexity for our brain to process...

A research lab at a well-known university has a study underway.

Feel like sharing a link?

Still not public, sorry!

I found my eyes 'jumping' from word to word. I didn't miss any, and I went to the correct lines, but I did seem to be reading at a much slower clip. But that's from spending 30 seconds reading the webpage, so not very scientific.

"Jumping from word to word" is a pretty slow way to read - "speed reading" involves chunking blocks of words or even entire lines - if you watch some people when speed reading their eyes don't scan left-right at all, but just stop briefly on each line as they scan down the page.

I felt (without experimenting in a measurable way) that particularly the blue-red transitions _really_ slowed down my "normal" reading…

It might not be a problem for you - it isn't for me either - but many others suffer from this problem. My other half struggles to read because she has so many line transition errors. And she has to spend all day reading. I see a huge market for this.

But how you make money? Whatever they believe is patentable, I don't see it holds in the court. Good luck patenting colors of text. Further, the major places where you would see this going major: schools, libraries, law school, law field, etc, most of those places are extremely reluctant to new technologies. To them its not a matter of doing it better, its a matter of doing it the way we know how to do it and been doing for years. Lots of libraries still use typehead machines because those in charge are very old and don't trust/hate technology.

It doesn't have to make money. Sometimes people do things for the benefit of others :)

edit: although in this case, they have a patent pending and apps in development, and are offering licensing agreements.

Perhaps you would benefit from a scheme where each word were assigned a standardized color based on its hash.

For large blobs of text, I wrap around to the wrong line often enough to be annoying. However, I found that highlighting my spot and re-highlighting every 5 lines or so solves this problem.

Regarding your scanning approach. An idea I've had is to format each word based on how common it is.

I did find it easier to read faster, however I do believe the JFK portion was chunked with a lot of bigger words/data like years, cities, full names whereas the SBA paragraphs were simpler (IMHO).

Would be great if they could A/B test the text used. I found the JFK portion harder to read/understand and I don't think it was entirely the colouring.

Still, I think it is a cool idea and will give the bookmarklet a try for a while.

JFK passage was definitely harder to read. Even so, I got:

"It looks like BeeLine didn't improve your reading speed this time through."

Interesting. I got 5% improvement with BeeLine.

The reading test is randomized—different people get different stories in color or black. The order of black/color is also randomized. It's not perfect, but it'll have to hold us over until the larger study from the university research lab is completed.