Libb @ Libb @jlai.lu

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I carry a jailbroken Kobo with wifi disabled

I used to that with a Kindle. See my answer to the other comment why I decided I did not want to do it anymore.

That’s exactly what external light means. If you need to sit near a lamp to read your book, then you are relying on external light.

The idea was that I do not need an extra light because, well, there are plenty all around but, you're right, that's what an extra light means. They're just already there ;)

About half of those issues are solved by drm-free ebooks

My iPhone or Kindle will still track my reading habits when I read a drm-free or pirated book (which I tend to avoid as I want to support authors and publishers and I can afford to). For years, I have been using a Kindle that I disconnected from the Web after activation, it was working fine but then I realized we should not have to fight that situation to begin with: our privacy should be respected out of the box. Since I decided to not compromise anymore on that, well, I quit using those device. Like I said, it's just a personal choice in favor of my privacy (not an allergy to tech itself, just to the way it has been hijacked to become a spying tool)

I do need to look up words a lot (usually in other languages)

So do I (be it in my native French and in the few others I pretend to speak). But like I said, I also never need to get instant access to a dictionary either. So it can wait I get back home.

and a bus stop after dark will never have enough light for reading. If you read at home I guess these aren’t issues, but pocket books are meant to be read on the road.

I would say (pocket) books are meant to be read and would not have any expectation on where and when people are supposed to be reading them. Then, I don't read when I'm moving (I get sick). I will read at a bus stop or waiting in a line anywhere if there is enough light. If there is not enough, I will either write stuff in my notebook (even dim light is enough to jot down quick notes), or I will think about stuff.

About the formatting there are some books which should absolutely not be read as ebooks cause you’ll miss out on things. But most books are a block of text split in chapters and paragraphs. A phone can absolutely support that.

Typography and page layout was once a thing. It was considered kind of an art form even. I feel a bit sad to see it boiled down to some 'block of text split in chapters' but it could also just be a sign that I'm getting old and out of touch. Which is to be expected too ;)

Thx for the discussion, it was interesting.

I'd argue phones are actually better pocket books.

It's obviously a matter of personal preferences, which is absolutely fine.

As far as I'm concerned, I prefer print for these reasons, and for context I have been reading ebooks since I have owned a Palm Pilot PDA in the early 00s, so not reading them is a decision and a choice, it is not an allergy to them or to the tech:

• Print fully respect my privacy.
  There is no tracking and no spying on my reading habits. That's also why I read print newspapers and magazines as much as I can.
• No remote deleting of ebooks after purchase.
  Like Amazon and Microsoft already did. They refunded customers but that's not how private property is supposed to work: I pay for a good, I own it its previous owner taht sold it to me can't decide to enter my home to take it back, even if they were to leave some cash on the table.
• No remote editing possible.
  No matter if one book or one word in it suddenly becomes unpopular or offensive to anyone.
• No notifications, social media, games, email, whatever, to distract me.
• Does not need external light either.
  Try to beat day light and at night, or when the sun plays hide 'n seek, well, I have access to this revolutionary piece of high-tech called 'lamps' that are lying around absolutely everywhere in our home and, as far as I can tell, are also everywhere I may find myself wanting to read a book.
• Does not need batteries, and no recharging.
  The same with my watch, btw: no battery, just a spring I rewind every morning after I shower and when I put it to my wrist. It has been working wonder for years and its manufacturer has yet to send my a message telling my watch is tool old and I need to purchase a new model to get updates... because there are none ;)
• Does not need app and system updates.
• Does not need Internet.
• Unlike a smartphone, a book itself does not need to be replaced every few years by a new one (aka creating always more e-waste). Talking about phones, here, not e-readers that may last many, many years.

BTW, I seldom need to quickly look up a word either. When I don't know a word and if I can't figure out its meaning by using the context it is used in, aka surrounding sentences, I write it down in my pocket notebook (which also requires no battery, no upgrade, doesn't track me either, etc.) and look it back at home in one of my... paper dictionaries (which don't push ads into my face, don't track me, and so on)

you can adjust font, text size and brightness (some font choices in printed books are just terrible)

This is the one advantage I find to ebooks in general (the reader is in charge of the display... depending the app used) but getting that freedom you also instantly lose access to the excellent page layout many publishers work hard on. Sure there are a few dickheads in the field but a majority are not at least those whose catalog I enjoy reading.

And, most ebook page layout is, well, what word did you use? Terrible? You would be right.

I’ve never actually seen a pocket book that can fit in a pocket.

There are (I would say I can fit most poetry books and many plays in my jeans back pocket but I don't really), the idea is that those small books are easy to carry and are cheap (at least back in then they were supposed to be). It also depends a lot what one reads.

Edit:

it’s much more compact, can be held in one hand and you can carry multiple 800 page books.

I don't need to carry that. On my desk I have dozens of books and references volumes opened at once (that would be expensive to do the same with multiple phones, right? ;) but I only carry with me a single pocket book so I can read on the go. I do not need my entire library, not even a couple 800, or even 1600 pages books ;)

Edit: if you're willing to read more of my reasoning to stop using ebooks (I should say ebooks sold by Gafam, as I will still by self-published ebooks when there are DRM-free and there is no print available) and refocus my reading on print instead, I've published a couple blog post. Link in my profile.

• A pocket notebook and a ballpoint pen, for quick note taking. Edit: add to that a pocket watercolor set and a brush, for quick sketching
• A pocket book, for on the go reading
• My (mechanical) wrist watch

I don't care if the smartphone can be used to take notes, to read and has an extra precise clock. I much prefer my analog tools. They don't require upgrade, they don't need recharging, no one will ever try to stole them (my watch is not fancy at all, it's just mechanical ;) and, well, I prefer using those.

So things like running headers, simple reference lists formatted correctly with hanging indents. Running page counts.

Styles (Paragraph, characters and pages styles) should be able to deal with most of that.

The ability to insert figures easily without altering layout dramatically.

In a program like a word processor, any added image will more or less dramatically screw up the existing layout. There is no workaround that as things on the page need to move around to make room for the new one, or to fill the space left by the one that you just removed.

Also it’s important to keep in mind that apps like Word, Writer, Google Docs or Apple Pages do rely on the availability of the fonts used in the original document to correctly display the document on the viewer’s computer. So, if you open a document on a second computer n which there is not the same fonts, another font will be used which may not share the exact same properties as the original one and may screw up the layout more or less completely. Or you need to create a PDF file that anyone on any computer will be able to opne and display exactly as it was created but not to edit or certainly not as easily and in a much more limited manner that just opening the wordprocessor file itself. Here again, there is no perfect solution.

The good news is that LibreOffice comes with its own preinstalled fonts and they are the same on Linux, Mac and Windows so it would be safer to stick whit those fonts and not use anything fancy. It can also easily create PDF.

But, imho, the real good advice would be encourage your students (and maybe their teachers too) to not worry about page layout while they’re writing the paper. And to only work on the layout after they have finished writing it. Just don’t care about margin or look, colors, anything. It’s wasted time and energy while one is writing.

They should only use a few Styles to format Headings and paragraphs of text, things like that’s it. Doing that, it will be much simpler when they start working on the layout to format everything at once exactly like they want or need it. And it should be much faster too because they will only have to do it once, and won’t have to constantly be adjusting things here and there every time they add or remove a picture, or change some text.

That being said, Styles in LO Writer are not a magic wand that will do stuff automatically. They help a lot but one still need to learn to use them properly—never, ever use direct or manual formatting, never use the Enter key to add space between two lines or to create a page break, and so on. So, I insiste, but I don’t think there is a solution that will simply work out iof the box… beside hiring someone to do the layout for them (what many publishers do, btw: they have their own in-house design team or a freelance guy/team they hire to do exactly that).

More info on Styles and templates in Writer:

• This is a really excellent (and free) book: https://designingwithlibreoffice.com/
• The official doc for Styles and templates: https://books.libreoffice.org/en/GS73/GS7303-StylesAndTemplates.html
• The official doc as a PDF file: https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/trBdof3TTTPZ6sn

Im embarassed to say

There is no need to be ;)

I am unfamiliar with styles and will be looking into learning more about them. I’ve gotten sadly complacent with the familiarity of working in the school reccomended google apps for so long. Never too late to learn though!

Indeed. I learned to mend clothes aged 40, I learned to solder electronics aged 45 and to write Linux scripts aged 50+.

Thanks for your thoughts

You’re welcome.

The school doesn’t pay for a Microsoft license, and some students have expressed feeling unsafe and uncomfortable supporting google.

I can relate to their feeling. The same with with MS Word.

have suggested Libreoffice as its what I use but some of the students are really struggling with formatting their papers to academic standards in this software. Admittedly, I agree, Libre takes 7-14 steps to do some things google can do in two clicks. I would like to look into alternatives.

I see mention of LaTeX, imho forget about it. It's great but if your students already are complaining about clicking a few buttons and menus in LO Writer, I doubt they will enjoy configuring LaTeX at all as it's really complex to setup and it's also very, very technical. (It is also very much English focused by default, which means there will be a few more tweaks required to make it support other languages and where that turns out to be real fun is that said tweaks may vary depending the libraries you're relying on since you install various ones and, of course, the doc will not always be reflecting that exactly.)

Most of the writing applications I’m seeing both free and paid tend to be for creative writers or note taking and I am not seeing tools to make running titles or easily format your sources.

Have you considered using templates (and Styles) with LibreOffice Writer?

You could have all your formatting be exactly like you need it to be and you (or anyone else) would only need to prepare it once and make it available to all your students. So, the template being 7 or 14 steps would not mean much since they would not need to do it at all and the one person doing it would doi it only once.

What they would need to (learn to) do is to use Styles, in Writer. Like they are supposed to (learn to) use them in Word, and like in a very limited way they can do in Google Docs too. Imho between the three word processors, Writer is the best at managing Styles but it wills till require some basic learning like showing them what styles are and why they're so useful, where they are and how to apply them in Writer.

Without using Styles in a word processor, you will need to rely on LaTeX or some lighter markup language (like Markdown combined with say Pandoc, which are way simpler than LaTeX but also much more limited in terms of page layout and notes management).

Also, there is no ready-made tool available that you 'simply use'. They all need to be tweaked in some way to meet expectations and the simplest way I can think of is by using Styles. What are Styles you may ask? Think one type of content (title, simple paragraph, notes, illustrations, ...) being associated to a set of formatting rules that are automatically applied to it whenever it is used).

It could help to share some real example of the type of setings you're looking for (what do you want to do?) so others may be able to tell you if and with what app it's doable ;)

In summary, Libre Office:

• Is Libre software.
• It use an open format, ODT, that is documented.
• Can be used to write in many languages.
• Works great with Styles, allowing documents to be (easily) precisely (or loosely) formatted.
• Doesn't push AI crap, or any other type of connected crap.
• Doesn't spy on anyone (you can even deactivate the little banner that pops up once in a while asking for a donation)
• Can do Styles and use templates to create very neatly formatted documents.
• Is preinstalled with most Linux distributions out of the box, and is easy to install on Mac and on Windows.
• is NOT as precises as LaTeX, but is also much simpler to learn and use.
• is NOT available for mobile, but I have yet to see anyone writing a full book or even an article on a phone screen ;)
• is NOT as simple as using Markdown and Pandoc but offers all formating control 99% of users wil ever need AND offers a much easier way to work collaboratively between non-geek users.

Anyway, you seem to be focused on arguing without having any real argument to defend your opinion.

You seem pretty sure about that, I would not want to contradict you the slightest. I will get back to reading my (sometimes) pay-walled but billionaire-free articles. Thx for sharing your opinion, have a nice day.

I don’t know what are you digging into.

Digging into?

I just say that reading news may be more enriching or, if you prefer, more useful when it's not practiced like if it was a sausage eating contest.

You seem to enjoy eating a lot of news, that's ok if that's your thing, I'm only suggesting that eating less and more selectively could help you realize that all pay-walled content is not created for 'enriching billionaires', like you said earlier. Don't get me wrong though, this is just a suggestion and you're more than welcome to keep stuffing yourself with as much news as you fancy.

I read by hour, due to my free time(usually it does fetch 50 articles per hour, much less on holidays and I only read the interesting ones to me.)

50 articles per hour? That's not reading, that's scrolling. Which is perfectly fine, here again don't get me wrong, but scrolling a list of titles does not equal reading them (aka, getting a clear idea of what the author wrote and then be able to summarize their argument reliably).

50 articles per hour means spending at most 1 minute and somewhere between 10 or 20 seconds to read each article (with enough attention to be able to understand what is read) and that's only if one is using every single minute of that hour, not doing anything else like scratching one's nose not even yawning out of exhaustion.
I'm impressed this is perfect for you, and glad you found a system that works wonders. It certainly would not be perfect for me. Even though I consider myself an intensive reader I'm also not much into stuffing myself like you may have understood already. Also, I do not worry much about people sharing links to pay-walled content since it rarely worries me when I can't read one specific article.

I follow more than 300 news sources by RSS (all without paywalls), how wide you want me to go?

I did not mean 'widen' in that sense—reading and being informed is not about the quantity of news one can swallow in a day, you know—but with the idea of reading different sources.

Also, may I ask how can you be reading three fucking hundred news sources regularly (not daily, obviously) with any sort of attention?

Paywalls literally exist to support billionaires and their media empires.

Seriously? You may want to consider widening your news source, maybe.

Which bring me to this: Why does no one thought about blocking hard paywalled articles for the sake of quality of discussion?

Why block (aka, censor) a link?

1. People are free to subscribe if they want to, they at least get a link to the source.
2. People can often find workarounds if they can't/refuse to pay but they would still need the link to know what exact ref they should search for.

Any advice for getting started with journalling? It’s been recommended to me but it’s not something I’ve ever really done before.

It's excellent advice (that's coming from a 50+ years old dude, so you know) as a journal can help you a lot in many various ways (memories of events, putting some order in your thoughts, facing personal difficulties,...).

How to do it depends a lot of things like what are your existing habits (do yo write already, or not much? There is no right or wrong answer but a need for shorter than longer wirting sessions for example), what you want to do with your journal (memories, pretty pages, thinking self-reflecting assistant,...) and even who you are as a person but as a general rule:

1. Keep it as simple as you can,
2. Be fine with your journal not being perfect, and with you not looking perfect in it either.
3. Be ok with making breaks. I've been journaling for almost 50 years and I've been not journaling some times for a few years. That's OK. A journal is a tool, like a hammer is and would be surprised if I told you and I don't carry my hammer everywhere I go and don't use it all day long? ;)

All you need to start is a decent pen (aka something you find pleasant to write with and that will not tire your hand too fast), a cheap but decent notebook or an easy to use app, if you're more interested in digital (an app you can quickly open and start writing in), some calm spot where you can wit and write and some time (not much). I shared some advice here, but there are other tidbits spread in the other discussions too. The idea is simply to remove as much friction as possible between you and actually writing in your journal. Be it analog or digital. It doesn't matter how and with what tool you want to journal.

Also, be fine with making mistakes and with writing some real stupid shit. We all do. I constantly do. That's legit part of a journal... it's not a novel, or an essay. It's not a work of art. It's notes to your (future) self.

Related to making mistakes: not worrying about being judged helps a lot.
It's ok do do mistakes. In fact, it's even an essential part of learning anything (that is worth learning, I mean). We all learn through trial and error, by experimenting. So, be happy to experiment freely (aka as stupidly or as daringly as you want) in you journal, because it is yours and no one else. What anyone else may think of it should not matter the slightest.

If you want to discuss more about starting and keeping at it, you're welcome to join. We've gotten quite a few new members those last weeks but we're still real short on people sharing content which, in my opinion, includes beginner questions and doubts about starting a journal, and how to journal. The invitation is open to anyone else, obviously: !journaling@sh.itjust.works

• Reading and writing. Philosophy, history, literature.
• Journaling !journaling@sh.itjust.works (that's not self-promo, that's legit share of useful info)
• Cinema.
• Cooking.
• Being bald, speaking English with a terrible French accent ;)

I only browse Subscribed. And since I'm not subscribed to any political/hateful shit I seldom see anything... not enough to bother me, even less so that I know I won't click it. Not that I'm not interested into politics. I'm very much, but I also don't call that constant drama/shitposting 'politics' and I certainly do not wish to waste my time reading that.

It's merely a choice: what do you value most? not missing the rare 'quality post' in those shit content communities, or your own sanity? My choice is clear.

doesn't matter if i take notes or not i still forget what is in the exam

Then, let me ask how do you take note while you're studying? It's a technique, it's not a magical wand quite obviously, nor is it in an On/Off switch. If it doesn't work there must be a reason why, I mean a reason other than 'it just doesn't work' ;)

I'm sorry if all what follows sounds painfully obvious but since you're kind of vague on your exact process/situation and I can't guess how you're working I think it's worth mentioning.

I mean, for example there is not much use in verbatim copying what you ear or what you just read in a book because, well, you're not an audio recorder or a camera, both of those tools would do the job way better than any of us can ever hope to do. So, since we're smart, we should use them to record instead of our brain which we shoudl use to understand what has just been recorded.

In fact, using the brain as a recorder is a gigantic waste our (limited) energy and won't help anyone learn or understand much. Instead, you need to, how do you say that in English? You need to rephrase or to reword the teacher's or the author's thoughts into your own words. That's how you internalize (make it your own) whatever you're studying.

When I was a student my rule was to write whatever the teacher was saying as stupidly as I could. I did not sweat writing frantically to copy whatever crap he was saying. I listened and summarized multiple of his sentences (teachers need (and often like) to repeat themselves) in a few words at most. I also devised my own shorthand to make it even quicker to write stuff down without getting tired. Back in my room, I would then read my notes and re-summarize them if not the same day, at the soonest opportunity so it was still fresh in my mind (this helps a lot). Internalizing that info make it so that as a student I could easily spend a lot of time partying or having fun (and I did) while still acing all my exams...without cheating, I mean.

Also, merely underlining passages in a book (even using many nice colors) is not of much use either. It's purpose should be to let you quickly locate what you think are meaningful sections, that's all. To understand/internalize the idea itself, the best way is still to summarize it into your own words. Be it a lecture or a book.

also happens when mom asks me if we have mustard in the fridge

I have no idea what's in our fridge or more exactly what needs refill. And why would I bother? Lists are made for that.

My spouse and I keep a small scrap of paper (usually, the back of an envelope—yep, we're that cheap ;)) for whatever is missing or soon will need resupply and the first of us the goes out to do some errands pick that list. Unsurprisingly, our fridge is always exactly like we want it without any effort from us to memorize anything. Mustard is getting low? Add it to list, problem solved. We all have limited brain power, don't waste it on useless crap like memorizing the content of your fridge.

Once again, all of this may sound obvious but that is also the fundamentals of learning/understanding and even memorizing anything. If you're willing to share more specific info on your issue maybe I, or anyone else more qualified, could give more specific suggestions?

What I'm pretty sure of is that more often than not that kind of difficulties is related to the process itself not to some inability.

Hope this helps.

Other Cons:

• Keep in mind a lot of people don't read much, if at all which is sad. Meanwhile, you still need to hire people.
• We're all motivated by money. Like you said you don't work for free. Neither would I. A job is a job and for most people it means sacrificing very precious hours of their time (time they will never get back, no matter how well they get paid) in exchange for that money. It's nothing but a contract which can be summarized as this: you give me money, I give you my expertise/willingness to sweat on my part of that contract. End of the contract. We're not family, we're not (yet) friends (and we never be), as an employer you have no say in what I do outside of work (no matter how it's becoming the norm to think the opposite), and what I like to read is none your business as my employer. Obviously, we may both be willing to talk about it but that's a personal choice. I just re-read P.K. Dick's Ubik, have you read it?

The same kind of morons sorry I meant to write very articulated persons that downvote posts everywhere on Lemmy, for no reason? Expecting them to express any semblance of reason in words would be like asking an oyster to do some tap dancing?

You should share some context: how do you study, in what conditions (quiet room, all by yourself, in a busy place, watching TV or listening to music?)? What do you study (Minecraft cheat codes, astrophysics, XIX French literature)? Using what methodology? (ie do you take notes or not, how. Do you read, and how?)

FYI, I cannot memorize anything if I'm not writing it down... longhand.
And I can hardly understand anything I read/study if I'm not taking notes while I'm studying/reading it. Even when I read a novel or an article, I take notes ;)

Thx for sharing. I do (happily) use Kagi as already stated in my other comment but I'm always willing to be more informed.

I've been using it for more than a year and it's worth every cent. It's not perfect, obviously, but it's already so good. Useful results (no SEO crap) no ads, no tracking, great filtering tools (those alone, to me at least, are already worth paying for) and real cool features. If you have not done so already, get their 100 search trial account and you will see how you like it. I did that and I switched to a paid sub less than 3 days later.

When my first year ended I thought to myself, well, I could try to save me some money here and did not renew kinda yeah, Kagi's cool and all but why pay when there are free options? I ran back to Kagi in the same month I decided to not renew ;)

I if I had to use a free search, it probably would be Brave Search, FYI