I know you're (presumably) not the author of the website, but if you're going to produce a method based on the theory of faster/easier reading, it helps to not have a landing page that has up front in big massive fonts a sentence that my mind parses as:
"Did you know that we humans store learned words and so just a few letters your brain reads faster are enough to recognise whole words. than your eye?"
How can one take it seriously when the very first example on the webpage fails on reading cognition!
You need to enable experimental features in `prefs_user.config` by adding `enable_experimental_features 1` and then enable this mode using `toggle_fastread` command within sioyek.
I also experimented with more sophisticated algorithms, you can read about the experiment here:
Interesting. There's probably still more that could be done.
I'm probably weird but since I was a kid through high school (1960s-1970s) I was a subject of various research studies and advanced learning techniques. I don't exactly know why I ended up in these but it's probably "right place, right time".
A lot of these involved "speed reading" as well as "speed learning". What this code does definitely broaches some of what I was taught and what was at one time more widely known. There are other aspects that are missing that relate to typography and dynamic reading.
I saw this pop up on Twitter a couple of days ago and made a JS version with a variable font. https://codepen.io/onion2k/pen/qBxmVpR it's a fun idea, but I don't really find it helps me read things.
It seems like bionic reading highlights the first syllable of each word, while your version only highlights the first letter. It does make a difference, since the first syllable helps guess the word.
Not just you. I don't get the point of this either. I'm guessing it has something to do with your existing reading method? My eyes naturally jump to the first letters and tallest/round characters when determining the shape of a word.
There is an accelerated reader I played with a few years ago, based on flashing the words for you with some letters colored in red. That increased reading speed mildly, but the lack of ability to quickly backtrack defeated any gains.
Yeah it makes reading significantly harder for me. I recognize what they're trying to get my eyes to do but they already do that anyways and bolding half of everything on the page makes it harder for me to pick out the bits that matter. Bolding any part of "is", "in", "a", etc. is a hilarious choice to me.
No, you're not. I can't even read it. I can read colour-coded (i.e. syntax highlighted) text perfectly well though. This just completely shorts out my reading - might as well be hieroglyphics to me.
How the hell did they manage to patent this? At least in Germany it is still "pending". I had the strong impression that you cannot patent software or algorithms (at least in Germany).
From what little I know, in the US you can only file patents for "method and apparatus". I could be wrong but I think this is a very common restriction in patent systems around the world.
Suppose they file this patent for an ebook reader ("apparatus") with this specific feature implemented in a similar way ("method"). You would be in clear violation of the patent if you were to build and distribute a competing ebook reader with a substantially similar feature. But protection drops off rapidly the further you go from replicating both method and apparatus. I.e. if you only work on a piece of software (absent the ebook reader apparatus) I think you should be fine (but IANAL).
Now suppose you were to publish an Android ebook reader app with this feature, and publish it via Google Play. Supposedly this would result in a combined software and apparatus in violation of the patent. I'm not clear on how this is usually regarded (you'd have to at least worry about patent trolls I assume) but I doubt the patent owner has a legal leg to stand on (which won't necessarily stop them from trying).
This simply doesn't work for me. Maybe it's because I'm Autistic, but I can't even read text highlighted in this way. A friend posted up a side-by side example, and I couldn't read the first line in the time it took me to read the whole, plain passage. My eye simply won't follow the line - maybe I am getting distracted by the odd formatting. As a coder - used to syntax highlighting - this was very surprising, but for me, this is absolutely terrible.
I wonder if the effectiveness of bionic reading would be improved by using a gradient of weights for each character - instead of just bolding the first half of the word, as this extension does.
For example, Open Sans has six levels of weight: light, regular, medium, semi-bold, bold, and extra bold:
This definitely does not have the desired effect for me. The uneven contrast made me read slower since I found myself re-scanning the same words again to confirm their spelling. It's only slightly less distracting than reading rANdoMlY CaPitAliSeD tEXt.
Me too, I find it absolutely terrible. I read it at about 10% of the speed I usually read. In the sample I saw, I could read the plain version in a few seconds, but I just couldn't make any headway with the highlighted version. I'm used to syntax highlighting, which doesn't slow me down at all (might make in fact make reading code faster) but this just throws me for a loop.
I read through the sample and my eyes/brain were able to move over the lines incredibly quickly and recognize the words. I notice it only worked when my intent and goal was to move my eyes quickly over the lines. And, I noticed my eyes could do little fast forward skips as they passed over the words, which is not the norm for me. I don't think this technology would do anything for my retention though, I only skimmed the words. Maybe with practice I could read faster and retain the information as well at speed.
It is obvious that the improvement to this, is to highlight just the key words of a paragraph and not all words. Requires a way to figure out which words are the important words. Use some AI tool that understands a language.
It's too much clutter to highlight all words. No need for the connective words, etc.
Many have been doing this manually for a long time.
This is patent encumbered, so if you use it for a product, you’re setting yourself up for trouble down the line.
The project page should be updated to mention the patent situation IMO. The license is MIT, but that doesn’t mean you can use this without paying the patent holder whatever has asks.
This reminds me a little bit of the free Spreeder app (https://www.spreeder.com/app.php). I used it quite a bit at one point but forgot about it and that was that.
Im not totally sold that this is useful, but Im curious. I'll see if I can convert an epub and spend some time reading with their weird font thing on my remarkable. For science!
[+] [-] pxeger1|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] forgotpwd16|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ACow_Adonis|3 years ago|reply
I know you're (presumably) not the author of the website, but if you're going to produce a method based on the theory of faster/easier reading, it helps to not have a landing page that has up front in big massive fonts a sentence that my mind parses as:
"Did you know that we humans store learned words and so just a few letters your brain reads faster are enough to recognise whole words. than your eye?"
How can one take it seriously when the very first example on the webpage fails on reading cognition!
[+] [-] hexomancer|3 years ago|reply
https://github.com/ahrm/sioyek
You need to enable experimental features in `prefs_user.config` by adding `enable_experimental_features 1` and then enable this mode using `toggle_fastread` command within sioyek.
I also experimented with more sophisticated algorithms, you can read about the experiment here:
https://ahrm.github.io/jekyll/update/2022/04/14/using-langug...
[+] [-] FunnyBadger|3 years ago|reply
I'm probably weird but since I was a kid through high school (1960s-1970s) I was a subject of various research studies and advanced learning techniques. I don't exactly know why I ended up in these but it's probably "right place, right time".
A lot of these involved "speed reading" as well as "speed learning". What this code does definitely broaches some of what I was taught and what was at one time more widely known. There are other aspects that are missing that relate to typography and dynamic reading.
[+] [-] westcort|3 years ago|reply
javascript:(function(){var q="p, title",e=document.querySelectorAll(q),o=[],str1="",str0="",str="",j=0,pivotchar=0,finvar="",ans="",d=window.open("","_blank"); for(var i in e){var t=e[i].textContent; if(t){o = o + "\n" + t;}} str0 = o; str1=str0.replace(/\n/g, " <br></br> "); str=str1.split(" "); for(j=0;j<str.length;j++) { pivotchar=Math.floor((str[j].length)/3)+1; finvar = "<span style='font-weight:bolder'>" + str[j].substring(0,pivotchar) + "</span>" + "<span style='font-weight:lighter'>" + str[j].substring(pivotchar,str[j].length) + "</span>" + " "; if(str[j].substring(str[j].length-1,str[j].length)=='.') { finvar=finvar+"<span style='color:red'> * </span>"; } ans=ans+finvar; } d.document.write("<html><p style='font-size:40;line-height:200%;font-family:Arial'>"+ans+"</p></html>");})()
https://www.locserendipity.com/Hyper.html
[+] [-] ASalazarMX|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] onion2k|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ASalazarMX|3 years ago|reply
Edit: Other comment pointed to this bookmarklet, which does that: https://www.locserendipity.com/Hyper.html
[+] [-] vimy|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] loxias|3 years ago|reply
There is an accelerated reader I played with a few years ago, based on flashing the words for you with some letters colored in red. That increased reading speed mildly, but the lack of ability to quickly backtrack defeated any gains.
[+] [-] iamevn|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cybervegan|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ASalazarMX|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Arubis|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sdze|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nadavwr|3 years ago|reply
Suppose they file this patent for an ebook reader ("apparatus") with this specific feature implemented in a similar way ("method"). You would be in clear violation of the patent if you were to build and distribute a competing ebook reader with a substantially similar feature. But protection drops off rapidly the further you go from replicating both method and apparatus. I.e. if you only work on a piece of software (absent the ebook reader apparatus) I think you should be fine (but IANAL).
Now suppose you were to publish an Android ebook reader app with this feature, and publish it via Google Play. Supposedly this would result in a combined software and apparatus in violation of the patent. I'm not clear on how this is usually regarded (you'd have to at least worry about patent trolls I assume) but I doubt the patent owner has a legal leg to stand on (which won't necessarily stop them from trying).
[+] [-] cybervegan|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thorum|3 years ago|reply
For example, Open Sans has six levels of weight: light, regular, medium, semi-bold, bold, and extra bold:
https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Open+Sans
[+] [-] ushakov|3 years ago|reply
https://www.beelinereader.com/
[+] [-] amazing_stories|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] loxias|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] userbinator|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cybervegan|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] muhehe|3 years ago|reply
const mid Math.floor(preElem.length / 2); > <span className="bio-letter">{preElem.slice(0, mid)}</span>{preElem.slice(mid)}
I thought the original was more complex a nuanced than this.
[+] [-] EdSharkey|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stephc_int13|3 years ago|reply
I do not perceive any speed difference, there could be one but it would be marginal.
I am a fairly quick reader, I trained to read fast and extract content in high school.
[+] [-] cybervegan|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aritmo|3 years ago|reply
It's too much clutter to highlight all words. No need for the connective words, etc.
Many have been doing this manually for a long time.
[+] [-] bogwog|3 years ago|reply
The project page should be updated to mention the patent situation IMO. The license is MIT, but that doesn’t mean you can use this without paying the patent holder whatever has asks.
[+] [-] kristiandupont|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wedn3sday|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spencerchubb|3 years ago|reply