6 ms·

I am surprised that YC would make this page so remarkably mobile-unfriendly. I don't have the time to listen to the interview, I just want to read the transcrip

I am surprised that YC would make this page so remarkably mobile-unfriendly. I don't have the time to listen to the interview, I just want to read the transcript. They could have just pasted it in a reader-friendly format, but instead it's in an annoying Scribd applet. I don't want to sign up for their service or download the app, not to mention that it's a terrible mobile reader anyway. This was very disappointing.

sneak 10y ago
Yeah, kudos to Scribd for perhaps the maximum LOC codebase for "how to make plain text completely fucking unusable". There's real irony there in it being an article about delivering value to society through making useful technology.
- thaumaturgy 10y ago
  ...and copy-pasting it into a text editor gives you an unintelligible wall of text, and copy-pasting it into LibreOffice causes it to hang. Ha, that's actually kind of impressive, in a really perverse sort of way. I'm so glad Scribd is helping with the effort to carve the open web into a series of uncooperative fiefdoms.
- thaumaturgy 10y ago
  OK, I was able to clean it up into plain text and post it to Pastebin: http://pastebin.com/vcEe9KWP http://pastebin.com/vcEe9KWP Used the $$ selector in Chrome to find Scribd's .ff0 elements, copied them into SublimeText, did some regex work to clean out the tags (a span element for every line? with absolute positioning? Really Scribd?), and then exploited the fact that paragraphs got jammed together with no whitespace between the last punctuation and the beginning of the next paragraph to use a regex to auto-break the paragraphs. Not pretty, but should be readable.
  - suraj_sindhia 10y ago
    Thank you very much.
  - TaylorAlexander 10y ago
    I wish somebody had created some kind of universal markup language for text, that would let us easily share it...
    - jasonsync 10y ago
      There must be a framework for that ...
      - aalbertson 10y ago
        Need a new standard...
  - wonkaWonka 10y ago
    Oh, so much better. Thank you jesus! In other communities, to circumvent asinine ploys at lock-in, someone would just brute force the pdf file with a burner facebook login, and repost it. But then, you'd still be stuck with a pdf.
  - techmicrobiz 10y ago
    Thanks for this. Plain text is so much easier!
  - kragen 10y ago
    Your work is awesome. Thank you so much. Here, I pasted it into a gist so that it's not in a typewriter font. I thought it would also fix the lines being 25 words long but it didn't, but it's still an improvement: https://gist.github.com/anonymous/3ea317a1f71bbfeca6df5d84693b2666 https://gist.github.com/anonymous/3ea317a1f71bbfeca6df5d8469...
  - jbpetersen 10y ago
    Some prettiness to go with what you already accomplished: https://cdn.rawgit.com/JeffreyBPetersen/5a3198c940ccca39ff6311f7d00918d6/raw/f73dd72926a8c123ad0682fa546fbcbcbb748e31/transcript.html https://cdn.rawgit.com/JeffreyBPetersen/5a3198c940ccca39ff63... Unfortunately the transcript is missing past a point. I haven't checked to see if that's the case in the original document. edit - Looks like I should've refreshed the thread first: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12514873 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12514873
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
- leonskum 10y ago
  Especially ironic considering sama/YC funded Scribd. Really shows the quality of their work!
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- coldpie 10y ago
  Scribd is one of the most garbage technologies I have ever seen. I have no idea what they do other than fuck up what should be plain text.
- marmshallow 10y ago
  LOC?
  - tim333 10y ago
    lines of code
trhaynes 10y ago
Had the same issue. Wanted to add to Instapaper so I could read on the subway.
enraged_camel 10y ago
>>I am surprised that YC would make this page so remarkably mobile-unfriendly. You are surprised? Are you forgetting that Hacker News itself was, as of a few months ago, a horrible experience on mobile?
- swiley 10y ago
  It's always been well behaved and predictable though. And if you have a mobile browser that forces text to wrap when you zoom in (I don't know how you brows the web without this) then it really was fine.
schwarrrtz 10y ago
also, whoever / whatever transcribed this did a terrible job. 'accelerate the transmission to sustainable energy'...
- tomcam 10y ago
  Sounds like an excellent assignment for someone of your considerable skill. Have at it!
  - schwarrrtz 10y ago
    s/transmission/transition. if you've got an interview with Musk, the least you can do is proofread the article.
ptero 10y ago
Yes. I looked at it on my phone, then thought screw it. I will read it when I'm behind a real monitor.
joe563323 10y ago
It is great to bring this topic on mobile unfriendly display. The posts like these are ones that make keep coming back to hackernews. It reminds me that there are people who really care of the things i care about.
asdfologist 10y ago
Scribd is desktop-unfriendly. Not sure what's so horrible about just including the text directly in the page.

sneak 10y ago

Yeah, kudos to Scribd for perhaps the maximum LOC codebase for "how to make plain text completely fucking unusable". There's real irony there in it being an article about delivering value to society through making useful technology.

thaumaturgy 10y ago
...and copy-pasting it into a text editor gives you an unintelligible wall of text, and copy-pasting it into LibreOffice causes it to hang. Ha, that's actually kind of impressive, in a really perverse sort of way. I'm so glad Scribd is helping with the effort to carve the open web into a series of uncooperative fiefdoms.
thaumaturgy 10y ago
OK, I was able to clean it up into plain text and post it to Pastebin: http://pastebin.com/vcEe9KWP http://pastebin.com/vcEe9KWP Used the $$ selector in Chrome to find Scribd's .ff0 elements, copied them into SublimeText, did some regex work to clean out the tags (a span element for every line? with absolute positioning? Really Scribd?), and then exploited the fact that paragraphs got jammed together with no whitespace between the last punctuation and the beginning of the next paragraph to use a regex to auto-break the paragraphs. Not pretty, but should be readable.
- suraj_sindhia 10y ago
  Thank you very much.
- TaylorAlexander 10y ago
  I wish somebody had created some kind of universal markup language for text, that would let us easily share it...
  - jasonsync 10y ago
    There must be a framework for that ...
    - aalbertson 10y ago
      Need a new standard...
- wonkaWonka 10y ago
  Oh, so much better. Thank you jesus! In other communities, to circumvent asinine ploys at lock-in, someone would just brute force the pdf file with a burner facebook login, and repost it. But then, you'd still be stuck with a pdf.
- techmicrobiz 10y ago
  Thanks for this. Plain text is so much easier!
- kragen 10y ago
  Your work is awesome. Thank you so much. Here, I pasted it into a gist so that it's not in a typewriter font. I thought it would also fix the lines being 25 words long but it didn't, but it's still an improvement: https://gist.github.com/anonymous/3ea317a1f71bbfeca6df5d84693b2666 https://gist.github.com/anonymous/3ea317a1f71bbfeca6df5d8469...
- jbpetersen 10y ago
  Some prettiness to go with what you already accomplished: https://cdn.rawgit.com/JeffreyBPetersen/5a3198c940ccca39ff6311f7d00918d6/raw/f73dd72926a8c123ad0682fa546fbcbcbb748e31/transcript.html https://cdn.rawgit.com/JeffreyBPetersen/5a3198c940ccca39ff63... Unfortunately the transcript is missing past a point. I haven't checked to see if that's the case in the original document. edit - Looks like I should've refreshed the thread first: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12514873 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12514873
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
leonskum 10y ago
Especially ironic considering sama/YC funded Scribd. Really shows the quality of their work!
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
coldpie 10y ago
Scribd is one of the most garbage technologies I have ever seen. I have no idea what they do other than fuck up what should be plain text.
marmshallow 10y ago
LOC?
- tim333 10y ago
  lines of code

trhaynes 10y ago

Had the same issue. Wanted to add to Instapaper so I could read on the subway.

enraged_camel 10y ago

>>I am surprised that YC would make this page so remarkably mobile-unfriendly. You are surprised? Are you forgetting that Hacker News itself was, as of a few months ago, a horrible experience on mobile?

swiley 10y ago
It's always been well behaved and predictable though. And if you have a mobile browser that forces text to wrap when you zoom in (I don't know how you brows the web without this) then it really was fine.

schwarrrtz 10y ago

also, whoever / whatever transcribed this did a terrible job. 'accelerate the transmission to sustainable energy'...

tomcam 10y ago
Sounds like an excellent assignment for someone of your considerable skill. Have at it!
- schwarrrtz 10y ago
  s/transmission/transition. if you've got an interview with Musk, the least you can do is proofread the article.

ptero 10y ago

Yes. I looked at it on my phone, then thought screw it. I will read it when I'm behind a real monitor.

joe563323 10y ago

It is great to bring this topic on mobile unfriendly display. The posts like these are ones that make keep coming back to hackernews. It reminds me that there are people who really care of the things i care about.

asdfologist 10y ago

Scribd is desktop-unfriendly. Not sure what's so horrible about just including the text directly in the page.