5 ms·

This guy sounds pretty ungrateful. He was able to read Robert X. Cringley's book "Accidental Empires" thanks to Archive.org's "virtual library card" service.

by 0898 8y ago

This guy sounds pretty ungrateful. He was able to read Robert X. Cringley's book "Accidental Empires" thanks to Archive.org's "virtual library card" service. This is a service where Archive.org sources a physical copy of a book for you, scans it, and lends it out to you digitally, one person at a time. Sounds like a useful service. But all this monumentally ungrateful guy can do is moan about how "aggressively user-hostile" is it because you have to double tap to open a book from the list.

mcguire 8y ago
Presumably, he would prefer the publishers' option of not having Archive.org online at all.
asveikau 8y ago
He said you need to be extremely precise with your finger to have a double tap register. This sounds like a legitimate usability complaint and reasonable feedback. Having UI feedback doesn't mean you don't appreciate what was done well. If the reply to a bug report is "but look at all I've done for you!" you're not going to fix many bugs and no one improves. (I have definitely been there, though.)
reaperducer 8y ago
A few of the local library systems I've used have the same Adobe Editions lending scheme, and it's terrible in so many ways that I just gave up on e-books from the library. On those rare occasions I want a an e-book these days, I go to iBooks or Nook because the library programs (including Bibliowhatsits) are so bad. Mostly I just buy the physical book, or order a physical copy from the library. It might take a few weeks to get from the other side of the country, but that's less hassle than dealing with the current state of library lending DRM.
FiddlyPack 8y ago
Oh please. He sounded quite grateful to archive.org. He sounds frustrated because the mobile application developers didn’t think that maybe double tapping a single pixel is extremely difficult to register on a touchscreen. The app dangles content in front of you, tells you that you can have it, but then it seems impossible to actually get to it. That’s the epitome of frustrating software. That software has nothing to do with gratitude to archive.org.

by 0898 8y ago

mcguire 8y ago

Presumably, he would prefer the publishers' option of not having Archive.org online at all.

asveikau 8y ago

He said you need to be extremely precise with your finger to have a double tap register. This sounds like a legitimate usability complaint and reasonable feedback. Having UI feedback doesn't mean you don't appreciate what was done well. If the reply to a bug report is "but look at all I've done for you!" you're not going to fix many bugs and no one improves. (I have definitely been there, though.)

reaperducer 8y ago

A few of the local library systems I've used have the same Adobe Editions lending scheme, and it's terrible in so many ways that I just gave up on e-books from the library. On those rare occasions I want a an e-book these days, I go to iBooks or Nook because the library programs (including Bibliowhatsits) are so bad. Mostly I just buy the physical book, or order a physical copy from the library. It might take a few weeks to get from the other side of the country, but that's less hassle than dealing with the current state of library lending DRM.

FiddlyPack 8y ago

Oh please. He sounded quite grateful to archive.org. He sounds frustrated because the mobile application developers didn’t think that maybe double tapping a single pixel is extremely difficult to register on a touchscreen. The app dangles content in front of you, tells you that you can have it, but then it seems impossible to actually get to it. That’s the epitome of frustrating software. That software has nothing to do with gratitude to archive.org.