6 ms·

That is really cool project, but I can't give this to non technical people

by agilob 5y ago

anshumankmr 5y ago
Non technical people aren't the ones who use LibGen though, right? There are things like PDFDrive that has found some popularity in my country.
- davidivadavid 5y ago
  Not a "technical" person. Use LibGen all the time.
- selectodude 5y ago
  Sure they do. College students become highly technical when it’s paying for textbooks vs beer.
  - davidivadavid 5y ago
    I mean, using LibGen requires all of knowing how to visit a website and type words in a text input field. Not exactly technical?
    - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
      The way this works is that if you're in a highly competitive market where all the products are equally capable and one of them is at all easier to use, that one wins. Then people get the impression that everyone is a dunce because the slightest inconvenience causes them to give up and use something else. But then you come to something where there is only one way to do that thing, or the competition has some countervailing disadvantage, and suddenly Bob from accounts knows how to use AS/400.
- bigbillheck 5y ago
  My mother is one of the least technical people I know and also a regular libgen user.
ruined 5y ago
have you heard about Libgen Desktop, a Windows application for browsing a local copy of LibGen catalog
hagbard_c 5y ago
The tools are meant for those who live on the command line, this more or less excludes 'non-technical people'. For those non-technical people there is always the multitude of web things, the Windows tool which started this thread and the plain ol' Library, the which the Library Genesis project - that is, the original version as headed by Bookwarrior - aims/aimed to be. Let there always be tools tailored to specific group's needs, the one-size-fits-all approach nearly always ends up dumbing down the interface by removing 'difficult to use' functions and 'complicated' options to present a Fisher-prize interface with big happy buttons and lots of open space. Also notice that the Books tools weigh in at 47K compressed, there is something to be said for light and nimble tools.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
jrm4 5y ago
So lets work on making the people around us more technical.
- jrm4 5y ago
  Hacker news is mostly a nice forum; but the fact that the above got downvotes is a perfect representation of exactly what's wrong with it.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  Whilst I appreciate the sentiment, most plans based on the premise that "all the children are above average" can be true will fail. The Internet, WWW, and Google were once power-user tools. Global education has increased only modestly. The biggest change has been in lowering barriers to ease of use, including but not limited to the cost of tools. This isn't an unalloyed blessing --- the minimum viable user is both a blessing and curse: https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/69wk8y/the_tyranny_of_the_minimum_viable_user/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/69wk8y/the_tyr...
- kyleee 5y ago
  Only if they consent though, many people do not want to be technical
Samin100 5y ago
Alexandria [1] is pretty much a UI-based Mac app version of Books. I've been maintaining it for a while now and whenever I share it with someone non-technical Libgen's breadth blows their mind. [1]https://github.com/Samin100/Alexandria/releases https://github.com/Samin100/Alexandria/releases
- malshe 5y ago
  This looks great! Thanks for making it
- fao_ 5y ago
  Why do you advertise it as a mac-based app, when it's Electron based and should therefore be cross-platform?
  - Samin100 5y ago
    I just don’t have a Windows PC to test on. There are also a few Mac-specific quirks like opening the epubs in Apple Books.
    - fao_ 5y ago
      Linux support should be extremely simple to test and deploy. It'd be like an hour's task to write up a github action for it so you don't even need to have a local linux deploy or whatever. I was going to do it myself but the build scripts you made are incompatible with node 17.x.x (it requires exporting `NODE_OPTIONS=--openssl-legacy-provider`), and they also seem to assume that `react-scripts`, etc. are in the local environment, rather than including them portably as a yarn package dependency and then doing `yarn exec <xyz>`. There's too much weirdness here and I'm not familiar enough with the systems involved to even begin looking into making it compatible (I started, and then realised that I'm supposed to be relaxing from my fulltime job, not dealing with more weird new tech systems that don't behave sensibly).
      - jancsika 5y ago
        "This fence is so long and sprawling that even thinking about painting it negatively affects my health. But I bet you could knock it out in under an hour," Tom said to the other children. Later that afternoon, Aunt Polly arrived home to an unpainted fence.

That is really cool project, but I can't give this to non technical people

by agilob 5y ago

That is really cool project, but I can't give this to non technical people

Non technical people aren't the ones who use LibGen though, right? There are things like PDFDrive that has found some popularity in my country.

davidivadavid 5y ago
Not a "technical" person. Use LibGen all the time.
selectodude 5y ago
Sure they do. College students become highly technical when it’s paying for textbooks vs beer.
- davidivadavid 5y ago
  I mean, using LibGen requires all of knowing how to visit a website and type words in a text input field. Not exactly technical?
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    The way this works is that if you're in a highly competitive market where all the products are equally capable and one of them is at all easier to use, that one wins. Then people get the impression that everyone is a dunce because the slightest inconvenience causes them to give up and use something else. But then you come to something where there is only one way to do that thing, or the competition has some countervailing disadvantage, and suddenly Bob from accounts knows how to use AS/400.
bigbillheck 5y ago
My mother is one of the least technical people I know and also a regular libgen user.

ruined 5y ago

have you heard about Libgen Desktop, a Windows application for browsing a local copy of LibGen catalog

hagbard_c 5y ago

The tools are meant for those who live on the command line, this more or less excludes 'non-technical people'. For those non-technical people there is always the multitude of web things, the Windows tool which started this thread and the plain ol' Library, the which the Library Genesis project - that is, the original version as headed by Bookwarrior - aims/aimed to be. Let there always be tools tailored to specific group's needs, the one-size-fits-all approach nearly always ends up dumbing down the interface by removing 'difficult to use' functions and 'complicated' options to present a Fisher-prize interface with big happy buttons and lots of open space. Also notice that the Books tools weigh in at 47K compressed, there is something to be said for light and nimble tools.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

jrm4 5y ago

So lets work on making the people around us more technical.

jrm4 5y ago
Hacker news is mostly a nice forum; but the fact that the above got downvotes is a perfect representation of exactly what's wrong with it.
dredmorbius 5y ago
Whilst I appreciate the sentiment, most plans based on the premise that "all the children are above average" can be true will fail. The Internet, WWW, and Google were once power-user tools. Global education has increased only modestly. The biggest change has been in lowering barriers to ease of use, including but not limited to the cost of tools. This isn't an unalloyed blessing --- the minimum viable user is both a blessing and curse: https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/69wk8y/the_tyranny_of_the_minimum_viable_user/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/69wk8y/the_tyr...
kyleee 5y ago
Only if they consent though, many people do not want to be technical

Samin100 5y ago

Alexandria [1] is pretty much a UI-based Mac app version of Books. I've been maintaining it for a while now and whenever I share it with someone non-technical Libgen's breadth blows their mind. [1]https://github.com/Samin100/Alexandria/releases https://github.com/Samin100/Alexandria/releases

malshe 5y ago
This looks great! Thanks for making it
fao_ 5y ago
Why do you advertise it as a mac-based app, when it's Electron based and should therefore be cross-platform?
- Samin100 5y ago
  I just don’t have a Windows PC to test on. There are also a few Mac-specific quirks like opening the epubs in Apple Books.
  - fao_ 5y ago
    Linux support should be extremely simple to test and deploy. It'd be like an hour's task to write up a github action for it so you don't even need to have a local linux deploy or whatever. I was going to do it myself but the build scripts you made are incompatible with node 17.x.x (it requires exporting `NODE_OPTIONS=--openssl-legacy-provider`), and they also seem to assume that `react-scripts`, etc. are in the local environment, rather than including them portably as a yarn package dependency and then doing `yarn exec <xyz>`. There's too much weirdness here and I'm not familiar enough with the systems involved to even begin looking into making it compatible (I started, and then realised that I'm supposed to be relaxing from my fulltime job, not dealing with more weird new tech systems that don't behave sensibly).
    - jancsika 5y ago
      "This fence is so long and sprawling that even thinking about painting it negatively affects my health. But I bet you could knock it out in under an hour," Tom said to the other children. Later that afternoon, Aunt Polly arrived home to an unpainted fence.