10 ms·

Glad to hear you're liking the project! We just added bulk downloads too, for the collector in you: https://standardebooks.org/bulk-downloads https://standardeb

by acabal 4y ago

Glad to hear you're liking the project! We just added bulk downloads too, for the collector in you: https://standardebooks.org/bulk-downloads https://standardebooks.org/bulk-downloads

unnouinceput 4y ago
Since this is on top of HN now, you'll get hit by the crowd. You might want to implement torrent support too, so you won't get hit that hard.
- m463 4y ago
  it requires an email address/login so it won't be hit that hard. (no disrespect intended)
- acabal 4y ago
  We've been front paged before without problems :) See https://alexcabal.com/posts/standard-ebooks-and-classic-web-tech https://alexcabal.com/posts/standard-ebooks-and-classic-web-... (Though that article is now out of date, as we now have a database running that handles things like patron registration, though it still doesn't index ebooks.)
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    This web stack sounds hopelessly anachronistic. If you’d just use a modern stack you could serve 10x less requests with more hardware.
    - irrational 4y ago
      You had me in the first half ;-)
    - zolland 4y ago
      Sounds pretty far from hopeless to me
      - irrational 4y ago
        Closely read the second half again.
    - sk0g 4y ago
      So would you say they are just not web scale yet?! They seem to be serving millions of books per month on a cheap VM. For once a smaller website didn't crash upon hitting the front page, so I don't really see any problems here.
      - _carbyau_ 4y ago
        Read the comment again, you brain may have made automatic corrections - as mine did upon first read. :-) There is more than a little cynicism there.
        sk0g 4y ago
        Oh you're right, my bad! Definitely glazed over good chunks of the comment because I've seen similar takes without the sarcasm ad nauseam. I did read anachronistic as antagonistic (?) and less as more. Brain auto-correct may just be worse than the phone keyboard one!
    - tambourine_man 4y ago
      The sarcasm almost flew right past me.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - baq 4y ago
      I love the old hattedness of this comment. Aeolun must have been around and seen things.
  - tambourine_man 4y ago
    God, I loved this article. I kept nodding to the point of almost exclaiming agreement out loud. It’s rare to see some good sense in this industry, which is almost completely fashion and hype/novelty driven, despite supposedly being a technical field.
  - tigerlily 4y ago
    > For example, once you start with AWS and its eldritch coterie of inscrutable services Ohh dang this is good prose, and a great read to boot. Thank you!
mchusma 4y ago
Hi, I am curious if you might consider publishing directly to the stores (Kindle) as a free book (or $0.99). It would make it easier for people to access. I am an engineer but failed to try and get a kindle book downloaded and read last night after seeing your post. So I imagine your work is out of grasp to all but the most technical who have a computer handy. I was 100% on my phone (no computer to upload), and I just couldn't figure it out and gave up. I would support you over other publishers.
- acabal 4y ago
  Kindle is one of the worst reading platforms and it looks like this kind of difficulty is one more reason why. If you're on your phone, try using almost any other ereading app and download our epub files instead. Amazon expressly forbids any more free public domain ebooks on their platform. But our ebooks are available at the Google Play store and in the Apple store, for free.
  - neves 4y ago
    There was a hack to publish a book for free in Google Play and ask for a price match from Amazon. Does it still work?
    - acabal 4y ago
      Not sure, but even if Amazon allowed more free public domain books, it wouldn't make much sense to post there because their store is so saturated with low-quality junk editions. There isn't much point in being on the 20th page of search results for "Pride and Prejudice".
- WorldMaker 4y ago
  Without a desktop intermediary your best bet is to email the file to your kindle from your phone. By default kindles have a random generated email address. You can customize the email address to something memorable in your kindle settings (and also in Amazon's Devices settings web pages) or just add the random generated address to your contact list. There's a bunch of tutorials on it you can find that try to make it easy to figure out where these settings pages are. But of course Amazon likes to move that cheese every few months and A/B test "improvements" to the pages and page designs so tutorials also get outdated quickly.

by acabal 4y ago

Glad to hear you're liking the project! We just added bulk downloads too, for the collector in you: https://standardebooks.org/bulk-downloads https://standardebooks.org/bulk-downloads

unnouinceput 4y ago

Since this is on top of HN now, you'll get hit by the crowd. You might want to implement torrent support too, so you won't get hit that hard.

m463 4y ago
it requires an email address/login so it won't be hit that hard. (no disrespect intended)
acabal 4y ago
We've been front paged before without problems :) See https://alexcabal.com/posts/standard-ebooks-and-classic-web-tech https://alexcabal.com/posts/standard-ebooks-and-classic-web-... (Though that article is now out of date, as we now have a database running that handles things like patron registration, though it still doesn't index ebooks.)
- Aeolun 4y ago
  This web stack sounds hopelessly anachronistic. If you’d just use a modern stack you could serve 10x less requests with more hardware.
  - irrational 4y ago
    You had me in the first half ;-)
  - zolland 4y ago
    Sounds pretty far from hopeless to me
    - irrational 4y ago
      Closely read the second half again.
  - sk0g 4y ago
    So would you say they are just not web scale yet?! They seem to be serving millions of books per month on a cheap VM. For once a smaller website didn't crash upon hitting the front page, so I don't really see any problems here.
    - _carbyau_ 4y ago
      Read the comment again, you brain may have made automatic corrections - as mine did upon first read. :-) There is more than a little cynicism there.
      - sk0g 4y ago
        Oh you're right, my bad! Definitely glazed over good chunks of the comment because I've seen similar takes without the sarcasm ad nauseam. I did read anachronistic as antagonistic (?) and less as more. Brain auto-correct may just be worse than the phone keyboard one!
  - tambourine_man 4y ago
    The sarcasm almost flew right past me.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - baq 4y ago
    I love the old hattedness of this comment. Aeolun must have been around and seen things.
- tambourine_man 4y ago
  God, I loved this article. I kept nodding to the point of almost exclaiming agreement out loud. It’s rare to see some good sense in this industry, which is almost completely fashion and hype/novelty driven, despite supposedly being a technical field.
- tigerlily 4y ago
  > For example, once you start with AWS and its eldritch coterie of inscrutable services Ohh dang this is good prose, and a great read to boot. Thank you!

mchusma 4y ago

Hi, I am curious if you might consider publishing directly to the stores (Kindle) as a free book (or $0.99). It would make it easier for people to access. I am an engineer but failed to try and get a kindle book downloaded and read last night after seeing your post. So I imagine your work is out of grasp to all but the most technical who have a computer handy. I was 100% on my phone (no computer to upload), and I just couldn't figure it out and gave up. I would support you over other publishers.

acabal 4y ago
Kindle is one of the worst reading platforms and it looks like this kind of difficulty is one more reason why. If you're on your phone, try using almost any other ereading app and download our epub files instead. Amazon expressly forbids any more free public domain ebooks on their platform. But our ebooks are available at the Google Play store and in the Apple store, for free.
- neves 4y ago
  There was a hack to publish a book for free in Google Play and ask for a price match from Amazon. Does it still work?
  - acabal 4y ago
    Not sure, but even if Amazon allowed more free public domain books, it wouldn't make much sense to post there because their store is so saturated with low-quality junk editions. There isn't much point in being on the 20th page of search results for "Pride and Prejudice".
WorldMaker 4y ago
Without a desktop intermediary your best bet is to email the file to your kindle from your phone. By default kindles have a random generated email address. You can customize the email address to something memorable in your kindle settings (and also in Amazon's Devices settings web pages) or just add the random generated address to your contact list. There's a bunch of tutorials on it you can find that try to make it easy to figure out where these settings pages are. But of course Amazon likes to move that cheese every few months and A/B test "improvements" to the pages and page designs so tutorials also get outdated quickly.