back
100 comments
I like to read a physical dirty (ink dust, not content) finger newspapers whenever I can get them. At a bakery / cafe a few weeks ago, sitting outside having cherry Danish and an Americano (the international special), I was reading the NYT and the SeaTimes section by section. It was awesome. Comics, international, regional beats, magazines. I realized somewhere in the middle of the caffeine and sugar rush, just what a huge effort it takes to put out a DAILY newspaper. It's incedible, even without considering the cheap price.

There was a couple nearby looking at the mess of papers on my table. I realized I needed to tidy my donnage pile of sections, and impulsively offered them to the couple. They almost jumped. If I didn't know better I swear they were living out some fantasy of holding a newspaper for the first time.

> I realized somewhere in the middle of the caffeine and sugar rush, just what a huge effort it takes to put out a DAILY newspaper. It's incredible, even without considering the cheap price.

Former newspaper editor here. We took it for granted at the time, but the orchestration of different teams on a daily basis, with all kinds of cascading workflows and triggers, was something to behold. Editorial, design, special sections, ads, production, printing ... plus all of the smaller teams (copy desk, sports, etc.) and ad-hoc collaborations for instance involving a special event or major news story.

You'd go home late (or more often than not in those days, to the bar) feeling good about what your team had just shipped and looking forward to getting the hard copy early the next morning (sometimes when leaving said bar!). And then you'd start all over again around 11 am. It was far more intense than magazine or book publishing, which I got into later.

And this was in the 90s. Technology was making things faster, but there were still a lot of older analog systems in place including photography darkrooms. Once I even had to call in a breaking late story over a pay phone, dictating it to the editor on duty. Laptops were rare and expensive, and even the people who used them typically saved to a floppy which would be brought in to the newsroom later to be edited.

We had primitive terminal-based word processors (we called it "CText" but I can't locate any reference to it now) and I got started just as Quark Xpress entered the design workflow, replacing xacto knives and bits of paper and opaque plastic that was somehow imaged and sent to the printers. If you went back 30 years earlier, they were still using linotype.

> and an Americano (the international special),

Now I'm curious what you mean with "the international special"? Here (international to you perhaps; Spain) an Americano is just a espresso with lots more water, tastes more or less the same as drip coffee, perhaps a tad bit stronger as it's a diluted espresso. But never heard of a "international special" version, what could that be? :)

I similarly also like the tactile things but of things in general. Like a really good, solid, fluid and responsive knob is a really great feeling, or the keys of pianos that ranges from such a difference of emotion they give you hand. Or the surfaces of really well-made metal surfaces.

And some used to have multiple daily editions!
I had this feeling recently at a local fair when a local online-only news site produced thier first-ever physical edition. It was great, I read through the entire thing while waiting for the parade.
same here! Also for Airports, trains etc... sometimes I even buy one, which is often around 6 - 7 bucks, esp. weekend issues

(haha, 6 - 7 bucks for a printed mag on paper - seems somehow surreal these days? Esp since its "a one day useable product" mainly, while you can get some of these news app subscriptions for 10 bucks and you get every stuff tons of stuff)

In my regular RSS reader I often have the problem that some feeds are not full feeds, or some images are missing (In case they have some gallery) and I have to click out to the page, even just to verify I got the full text. That always kinda stops me from going the eink route where I don’t have a proper browser.

Depends on which feeds you subscribe to I guess, probably works really well for long form, reliable feeds.

A majority of the feeds I subscribe to do not include the full text in the feed themselves which is one of the main reasons I use Miniflux which has an option to fetch the full article text and works very reliably. Of the more than 150 feeds I am subscribed to, I think there are fewer than 5 that Miniflux is unable to fetch the text for. Miniflux can also connect to Wallabag to quickly save pages to it using the full text. That is great because Wallabag is often unable to fetch text directly on its own.
One way to get around this in some cases is to subscribe to the feed's associated email newsletter, which, IME, is more likely to have the full text of the article. This, of course, introduces other problems[1], but if your goal is to remove reasons to habitually look at your phone, it's worth investigating.

[1] The feed needs to have a newsletter in the first place, you probably need to clean up the markdown a bit before shoving it into an epub (I've noticed that table-based layouts are much more common, for instance), and your email provider probably doesn't provide an RSS feed of your inbox. The latter two are straightforward to fix but do require a bit of programming elbow grease.

I built a RSS feed hydrator just for this. It grabs the basic feed and adds whatever I need to it.

Then it generates a new one that I subscribe to on my feed reader.

I really like the idea of reading blogs on my Kindle, so I built https://inkfeed.xyz

It's a web-based RSS reader optimized for e-ink devices (especially Kindles) that allows you to read blogs online via the Kindle browser, and download the blogs (directly on your Kindle or email it to your Kindle email).

And it does support fetching the full article using Mozilla's readability package!

Please try it and let me know what you think!

https://rcarmo.github.io/projects/picoflux/ fixes that for me.
An Android eink device would solve this problem. I'd like recommendations.
The really annoying ones are substack as it often wants you to sign in to access even free full text posts.
This doesn't work for me in spite of over 10 years of trying. I am currently eating lunch and wasting time on HN on my phone, but my ebook reader full of edifying material is sitting there ignored on the table, right in front of me. I need some way of leaving the phone at home completely, but in my country so much basic everyday stuff relies on a phone (and strong bank authentication through a phone).
I've found having draconian phone blocking rules helps. I use Jomo

https://jomo.so

but I'm sure there are other competing products.

Roughly, you can classify apps in your phone to things that

1. are fundamentally fine (various bank/payment apps, messaging app, map apps), and

2. are known time wasters (social media)

you then just block the time wasters. you can configure it so that to edit the settings of the app, you have to enter some 150 character randomized code. it is very annoying to do.

this is the point though. there are other ways you can add friction to using your phone. setting its display to be black and white makes it much less enjoyable to use, for example. if you add in enough friction (and stick with it over an initial "hump"), you'll findi yourself reaching for other options.

For me it’s about building a routine. I go to a coffee shop every morning with my kindle and phone. Phone in my pocket on do not disturb and just read for an hour.

It’s not that hard to disconnect if you really want to.

Set your phone to display only in greyscale. It takes all the fun and cartoonishness out of it, which is a good thing.
I always hear the “I need my phone for bank stuff” but can’t you just leave your phone at home and then schedule going to the bank if it’s that necessary to a part of your day? I can’t imagine you need to be interacting with the bank 24/7/365.
Calibre does this for you and has for a long time. Docs: https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/news.html

I used to read lwn.net from my e-reader, worked great.

I have an X4 as well and tried going down this path but it's just a bit too much friction for me to set my X4 to hotspot mode and run the calibre sync every time I want to refresh my feed.

Absolutely love the idea though. Just wish Crosspoint/X4 had the ability to schedule push/pull, but that would likely burn through the battery.

Lack of a decent RSS client is one of the major things keeping me on an iPad over an e-ink tablet. I wish manufacturers like Remarkable would get serious about having software platforms.
My wife bought a large PocketBook (almost A4 size screen) e-reader and just last night I discovered it has a built in RSS reader.

No function to import or export OPML, unfortunately.

But adding a few high value feeds would be worth our time I guess.

This looks almost as cool as what we were promised in the late 90s on Discovery Channel's "Beyond 2000." Except that instead of a small hard handheld device, it was something flexible, and more the size of an actual newspaper.
I’ve got an X4 as well, and https://rcarmo.github.io/projects/bun-readlater-epub/ and https://rcarmo.github.io/projects/bun-opds-server/ were created for it.

I have also added an e-ink theme to https://rcarmo.github.io/projects/picoflux/ so I can use the browser on my Nomad instead of my iPad, for those trips where I want to read “live” news but not be suckered in by it (and picoflux is how I deal with title-only feeds as well)

In case it is useful for anybody.

I forked the old Pocket-Plus-Calibre-Plugin recipe when Pocket died, so it run with Todoist: https://github.com/rga5321/todoist2ebook

My workflow is:

(1) Browse my favorite sites and rss feeds. Save the urls I want to read to a specific Todoist list. I coded a little extension for firefox to do it using a keyboard shortcut https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/todoist-quick.... But in some sites, every feed is added to the list automatically using IFTTT

(2) Every day at a given hour, a cronjob runs on my raspberry pi executing the script, which builds a epub, mark the articles (tasks in todoist) as completed, and sends the ebook to my kindle email address.

In general it works well, although as more web sites implements anti bot measures, some articles are not downloaded correctly. What I do in those cases is add the domain to the exception list, and every week or so browse the articles manually, use https://dotepub.com to download every article in a given folder, and run another script that joins them in a single file and sends it to my kindle email address. I'd like to find time to code that the main script todoist2ebook detects when an article has not been correctly processed so it can automate that fallback logic using chrome headless or something like that.

Final note, I used todoist to store the articles because I was already using it for task management and have a simple rest api, but the script could be easily modified to store the articles somewhere else.

I had a similar idea on https://tuhat.net/

You can browse it on your ereader and any post can be downloaded as epub. Also for people who serialize books and put them in a collection, you can get the whole collection as a single epub.

I've been thinking about turning your /reading list into one as well but not got ten round to it.

I did this for a while when I was learning Spanish! I used Calibre's CLI on my Raspi which generated the epubs from RSS feeds I'd chosen (Spanish-language media like El País, ABC — I speak in the Peninsular variety) and sent it to my Kindle via e-mail. It did this every morning. Can't stress how much this has helped me with the language. Unfortunately, my Rapsi died some months ago and I haven't gotten around to somehow replicate this workflow without it.
I have crossink which is awesome on the x3. I find it better with more features on top of crossink.

And then setup home assistant and picture rendering so when a package or person is detected while I'm reading on a jailbroke kindle, it pops up in the corner automatically with the feed so I can see who it is.

Tailscale too.

Having full control of these devices is awesome.

Seems like a good place to plug: https://codeberg.org/neo1/mkebook

it's a bash script front end for curl-cffi -> pandoc i.e. impersonate web-browser to download url, then convert to epub. There is also the option to use chromium for the scraper or ebook-convert for the converter. Some config and you have a (rss reader) newsboat -> calibre with a hotkey.

I'm still reasonably pleased with my CNN-to-newspaper scripts.

Discussed / screenshots: <https://toot.cat/@dredmorbius/114356066459105122>

Unfortunately nonsubstantive HN discussion: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43723661>

Works quite well on an e-ink tablet, as well as on desktop.

Nxtpaper products of tcl are almost as good as eink but without losing the color and screen speed of normal phones. Just change the mode with a switch and you have an ereader. Mate screen and colors and light like an eink device.
It's interesting to see in the post that the reading experience in the web page highly contrasts with the one in the eReader.

The website shows 15 words in the first line (10 in mobile). The eReader shows 6 words in the first line. In my own experience, I found that 6 word per line is the optimal number for comfort. (age thing? maybe)

I'll throw my 2 cents into the mix of "what works for me" posts. FreshRSS (share to Wallabag enabled) + Wallabag + KOReader (on kobo). I've been toying with the idea of trying to add Wallabag sync into Crosspoint, as I have an x4 but it's pretty much just sat doing nothing.

I have a Mudita Kompact though, which I use with the Wallabag app and my best mate Alan from RHVoice to read out articles for me. I remember barely anything with this setup but I do like it...

I have a similar automated setup: article -> ePub -> Kavita -> OPDS -> e-reader.

That way there’s no friction of getting new articles on my device and I can even sync progress across devices.

I really like the idea of reading blogs on my Kindle, so I built https://inkfeed.xyz

It's a web-based RSS reader optimized for e-ink devices (especially Kindles) that allows you to read blogs online via the Kindle browser, and download the blogs (directly on your Kindle or email it to your Kindle email).

I would love to get the feedback of fellow e-ink devices enjoyers!

I use Instapaper on my kobo for this, ifttt or zappier can subscribe an rss feed to Instapaper, also the browser extension is nice. See some article whilst I'm at work, click the browser extension, and when I'm on the train home Its there on my e-reader.
I still use Omnivore, just self-hosted now. I recently added a better RSS Reader to it, so now I can get my rss feeds, and save them to my read it later list - and then read them on my Supernote using the android app or web app.
I've been working on the same thing for my ReMarkable, but I get it uploaded as a newspaper doc every morning since you can't install apps on it. Overall it's been working reasonably well!
I love my Xteink, it's such an intentional way of consuming content. I have a similar setup to OP. Here's my codex automation:

> Find three diverse, substantive Hacker News articles submitted within the previous 24 hours. Prefer readable linked articles rather than discussion-only, video, paywalled, or repository pages. For each selection, extract a clean UTF-8 XHTML-compatible article fragment and use dotepub's API to create an EPUB under public/books/ with a descriptive `Title - Author.epub` filename. Fix any EPUB 2 packaging or markup problems, including an invalid `xml:lang` on the OPF package element, and require every file to pass `epubcheck` with no errors before upload. Avoid duplicates already present locally or in the production OPDS catalog. Upload only the three newly created EPUB files to `hetzner:/opt/opds/public/books/`; never sync or delete the whole directory. Then verify production `/up` returns 200, unauthenticated `/opds.xml` returns 401, authenticated `/opds.xml` returns 200 and includes all three titles, each download returns `Content-Type: application/epub+zip`, and deployed copies pass `epubcheck`. Report the selected article titles and URLs, filenames, and verification results. Follow the repository AGENTS.md instructions and keep production credentials secret.

I have an X3 and it’s great!

I think this idea is really cool but like others have said it’s the friction of syncing that stops me. I would love for CrossPoint to have a nightly sync :)

This is wonderful.

About the only good thing to come out of the open web dying is a revitalization of open and accessible computing hobbies.

The issue with RSS on my e-reader is 1. the amount of feeds I'm subscribed to and 2. I'm often using my e-reader when I'm offline.

1. is not an issue on my computer/smartphone as I can scroll through the feeds and go through interesting links quickly, the keybindings help me do that quickly.

2. Can either be fixed by downloading all links when online (not practical in my case), or by picking and choosing which articles I want to read later.

I used to use Wallabag for this, but right now my setup is a self-hosted Readeck [0] instance with the associated KOReader plugin [1].

I really like Readeck because contrary to Wallaback (which I also used because there is a KOReader plugin for it) it captures the content from a page from the client-side through the browser extension [2]. That helps with paywalled articles which don't expose the full feed through RSS typically.

[0] https://codeberg.org/readeck/readeck

[1] https://github.com/iceyear/readeck.koplugin

[2] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/readeck/

Perhaps this is sufficient reason to connect my KOreader to the internet for the first time...
Now if only it was newspaper sized!
dude this is actually kinda cool ngl
<3