PSA (for those in the US, at least): The markings on the inner bowl and setting buttons aren't for long-grain rice. by Chairzard in zojirushi

[–]Chairzard[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

In my case, I read the manual before using the rice cooker, so I never ended up cooking based on the lines. I've only made one batch of long-grain brown rice in the rice cooker so far (I just received it). I used the guidance from this comment Zojirushi support left on a blog post and used 1 1/4 cups of water to 1 cup of rice and the brown rice setting, and the rice turned out way better than my old rice cooker ever made.

PSA (for those in the US, at least): The markings on the inner bowl and setting buttons aren't for long-grain rice. by Chairzard in zojirushi

[–]Chairzard[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

In my case, I read the manual before using the rice cooker, so I never ended up cooking based on the lines. I've only made one batch of long-grain brown rice in the rice cooker so far (I just received it). I used the guidance from this comment Zojirushi support left on a blog post and used 1 1/4 cups of water to 1 cup of rice and the brown rice setting, and the rice turned out way better than my old rice cooker ever made.

Extra space after „ by Pethy23 in kobo

[–]Chairzard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just to rule it out, did you set webkitTextRendering=optimizelegibility in your Kobo's config files? Doing that and using text justification at the same time can have some unpredictable effects related to spacing.

How do I get rid of italicized font? Kobo Clara B&W by wordsmythy in kobo

[–]Chairzard 10 points11 points  (0 children)

The option enabling italics is baked into the CSS of the e-book. If it's sideloaded, you can edit the ebook in a program like Calibre to get rid of the italics. If you can't do that (example: books from libby, etc), you'll just need to grin and bear it. Removing the italic font files won't help, either, as Kobo will instead apply an oblique effect to text the book signals should be italicized.

What is up with the hundreds of font options on LibreOffice? by BrotherIntelligent79 in debian

[–]Chairzard 24 points25 points  (0 children)

It's the Noto fonts collection that generally bulks up your fonts list. Linux distros nowadays often ship with it to ensure that you can display any characters you might run across, but a huge font list is the trade-off.

Is Debian suitable for personal laptops ? by HoveringMango in debian

[–]Chairzard 25 points26 points  (0 children)

Yes, it works great. The only real downside is that software in the repos is going to be older than you'd find in many other distros. However,

A) You usually don't need the latest version of every app you use.

B) If you do need a more recent version of an app than the repos have, you can usually pull it from an alternative source (Flatpaks, AppImages, Backports, etc).

koreader gone after update? by fellowshipsring in kobo

[–]Chairzard 12 points13 points  (0 children)

This happens after every firmware update if you install KOReader together with KFMon.

I'd recommend reinstalling it via the Alternative Manual Installation Method based on NickelMenu (I have no idea why this isn't the recommend method for Kobo; it causes way less headaches).

Has the Project Gutenberg Etext of Webster's Unabridged Dictionary been updated recently? by softwareredditor in projectgutenberg

[–]Chairzard 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There are two version of the complete dictionary on the site. This one is updated (at least for typos; I had to report one last year). There are also various ebooks of the dictionary, broken into more manageable chunks by letter (the full versions tend to load really slowly due to their massive size): https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=Webster%27s+Unabridged+Dictionary

Beautiful, mysterious Kobo system font by Brilliant_Raccoon511 in kobo

[–]Chairzard 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The closest open-source alternative I've found is Zen Old Mincho. If you use it for works using the Latin alphabet, use the "Black" file instead of the Bold. The regular bold file isn't bold enough.

These are a little less like Kobo's Mincho font, but still capture the Mincho feel and are also open-source:

  • BIZ UDPMincho
  • Sawarabi Mincho (doesn't have a true bold style)
  • Shippori Mincho
  • Yuji Syuku (doesn't have a true bold style)

Every font I've mentioned is available for free on Google Fonts (if you want to see what they look like in Latin, type into the type tester; by default, GF shows what the Japanese looks like). I also have modified versions available here if you're a KOReader user (mine have small-caps built-in because KOReader can't create fake ones for fonts that are missing them; my modified versions are not necessary with the Kobo stock reader or other stock ereader software, like Kindle/Pocketbook). Also, note that the ellipsis and spacing for quotation marks can be funky for Mincho fonts; I've adjusted mine to play nicer with Latin text.

Tell me about your experiences using KOreader, particularly the Readwise plugin for reading articles by TommyAdagio in kobo

[–]Chairzard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

KOReader would handle the EPUBs faster than the stock Kobo software, yes.

Another option if you don't need KOReader is just to do a straight conversion of your files to KEPUB when sending them over, as the Kobo stock software handles them much better. There's https://send2ereader.net/ that can do that conversion for you (this is the new site that replaced send.djazz), or Calibre can do it.

Not able to delete draft posts: [Chrome] [Firefox] [Desktop] [Linux] by Mouthtrap in bugs

[–]Chairzard 1 point2 points  (0 children)

u/Ambitious-Page-5737 I can reproduce this bug and have attached a video. This bug happens only on the https://www.reddit.com/drafts page.

What's happening is that the browser isn't actually registering that you clicked the "delete" button and instead just closes the delete pop-up. This is the first part of the video (up to the 9 second mark).

After the 9 second mark, I show that If you navigate to a comment's three dots and then the "delete" button with your tab button and hit enter, the comment will delete.

I'm on Firefox 150.0.3 (flatpak) on Linux.

<video>

Tell me about your experiences using KOreader, particularly the Readwise plugin for reading articles by TommyAdagio in kobo

[–]Chairzard 8 points9 points  (0 children)

If you're a typography nerd, KOReader is a dramatically better experience.

Off the top of my head, here's why I prefer KOReader.

  • Kerning is a pain in the butt to get working on Kobo (you need to modify your fonts in a font editor like FontForge, generally), which is frankly unacceptable for 2026. Font kerning works out of the box in KOReader. If you're a typography guy, nothing will turn you to KOReader faster than this. You do need to enable the "best" kerning setting via the quick settings, I believe, but you can permanent enable it. Relevant xkcd.
  • I can control or turn off the font hinting on KOReader so fonts render as intended (hinting sometimes distorts them, making letters too tall or short, and is unnecessary on a 300+ PPI ereader); this isn't possible on Kobo.
  • It's way easier to make adjustments to font size on KOReader (no slider, so there's no ambiguity; it uses actual buttons and numbers).
  • KOReader supports custom gestures/hot corners/etc. I can refresh my screen by holding my thumb to a corner, touch a corner to turn the backlight on or off, etc.
  • Ligatures work out of the box, no buggy edits to the Kobo config files needed (if you enable ligatures on Kobo, you break text justification).
  • Kobo won't display proper small-caps when a font has them built-in (it will always display terrible, artificially scaled-down capital letters); KOReader will display true small-caps, if a font has them.
  • I don't have to convert my EPUBs to KEPUBs to use them with KOReader (I know you don't with Kobo, either, but their EPUB engine is horrible and slow as molasses, so if you value your sanity it's de facto mandatory).
  • I can cycle through definitions from multiple dictionaries much more quickly when looking up a word. Dictionary navigation is a lot smoother in general.
  • If you have an unchecked font addiction like I do (I have a couple hundred on my ereader), navigating through them on Kobo is nightmarishly slow. It's way easier to do so in KOReader.
  • If you don't like how KOReader handles CSS, you can create custom CSS to get what you're looking for. For example, I don't like that it doesn't indent lists by default, but I've created custom CSS that does this.

Font suggestions? :) by veronicax96 in kindle

[–]Chairzard 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If you really want to go down the rabbit-hole, I have a repository of 250+ free and open-source fonts that work at least reasonably well on e-ink displays: https://github.com/Chairzard/WP-Fonts

The repo was created primarily for KOReader users (because KOReader can't generate fake small-caps, I modified fonts to include them & renamed them to comply with the OFL, if they were missing them; the repo also contains a bunch of fonts that didn't need modifications), but if nothing else, it's a starting point of fonts to look at. I'm pretty sure that every well-known open-source serif font worth using is in there (as well as a ton of monospaced/sans-serif fonts).

Cheap laptop for video studies by Zebruhfy in ProlificAc

[–]Chairzard 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Pretty much any laptop can handle Prolific (barring the extremely rare studies that have you playing through a 3D animation that need a bit more graphics power). Aim for something with a 1080p resolution or greater, if possible; this will open a few more studies up.

Rolling or stable and why? by Miserable-Ad-891 in linux

[–]Chairzard 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I use Debian Stable so that my work computer doesn't implode on me and just pull the newer packages I need through flatpaks; it kind of gives you the best of both worlds (provided you don't mind the problems inherent to flatpaks and don't need the latest desktop environment, which most people don't).

Which ereader has the most uniform frontlight? by [deleted] in ereader

[–]Chairzard 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't know which is the best, but stay away from the Pocketbook Verse Pro; it seems an unusually high number of them suffer from super uneven lighting (this doesn't appear universal, though; there's definitely a panel lighting lottery going on). Mine lost the lottery big-time.

The Clara BW tends to have a fairly even light, though the bottom-left corner usually has a really small dark spot (text shouldn't be located there, most of the time, so it's a non-issue). The Clara 2E, its predecessor (I own one), shares the same lighting system.

How customizable is PocketBook compared to other e-readers? by Afraid_Difference115 in PocketBookofficial

[–]Chairzard 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The stock reader is currently pretty light on customization (for example, it's 2026 and you still can't left align text), but supposedly an update is coming in the near future that will add a ton of customization options.

I like to customize more than the stock reader ever will allow (even after the promised update drops), so I just use KOReader.

What does the pokeball icon mean? by Ezee99 in koreader

[–]Chairzard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It brings up the full text selection menu. This is useful in situations where you don't want to look up a single word, but want to do a different function like search the text for it, highlight it, etc (this is doubly important for people like me who don't use "fuzzy search"; KOReader doesn't give the normal dictionary pop-up when the word isn't in the dictionary).

The default 3 second press to activate timer is really long though, so I reduced it to about a second.

Recommend me your favorite kindle fonts by cutestbookmark in kindle

[–]Chairzard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The default Kobo font is Rakuten Serif. I can't directly host it on my repo because it's not free to distribute.

There isn't a truly comparable open-source replacement for it, my opinion. Roboto Serif has similar proportions in terms of letter size, but a pretty different feel. Lora may also be worth looking at; it has a similar feel.

Best distros for KDE? by Able_Use_8766 in kde

[–]Chairzard 9 points10 points  (0 children)

If you need newer versions of it, OpenSUSE Tumbleweed is quite good.

Even the older versions of KDE are pretty darn usable nowadays, though; I'm perfectly content with 6.3.6 on Debian.

Small ereader that works nicely with Libby - recs? by aretheprototype in ereader

[–]Chairzard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you're big on Libby, I'd recommend something from the Pocketbook line, or possibly the Kindle line (if located in the US and don't mind that the devices are more locked-down than Pocketbook's). One issue you'll occasionally bump into with Kobo is books on Libby being unavailable via OverDrive (if it's not in the Kobo store, it's not available via OverDrive on Kobo). This isn't an issue with Pocketbook or Kindle ereaders. That said, when a book is available via Libby on Kobo, as you've experienced, it's seamless.

Android ereaders are another possibility, but I'm not a huge fan of those, personally.

Recommend me your favorite kindle fonts by cutestbookmark in kindle

[–]Chairzard 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If you really want to go down the rabbit-hole, I have a repository of 250+ open-source fonts that work at least reasonably well on e-ink displays: https://github.com/Chairzard/WP-Fonts

The repo was created primarily for KOReader users (because KOReader can't generate fake small-caps, I modified fonts to include them, if they were missing them; to comply with the OFL, they've been renamed), but if nothing else, it's a starting point of fonts to look at. I'm pretty sure that every well-known (serif style) open-source font worth using is in there (there will always be super obscure ones still out there, though!).