I got a score of 15.6/20 on my second try, which is apparently a "Mathematical Genius". However the difficulty is very uneven because of the randomness of the questions. A few features I might like to see:
1. Adjustable timer. 10 seconds is very fast, it encourages a gut-based answer rather than thinking through the options.
2. A mode that scores based on correctness, not speed. Currently you can get all questions correct but still get a score lower than 20 because of insufficient speed.
3. Better mathematical correctness in graphing. For example, traditionally the natural log function ln(x) diverges at zero is is undefined for x < 0, but this plot shows a symmetric natural log function.
4. Option to zoom in and out of the graph. This is more challenging from a UI perspective but sometimes it's essential for distinguishing functions.
5. Customizable questions sets instead of random questions. I realize this is more complex, but the random questions are often just too easy, e.g. when the graph is obviously sinusoidal and only one of the functions is a sine function, but the main appeal of GeoGuessr is user-submitted maps.
The Kindle DRM situation is really bad right now. It used to be possible to install the DeDRM plugin in Calibre and get decrypted KFX files from the Kindle for PC application. That hasn't been possible since early 2025. The pros can still break it but they aren't sharing with the rest of the class anymore.
> Even the maintainer of the DeDRM plugin has gone underground, refraining from issuing an official new release out of concern that Amazon will simply slap it down.
While Amazon does some shady stuff, at least _some_ of the blame here belongs on the big publishing companies.
One of the big publishers put heavy pressure on Amazon to patch DRM exploits or else they would pull all their content from the platform (or so I was told).
(I worked at Kindle 2017-2019, and was on the team that wrote the code that OP reversed engineered)
One argument I heard was that this was actually due to "kindle unlimited". I think publishers didn't really care that people were removing drm after purchasing a book, but with amazon's push to a streaming model people started subscribing and mass downloading books to read after unsubscribing. Both unlimited and book purchases used the same drm.
Maybe streaming is inevitable, but streaming is at least partially pushed by the streaming services who make more money on streaming than they do purchases.
Books are rapidly dropping in relevance. It could certainly be that that's exactly how this went down a decade ago, but I'd be willing to bet on Amazon stipulating "no DRM to be on Amazon" (not just Kindle; bundle all the first party distribution together) now and at least some of the big houses folding.
Reading is still a completely different thing from a book, a stream of consciousness between a writer and a reader, than it is reading in almost any other format. The way we read online from websites and apps is changing how our brains work and how we process text for information (not for the better). We're slowly becoming like the look-up tools that we use in Google and other search engines and LLM agents.
The best way for many chronically online dopamine fried people today to revert their brain back to some normality would be for them to read books and to fight through the distractions as they read.
There's plenty of blame to go around. Tech companies like Amazon blame publishers or other tech companies, publishers blame tech companies or other publishers. My point is that DRM has gone from bad to worse.
So... It's your fault? I mean, you wrote it. You had the option to say no. You didn't. Tired of programmers making the world worse and trying to blame everyone but themselves for why the world got shittier.
A proper epub consists of multiple html and css, not to mention the correct font files (ttf or otf). OCR can't recover those. I've found other books like that, you know, where someone didn't even bother to remove the page numbers from the OCRed text, and it's just a subpar reading experience.
I can always retypeset the text... but I'm not a professional editor/typesetter. You often lose parts/phrases/words the author wanted emphasized with italic and bold. Blockquotes can be gone. Even paragraph indentations in the worst offenders. I couldn't recreate that if I tried. Lord forbid there's a list/table/figure (even in some of the fiction I've read, they'll have those... weirdo science fiction novels, after all). I've gotten pretty good at fixing epubs with Calibre's editor, some of these are salvageable. Just finished with one where they split the chapters wrong (not at the chapter headings, but in between for some reason). And I'll often go get a high-res cover image off the publisher's website; they like to use bad sized-for-favicon scans off a random google image search for some reason.
But for me, the bad OCR ebooks can be painful to read.
The best OCR tool I have ever used is Editable Text and Images in Adobe Acrobat. It can actually replace text in place with a dynamically generated vector font that matches the original font. It is actually really impressive.
The article does not take into account ESL. In fact, greater participation of ESL kids or those with disabilities appears to be a major reason the NAEP test scores have changed over time:
> In addition, since 1996, main NAEP assessments have been providing accommodations to allow more students with disabilities and students who were not fluent in English to participate. Traditionally, the long-term trend assessments have not provided such accommodations. However, in 2004, it was possible to provide accommodations and assess a greater proportion of students.
