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Perhaps I'm not getting it but it seems really hard. I thought I finally eked out a win after a lot of tries, but it ended up being mutual destruction!

EDIT: Okay, properly using reflections, especially at the edges of the screen seems to be the key to victory


hehe yep the edge reflections is the way to win! and to keep thrust low here and there to reload faster.

> The houses are better

Are they? Why? Even in the brick metaphor that doesn't work.


Only tangentially related, but I can really recommend There are Rivers In The Sky by Elif Shafak, which starts in this library


I'm running both now, and while my Matter network seems to be solid, I can't get over the fact that it's so much harder to set up devices than on Zigbee. Why does Google need to get involved for me to set up a local IKEA device with my local border router?


After all this time, I still don't know how to select a mission, or what missions are


There's a set of lights in the lower left-hand edge and on the very upper right-hand edge. When it's time to select a mission look for the yellow arrow near those lights. Hitting the lights lets you select a mission. Sending the ball up the ramp confirms the mission. I don't quite remember what the missions were - typically "hit some combination of things" - but they were worth a lot of extra points and/or an extra ball.


I am of the impression that the mission is defined by having the pin ball hit the places where the blue arrow points within a set amount of time.

It's a bit of a shame that Microsoft only licensed Space Cadet Pinball from Cinematronics for Windows 95 and XP [0].

[0] https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20181221-00/?p=10...


IIRC, it was a decision based around not porting to 64bit in the newer versions of Windows. I agree it's a shame it didn't move forward... same for a lot of things that were in earlier versions that didn't make the cut.


Do you see the flashing arrow? You have to hit one of those tiles, and then launch the ball up the ramp.


Where did you see missions?


This guide is impressively thorough and can help answer this: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/563047-3d-pinball-space-cad...


Man, Gamefaqs always had such amazing guides. I always wondered how these people knew every single little thing in the games they wrote walkthroughs for.


Since you hooked it up to Home Assistant anyway, I think you could have skipped the custom firmware and just used ESPHome with a Button component https://esphome.io/components/button/


ESP home is so powerful like this. And is great to build components for (although I find this part a little complex, lots of Claude help…).

I’ve got a vibe coded “Nuaire Fan” controller to talk UART to my whole home ventilation and present it as a HA controllable fan.


Indeed! I have a CC1101 hooked up to an ESP32C6 that controls my Itho mechanical ventilation unit as a fan in HA.

I couldn't believe it when it basically worked on the first try, including pairing with the base unit and other remotes.


The more I mess around with ESP32s and home automation, the more I realize that was looks like jank to a software engineer is just the way these things work.

Look at the MAC addresses of smart devices connected to your home network and 90% of them are just going to be ESP32 chips hooked up in this way to some control mechanism, but in a nicer enclosure.


See also this discussion from earlier today, which might have prompted this submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49094189


What makes it so good for you? I'm very comfortable with installing stuff like this in general, but I've never felt the need to install KOReader since I don't experience any issues with the basic software.

The only thing I'd maybe like is syncing reading progress with TheStoryGraph, but I can't imagine what else I might want.


A few things I like:

- More frontlight options. Ability to toggle on/off easily using corner taps,

- More page layout and typography options e.g. custom fonts,

- Ability to load from Calibre over WiFi (I never plug mine in via USB).

Worth nothing that KOReader doesn't replace the default Kobo firmware. It's easy to install and you launch it from the Kobo firmware so it's easy to quit and go back to normal.


> Worth nothing that KOReader doesn't replace the default Kobo firmware. It's easy to install and you launch it from the Kobo firmware so it's easy to quit and go back to normal.

Ah, that's definitely something I missed, sounds like a good reason to give it a try!


Same for Kindle. Nothing changes, you just have a link to open KOReader and you can still use your device as before, if you choose to


+1 to this. KOReader acts like an always-on "app" opened from the regular kindle launcher. I believe there may be a way to make it auto start on boot, but it doesn't replace the base OS.


I’ve only just installed it this week, but for me:

- DRM support (via a Plugin)

- Dark mode on an older device

- SSH Server

- Custom dictionaries

Next on my list is to find a plugin that can transform imperial to metric for when I’m reading American books

Edit: oh and also something that syncs my progress on books not bought from Amazon on multiple devices


    The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
    But I have promises to keep,
    And kilometers to go before I sleep,
    And kilometers to go before I sleep.


there is even a Syncthing plugin: https://github.com/jasonchoimtt/koreader-syncthing


In addition to stuff mentioned by others, things I like:

- Fully customizable status bars, top and bottom (I like book progress at the top, chapter progress at the bottom, various indicators like remaining time, brightness level...)

- Custom dictionaries (like reader.dict, very complete), and choice over how to display them

- Advanced typography stuff (override publisher font if you like, add all the ligatures...)

- Fully customizable gestures (jump anywhere, recent locations, skim book, bookmark page, adjust brightness...)

- Book map: see a schematic view of the whole book, with chapters / subchapters length (gives me a feeling of how much I've read and is left to read, as would a real book)

- Page number / count that "just works" (epubs on kobo don't count actual page flips which I find annoying)


Auto dark mode after dusk based on your location

Better page flip area options

Active corners that can do custom things and with layers

More text layout options (although the stock kobo firmware is decent at that already)

It’s a bit cumbersome to setup but once you’re done it pays back in how pleasant it makes the device to use.


It's very configurable and extensible. As some have mentioned, the interface can be a bit confusing at times but once you're used to it it's mostly out of your way. I like that I can run it on both my Kobo and android phone and sync progress. I also self host an opds server but you can also connect to calibre, syncthing, or cloud storage to pull down books. There's even a plugin to sync my progress to hardcover, which is a more open alternative to Goodreads.


The overwhelming thing I hear about KOreader is once people use it for their way of reading (including doing things they coudlnt) they can't use an ereader any other way again.


The interface is a bit complicated. Maybe their brains get rewired after figuring it out. :)


Pretty sure that’s what happens after adapting to Dvorak. Still not sure why ascended beings bother communicating with us though.


I actually switched to dvorak for a while and got fast with it then swapped back due to qwerty, lol.

It felt really nice to type on but my issues were adjacent to the that


I use dvorak on PC but qwerty on phone


You can read epubs directly. Cloud storage. It's got like everything so you should check out the features list.


What does directly mean? I can read epubs directly now (but more importantly, kepubs)


Going from EPUB to KEPUB requires conversion (I believe KEPUB has XHTML directly embedded into it, right?). It's Kobo's proprietary format to "support" fast scrolling with preview, reading time estimates, etc.

Yes, Kobo can potentially read EPUBs natively, however the support is intentionally gimped to try and push you towards KEPUB/their own store.


Ah, I had not considered that the limitations of epubs were due to the device rather than the format. Having said that, Calibre does does the conversion on the fly when I upload my books, so I don't really experience any issues there


I think I assumed you have a Kindle. Sorry.


Ah, no worries! I keep forgetting that KOReader does more than Kobo!


I mean, I love writing with fountain pen and I do it every day, but I have _read_ Anathem.


Hello fellow Anathem reader, there's doesn't seem to be many of us


Anathem is the best Stephenson book; The Algebraist is the best Iain Banks. There's enough of us to fill a good sized van!


Something is seriously wrong with an author when they think they need to invent an entire new language (and force the reader to learn half of it) just for a book. ENGLISH IS A PERFECTLY FINE LANGUAGE, AND EVERY GREAT WORK OF ENGLISH WAS WRITTEN USING IT!

Stephenson was my literally my favorite author, but when I got to Anathem I was like fuck this pompous asshat and his made up language BS: I'm sticking to authors who write in English.


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