Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Extension is awesome and while the code is messy, it has enough little jokes to keep you amused. For those looking to access the backend OCR service, it seems to be down right now, but will hopefully come back up soon.

Here were the API references I could find for the remote OCR:

- GET https://sky-lighter.appspot.com/api/read/<chunk.key>

- GET https://sky-lighter.appspot.com/api/lookup?url=<image.src>

- POST https://sky-lighter.appspot.com/api/translate

Apparently the author was one of the winners of HackMIT 2013 according to some of the comments. Couple of fun things in there if you decide to poke around in the code. Jump into naptha-wick.js for the remote logic.

Note from the Dev (http://challengepost.com/users/antimatter15, http://antimatter15.com/wp/, https://twitter.com/antimatter15):

/* It's April 16, 2014.

It's been six months since I started this project.

Just under two years after I first came up with the idea.

It's weird to think of time as something that happens, to think of code as something that evolves. And it may be obvious to recognize that code is not organic, that it changes only in discrete steps as dictated by some intelligence's urging, but coupled with a faulty and mortal memory, its gradual slopes are indistinguishable from autonomy.

Hopefully, this project is going to launch soon. It looks like there's actually a chance that this will be able to happen.

The proximity of its launch has kind of been my own little perpetual delusion. During the hackathon, I announced that it would be released in two weeks time.

When winter break rolled by, I had determined to finish and release before the end of the year 2013.

This deadline rolled further way, to the end of January term, IAP as it is known. But like all the artificial dates set earlier, it too folded against the tides of procrastination.

I'll spare you February and March, but they too simply happened with a modicum of dread. This brings us to the present day, which hopefully will have the good luck to be spared from the fate of its predecessors.

After all, it is the gaseous vaporware that burns.

*/



Yeah, I made the mistake of setting the App Engine budget to $1.00. Turns out that's probably not enough for a sustained run as HN's #2.

Yeah, the code is super messy, but I'd prefer if you didn't play around too much with the remote OCR service, specifically, the translation parts because Google Translate is pretty expensive per-use.


You have no donate link... if you're gonna be on big sites like HN, you might as well have a donation link so that hopefully you break even on App Engine.




Consider applying for YC's Winter 2026 batch! Applications are open till Nov 10

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: