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You can move your BookWalker manga/LNs to the FBReader iOS/iPadOS app in multiple ways. If you have a Google account, FBReader has a built-in synchronization mechanism based on Google Drive; look for the cloud icon with checkmark. You will need to login to Google to allow FBReader to use this. 3/

Screenshot of FBReader for macOS showing the cloud synchronization icon: a black cloud with a white checkmark.

A screenshot of FBReader for macOS, showing the synchronization dialog that comes up if you click the synchronize icon. It shows the Google account you are logged in as, with buttons "Synchronize" to start syncing and "Disconnect" to disconnect FBReader from your Google account.

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You can import a .lcpl file into (desktop) FBReader, similar to Thorium Reader, with "File > Open...". If you have multiple .lcpl files you can import them in bulk using "File > Import multiple files...". FBReader will ask for your passphrase (your BookWalker userid) and download the EPUB files. 2/

Screenshot of Fbreader for macOS showing the "File > Open..." and "File > Import multiple files..." menu items.

Thorium Reader will save the BookWalker title as an .epub file. However, the contents of the file are still encrypted. For a full backup you will need to keep copies of your BookWalker userid, the .epub file, and the .lcpl file that goes with it. (It has an opaque name, so I suggest renaming it.) 5/

A screenshot of Thorium Reader for macOS, showing a BookWalker manga being saved as an (encrypted) EPUB file "Otherside Picnic, Volume 3.epub" into the "Downloads" folder.

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Suppose you want to make a backup of one of your BookWalker manga or LNs. In Thorium Reader's list of books, find the book you want to back up and click the three vertical dots under the book's title and related information, select "Save as", and tell it where you want to save the exported file. 4/

Screenshot of Thorium Reader for macOS, showing the three vertical dot menu underneath the title's name and related information.

Screenshot of Thorium Reader for macOS, showing the "Save as" menu item in the menu associated with the three vertical dots.

Thorium Reader is a free reader for Windows, macOS, and Linux (no iOS or Android app yet). Install it per instructions, open it, click the "Import publication" button, and find the .lcpl file you previously exported. It will ask for a passphrase; enter your BookWalker userid (see previous thread) 2/

Screenshot of Thorium Reader for macOS, showing the "Import publication" button in the upper right of the home screen.

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Now go to the "Purchased" page, find the BookWalker title you want to download, and start reading it. Then click on the three vertical dots at the upper right, select the menu item "LCP-protected EPUB", and tell it where to save the downloaded file. The file will have a name ending in ".lcpl". 3/

A screenshot of the BookWalker website showing the upper-right of the navigation bar displayed when reading a title. The rightmost button has 3 vertical dots and will read "More actions" if you hover over it.

A screenshot of the new BookWalker website showing the menu displayed when you click on the three vertical dots at the upper right of the page when reading a title. The second menu item is "LCP-protected EPUB".

Frank Hecker @frankhecker.com · 02/03/2026

I'll assume you've completed the migration and can login to the new website and see your purchases. Click the "... MORE" button on the upper right of the home page and look in the lower left of the resulting page to find your BookWalker userid (USR_...). Make a record of this, and keep it safe. 2/

A screenshot of the top navigation bar on the new bookwalker.com website. The "... MORE" button is on the upper right.

A screenshot of the new BookWalker website, on the bottom left of the page reached by the "... MORE" button. The "settings" section of the page lists the user's email address and BookWalker userid (a 16-character string starting with "USR_"). (The email address and userid are redacted in this screenshot.)

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Whew… I was worried for a minute but it looks like I dodged that particular bullet (only to catch others, I’m sure).

Spines of various books about Japanese literature and social issues, including the book “That Type of Girl” (about the manga “Sweet Blue Flowers”) and its Japanese translation. (The title of the book is based on a line from the manga.)

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Frank Hecker @frankhecker.com · 23/12/2025

Too few people are posting here in English about #ClaireBell, so here's my contribution to promoting what I consider one of the best, if not the best, Thai #yuri / #GL series yet: my review of the series for Okazu: okazu.yuricon.com/2025/12/22/c... #yurisky

A promotional poster for the Thai yuri prison drama ClaireBell, showing the two main characters on a bunk bed in their cell, dressed in their mint green prison uniforms. Claire, in the upper bed, is handing a red rose to Bell, in the lower bed.

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Frank Hecker @frankhecker.com · 22/11/2025

I was up at 2 am checking out @subvert.fm. (I'm member #1,000.) The site was amazingly glitch free for an alpha version. I bought 2 albums and downloaded a free track. Artists get 100% of the release purchase price (sometimes discounted for members), but I added a little extra to support the site.

A screenshot of the alpha website for the Subvert music cooperative service, showing the artist page for the Brazilian musician numa game and a dialog box from which the user can download the purchased album A Spectral Turn in FLAC format.

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Frank Hecker @frankhecker.com · 20/11/2025

I reviewed the Chinese #yuri / #GL / #baihe drama "The Secret of Girls". Not an easy watch (beware a major spoiler in the GagaOoLala synopsis) but an excellent one, with He Lei in particular once again turning in a solid performance. #yurisky okazu.yuricon.com/2025/11/19/t...

Promotional poster for the Chinese yuri/GL drama The Secret of Girls, showing the two main characters (center) and the two side characters (left and right).

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Frank Hecker @frankhecker.com · 01/10/2025

As others have noted, today is the one-year anniversary of the death of #Cohost. To mark the occasion, a reminder that (almost) all of my Cohost posts are now available at frankhecker.com/tags/cohost/ complete with copies of the comments people made on them. RIP Eggbug, we hardly knew ye!

A photograph of the plushie of Eggbug, the mascot of the Cohost social media site, a maroon ovoid creature with silver wings, six black legs, two black circular eyes, and a somewhat ambiguous smile. Eggbug is sitting on top of three books of or about poetry.

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Frank Hecker @frankhecker.com · 19/08/2025

I received volume 3 of the English edition of @galetteweb.bsky.social #yuri today. I’m building a complete collection!

A bookshelf displaying volumes 1 through 3 of the Galette English edition edition, along with the Japanese edition of volume 1. In front of the volumes are a postcard showing two girls gazing soulfully at each other, along with small acrylic figures of couples from the stories.

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Frank Hecker @frankhecker.com · 24/07/2025

Finally, "Lemnisket" is presumably from "lemniscate", the curve in the service's logo (with a cat added as an extra). ("PhysicsGraph" is presumably the new replacement name: less obscure but also less fun.) 7/7

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Frank Hecker @frankhecker.com · 26/06/2025

"That Type of Girl: Notes on Takako Shimura's Sweet Blue Flowers" also has a Japanese edition (『そ⁠っち系のひと：志村貴子「青い花」に関する考察』) courtesy of and thanks to Shimura fan and amateur translator Konsuke (not on Bluesky, but he's hitus_concats on the bird site). #yuri frankhecker.com/that-type-of... 2/2

Front cover of 『そ⁠っち系のひと：志村貴子「青い花」に関する考察』, the Japanese edition of "That Type of Girl".

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Frank Hecker @frankhecker.com · 26/06/2025

As we near the end of Yuri Day, a reminder that I have a free-to-download book about the manga Sweet Blue Flowers by Takako Shimura. (It also discusses the history of S literature, #yuri, and related things, from arranged marriages to textile workers.) frankhecker.com/that-type-of... 1/2

The front cover of the book "That Type of Girl: Notes on Takako Shimura's Sweet Blue Flowers", by Frank Hecker. It features a watercolor painting of two blue flowers on a white background.

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Frank Hecker @frankhecker.com · 14/06/2025

I bought this on a whim because it was on sale. My god this thing is heavy, it’s making the case for ebooks all by itself.

A hand holding a paperback copy of the 1600+ page Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (Fourth Edition).

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Frank Hecker @frankhecker.com · 03/05/2025

In case you want to read even more Joanna Russ, here’s my collection of everything she ever published (pretty much all of which is still in print) plus a book of critical essays on Russ. (I also have Brit Mandelo’s "We Wuz Pushed: On Joanna Russ and Radical Truthtelling" on Kindle.)

A collection of all books published by Joanna Russ. Top row: Picnic on Paradise, The Adventures of Alyx, And Chaos Died, The Female Man, The Two of Them, and Kittaninny: A Tale of Magic. Second row: To Write Like a Woman, On Strike Against God, The Hidden Side of the Moon, Extra(ordinary) People, We Who Are About To, and The Zanzibar Cat. Bottom row: On Joanna Russ (critical essays on Russ), What Are We Fighting For, The Country You Have Never Seen, Magic Mammas Trembling Sisters Puritans and Perverts, and How to Suppress Women's Writing.

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Frank Hecker @frankhecker.com · 12/04/2025

My rewards from the @galetteweb.bsky.social kickstarter 2 arrived safe and sound. They look great! #yuri

In the foreground, acrylic figures and postcards showing yuri couples. In the background, a copy of Galette Special English Edition vol. 2 and the accompanying Special Booklet 2.

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Frank Hecker @frankhecker.com · 18/02/2025

"This all started because I don’t know what an eigenvector is." I've been (re)learning mathematics using #MathAcademy, a new online service, and wrote an 11-part series reviewing it and summarizing the book The Math Academy Way that outlines how it works. 1/ frankhecker.com/2025/02/08/m...

A screenshot from the Math Academy “learn” page showing a student’s status display. The student is 28% through the Mathematical Foundations III course, and is projected to finish the course in late May at their current pace. Their next lesson is “Addition and Multiplication of Cartesian Vectors in 3D.” That lesson has two other lessons as prerequisites, “Addition and Multiplication of Cartesian Vectors in 2D” and “Three-Dimensional Vectors in Component Form.” Thus far the student has completed 3644 “eXperience Points” (“XP”).

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Frank Hecker @frankhecker.com · 18/01/2025

What a pleasant surprise! A package arrived with new copies of Galette Special English edition 01 and Galette Special Booklet 01 to replace the copies that were damaged in shipping. Thank you @galetteweb.bsky.social! Now I'm looking forward to getting my copy of Galette Special English Edition 02!

A hand holding new and undamaged copies of the Galette Special Booklet 01 (left) and the Galette Special English Edition 01 (right).

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Frank Hecker @frankhecker.com · 03/01/2025

In honor of yesterday's premiere of Ave Mujica, here's an old super-pretentious #Cohost post I did about It's MyGO!!!!! #bandori frankhecker.com/2023/09/23/o...

Left: Minutemen in concert: Mike Watt (bass), D. Boon (guitar), and George Hurley (drums). Right: Promotional art of the band MyGo!!!!! from the anime Bang Dream! It’s MyGo!!!!!: Soyo Nagasaki (bass), Taki Shiina (drums), Tomori Takamatsu (vocals), Rāna Kaname (lead guitar), and Anon Chihaya (rhythm guitar).

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Frank Hecker @frankhecker.com · 31/12/2024

The good news: I got my copy of the English version of the Galette #yuri magazine from the @galetteweb.bsky.social kickstarter. The bad news: it was somewhat bashed up in transit. Fortunately the extras were fine, and I’m looking forward to the kickstarter for volume 2 tomorrow.

Shipping box for Galette magazine, showing how it got torn up in transit from Japan to my home.

My copy of the Galette English version volume 1, showing damage to the spine.

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Frank Hecker @frankhecker.com · 11/12/2024

My review of Korean drama Jeongnyeon: The Star Is Born, about a 1950s all-female theatrical troupe. Based on a #yuri webcomic (but not itself yuri) it's an entertaining & emotionally resonant drama elevated by standout performances by Kim Tae-ri and others. #yurisky okazu.yuricon.com/2024/12/11/j...

A promotional poster for the Korean drama Jeongnyeon: The Star Is Born featuring Kim Tae-ri as Jeongnyeon (center, with hands on hips), along with the other top-billed leads (from left to right): Ra Mi-ran as director Kang So-bok, Kim Yoon-hye as troupe "princess" Seo Hye-rang, Jung Eun-chae as troupe "prince" Moon Ok-gyeong, and Shin Ye-eun as Jeongnyeon's fellow trainee Heo Yeong-seo.

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Frank Hecker @frankhecker.com · 03/12/2024

The Auto-Redistrict software also tries to balance out the two parties, but the Democratic edge is such that #HoCoMD voters for Democratic council candidates outnumber those voting for Republicans in all but two districts. Thus this map could reduce GOP council representation without even trying. 3/

A bar chart showing estimated party vote share for Democratic Howard County Council candidates versus Republican council candidates in the 15-district councilmanic map generated by the Auto-Redistrict software, based on 2018 election results. Democratic vote shares range from 40 to 80 percent. Republican vote shares range from 20 to 60 percent.

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Frank Hecker @frankhecker.com · 03/12/2024

This #HoCoMD 15-district map was generated using the Auto-Redistrict software, which attempts to balance (census-defined) racial and ethnic groups across the districts. Whites are the largest group in 13 districts, Blacks in one, and Asians (which includes both South and East Asians) in another. 2/

A bar chart showing racial and ethnic breakdowns for the 15-district Howard County Council map generated by the Auto-Redistrict software. Whites are about 40 percent or more of the population in 12 districts. South and East Asians are about 40 percent in one district, and Blacks about 40 percent in a different district.

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Frank Hecker @frankhecker.com · 03/12/2024

Continuing my #HoCoMD posts: If the Howard County Council were expanded to 15 members, how would they be elected? The easiest approach would be to have 15 districts, with one council member per district. I did an exercise in doing this a while back, using 2020 census and 2018 election data. 1/

An example map of dividing Howard County into 15 councilmanic districts, generated using the Auto-Redistrict software. The largest two districts are in western Howard County west of Maryland Route 108. The smallest districts are in Columbia and southeast Howard County.

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Frank Hecker @frankhecker.com · 02/12/2024

I have two goals (and two subgoals) in my proposal: First, having a 15-member council can make for a closer relationship between Howard County Council members and their #HoCoMD constituents. Each council member represents almost 70,000 people; back in the 1960s each represented less than 10,000. 2/

A bar chart showing population per council member or county commissioner for all Maryland counties and Baltimore city, in decreasing population per member from left to right. Baltimore County and Montgomery County are the highest at about 120,000 people per member, the rural counties of Western Maryland and the Eastern Shore are the lowest at less than 10,000 people per member. Howard County has the fifth-highest population per member at about 65,000 people per member, just below Anne Arundel County (over 80,000 per member) and just above Baltimore city and Frederick County (about 40,000 per member).

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Frank Hecker @frankhecker.com · 02/12/2024

Continuing my #HoCoMD posting with a look at the potential future of the Howard County Council. Some GOP activists proposed adding 2 at-large members (the likely result of this is left as an exercise for the reader). I have a bolder proposal: expand the council from 5 to 15 members. 1/

A three-row five-column grid of the official portrait photographs of the last fourteen members of the Howard County Council as of 2021, with the central spot occupied by a question mark. From top left to bottom right the council members shown are Greg Fox, Christiana Rigby, Jon Weinstein, Deb Jung, Calvin Ball, Liz Walsh, Guy Guzzone, Allan Kittleman, Mary Kay Sigaty, David Yungmann, Courtney Watson, Opel Jones, Jen Terrasa, and Ken Ulman.

Frank Hecker @frankhecker.com · 30/11/2024

Ask and ye shall receive . . .

A 7.5 ounce (212.6 gram) bag of Utz Kettle Classics Dark Russets potato chips. (Marked as "Gluten Free".)

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Frank Hecker @frankhecker.com · 27/11/2024

If you want to read the nitty gritty details of Howard County Council redistricting and how it all went down, see my blog series on the history (with side digressions on #HoCoMD politics) (frankhecker.com/2010/11/28/a...) or the book version of it (frankhecker.com/dividing-how...). 8/8

The cover of the book “Dividing Howard: A History of County Council Redistricting in Howard County, Maryland”, by Frank Hecker. It has an abstract image of the five county council districts, with each district shown in a different color.

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9. Implications for artists: Kevin Kelly's "1,000 true fans" idea is flawed. Have a day job. Make art for the love of it. Find marketplaces where audiences are smaller but their tastes match your work, they have higher propensity to spend, and there's no AI slop. frankhecker.com/2023/02/06/p...

A plot of the earnings per patron for Patreon projects (in December 2022) versus the earnings per patron needed to have $100,000 in annual earnings. The x-axis is the number of patrons, increasing from left to right. The y-axis is the earnings per patron, increasing from bottom to top. The green line decreasing from left to right represents the earnings per patron needed for a given number of patrons in order to earn $100,000 a year. For a small number of patrons you need a high earnings per patron, but if you have a large number of patrons the earnings needed per patron is less. The vast majority of projects are below the green line, meaning that their number of patrons or earnings per patron are not high enough to earn $100,000 per year. Only a small number of projects are above the green line.

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7. Implications for digital marketplaces: Most artists make very little, but adding lots can increase revenue if cost per artist is low (minimal or no human support, onboarding as easy as possible), there's a lot of artists willing to take a shot at making money, and you can optionally sell ads.

A bar chart of total Patreon monthly earnings (for December 2022) by project subset. The y-axis is total earnings. There are four bars. The first bar is for the top 100 projects, with total earnings of about $3.5 million. The second bar is for the next 1,000 projects, with total earnings just over $5 million. The third bar is for the next 10,000 projects, with total earnings over $8 million. The fourth and last bar is for the next 100,000 projects, with earnings of about $6 million.

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6. Why log-normal? Hypothesis 3: success on #Patreon and other digital marketplaces is due to having to have well above average skill in multiple areas, which then multiply together: 1 in 100 talent for skills A, B, and C, would be 1 in 1 million for all 3 combined. frankhecker.com/2023/02/26/i...

Two plots side by side. The left plot shows the very rapid drop-off in Patreon earnings once you get beyond the top earning projects. The plot has an arrow pointing to the median project, with a label “You are here.” The right plot is a log/log plot with x-axis labeled “log(x)” and y-axis labeled “log(Pr(X>x))”. It has two curves, labeled “Normal (single attribute)” and “Log-normal (combined attributes, ~merit)”, and a straight line, labeled “Pareto (outcome/wealth)”. Where the log-normal curve is higher than the Pareto line, the area between is labeled “unlucky”. Where the log-normal line is below the Pareto line, the area between is labeled “lucky”.

5. Hypothesis 2: The number of patrons, viewers, listeners, readers, etc., will also have a log-normal distribution, as we can see for #Patreon, even for projects not reporting earnings. frankhecker.com/2023/01/24/t...

A graph showing how well the distribution of the number of Patreon patrons per project (for December 2022) matches three well-known distributions: power law, exponential, and log-normal. The x-axis is the number of patrons, increasing from left to right, and the y-axis is the complementary cumulative distribution function (CCDF), that is, the probability that the number of patrons will exceed a certain value, decreasing from top to bottom. For a low number of patrons that probability is relatively high (e.g., it’s relatively easy to acquire more than 5 patrons), and it steadily decreases for higher and higher earnings (e.g., the probability of having more than 5,000 patrons is quite low). The graph shows the actual CCDF for the reported number of patrons, and the fitted CCDFs for the three theoretical distributions. The actual numbers of patrons are fitted most closely by the log-normal distribution, with a minor deviation from log-normal behavior for projects with the very highest numbers of patrons.

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4. Is this true only for #Patreon? Hypothesis 1: every online marketplace for digital art, music, writing, video, games, podcasts, etc. (Patreon, #YouTube, #Substack, #Spotify, #Twitch, #Steam, etc.), will have a log-normal (not power-law!) distribution of artist earnings. rpubs.com/frankhecker/...

A graph showing how well the distribution of Patreon monthly earnings (for December 2022) matches three well-known distributions: power law, exponential, and log-normal. The x-axis is the amount of earnings, increasing from left to right, and the y-axis is the complementary cumulative distribution function (CCDF), that is, the probability that monthly earnings will exceed a certain value, decreasing from top to bottom. For low earnings that probability is relatively high (e.g., it’s relatively easy to earn more than $5 a month), and it steadily decreases for higher and higher earnings (e.g., the probability of earning more than $5,000 per month is quite low). The graphs shows the actual CCDF for the reporting monthly earnings, and the fitted CCDFs for the three theoretical distributions. The actual earnings are fitted most closely by the log-normal distribution, with a deviation from the fitted log-normal curve for projects with the very highest earnings.

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3. #Patreon also has an extremely high level of economic inequality (Gini index 0.84), higher than any country on earth, with 5 orders of magnitude difference between the lowest-earning projects (about $1/month) and the highest-earning projects (more than $100,000/month). rpubs.com/frankhecker/...

$Lorenz curve for Patron monthly earnings in December 2022, corresponding to a Gini coefficient of 0.84. The x-axis is the cumulative fraction of projects, starting from the lowest earning projects on the left and ending with the highest earning projects to the right, as all projects are accounted for. The y-axis is the cumulative fraction of earnings from those projects. Up to 25% or even 50% of all projects the earnings remain low. Only past 75% of all projects are there appreciable earnings (about 10% of all earnings), and only when we get to the last few highest-earning projects does the cumulative fraction of earnings go above 50%.$

2. How do I know this? Because #Patreon projects can make their number of patrons and earnings per month public, Graphtreon collects this data & sells it, & I bought a copy and analyzed it. Across 130,000+ projects reporting earnings, median earnings are less than $1 a day. rpubs.com/frankhecker/...

A graph of Patreon monthly earnings for projects (for December 2022) vs. the rank of those projects in earnings; both the x-axis and y-axis use logarithmic scales. Again, the highest earning projects are to the left, and lower earning projects to the right. Earnings per project drop off in a regular way (straight line on a log-log plot) for the first 10,000 projects, and then drop off even more rapidly beyond that.

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