Why I’m a sucker for pen and paper • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I’m a sucker for pen and paper

#131

Post by philipswood » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 7:02 AM UTC

jfoutz wrote: post #64

anyfoo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spatiality, that's it. It really seems to make a tremendous difference for me to know where something is written down, and sometimes even remembering doing it. I always felt that doing it on a computer was indeed too abstract, losing that spatiality. I also agree with the audiobook thing. For example, I recently thought back to a passage in an audiobook I enjoyed... and my mind instantly visualized how I was standing…

I wish I could find the reference, there's an old Roman (Greek? likely older?) rhetorical trick to public speaking. The speech flows as you invite people to your home, and walk them through it. So, the front door is like the greeting, welcoming guests into your home. The picture in the front room is the first point, the couch is the next point. the dining room table is the next point. etc. practice the speech by look…

A pretty cool technique, I just used this to coach my son for an english oral to great effect.

Re: Why I’m a sucker for pen and paper

#132

Post by philipswood » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 7:03 AM UTC

jfoutz wrote: post #64

anyfoo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spatiality, that's it. It really seems to make a tremendous difference for me to know where something is written down, and sometimes even remembering doing it. I always felt that doing it on a computer was indeed too abstract, losing that spatiality. I also agree with the audiobook thing. For example, I recently thought back to a passage in an audiobook I enjoyed... and my mind instantly visualized how I was standing…

I wish I could find the reference, there's an old Roman (Greek? likely older?) rhetorical trick to public speaking. The speech flows as you invite people to your home, and walk them through it. So, the front door is like the greeting, welcoming guests into your home. The picture in the front room is the first point, the couch is the next point. the dining room table is the next point. etc. practice the speech by look…

I understand this is the origin for: "In the first place".

Re: Why I’m a sucker for pen and paper

#133

Post by Cloudly » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 7:03 AM UTC

anyfoo wrote: post #23

samuell wrote: post #16

One aspect the article doesn't mention is spatiality, and how that aids memorizing. As you might know one very common technique used by memorizing masters is to place things you want to remember in some imagined 3D world. This effect is also something I've experienced strongly myself when listening to audiobooks while running. I figured I can actually remember the exact place along my running route in a nearby forest…

Spatiality, that's it. It really seems to make a tremendous difference for me to know where something is written down, and sometimes even remembering doing it. I always felt that doing it on a computer was indeed too abstract, losing that spatiality. I also agree with the audiobook thing. For example, I recently thought back to a passage in an audiobook I enjoyed... and my mind instantly visualized how I was standing…

An interesting theory as to why spatiality helps so much is outlined in Jeff Hawkins' "1000 brain theory" (https://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Brains-New-Theory-Intelligen...). His team's research hints that all neocortical processing happens with reference frames at the core.

Re: Why I’m a sucker for pen and paper

#134

Post by gbertasius » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 7:28 AM UTC

I got a tablet with a pen from a popular South Korean company and I love it precisely because it serves as a great alternative to typing. I take notes for class with its native app. This format works for me because I love paper notes but can't get over how hard it is to organize my chaotic style. Having it all located and organized on in a single object I can pick up any time is amazing. Lots of potential there but what is available already has led me to replace pen and paper with digital handwritten notes and papers. I live with limited space so this saves on space and allows me to maintain an easily searchable database of my work.

Re: Why I’m a sucker for pen and paper

#135

Post by ceilingcorner » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 7:32 AM UTC

gbertasius wrote: post #134

I got a tablet with a pen from a popular South Korean company and I love it precisely because it serves as a great alternative to typing. I take notes for class with its native app. This format works for me because I love paper notes but can't get over how hard it is to organize my chaotic style. Having it all located and organized on in a single object I can pick up any time is amazing. Lots of potential there but w…

Can you link to the device?

Re: Why I’m a sucker for pen and paper

#136

Post by moonchild » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 8:17 AM UTC

roughly wrote: post #106

> It’s not eco-friendly I'm actually curious about this point. I wonder about the actual environmental comparison between, say, going through 3-4 notebooks a year vs. a tablet with a 3-5 year span. A notebook "costs" trees, and in theory is use-once and disposeable, but it's biodegradable, the ingredients are relatively easily accessible, and the manufacturing process is pretty refined by now. A tablet, on the other…

Not exactly the same, but I did some research a while ago on the environmental impact of ereaders vs paper books. They're actually quite close, though it depends on how much you read; the overall impact of the ereader is ~100-140x that of a single paper book. A full-on tablet is probably worse, as the display is more expensive to manufacture.

Re: Why I’m a sucker for pen and paper

#137

Post by kalal » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 8:26 AM UTC

I personally use more or less 3 stages. 1. whiteboard and marker - explore ideas, big-picture thinking, fast iterations. 2. paper notebook - things that emerged from point 1 are more precisely recorded into a paper notebook. Things go much slower here, especially because the eraser or the paper burns out quite quickly and there is no point to keep pointless notes. The structure of the paper is quite important as well. I noticed blank paper does not work that well and I spent more space there with less structure. Linked paper is also not good. Square paper is better. But the best one for me is dotted paper. Ideal compromise between structure and freedom. 3. everything that survives stage 2 goes to real code and git logs. Here the structure is maximal. Keeping notes in the code is of course good way as well as extensive git comments.

Re: Why I’m a sucker for pen and paper

#138

Post by mackrevinack » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 8:33 AM UTC

tzs wrote: post #72

samuell wrote: post #16

One aspect the article doesn't mention is spatiality, and how that aids memorizing. As you might know one very common technique used by memorizing masters is to place things you want to remember in some imagined 3D world. This effect is also something I've experienced strongly myself when listening to audiobooks while running. I figured I can actually remember the exact place along my running route in a nearby forest…

I suspect that this effect has something to do with why I can search a book faster for some non-indexed thing I've previously read in it if it is a physical book than I can if it is an ebook. The physical book is 3D. As I progress through the book the stack of pages on my left grows and the stack on my right shrinks, giving a sense of moving through something physical. And as I alternate pages I'm first looking to on…

i wonder how much of this could be fixed or improved on by changing how the UI works. like when reading a book and having the progress bar always visible and more prominent than usual? or having a visual que of the stack of pages on the left and right growing and shrinking.

that sort of thing goes against a lot of the ultra minimal design choices we use these days where everything had to be hidden, but maybe people in the future will be able to figure about better ways of dealing with this once the exact science is known

Re: Why I’m a sucker for pen and paper

#139

Post by kstenerud » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 8:39 AM UTC

I think there's a critical element missing from these experiments: transcribing information vs storing knowledge.

When you're transcribing things (writing down as you hear or see it), you're normally not involved in learning or remembering the information; merely writing it down. In this case, handwriting would help to remember it later since writing on autopilot a more involved process than typing on autopilot.

HOWEVER, when it comes to writing down KNOWLEDGE, it's a very different experience. This is why I always advocate to think before you type, and why less than 10% of my time spent developing software involves actually touching the keys on my keyboard. A live coding session with me would be extremely boring; 10 minutes of me staring into space, followed by 1 minute of dumping the code into the source file. But I'm very productive; my projects on github, sourceforge and sunsite speak for themselves.

From the point that I entered college onwards, I've barely handwritten a paragraph of text per year (going on 25 years). I noticed no difference in cognition or memory then, nor do I now. Re-reading things I've typed in the past bring the whole experience flooding back the same as is expressed in the article as a handwriting experience. But then again, I'm not transcribing; I'm writing down knowledge.

Re: Why I’m a sucker for pen and paper

#140

Post by 90minuteAPI » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 11:14 AM UTC

moonchild wrote: post #136

roughly wrote: post #106

> It’s not eco-friendly I'm actually curious about this point. I wonder about the actual environmental comparison between, say, going through 3-4 notebooks a year vs. a tablet with a 3-5 year span. A notebook "costs" trees, and in theory is use-once and disposeable, but it's biodegradable, the ingredients are relatively easily accessible, and the manufacturing process is pretty refined by now. A tablet, on the other…

Not exactly the same, but I did some research a while ago on the environmental impact of ereaders vs paper books. They're actually quite close, though it depends on how much you read; the overall impact of the ereader is ~100-140x that of a single paper book. A full-on tablet is probably worse, as the display is more expensive to manufacture.

It’s a shame that the reading experience gets worse as you go from book to e-ink to tablet, at least for me. Like many HN readers I’m already staring at screens for many hours per day. Using the library for books seems like the way to go!

I see bookshelves in so many houses and wonder, realistically how many of those will ever be opened again? I have books that will comfort or challenge me for decades to come, but more than a couple of shelves seems like hoarding. Maybe it’s more of a signal to guests that they’re well-read.