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The Hipster PDA (2004)

43folders.com

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Re: The Hipster PDA (2004)

#41

It's too bad the reference to GTD has a broken link in the page. GTD was the perfect method to support the HPDA. https://gtd.43folders.com/

I was going to go spelunking into the Internet Archive for a working link but it’s offline at the moment; so this comment is more a reminder to me to check back later.

EDIT: Success! https://web.archive.org/web/20050926032028/http://wiki.43fol...

See also: https://web.archive.org/web/20061018171833/http://www.43fold...

Re: The Hipster PDA (2004)

#42

Haha this was a great idea. It demonstrated that many of the hard problems of mobile productivity are "soft" problems in our heads and concepts, not hardware or software problems. I wish the "note taking app" crowd would think harder about that. There is a great book about the early age of hype and how it failed, called "The Myth of the Paperless Office" [1]. Would be great to re-read it and see how it holds up. By t…

I've long enjoyed the Exacompta brand for index cards because the paper is uncannily thick and nice to write on. But those rounded edges on the Foglietto's look super cool. Going to see if I can snag some of those now!

Re: The Hipster PDA (2004)

#44

I am more shocked the 2004 amazon link to file cards still works, but also sad that the 3 dollar pack is now 11 dollars :(

If you check CCC that particular sku has jumped directly from $3-$4 to $9 a while back so it might be have gone out of production. A quick Amazon search shows 300 for $2.29 or 1000 for $8.77. (Compared to the 500 for $3-ish of the original).

Re: The Hipster PDA (2004)

#46
post #31

Haha this was a great idea. It demonstrated that many of the hard problems of mobile productivity are "soft" problems in our heads and concepts, not hardware or software problems. I wish the "note taking app" crowd would think harder about that. There is a great book about the early age of hype and how it failed, called "The Myth of the Paperless Office" [1]. Would be great to re-read it and see how it holds up. By t…

The Myth of the Paperless Office seems less like a myth and more like a premature prediction. As someone whose career started in 2011, I don't think I've ever used a company printer for anything but a convenient way to print out personal files. In fact, I don't think I've ever interacted with paper in a professional capacity except: * to sign employment contracts (and even that's gone 100% digital in the past 5 years…

Interesting. I was handed a stack of CVs to review by my boss today. They were all printed. So was my employment contract.

On my desk is a stack of paper for note taking, drawing and problem solving.

I am sure there are places that have gone entirely digital, but the best replacement for notepaper seems to be things like the remarkable, and it is a poor replacement. Paper is never going to need an update at an inconvinient time, never out of power, works with any stylus and is ready to be used immediately.

It is great if it works for you, but I think your office is an exception to the general rule.

Re: The Hipster PDA (2004)

#47

Never stopped using the old index cards and binder clip. Todo lists, notes, GTD systems, brain storming sessions, pseudo code, bird lists, scoring baseball games, etc. Still can't sync to cloud though.

Maybe you need to attach some ballons to them?

Re: The Hipster PDA (2004)

#48
post #46
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Myth of the Paperless Office seems less like a myth and more like a premature prediction. As someone whose career started in 2011, I don't think I've ever used a company printer for anything but a convenient way to print out personal files. In fact, I don't think I've ever interacted with paper in a professional capacity except: * to sign employment contracts (and even that's gone 100% digital in the past 5 years…

Interesting. I was handed a stack of CVs to review by my boss today. They were all printed. So was my employment contract. On my desk is a stack of paper for note taking, drawing and problem solving. I am sure there are places that have gone entirely digital, but the best replacement for notepaper seems to be things like the remarkable, and it is a poor replacement. Paper is never going to need an update at an inconv…

I've worked at 5 different tech companies across that period (2 YC startups, 2 FAANG, 1 mid-size). It might be a US coastal tech thing, but it's certainly not a single office thing.

Re: The Hipster PDA (2004)

#49
post #31

Haha this was a great idea. It demonstrated that many of the hard problems of mobile productivity are "soft" problems in our heads and concepts, not hardware or software problems. I wish the "note taking app" crowd would think harder about that. There is a great book about the early age of hype and how it failed, called "The Myth of the Paperless Office" [1]. Would be great to re-read it and see how it holds up. By t…

The Myth of the Paperless Office seems less like a myth and more like a premature prediction. As someone whose career started in 2011, I don't think I've ever used a company printer for anything but a convenient way to print out personal files. In fact, I don't think I've ever interacted with paper in a professional capacity except: * to sign employment contracts (and even that's gone 100% digital in the past 5 years…

To be clear, the book is significantly more nuanced than the title might suggest.

It's ultimately a study of affordances, thinking about what makes paper useful beyond merely storing information.

That's as relevant as ever, even if many of paper's uses have been superseded today.

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