Live data from Hacker News

People who can't give up paper

bbc.com

1–10 of 168 posts

Re: People who can't give up paper

#3
I support paper notebooks compared to the e-forms.

I can bet a notes written today in a paper notebook - would be accessible 200+ years from now. compared to notes written in some notebook app.

whether inaccessibility is due to data damage, lost passwords etc. whereas with a notebook as long as it's not damaged by fire. it should be good. also invest in waterproof paper notebooks i.e stone-paper.

Re: People who can't give up paper

#4
When it comes to tabletop gaming, I strongly prefer handwritten force lists and character sheets. Printed is okay, so long as they can be marked and modified on the fly with a pencil.

Requiring someone to fiddle with a poorly-designed app to record momentary bookkeeping is downright obnoxious and will not stand for it.

Re: People who can't give up paper

#5
post #3

I support paper notebooks compared to the e-forms. I can bet a notes written today in a paper notebook - would be accessible 200+ years from now. compared to notes written in some notebook app. whether inaccessibility is due to data damage, lost passwords etc. whereas with a notebook as long as it's not damaged by fire. it should be good. also invest in waterproof paper notebooks i.e stone-paper.

> I can bet a notes written today in a paper notebook - would be accessible 200+ years from now. compared to notes written in some notebook app

I think it's the opposite, at least if you use obsidian or just md files. With paper notes, they can get lost more easily, there are no backups. In many countries, termites are a real problem (tell that to my damaged comic books and magic cards). If you use md files (which are just text files) + git/cloud/external drive backups, you are unlikely to lose them

Re: People who can't give up paper

#7
post #3

I support paper notebooks compared to the e-forms. I can bet a notes written today in a paper notebook - would be accessible 200+ years from now. compared to notes written in some notebook app. whether inaccessibility is due to data damage, lost passwords etc. whereas with a notebook as long as it's not damaged by fire. it should be good. also invest in waterproof paper notebooks i.e stone-paper.

> I can bet a notes written today in a paper notebook - would be accessible 200+ years from now. compared to notes written in some notebook app I think it's the opposite, at least if you use obsidian or just md files. With paper notes, they can get lost more easily, there are no backups. In many countries, termites are a real problem (tell that to my damaged comic books and magic cards). If you use md files (which ar…

I think you are severely underestimating the complexity of preserving digital data for 200+ years. It’s not trivial, but a family could totally put a box of notebooks and loose papers in a box in a dry/somewhat safe location and pretty much guarantee they will still be usable/viewable in 200+ years without any electricity/file format/solar flare/emp/etc/etc issues to have to consider.

I’m not disagreeing that it’s wonderful to be able to make multiple backups, offsite storage, etc of digital data, I’m just making sure you understand how difficult it is to keep digital data stored long term without significant attention to that desire.

Dropping some markdown in git is not a long-term (using 200 yrs as my example) plan.

I spent years and years working in a newspaper publisher trying to preserve the output digitally and it required serious investment (network storage, auto backup to LTO tapes, and verifying recovery is possible years later). It was and almost always is easier to ship two or three copies of the physical paper to separate storage facilities. I had to remind folks countless times that things like a dvd-r or cd-r have a maximal lifetime where we can trust that the data is retrievable.

Maybe long term storage of personal data will have some future breakthroughs that make it dead simple to trust they can be viewable in 200+ years but today that’s not the case.

I will say that most personal data (sans photos imo) isn’t useful after a few years (maybe 10+) and digital options are great for that. But for stuff we want to keep for centuries, it’s extremely hard and expensive today.

Re: People who can't give up paper

#8
post #3

I support paper notebooks compared to the e-forms. I can bet a notes written today in a paper notebook - would be accessible 200+ years from now. compared to notes written in some notebook app. whether inaccessibility is due to data damage, lost passwords etc. whereas with a notebook as long as it's not damaged by fire. it should be good. also invest in waterproof paper notebooks i.e stone-paper.

>I can bet a notes written today in a paper notebook - would be accessible 200+ years from now.

I bet if you got a sheet of granite and chiseled them into the granite, they would have a far better chance of surviving that a paper notebook.

Re: People who can't give up paper

#9
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can bet a notes written today in a paper notebook - would be accessible 200+ years from now. compared to notes written in some notebook app I think it's the opposite, at least if you use obsidian or just md files. With paper notes, they can get lost more easily, there are no backups. In many countries, termites are a real problem (tell that to my damaged comic books and magic cards). If you use md files (which ar…

I think you are severely underestimating the complexity of preserving digital data for 200+ years. It’s not trivial, but a family could totally put a box of notebooks and loose papers in a box in a dry/somewhat safe location and pretty much guarantee they will still be usable/viewable in 200+ years without any electricity/file format/solar flare/emp/etc/etc issues to have to consider. I’m not disagreeing that it’s wo…

> I think you are severely underestimating the complexity of preserving digital data for 200+ years

although I doubt my personal notes will be necessary in 200+ years

Re: People who can't give up paper

#10
post #3

I support paper notebooks compared to the e-forms. I can bet a notes written today in a paper notebook - would be accessible 200+ years from now. compared to notes written in some notebook app. whether inaccessibility is due to data damage, lost passwords etc. whereas with a notebook as long as it's not damaged by fire. it should be good. also invest in waterproof paper notebooks i.e stone-paper.

> I can bet a notes written today in a paper notebook - would be accessible 200+ years from now. compared to notes written in some notebook app I think it's the opposite, at least if you use obsidian or just md files. With paper notes, they can get lost more easily, there are no backups. In many countries, termites are a real problem (tell that to my damaged comic books and magic cards). If you use md files (which ar…

I recently moved and was going through boxes of stuff I had accumulated. In one of the boxes, I have notebooks from over 20 years ago. There is also a hard drive with an IDE connection on it packed around the same time. The papers were ever so slightly degraded, but immediately completely readable. I no longer have the hardware to read the hard drive (though, yes, I’m sure I can find some online or at a garage sale). This box of materials has now gone through at least ten moves with me. My money is, generally, on physical media.
Post reply on HN