The Hipster PDA (2004) • Hacker News Board

Re: The Hipster PDA (2004)

#31

Post by akavi » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 5:37 PM UTC

uniqueuid wrote: post #2

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)

* my personal notebook that I use to noodle on ideas

Re: The Hipster PDA (2004)

#32

Post by marstall » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 5:38 PM UTC

bencollier49 wrote: post #29

Hmm, is "Hipster" still a current term? It feels like hipsters aren't in evidence as much as they used to be before lockdown.

(2004)

Re: The Hipster PDA (2004)

#33

Post by rkallos » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 5:40 PM UTC

DeadMouseFive wrote: post #15

I started using a new kind of hipster PDA recently. I got a Holy Bible from a hotel room, a pad of post-its, and a felt tip marker or ball point pen. Ultimate hipster notebook. Just use the bible as a binder and the post-it's like the pages. Reconfigurable, rewritable, with a built in index and page numbering system.

That's very resourceful! Your system also comes with a bunch of quotes and advice.

Re: The Hipster PDA (2004)

#34

Post by huetius » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 5:45 PM UTC

bencollier49 wrote: post #29

Hmm, is "Hipster" still a current term? It feels like hipsters aren't in evidence as much as they used to be before lockdown.

I’d be interested to see a more serious study of this, but my hypothesis is that it was always a weakly bonded cohort which has by now dissolved into other cohorts. Hipsters generally didn’t self identify as hipsters, and the internal dynamics of that scene tended towards schism (anything liked by too many/the wrong people is rejected).

Re: The Hipster PDA (2004)

#35

Post by jrm4 » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 5:48 PM UTC

Love this idea, even though I do use a computer for similar things. For me, the big mistake was "the fancy computer can do so many more fancy things, I should use ALL OF THEM." And over time, I realized the better way was thinking -- "99% of what you're doing on the computer can be done on paper, let me treat it like for the most part, and slowly slowly experiment with the things that look like improvements, knowing that most of them will not stick."

Turns out they are pretty much all just quicker versions of things I would do with paper anyway. Hyperlinks instead of rifling through an index; Quick note adding instead of finding post-it notes, automatic date-fill in instead of looking at the calendar, etc.

(this is through zim-wiki, btw)

Re: The Hipster PDA (2004)

#36

Post by slightwinder » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 5:50 PM UTC

captainmuon wrote: post #4

That was awesome. I'm still not sure what part of it was satire and what part was a real countermovement, but the hipster PDA made me read up on nice pens and paper. For a while I had an old-school Filofax. I even made my own template for calendar pages, and had a little foldable public transport map in the back. Every now and then I try to get back to a paper organizer, but things like online calendar sync are too c…

> Also, remember that this was before smartphones, social media and the attention stealing craze.

No, smartphone already existed at that point, they just were not from Apple or with Android. More popular at that time were PDA and electronic organizers, from Psion, Treo, Blackberry, with Windows Mobile... Small optimized Offline-devices with sometimes optional network-access. Even the attention-sinks already were a thing at that point, but came in form of sms, e-mail, WAP-services.

But, not for the general population. Those things were expensive, and had limited benefit. So this Hipster PDA was the discount-version of those expensive Toys I mean it's even directly in the name...

Re: The Hipster PDA (2004)

#37

Post by Melatonic » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 5:52 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #30

The original "Thinkpad" was an actual pad of paper with the word THINK embossed on the cover. Inside the cover is embossed: IBMers Value Dedication to every client's success Innovation that matters — for our company and for the world Trust and personal responsibility in all relationships And then the IBM logo embossed on the back. I have a bunch of these, and use them regularly. I keep one in each of my coats and one…

Now this is really making me want to find some of these!

Re: The Hipster PDA (2004)

#38

Post by robotburrito » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 6:00 PM UTC

I basically use vimwiki and a todo list.

Re: The Hipster PDA (2004)

#39

Post by samatman » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 6:07 PM UTC

Mild coincidence! I did an Instructable on making one of these from a Moleskine, back when the conceit was popular:

https://www.instructables.com/Moleskine-Hipster-PDA-case/

The mild coincidence being that I remembered this in January and made myself another one.

Which... I haven't been using. At least it's there for the next time I get annoyed enough at Things to meme myself into thinking I'll start writing things down with a pen again.

Re: The Hipster PDA (2004)

#40

Post by SllX » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 6:13 PM UTC

bitdestroyer wrote: post #16

gregjw wrote: post #3

I'm a simple man, I see the work of Merlin Mann, I upvote.

I don't think we're supposed to notice him.

You get the attention you earn and the Hipster PDA is still a neat thing I like to tell people about. Merlin Mann may not like the attention but he did earn it.