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Paper is the real 'killer app'

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Re: Paper is the real 'killer app'

#301

Post by agumonkey »

megablast wrote: post #296
agumonkey wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MD were such a beautiful thing. I still wonder what would have been if Sony decided to drop it as an open storage medium. Considering it was released in 1992 ... could you imagine. There's something I recently felt deep and weird about. The society is a double rotating system. We live, we want to solve problems, the solutions become a new ground replacing the past, not solving it. When I look at old tech (big hifi tu…

> MD were such a beautiful thing. I still wonder what would have been if Sony decided to drop it as an open storage medium. Considering it was released in 1992 ... could you imagine. Sony messed it up when they bought a movie and music studio, and started to hobble their own devices. The MD was awesome, worked for 40 hours on one battery, could to digital recording and replaying. Damn you sony.

The content side of things made them weird, but I can't really blame them not to foresee the use of a 140MB optical disk when the average consumer used floppy disks. It might be two different parts of their brains.

Re: Paper is the real 'killer app'

#302

Post by jrapdx3 »

ghaff wrote: post #60
jrapdx3 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, Wacom tablets were/are great and terrible at the same time. I've used them on and off for a long time, and they really are great for drawing, but there's a learning curve to be sure. Actually I liked the older Wacoms better than some new ones I've tries out. The ancient "cursor" device was mouse-like, but used in absolute mode was great for some tasks where keeping it in the same place enabled keeping the point…

Preferences definitely vary. Our graphic artist at a former employer had a Wacom tablet but she drew everything on paper first and then just basically used the tablet to digitize it. I've never found anything I really loved but, then, I'm pretty bad drawing and writing on paper too :-)

Yes, it's sure hard to beat the sensory and esthetic experience of putting pencil to paper. No digital method can come close to it.

OTOH drawing on the computer has a whole new set of features to offer that are completely novel and can't be accomplished in other ways, certainly not easily.

So like in most things, different "tooling" involves tradeoffs, no single solution ever covers it all. We usually have reasons to go one way or the other. In any case, not tool can make up for dearth of talent, how well I know the truth of that statement!

Re: Paper is the real 'killer app'

#303

Post by sengork »

Free form paper still fills in the gap where computers/tablets/phones are too cumbersome and just slow the process down.

Sometimes the simplest tool happens to be the most effective tool (paperless office hasn't fully happened yet).

Another aspect to consider is the process of writing often leads to insights that you may not have stumbled upon whilst using a keyboard/touch screen for writing the same message. This may be due to the speed of writing relative to the speed of creative thought. It may also stem out of less distractions encountered during the paper writing process vs a busy computer screen.

Re: Paper is the real 'killer app'

#304

Post by jdietrich »

vog wrote: post #126
KIFulgore wrote: post #124

I recently re-subscribed to a real-life, old-fashioned newspaper. I like the digital edition, but prefer the paper version. The resolution is amazing and you can't beat the loading times, and I never run into browser incompatibility issues. There are still too many ads, but they don't pop up and dance.

The only issue is that Ctrl+F doesn't work properly on paper, neither within a single newspaper, not across last year's newspapers.

I recently read a printed book for the first time in ages and had a really weird experience. I wanted to find a particular passage, but muscle memory took over and I found myself pressing Ctrl-F on my leg. For a fraction of a second, I thought that the book was broken. It took me a moment to remember to look in the index.

It really threw me for a loop. Electronic texts are so pervasive in my life that I had half forgotten how to interact with a printed book. My automatic familiarity with print had faded enough that I was consciously aware of the properties of the medium. I was frustrated by the inability to zoom in on diagrams or copy and paste. The margins weren't big enough for my notes. There was no autogenerated list of highlighted passages. I felt like a child confronted with a VHS tape or a classic Gameboy.

I grew up obsessed with books. At the back of my desk drawer, there's a little envelope containing the membership cards for eleven different library services. For most of my life, I rarely went anywhere without a book to hand. I spent a large part of my adolescence digging through the dustier shelves of second-hand book shops. Still, I can't shake the feeling that print is largely obsolete. I don't feel nostalgic about books, I'm just frustrated that so few of them are available in digital format.

Re: Paper is the real 'killer app'

#305

Post by e2e4 »

nomel wrote: post #229
throwaway26960 wrote: post #184

The advantage of paper is that you can be more creative and use slow thinking[1]. Just take a look at Newton's[2] or DaVinci's[3] notebooks, how would they think so freely on a computer? Sure for a work task list, a computer is fine, but I find a computer too limiting on my creativity for myself. Added bonus: no ads, bugs, or distractions. People that create apps create them to make money, not because they make you m…

For me, the benefit comes from two limitations: - The slow and physical aspect allows you to think about and consider the idea, as you're writing it. - The negative reinforcement, for that slow consideration, caused by from the permanence of your mistakes or a tired hand. But, I don't think paper has to be involved. I see it as an indication of a lack of good stylus input in most devices. I now use a large iPad Pro,…

I've tried iPad Pro; but went back to using frixion (erasable) pens: http://frixion.jp/lineup/

my favourite being the 4-color (w/ variety of colors to choose from) with very fine line 0.5 mm: http://www.pilot.co.jp/products/pen/ballpen/gel_ink/frixionb...

p.s. could be combined with even finer line 0.38 mm from this pen costing ~ $1.5 : http://www.pilot.co.jp/products/pen/ballpen/gel_ink/frixionb...

For more official occasions these ones are nice: http://www.pilot.co.jp/products/pen/ballpen/multi_color/frix... http://www.pilot.co.jp/products/pen/ballpen/gel_ink/frixionb...

Re: Paper is the real 'killer app'

#306

Post by Nition »

singingboyo wrote: post #292
futureisbright wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, too, possess an iPad Pro with Apple Pencil, but I opted for the smaller 9.7" one. It was a mistake, the bigger one would have been better, but I love it anyway. for note-taking. It's a godsend to be able to shuffle text around, resize it, undo my errors etc. I wrote something on paper lately and automatically searched for the undo button when I made a mistake and was frustrated when I realized I have to use my era…

I'm on a surface book, but have a similar issue. OneNote is the best I've found, but my issues are a few things: - Something about how changing color works doesn't quite feel right. - I can't shuffle pages around, overlap them, etc. - I want either infinite page size, or fixed, not the weird 'expand when you write near the edge' thing I have now. I think I almost want a 'virtual desk' kind of thing that I can shuffle…

Once upon a time, before even the first iPad was released, the Microsoft Courier promised this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmIgNfp-MdI

Re: Paper is the real 'killer app'

#307

Post by dvcrn »

Accacin wrote: post #30
dvcrn wrote: post #9

I recently adapted bulletjournaling (from OmniFocus) and absolutely love it. Writing my journal is very relaxing and became a daily ritual of mine. Once a week i escape with my notebook to a cafe (without any tech gadgets) and review my entire system, cut out some tasks that are no longer relevant and plan for the next week. Paper also allowed me to confront imperfections and mistakes more directly. I made a ton of w…

I also use the Bullet Journal "system" and it's really nice and I enjoy writing what I need to do for the day. However, unlike you I haven't really extended it and use only the basics which seems to work fine for me.

That's great! Simpler solutions are most of the times better.

I needed to squish start dates and deadlines, task scheduling, 'waiting on' + 'someday' lists, project pages, weekly overviews and better migrations into mine which took a good amount of trial and error to find something that sticks and is intuitive.

On the other hand, I am trying to literally plan everything in my journal. I don't want to rely on any other app and thus need to come up with modules that make it possible to get rid of app dependencies completely.

Re: Paper is the real 'killer app'

#308

Post by groby_b »

djhworld wrote: post #272
mark_l_watson wrote: post #88

Great article. One of the brightest tech colleagues I ever worked with used a moleskin notebook, always kept it with him. I bought a moleskin notebook for myself, but then my granddaughter started drawing in it, and I wanted to leave it as she left it. After reading this article I am going to buy another. I have always used yellow pads to brainstorm for new projects, but I later toss my notes and drawings. Using perm…

Personally I'd recommend not buying a moleskine, the quality of the paper seems to have dramatically gone down the hill over the years to the point where you're getting ink bleeding through the paper. I'm a big fan of the Rhodia notebooks with Clairefontaine paper :)

They're nice for journaling. If you need to organize things a bit more, I'd recommend Leuchtturm 1917. Very high quality paper, dotted, line numbers, comes with an index. It's really quite lovely.

Both run circles around moleskine, which by now mostly coasts on the name.

Re: Paper is the real 'killer app'

#309

Post by groby_b »

gozur88 wrote: post #290
eddd wrote: post #53

Paper is not only bad for but also harmful. You actually have to cut a tree to make a notepad. I hope in 100 years people will look at the "paper age" as we do see the era when people carving information in stones. Why paper is worse: * you cannot easily edit/alter information that has been already created * it is hard to replicate and distribute * version control is non existent (except book keeping) * due to the re…

>security it terrible (even with all the stamps and hand signatures) Sure, if you're sending a letter. But as long as you maintain physical control over your paper it's far more secure than anything stored on a computer. There's a reason Russia's FSB bought typewriters instead of a thought-to-be-secure computer system for the storage of its most sensitive secrets.

Not to mention that the security of your letter increases quite nicely when you use thick paper and seal it shut. Yes, with wax.

No, it's not super-secure, but it stops most casual snooping attempts. Taking off (and reattaching) a seal without breaking it is quite a bit of work if you choose the right wax.

Re: Paper is the real 'killer app'

#310

Post by angry-hacker »

e2e4 wrote: post #305
nomel wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, the benefit comes from two limitations: - The slow and physical aspect allows you to think about and consider the idea, as you're writing it. - The negative reinforcement, for that slow consideration, caused by from the permanence of your mistakes or a tired hand. But, I don't think paper has to be involved. I see it as an indication of a lack of good stylus input in most devices. I now use a large iPad Pro,…

I've tried iPad Pro; but went back to using frixion (erasable) pens: http://frixion.jp/lineup/ my favourite being the 4-color (w/ variety of colors to choose from) with very fine line 0.5 mm: http://www.pilot.co.jp/products/pen/ballpen/gel_ink/frixionb... p.s. could be combined with even finer line 0.38 mm from this pen costing ~ $1.5 : http://www.pilot.co.jp/products/pen/ballpen/gel_ink/frixionb... For more official…

Why specifically this brand? Is it special, and is the difference between an avg random pen big?
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