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Business Moleskine Mania: How a Notebook Conquered the Digital Era

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Re: Business Moleskine Mania: How a Notebook Conquered the Digital Era

#71

Post by d1sxeyes »

walterbell wrote: post #33
austinl wrote: post #30

I'm curious about the main use-cases for physical notebooks from folks on HN. I love the idea of physical notebooks, but also have years of digital notes that are searchable and that I can access on any device. I feel like I'm in too deep with digital, and like the ability to access it anywhere. Has anyone made the switch from digital to physical and loved it? What kind of notes are you taking, how did you get it to…

They are not mutually exclusive, in the era of ubiquitous cameras and handwriting recognition. Paper and physical notebooks offer motor memory and time delay before data ingestion by cloud analytics.

Handwriting recognition is still very hit-or-miss. The best results I've had so far are by running the handwriting through the Google Cloud Vision API, and then asking ChatGPT to fix transcription mistakes. The problem with that is that effectively you are asking it to hallucinate.

It's great at producing something that sounds a lot like what I might have written, but I can't trust anything that it says, because it frequently hallucinates numbers, dates, people's names—the exact kind of thing that I take notes to have a good record of.

So I've given up and only use paper now.

Re: Business Moleskine Mania: How a Notebook Conquered the Digital Era

#72

Post by yial »

memset wrote: post #12

Fascinating! I myself am partial to the Muji lay flat notebooks. Question: how can I find a printer to make my own? I run a small business making staff paper notebooks. I want to make lay flat, thread + tape bound ones. How can I find a printer that can help me replicate? (I also want to launch a line of cheap mead-like notebooks, but similarly have trouble figuring out how to get those done.) most places will do spi…

I’m not 100% sure I can help here, but the company I work for, we work with a printer / producer / manufacturer in Ecuador. If you’d like to shoot me an email with what you’d like to produce, I can see if it’s something they can make. (We manufacture fair trade goods, working with some producers, including notebooks… so this might be within the realm. I think the hardest part would be getting the exact paper you would want).

My email is in my profile.

(Also not entirely altruistic as I struggle to find notebooks I love, and frequently revert back to legal pads which just don’t work quite the same).

Re: Business Moleskine Mania: How a Notebook Conquered the Digital Era

#73

Post by d1sxeyes »

For those in Europe who have a Flying Tiger Copenhagen nearby, their 'Bullet Journal' is a great, cheap notebook (seriously, 5 EUR, compared to 3-4x that for a Moleskine). Dotted, numbered pages. Paper quality is fine, I use a fountain pen so there's a bit of ghosting and a bit of bleed through, but it's only really noticeable if you lift the notebook up and really study the letters.

The only thing I don't like about it is the STUPID lettering on the cover. Just give me a plain, blank cover! They keep doing seasonal ranges with reasonably acceptable covers, but the pages aren't numbered, which, you know, I shouldn't complain about for 5 EUR, but it's just so nearly perfect...

https://flyingtiger.com/en-hu/products/bullet-planner-a5-302...

Re: Business Moleskine Mania: How a Notebook Conquered the Digital Era

#74

Post by sgu999 »

FredPret wrote: post #31
sgu999 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (Moleskine and Leuchtturm both use mainly Taiwanese paper) I guess us Europeans can't even make paper anymore... I hope one day it'll be widely obvious to everyone that the true architects of our impoverishment are these CEOs who organized the offshoring of all our supply chain. But in the mean time we'll probably keep on blaming migrants for a while.

That cannot be true: 1) A class of people (here it is “the CEOs”) consistently behaving a certain way over time can only be explained by one of two things: a conspiracy (unstable; almost impossible to pull off), or their behavior is shaped by the reality facing them 2) if CEOs consistently offshore manufacturing over decades, this must be because it’s most profitable to do so. This must then be because people elsewhe…

The "system" is by and large designed by economical and political elites, and the public discourse they push is shaping what "we want". There is no conspiracy, just a convergence of personal interests. For a while it was to offshore as much as possible to boost short term profits, or artificially increase spending power of the masses before the next election. Now that doesn't work anymore...

It's not just step 4 that failed. Most of the companies I was referring to went bankrupt in the past 30 years or are now empty brands belonging to foreign corps. Their leaders were either delusional to think they could compete on design only, or they didn't care about long term consequences. In all cases they put themselves in a position of not being able to lobby politicians for moves against imported goods.

Not everyone was this shortsighted though, and the ones who resisted the calls for offshoring and survived until now are finally reaping the benefits of their decision.

Re: Business Moleskine Mania: How a Notebook Conquered the Digital Era

#75

Post by armitron »

neom wrote: post #4

“Do you know there’s a section of our customer base that buys a fresh Moleskine every time they come into a store? We have no idea what they do with them” I give them out. I have far too many moleskine's yet I still buy one every time I'm in a store with them... I just can't stand seeing someone using a crap notebook. So when someone I like comes into my office and they're using some free shit they got as swag from s…

A moleskine is an overpriced crap notebook at this point. Paper quality has drastically diminished from what it used to be, to the point where one can't use fountain or gel pens without bleed through. Another example of enshittification.

Re: Business Moleskine Mania: How a Notebook Conquered the Digital Era

#76

Post by wrp »

sgu999 wrote: post #21
walterbell wrote: post #3

> From 2005, Leuchtturm.. took on Moleskine, matching them for quality.. older companies like Clairefontaine, Rhodia, and Paperblanks refreshed their offerings. Western hipsters, always alert to high-end Japanese design, started to import notebooks from companies like Midori, Hobonichi, and Stalogy, which bested any of the European brands with their exquisite papers and bindings (Moleskine and Leuchtturm both use mai…

> (Moleskine and Leuchtturm both use mainly Taiwanese paper) I guess us Europeans can't even make paper anymore... I hope one day it'll be widely obvious to everyone that the true architects of our impoverishment are these CEOs who organized the offshoring of all our supply chain. But in the mean time we'll probably keep on blaming migrants for a while.

If you want to buy European, Clairefontaine/Rhodia is still made in France.

Re: Business Moleskine Mania: How a Notebook Conquered the Digital Era

#77

Post by neom »

armitron wrote: post #75
neom wrote: post #4

“Do you know there’s a section of our customer base that buys a fresh Moleskine every time they come into a store? We have no idea what they do with them” I give them out. I have far too many moleskine's yet I still buy one every time I'm in a store with them... I just can't stand seeing someone using a crap notebook. So when someone I like comes into my office and they're using some free shit they got as swag from s…

A moleskine is an overpriced crap notebook at this point. Paper quality has drastically diminished from what it used to be, to the point where one can't use fountain or gel pens without bleed through. Another example of enshittification.

And is that

"from my own observations because I'm an expert in moleskins and I can tell you exactly why the paper quality has drastically diminished from what it used to be, here is the technique change"

or

"eh, I used a notepad once so I know what I'm talking about"

Because I'm quite sure I know a lot about moleskine, and I'm quite sure you are totally incorrect, a classic is 70gsm, there is no way it wouldn't reject a fp or gel.

Oh yeah, and as a note, I looked at your HN comment history, you might consider a once over of the guidelines, especially: "Please don't post shallow dismissals".

https://www.despec.se/media/3080/msk-paper-guide.pdf

Re: Business Moleskine Mania: How a Notebook Conquered the Digital Era

#78

Post by Analemma_ »

wrp wrote: post #76
sgu999 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (Moleskine and Leuchtturm both use mainly Taiwanese paper) I guess us Europeans can't even make paper anymore... I hope one day it'll be widely obvious to everyone that the true architects of our impoverishment are these CEOs who organized the offshoring of all our supply chain. But in the mean time we'll probably keep on blaming migrants for a while.

If you want to buy European, Clairefontaine/Rhodia is still made in France.

I want to like Rhodia, but the problem is that their “sheen”-y paper doesn’t cooperate with left-handed writers: it doesn’t like pencil at all but if I write with pen it just ends up smeared everywhere. I’ve had to stick to Stalogy and other companies using Tomoe River (or similar) paper.

Re: Business Moleskine Mania: How a Notebook Conquered the Digital Era

#79

Post by kjkjadksj »

austinl wrote: post #30

I'm curious about the main use-cases for physical notebooks from folks on HN. I love the idea of physical notebooks, but also have years of digital notes that are searchable and that I can access on any device. I feel like I'm in too deep with digital, and like the ability to access it anywhere. Has anyone made the switch from digital to physical and loved it? What kind of notes are you taking, how did you get it to…

Two reasons. 1: you retain more information writing it down on physical paper. 2: I have never needed to search ancient notes, most last a couple weeks at the longest, and thanks to point #1 you know where things are in that notebook better than you’d guess.

Re: Business Moleskine Mania: How a Notebook Conquered the Digital Era

#80

Post by armitron »

neom wrote: post #77
armitron wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A moleskine is an overpriced crap notebook at this point. Paper quality has drastically diminished from what it used to be, to the point where one can't use fountain or gel pens without bleed through. Another example of enshittification.

And is that "from my own observations because I'm an expert in moleskins and I can tell you exactly why the paper quality has drastically diminished from what it used to be, here is the technique change" or "eh, I used a notepad once so I know what I'm talking about" Because I'm quite sure I know a lot about moleskine, and I'm quite sure you are totally incorrect, a classic is 70gsm, there is no way it wouldn't rejec…

The web is full of independent observations of that exact fact, here's one that even comes with photos [1] but don't let me shatter your illusion. Feel free to keep giving them your money and supporting the enshittification.

"Are Moleskines fountain pen friendly? No. The paper quality is low in general, and fountain pen users will experience ghosting and bleedthrough that prevent you using both sides of the paper, and even some feathering on the front side. There are far better options available, and at a cheaper price."

[1] https://theanalogpastor.com/are-moleskines-fountain-pen-frie...

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