The end of the world, indeed, and no new paper, so no new (written) books! But hopefully, as well as all the new Homers, there will be the ruins of old bookshops and libraries to raid (aka preserve), and the personal archives of the 'old' writers who thought ahead to leave paper copies, drafts and redrafts, before they finally passed away at their desks, laughing at all the fools who'd trusted to the cloud and the memory stick...
I’ve used both a Remarkable and an iPad Pro but always seem to come back to my MacBook where I use Scrivener, Mural and Obsidian. I have a huge collection of pocket notebooks from yesteryear and I might use a small notebook at a conference. The mobile tablet devices always seem to fall short. Mainly because the stylus is too blunt. Because in the analog world I use a very fine ROtring pen which is organic, spidery and allows lots of tiny annotation. I’ve dreamt of a truly pocket sized paginated device with a fine pen that could talk nicely with my MacBook but it’s too niche and doesn’t exist. I recently started sketching and writing with a ROtring again and it felt good. (I mention this in my Substack). Obsidian is great for organising raw ideas, Mural for timelines, and Scrivener for all the long form stuff. Good luck with your search for a digital notepad, let me know if you find something dinky.
I tried a Remarkable, but at its best you are still writing with a plastic tip on a hard glass or plastic screen, and that's before you get into the plastic tips wearing down and becoming useless and needing to be replaced every few weeks, or the charging port breaking in a bag
These days my "smart writing" setup is to photograph my pen drafts and notes as a digital backup..
Are we coming to the end of pens? I thought your point ( in the one on biros was it?) about any old pen being fine was a good one …. PS what do you think about pens being called “smart”?
PPPs debarring climate considerations ( i.e. a fountain better than a land-filling plastic bio) Right -that’s it from me on pens. Much enjoying your Substack.
Exciting, futuristic. Self conscious. Whether my notes are fleeting or fundamental they are all anchored to where they are in the page and the luddite means of production I've used to record them. Never mind when the technology breaks, how am I even next week or tomorrow to find the relevant digital file with the right bit of text to reactivate the thought or series of thoughts that my jotted down writing serves to anchor? Just cos we could write with a smart pen doesn't mean that we are any better off doing so, it seems such an overengineered piece of kit for the task with claims for benefit (going straight to type) that may themselves be detrimental to the development and articulation of ideas. If you want a direct connection between thought and type try a keyboard.
The end of the world, indeed, and no new paper, so no new (written) books! But hopefully, as well as all the new Homers, there will be the ruins of old bookshops and libraries to raid (aka preserve), and the personal archives of the 'old' writers who thought ahead to leave paper copies, drafts and redrafts, before they finally passed away at their desks, laughing at all the fools who'd trusted to the cloud and the memory stick...
I’ve used both a Remarkable and an iPad Pro but always seem to come back to my MacBook where I use Scrivener, Mural and Obsidian. I have a huge collection of pocket notebooks from yesteryear and I might use a small notebook at a conference. The mobile tablet devices always seem to fall short. Mainly because the stylus is too blunt. Because in the analog world I use a very fine ROtring pen which is organic, spidery and allows lots of tiny annotation. I’ve dreamt of a truly pocket sized paginated device with a fine pen that could talk nicely with my MacBook but it’s too niche and doesn’t exist. I recently started sketching and writing with a ROtring again and it felt good. (I mention this in my Substack). Obsidian is great for organising raw ideas, Mural for timelines, and Scrivener for all the long form stuff. Good luck with your search for a digital notepad, let me know if you find something dinky.
I tried a Remarkable, but at its best you are still writing with a plastic tip on a hard glass or plastic screen, and that's before you get into the plastic tips wearing down and becoming useless and needing to be replaced every few weeks, or the charging port breaking in a bag
These days my "smart writing" setup is to photograph my pen drafts and notes as a digital backup..
Are we coming to the end of pens? I thought your point ( in the one on biros was it?) about any old pen being fine was a good one …. PS what do you think about pens being called “smart”?
PPS I do take the point about patience /attention - but still think any old pen will do.
PPPs debarring climate considerations ( i.e. a fountain better than a land-filling plastic bio) Right -that’s it from me on pens. Much enjoying your Substack.
Exciting, futuristic. Self conscious. Whether my notes are fleeting or fundamental they are all anchored to where they are in the page and the luddite means of production I've used to record them. Never mind when the technology breaks, how am I even next week or tomorrow to find the relevant digital file with the right bit of text to reactivate the thought or series of thoughts that my jotted down writing serves to anchor? Just cos we could write with a smart pen doesn't mean that we are any better off doing so, it seems such an overengineered piece of kit for the task with claims for benefit (going straight to type) that may themselves be detrimental to the development and articulation of ideas. If you want a direct connection between thought and type try a keyboard.