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> the waste of paper gave me a mental block

Serious question—not a pointed remark disguised as a question—but what's the impact of that waste paper vs the what goes into a latest gen reMarkable? Where's the inflection point where a device like that figuratively "pays for itself" (in terms of reduced environmental harms) over pen and paper?

Even if those numbers are good, I assume that the human rights abuses associated with paper production are minimal in comparison to the the kinds of things happening to support the manufacture of modern consumer electronics. Am I wrong?

I imagine the stats come out better when using something like an iPad for notes which replaces other electronics you would have bought.

Good point. More on this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23018923

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21020682

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20320001

Found an interesting article on the topic: https://slate.com/technology/2011/09/paper-versus-the-ipad-i...

According to the article, if you already have an iPad, it’s better to take notes on that than to use paper, by a lot. 7 hours of iPad note taking equals 1 piece of paper (in carbon dioxide equivalents).

However if you’re buying the iPad just for the purpose of taking notes, it is probably better to just use paper. Unless you’re going to use more than roughly 8,000 a 13,000 pieces of paper (depending on the type).

So as far as the remarkable goes, my guess would be that paper wins unless you take an insane amount of notes.

There are obviously other factors to consider when deciding between remarkable and paper. I just found these numbers interesting and have absolutely no problem with people who take notes digitally. I have way too many computers/tablets/phones/who knows how many other electronics to be judgmental of this sort of thing.

That's a good question, I was wondering about it as well. I would assume the paper wins easily in terms of CO2, but in terms of human rights abuse I wouldn't be so sure. But I bought it for my personal gain, not the planet's. The problem is that, rational or not, if I don't have the tablet I feel guilty every time I pick up a piece of paper and it's a detriment to my work. If I have the tablet, the cost is essentially paid in full so the mental cost of a new page is null.

> Who is "the kind of person who carries a notebook"?

I took it to mean “I decided to keep track of my random thoughts and things not to forget rather than be one of those people with scraps of paper and who loses track of things.”

In that read, “notebook” is synecdoche

Paper is an always-there, always-on, never-obsoleted, never uncharged, high-light/low-light, durable, unbreakable device with inegrated modular sharding and really, really, really shitty search features (though creative indexing can get around this somewhat).

(Some of the newer e-ink devices ... are starting to address a few of paper's strengths, particularly use under brightly-lit environments, increased durability, and whilst not never needing charging, both going long stretches on a charge and reviving quickly.)

There remain risks. Few paper-based notekeeping systems suffer from integrated keyloggers, data exfiltration, or ransomeware attacks.

What makes paper far more useful, I'm discovering several years in to a still-only-semi-organised Bullet Journal practice, is indexing.

Find a way to highlight where relevant data are kept, and note things there. The Bullet Journal itself strongly leverages, but is not limited to, time-based organisation. My strategy generally is to begin temporal content at the front of the journal, conceptual or topical content at the back, working toward the middle. (Exceptions to both rules can of course exist.) The index, which begins at the front (and can be extended to any arbitrary location within the journal, though I've found 1--2 pages more than sufficient, having allocated 4 initially) points to either specific items or waypoints (e.g., monthly spreads, possibly weekly if you want to go that way).

There seem to be two primary schools of BuJo use. One is principally concerned with aesthetic. I'm concerned with utility. My journals are brutally practical, and anything but works of art. They're useful, however. (And I hope to make them more so with time.)

Having recently acquired a larger e-ink device (Onyx BOOX), I am finding its notetaking capabilities ... surprisingly attractive. (I'd bought it strictly as an e-book / e-article reader, it does very well at that also, of course.) It's become an idea-development space. But isn't seriously challenging paper yet in other realms.

During lockdown I got a cheap Huion drawing tablet for my desktop Linux and it has been great for figuring programming or mathematics problems out "on paper" but with non of the cons of running out of paper. I use the xournal++ app.

I had never heard of this, so I googled it. Very interesting. The drawing aspect is heavily pushed, but it looked like it also runs Windows 10 Pro... can you comment on how it runs as a computer? Could it be used to make videos, with say, DaVinci Reolve, or Openshot? Does O365 work on it, and web browsing, etc.? Thank you.

I have a Wacom which I believe is similar usage to Huion mentioned by OP.

I have made videos by simply opening up gimp, setting up appropriate screen and background, and then using Camtasia to screen record my writing.

Biggest issue for me is that I like to use multiple monitors. Between two monitors and laptop screen, there are three monitors. The tablet acts like a mouse that extends across all three screens, so the aspect ratio gets messed up (the middle third of the tracker affects the middle screen, so tiny movements side to side there are quite large on the monitor).

There is probably a better fix, but I end up disconnecting my laptop and going to separate workspace when I want to record. Not a big deal, but annoying That I can’t just plug and go if I want to use drawing tablet randomly in a project.

>Who is "the kind of person who carries a notebook"?

Statistically either a hipster pretending to be deep, or a "get things done" cult member.

This sounds like a needlessly harsh take and on something as benign as "having pen and paper regularly".

Exactly. What about the forgetful but responsible people?

What about my first word "statistically"? :-)

As someone who struggles with impulsive speaking in meetings, I use notes as a buffer between my brain and mouth. I jot my thoughts down when others are talking. Instead of wanting to interrupt them to speak, this gives me time to consider what I should say-- and if it is actually important enough to say without having to worry that I will forget things. It also gives others a chance to talk and perhaps express what I was thinking anyway.

This is a great strategy!

Really nice tip. I also struggle with this. Will try to use it.

I’m a GTD cultist and I throw everything into Drafts on my iPhone. I’ve tried keeping a paper notebook with me but it just doesn’t suit my way of doing things.

In other words, they’re not related.

>In other words, they’re not related.

They're not tied in an absolute "if and only if" relationship (that is, there are exceptions), but they are absolutely related, hence the "statistically".

If you're going to use the term statistically you should probably back it up with a source citation.