[Bridged7756]

Paper is just too inconvenient to use for long term storage and revisiting imo. It's better suited as a transitive storage medium, either for short lived stuff like tasks, checklists, or acting as a writing inbox that you later capture into a digital medium.

Even with the capture downside, I don't think that I can do away with paper and pen. There's something invigorating about using paper that no keyboard or screen could replicate. More in touch with your brain and with your own words, that your feelings flow better into the ink. It is something that makes me enjoy writing.

I've considered e-ink devices in the past but I don't see much value from them. They're a fancier way to draft things at best, in my case, and a worse PKMS/Todo list if anything compared to dedicated tools. I'm paying for an extra device that gives me a bunch of things I won't use, anyways.

[dotancohen]

I use a Boox E-Ink tablet with the built-in handwriting notes app. It exports to PDF and I can copy everything to my Debian machine via ADB. I absolutely love it. E-Ink is close enough to paper for me, and the EMR (Wacom) stylus is close enough to a pen for me.

[kid64]

Yeah but do you trust those guys?

[dotancohen]

I am aware that people don't trust the Chinese. Which brands do you trust?

As another poster mentioned about the ReMarkable, the Boox works just fine offline. I do use mine online, e.g. for reading HN as I prefer the E-Ink screen for text. But as for note-taking, everything I do is offline, including moving the PDF documents to the desktop via ADB.

[kid64]

It's not about their Chineseness. They're notorious, unapologetic GPL violators with a poor track record when it comes to privacy and general integrity (paying for reviews, etc)..

See:

- https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/privacynotincluded/onyx...

- https://www.reddit.com/r/ereader/comments/13e8bw3/psa_onyxbo...

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23735962

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31247982

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37665408

- https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F0...

etc...

[dotancohen]

Thank you. The GPL violations are a long-term problem, most agreed, but the lack of a privacy policy is an immediate problem. What frustrates me is that I'm usually not complacent about such matters, but I purchased the device during a period of extreme time pressure so I never got around to checking that. In fact the device was specifically purchased to help me better reduce my cognitive load - which it does.

I just wrote to the company in the Feedback feature of the device, asking about where the privacy policy can be found and giving an example of where the privacy policy is found in my Samsung device.

Thank you for making me aware of the issue. I was vaguely aware that there were GPL concerns with Boox, but I did not realize that there is no stated privacy policy - technical potential for exploitation aside.

[kid64]

I think the accepted remedy is to root the device, then use a root-level firewall to prevent it from phoning home. But Boox can of course snap their fingers and undo that any time, and rooting comes with its own set of security concerns. In any case, you're strongly advised to never enter a password on the device using the on-screen keyboard, and rotate any credentials you may have already entered.

[throwawa324]

reMarkable tablet, for example, works offline just fine

[ferngodfather]

I was in the same position as you when I started my law degree!

My solution was:

- Take notes on paper

- Scan with Genius Scan (free) or similar

- Upload to Microsoft Document Intelligence on Azure to get character recognition and a PDF output (standard OCR sucks for handwriting; also free for up to like 50 docs a month)

- Tidy up the text and store in Mediawiki long-term (you can also upload a copy of the OCR enabled PDF) (FOSS)

- File paper notes

- Throw paper notes once module is complete

[f0cus10]

I totally agree, I own a few fountain pens and Midori notebooks and for my lecture notes I just enter flow state using those.

I've recently gotten an iPad and the most effective use case for it is to open up an infinite canvas and do active recall by drawing everything from (mostly) memory allowing me to find more connections, avenues to explore, and debate an idea.

Eventually, I have to put those connections back into prose but I haven't gotten to that yet.