In chemistry etc the properly-kept lab notebook is also an almost chain of evidence thing, both for scientific (integrity) and commercial (patents and such) reasons. I.e. never erase, only strike-through so previous error is still readable, numbered pages, each section dated and signed, properly kept index, ... all make it a lot harder to falsify things after the fact. (Nowadays there are also digital record-keeping tools that do timestamped signatures and such instead)
Re:Thinking with pen and paper
by GoodbyeMrChips on Friday August 05, 2022 @04:56PM
(#32361885)
> almost chain of evidence
It is, and was a chain of evidence for me. One that saved my arse.
Type up your reports and spreadsheets, but raw data should always be kept in a proper hardbound paper lab notebook.... one that references the filenames of your typed up electronic data.
+1 OMG Chemistry notebooks FTW. I was always a pencil person and when the professor literally made us cross out our mistakes it felt gross to see the wasted space for 'nonsense', so inefficient. Only later I come to realize that all creation is not for naught. Observations made and recorded for the record are invaluable when seen from a different time perspective. If DNA can have built in redundancy, then evolution is revealing a good lesson to replicate for note taking as well.
People's time horizons are too short when thinking about so called 'ultimate' note taking/brainstorming/productivity solutions. What system did Grace Hopper use? Feynmann?
I can take a trip to Mom's and fetch that chemistry notebook to retrieve that 1980s information. No retro hardware, searching for encryption keys, old floppy disk/zip drive media players, no defunct internet companies to contact about 'my' data, proprietary formats to parse, etc. Open that 40 year old notebook and read it.
To be sure, I own the iPads/android tablets, note apps, desktop apps, wikis, cloud services and other digital debris that in the end is/was wasted friction, $$$ and energy. Too many dependencies.
I stick with a low-end laptop with plain text on vim and emacs -nox and (mobile) self-made paper notebooks and enjoyable wonderful fountain pens [1] I'm really trying to look back toward memory like the ancients but that is the ultimate practice.[2]
Life is too short to conform to digital tools. Enjoy both! There is much forgotten freedom to be rediscovered with the analog hand.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/fountainpens/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci