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Imagine being isolated off-grid for an unknown number of years. Maybe you're stuck somewhere like Davidge or Mark Watney; or perhaps you've chosen a life of isolation like Yoda or Obi-Wan Kenobi. Maybe you're a survivor of the $Apocalypse. Wouldn't keeping a journal be a great idea? You could pass on your knowledge, keep track of daily activities, maybe even keep yourself from going insane!
Forget all the wastefulness, extravagance, and complexity of most modern devices, you've got survival to think about! Obviously power usage would be a major concern, but ergonomics, searchability, repairability, and data robustness would be important too. Keeping in mind that this is a dedicated device for journaling and barring the old Russian pencil and paper, what would the best solution look like with off-the-shelf modern technology?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by LoRdTAW on Monday June 11 2018, @08:10PM (22 children)
Pen/pencil and paper. And searching? Who's gonna care about your writings? KISS wins.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday June 11 2018, @09:19PM
Exactly.
Pens, maybe. Lots of them. Spiral bound notebooks. The size that fits easily in sip lock bags.
I've used these for years. Two rules: Date Every page. Add a checkbox in front of every action item.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Monday June 11 2018, @09:48PM (1 child)
I keep a small notebook in my back pocket. Quick and handy for short info like model numbers and/or serial numbers.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday June 11 2018, @10:12PM
All of my notes, some writings and every idea starts out as scribbles on paper for me. Thought for the task you described I have pretty much transitioned to using my cellphone to snap a pic of parts/name plates/tags/etc. But for sure, paper wins as the best medium for writings and doodles.
(Score: 5, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday June 11 2018, @10:13PM (10 children)
If you actually want it to last, make sure paper is acid-free, preferably archival grade. Personally, I'd go with cotton rag paper for anything I wanted to preserve long-term.
And make sure you have a good source for ink that will last a long time unless you want to learn to make your own. Having a large supply of fountain pen nibs might be preferable for long-term, if you're concerned about disposable pens drying out over the years.
Want even more durable? Animal skin parchment has really stood the test of time. You have to worry about the occasional worm or very hungry rat, etc., but I've worked with thousand-year-old manuscripts that have only suffered discoloration over the centuries.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by aristarchus on Tuesday June 12 2018, @01:32AM (8 children)
Dip-pen nibs, or just a good supply of feathers, and a pen-knife. A decent gold or even stainless steel nib in a fountain pen should out-live the user.
Ink, avoid the pretty colored water, for once exposed to water again, it will become water again. You want a good iron-gall ink, Registar's Ink, as specified by the Church of England for official records. Or Possibly German or Japanese iron-galls. Take a look at TheFountainPenNetwork. [fountainpennetwork.com] Madness. Stay out of the calligraphy forums, however. It gets nasty in there.
(Score: 2) by tonyPick on Tuesday June 12 2018, @06:53AM
For an example of what you can do with travel notebooks in ink and sketchwork (and talent, of course):
https://www.boredpanda.com/traveling-artist-handmade-sketchbooks-jose-naranja/ [boredpanda.com]
http://josenaranja.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday June 12 2018, @10:49AM
Yes - nibs are pretty durable... If you don't do something stupid like lose them or destroy then accidentally. I didn't really mean a very large supply -- just several spares. Decent nibs are so much easier to use (I find) than feathers, etc.
And yes, totally agree about ink type.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday June 12 2018, @06:23PM (5 children)
Iron gall ink is not friendly on fountain pens. It's the 21st century, we have permanent water-based fountain pen inks, Noodler's Black being a prominent example.
Modern iron gall inks are better mixed to reduce the amount of deposits, but you still have to be extra careful or it will destroy your pen.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday June 13 2018, @12:15AM (1 child)
What if we made the fountain pen out of a titanium-depleted uranium alloy?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday June 13 2018, @12:30AM
Parker make one, the nib-tips fell off. https://parkerpens.net/parkert1.html [parkerpens.net]
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday June 13 2018, @12:38AM (2 children)
Why do you say this? It is not true. Why do you think that nibs were made of gold in the first place? Gallo-ferric acid is corrosive, but gold only dissolves in aqua regia, which any competent alchemist knows. Modern, 21st Century iron gall inks are perfectly copasetic for fountain pens, if the user is conscientious about use, occasional flushing, and normal scribing procedures. (Oh, and iron-gall is itself water-based, as medium.)
Noodler's is a company run by a single right-wing nut-job. The cellulose-reacting dyes are proprietary, and aimed at foiling check-washing, not longevity.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Wednesday June 13 2018, @03:21AM (1 child)
I'm not talking about the nib, and nibs are not made of pure gold anyway, they are made from a gold alloy. Also, stainless steel has existed for a long time now; gold alloys haven't been used for their corrosion resistance since then. Nibs are now made from gold for the perceived value and extra flexibility of the nib (they feel slightly better to experienced users).
I'm talking about the internal feed, which gets clogged by deposits from the iron gall ink. Yes, like I said, if you're extra careful, modern iron gall inks can be used for a period of time, but it will fuck up your pen if you keep using it, just like eating McDonalds will do to your arteries, even if you exercise and limit yourself to one meal a week. Admittedly, if you're using a cheap pen with a feed wider than then it may keep working for the majority of your lifetime.
When I wrote "water based" I meant water soluble dye based inks ("water based" as in leaves behind no particulate matter when the water evaporates), which iron gall ink is not.
> aimed at foiling check-washing, not longevity
I don't know what to say, good sir. Medicine is aimed at curing disease, not prolonging life. Cars are aimed at moving matter around, not transportation. All I see is you saying that the ink is designed for permanence, but not for permanence.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday June 13 2018, @04:20AM
Feeds are typically non-metallic, traditionally ebonite, or hard rubber. Iron gall does not chemically react until exposed to an oxydizing environment, so put the cap on your pen! And flush it out once in a while. Not like those actual "carbon black" pigmented inks, which do contain particles. Of course, all the rage now is "shimmer" inks, with metallic particles. I suggest, you have to make a choice, when journalling, between convenience and durability. Archival paper, and lower acid iron-gall inks are the way to go, if you want a journal that will survive until humanity remembers how to turn the lights back on. If they ever do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 12 2018, @03:09PM
Fountain pens are fun but obsolete compared to just about any other writing instrument out there.
I think people who like them are attracted to the finicky aspect of using and maintaining them, honestly, like tinkering on an antique car.
If you like writing with liquid ink, technical pens with air tight caps will not dry out for many years. Sadly, drying out is something fountain pens do very quickly. That and leak a bit on your fingers.
For ultimate longevity, may I suggest a pencil (mechanical or conventional). You could pick one up decades later and it will still write. The writing will not run or fade, but you do have to watch out for smudging if you use a soft lead.
If you want to go full caveman, some have suggested dip pens which will last a REALLY long time before breaking/becoming unusable, but I would suggest learning to carve pens from reeds if you want a theoretically inexhaustible pen supply.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday June 12 2018, @02:00AM (2 children)
Hammer, chisel, and a rock face. It was good enough for our great-great-etc-greats.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday June 12 2018, @11:43AM (1 child)
I hear they also walked to school uphill, both ways in the snow without shoes.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday June 12 2018, @03:24PM
Well, the upper class neo-humans had snow. The poor folks just got rained on. BTW - when did they invent shoes? I'll bet it was a long time after the hammer and chisel were invented. Probably a good bit before paper and/or parchment.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday June 12 2018, @04:43AM (3 children)
A potential upgrade I've unsuccessfully dabbled with, if you want stuff digitally accessible and backup-able: digitally scan or photograph your journal pages.
Once they're digital you can use handwriting recognition, etc. on the images for searchable access.
I think one of those online-only journal programs (Onenote? Evernote? ) will do all that automatically, if you're up for trusting a corporation (Microsoft?) with your journals. There must be an offline version of something similar (I hope), but I haven't found it.
Of course that requires actually scanning your notebooks regularly, and probably doesn't work so well if you often modify past entries, as you might for more "active draft" notebooks
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Tuesday June 12 2018, @09:42AM (2 children)
OneNote is more like an "active" notebook or filofax than a journal, however it definitely does what you say with handwriting recognition, and there is a mobile app (office lens) for taking the photos (auto page-detection, straightening / deskewing, contrast etc.).
BUT, like every current level tech I've tried, it doesn't do the handwriting recognition very well, at all. Allegedly the latest version is much improved, but as it is also cloud-only (along with other steps backwards) I haven't tried it. Part of the problem may be that my handwriting is pretty poor these days, which is why I type mostly in the first place, which is why my handwriting is poor... It does better with printed text, but still not perfect, like any OCR.
MS have been messing around with OneNote versions and what used to be an excellent offline tool (with optional sync to online) in Office 2007/10 is now more or less online-only in the latest versions, and they have added/removed different features in the different versions. Example: you can record video in 2010 but not insert a video, in Win10 version you can insert a video from the web, but you can't record video, WTF?
If you are using OneNote (the proper offline one) as a digital backup / index for a physical notebook then you aren't really trusting MS with your journal - only with your backup. If you use OneNote as primary journal then the file format is documented and various export options are available.
Of course this is all off topic because you wouldn't trust even the offline versions to keep working off-grid for an unknown number of years - not because of MS, the hardware is the weak link.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday June 12 2018, @01:38PM (1 child)
I was thinking less of trusting them with preserving the only copy of your journals, than with trusting them with full access to them. Probably just a privacy consideration for most people, but if you're talking about an R&D journal you might want to keep that information close to your chest.
>Of course this is all off topic because you wouldn't trust even the offline versions to keep working off-grid for an unknown number of years - not because of MS, the hardware is the weak link.
The original question strongly implied they were looking for an electronic solution - in which case for longevity I would STRONGLY recommend a PC based solution over any specialty hardware. Even if the particular PC you started with died, you can always migrate the software to a new PC. Android, iOS, etc - I have far less confidence in the long-term availability of compatible hardware/OS to run the original binary on. I hate to do it, but I'd even go so far as to recommend (pre-win10) Windows software specifically - the backwards compatibility is likely to extend into the future indefinitely, especially with VM's etc). Unlike Linux where binaries must be recompiled for compatibility (an issue for non-Free and abandoned Free software alike - not everyone can roll their own from source, even assuming no modifications are needed)
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Tuesday June 12 2018, @02:42PM
Wasn't sure, but sort of figured that - both are potential issues.
Older OneNote desktop versions (now deprecated and no longer being developed by MS - dropped from Office 2019) will do local storage, which is fine for your R&D journal or the sensitive notes I used to have at work. They will also sync to on-premise SharePoint server instead of OneDrive, so you could stick a domain server and sharepoint server in a VM and sync to that, but it looks like they are also in the process of removing support for that from the App versions (which are the only future versions) - iOS and Android users already reporting being unable to sync with on-premise after App updates.
You'd think that MS would have a bunch of enterprise clients (actually I _know_ they have) using this stuff who won't want cloud note storage, but apparently they don't care. To quote from their FAQ at https://support.office.com/en-us/article/frequently-asked-questions-about-onenote-in-office-2019-6582c7ae-2ec6-408d-8b7a-3ed71a3c2103 [office.com] :
So in other words they know, and they don't care, go use something else. OneNote was a market leader, almost a hidden Office feature for years, then someone high up at MS obviously "found" it and thought "that's good lets mobile/cloudify it and f*** it up". Morons.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Bot on Tuesday June 12 2018, @07:31AM
I guess the writings will not be very interesting.
Day 1: found no other people alive, plenty of food
Day 10: still no answers from outside
Day 63: my bunker is very comfortable, i built another bed just in case
Day 164: apparently the hd with all the porno movies died
Day 166: HELP!! SOMEBODY %&DAMN HELP
Day 168: THATS IT GONNA CROSS THE OCEAN
The end.
Account abandoned.