Laser-engraved Moleskine covers don't emit phosgene and chlorine, which is nice
A small company that laser-etches tech and nerd gear has this sage advice:
WARNING : DO NOT LASER ENGRAVE MOLESKINES WITHOUT THE PROPER FILTRATION SYSTEM. BURNING THEM CREATES HIGHLY TOXIC GASES INCLUDING PHOSGENE AND CHLORINE GAS. THE HYDROCHLORIC ACID PRODUCED WILL CORRODE EVERYTHING IT CONTACTS.Turns out hitting a PVC cover with a laser isn't such a great idea.
Instead of hitting the covers themselves, Engrave Your Tech now offers these undyed leather Moleskine covers that, when engraved by laser, emit only the mouth-watering smell of seared beef.
I go back and forth on Moleskine and other paper notebooks—wonderful for jotting ideas, but I have poor discipline in reencoding the ideas to something permanent and indexable by computer—but if I can come up with a clever custom design these might just be enough to lure me back, despite the $60 price.
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Be warned, the smell of etching leather makes burning hair seem delightful by comparison. Luckily it airs out in a day or two.
A fun way to detect chlorine: http://www.nycresistor.com/2008/08/28/how-to-identify-polymers-with-burnination/
I've been using a Moleskine consistently for the last three months.
I actually find the reencoding step to be unnecessary, although I didn't realize this until a few weeks of committed use. The chronological ordering of the notes in the Moleskine end up being more than sufficient for later reference. I somehow remember where to find everything. It offends me to be dependent upon any non-digital medium, but there's something satisfying enough about the construction of my mid-size, flip-up Moleskine that I can enjoy it without too much pain.
I gave a couple etched moleskines (got them from ModoFly) as gifts for the holidays and everyone loved them.
Question: What makes computers "permanent" and paper impermanent? Since when does something become permanent when encoded in pixels or electronic blips, but something on paper is considered ephemeral? I've noticed this a lot (and suffered from the delusion myself, desperately transferring perfectly good LPs to CDs, which then self-destructed). As someone who collects books from the 1500s, let me tell you, paper, at least acid-free paper, will last much, much longer than any digital storage device, and much longer than your iPhone.
I almost always have a leather index card holder in my back pocket:
HTTP://www.levenger.com/PAGETEMPLATES/PRODUCT/Product.asp?Params=category=11-76|level=2-3|pageid=2398
I've never liked notebooks, too constricting and hard to share. But I've submitted index cards with ideas on them to patent lawyers as proof of invention.
Nopuppy:
In this instance, computers are more permanent not because they're more durable, but because the cost (in time, space, organization) of keeping something digitally is less than on paper.
If you're young, fancy free and not yet settled down into a home then 2 tons of paper is a difficult thing to keep compared to an external hard drive or similar.
Perhaps your mistake with the LPs was not transfering them to enough places. Personally, after ripping I would have backed them up in a couple of ways, including somewhere online like Google Mail. You have that luxury with digital stuff.
HINT: Rhodia brand notebooks have an ugly orange cover, but are ONE QUARTER the price of Moleskines.
Second, they are bound on the top edge, and therefore do not fall apart in your pocket.
And, to complete the win, the paper inside is extremely bright and smooth, arguably better than that in Moleskines.
For the price difference, you can pay an artist to decorate them for you. Or buy a whole handful of Sharpies and go to town yourself.
HAINEUX:
Cheers for the tip. I do like the cream pages of a moleskine, but those Rhodia ones are a bit more affordable. Not 1/4 of the price on sites I've just looked at though.
#4 nopuppy: "Since when does something become permanent when encoded in pixels or electronic blips, but something on paper is considered ephemeral?"
Since about 1985? I remember someone handing me a paper document that year and asking them for the real thing instead.
But seriously: I have a three-drawer filing cabinet full of notebooks. They will fit in my laptop when I get around to scanning them.
When something takes up way too much bulk, people tend to want to throw it out, so paper is ephemeral in that sense.
Scanning is pretty easy but like Joel Johnson I'm trying to figure out how to organize. Of course the paper versions aren't indexed either.
#6 Felix Mitchell is right that having multiple copies, in multiple places, is good. I made the mistake of using CDs once too! Hard disks, you should copy onto a new pair (which will be much bigger) every five years or so. Redundant digital copies are in principle more durable than single paper copies.
There's a lot of evidence that digital data is only as permanent as the ephemeral whims of technological trends allow. Exhibit number 1, old unreadable NASA data.
Paper however, lasts a very very long time if properly cared for. Naysayers with comments like "But paper burns! And gets soggy" should apply torch and bucket to their systems and see how well they fair.
Ultimately, data storage comes down to language permanence and ease of transcription. The english language has stood the test of time, FORTRAN has not. People willingly recopy old, even ancient paper texts anew because lots and lots of people know English. Old data encoded with FORTRAN is now, sadly often unreadable.
Piccadilly, Inc makes notebooks almost identical (and in some ways superior) to Moleskines, but much cheaper. You can get them at Borders for $5 in the discount section (not in the paper and notebooks section). Reviewed here at Black Cover, a whole blog devoted to reviews of pocket-sized notebooks.
I’m really resonating with the comments in this thread.
I switched from hand-binding my own sketchbooks and journals to using moleskins in 2003. For me the move was removing myself one step from the intimate experience of having and using notebooks. I'm considering going back.
The digital thing is a weird issue for me, having come into maturity as an artist right on the cusp of the digital age in the 80’s. Digital storage is feeding my mania for journaling, logging and cataloguing in a way that would have tempered to a different end if I’d stayed purely analog.
After years of digital photography I got so bored with the ease of making thousands of perfect images that I’ve begun to embrace primitive photography (daguerreotypes, etc.) for balance.
Sweet is the day I work with my hands and get away from 3-5 hours at the computer.
I love my moleskines. My biggest problem is that I have a Holy reverence of them and my crass words and drawings feel like sacrilege. It makes me use my Rhodia pads more.
Are those Rhodias 80 sheets of paper, or 40 sheets times 2 sides = 80 pages?
If it's the latter, they don't appear to be that much different price-wise than a 192 page regular moleskine or a 3 pack of 64 page cashiers.
We used to be issued a spiral bound notebook which was made by shearing a standard "school notebook" into thirds. These were used as "Service&Inspection" log books. The format made them just the right size for stashing in a time card rack. The idea being that we kept our current log book with our time cards when we were off duty. They got "lost" less and were reviewable by the other two shifts if we were not on call. and yeah- we used the startlingly unthought of BACK SIDE of the pages when the fronts were filled.
Oh- the trump card for "S&I" books being ink on paper was their other grim application. S&I also stood for Suits and Inquests. Certain service items being overlooked could result in being called to explain it at a Coroner's Inquest... Which often was followed by a Suit.
> "I have poor discipline in reencoding the ideas to something permanent and indexable by computer"
I use EverNote for that, it's great!