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There are a few e-ink note taking devices. They pride themselves on feeling like paper, but they're far more expensive than a notebook and offer trade-offs rath

There are a few e-ink note taking devices. They pride themselves on feeling like paper, but they're far more expensive than a notebook and offer trade-offs rather than clear advantages. For example, is using a text search on an e-ink device better than knowing "I wrote this down in the first 1/3rd of the notebook on the page with a coffee stain". Maybe? Maybe not. It's a trade-off. A physical notebook and an e-notebook both offer different ways of indexing, searching, and remembering where things are. One is not clearly superior to the other in this respect. These e-ink devices have left a clear advantage they could claim unrealized. I want an e-ink notepad where I can turn my notes into spaced repetition. I want to take hand written notes, proven to improve memory, and then I want to blot out portions of the page and have those blotted out portions be presented to me by a spaced repetition algorithm to help me remember my own hand written notes. I'd pay a lot for such a dedicated device. Getting hand written notes and images into Anki or other spaced repetition programs sucks. I'd love to just be able to write or draw, with my own hand, and easily integrate with a spaced repetition algorithm. This is valuable enough that I'd happily use a dedicated device just for this purpose.

atahanacar 4y ago
Have you tried image occlusion for Anki? It does exactly what you mentioned: you occlude parts of an image (your notes in this case) and creates cards based on that. It's more tedious than an integrated solution would be, but I'm sure there are ways to make the card creation process more seamless. Maybe an Android e-ink where you can click "Share" on your notes, and choose the image occlusion "plugin app".
- Buttons840 4y ago
  Yeah, there's also tablets like the Remarkable which claim to be hackable. I've thought of trying to build this myself. With the right plugins maybe Anki wouldn't be too bad, still not as seamless as a dedicated device though. And I think this idea is important enough to warrant a dedicated device. Imagine how helpful it could be to have all students trained to use such a device to memorize their own notes. Memorization alone isn't enough, but it can serve as a foundation to build knowledge on top of. Many student lack any sort of foundation, and efficient memorization would do a lot for them.
  - atahanacar 4y ago
    Yes, memorization is one of the most important tools for learning. It greatly speeds up the process and sometimes is necessary in fields like medicine. One problem I can immediately think of with a dedicated device is "vendor lock-in". Especially when you are going to spend a long time creating decks or practicing them, you wouldn't want to lose your progress or cards because some company stopped supporting their proprietary format. This is actually the only reason I won't ever consider using most of these "Next Anki" or "Anki but better" SRS apps that pop up every now and then.

atahanacar 4y ago

Have you tried image occlusion for Anki? It does exactly what you mentioned: you occlude parts of an image (your notes in this case) and creates cards based on that. It's more tedious than an integrated solution would be, but I'm sure there are ways to make the card creation process more seamless. Maybe an Android e-ink where you can click "Share" on your notes, and choose the image occlusion "plugin app".

Buttons840 4y ago
Yeah, there's also tablets like the Remarkable which claim to be hackable. I've thought of trying to build this myself. With the right plugins maybe Anki wouldn't be too bad, still not as seamless as a dedicated device though. And I think this idea is important enough to warrant a dedicated device. Imagine how helpful it could be to have all students trained to use such a device to memorize their own notes. Memorization alone isn't enough, but it can serve as a foundation to build knowledge on top of. Many student lack any sort of foundation, and efficient memorization would do a lot for them.
- atahanacar 4y ago
  Yes, memorization is one of the most important tools for learning. It greatly speeds up the process and sometimes is necessary in fields like medicine. One problem I can immediately think of with a dedicated device is "vendor lock-in". Especially when you are going to spend a long time creating decks or practicing them, you wouldn't want to lose your progress or cards because some company stopped supporting their proprietary format. This is actually the only reason I won't ever consider using most of these "Next Anki" or "Anki but better" SRS apps that pop up every now and then.