Elegance, yes, and fitness of purpose.
Discussion
Education has been for the cultivation of virtue and it must remain so.
I love this formulation. I had not heard similar, but it rings true. I am homeschooling most of my kids and the curriculum I use does this but I often focus in my own mind on the three Rs.
I actually fell asleep last night thinking how nostr and nostr:nprofile1qqsggm4l0xs23qfjwnkfwf6fqcs66s3lz637gaxhl4nwd2vtle8rnfqprdmhxue69uhhg6r9vehhyetnwshxummnw3erztnrdakj7qfqwaehxw309ahx7um5wghx26tww4hxg7nhv9h856t89eehqctrv5hsz8rhwden5te0w35x2cmfw3skgetv9ehx7um5wgcjucm0d5hsjmvd7t could help me with homeschooling. Alexandria is a no brainer. But I have a dream where my kids can do the majority of their schoolwork on a reMarkable2 like tablet.
We use them as notebooks for the kids and it is amazing for organization, but horrible for grading since file sharing is a nightmare. But if they could submit their note books as a nostr event to a school relay I could mark it up with a grading event. Asciidoc wouldn't work unfortunately so that is why I was thinkinging it over as I fell asleep.
This is most adorable. A perfect example of what I’m talking about.
What better motivation to build tech than this ?
Yeah, I'm also big on the homeschool aspect.
That was one goal of adding communities.
I was thinking of adding workbooks and teaching guides to the literature I upload, but I'm loving the idea of online homework and paper submissions/grading. Interesting.
It could be like the an introduction to a book. Do it!
I used to write them for the homeschool co-op my children were in.
I was thinking that you could have a 30040 for the book and one for the teaching guide and another for the students' workbook, then a 30040 joining them all together. Like homeschool bundles. Then people could create different bundles, but using the same book.
My mom would have loved that when she was building her own homeschool curricula.
What was in that curricula? I’m curious.
Lots of literature (mostly classic up through the mid-20th century), history (ancient, medieval, early modern, American), mathematics, science, grammar, and a small handful of other things.
We learned to spell, then write cursive, then we studied vocabulary, then we just wrote.
My mom was an English major and taught me almost everything I know about formal writing. I sailed through my first year of college from the momentum she gave me in that regard.
We also pretty consistently had some sort of exposure to music. I took two years of piano lessons, but I spent much longer signing Gregorian Chant with our church choir.
Having parents implicated in your education is paramount.
Maybe this is the most important thing we’re lacking. Capable parents overseeing the education of their children.
But not to the level of tiger moms and helicopter parents obviously.
And "capable" here isn't too high a bar for anyone college-educated (or even high school-educated). Most homeschool parents learn alongside their kids.
Yup. It is kind of my end goal for whatever I build. I want learning to be a book, a stylus, and a slate. No learning to use an app. Just read and write.
Paper is actually horrible for this since you end up with too much of it. But make the slate a magically infinite notebook, then you can learn any time anywhere. I still prefer physical books, but having a library on you magic slate is ok too.
I like the idea of hand-writing notes in the margins of an #Alexandria book, on an ePaper tablet.
#DevGoals
Oh that would be wonderful. A infinite paper notebook. I’d pay serious money for that.
Well, we're going to have highlights and kind 1111 comments, so it's just about hooking into the touchscreen or the pen, and using their driver to transfer the information into the note.
Try the reMarkable2. Seriously. I got one a few years ago to do math on/jot down any of a million ideas, because I am always losing papers. As soon as I got one I knew I needed more for the kids because keeping homework straight was a nightmare.
It actually helps with the perennial "show your work" problem. We still have that, but the mental block of trying to be space efficient is removed. They can just scroll the page further down or add a page. Also there is less hassle in fixing mistakes since, unlike pencils, stylus erasers don't leave a mark.
The only bugger with remarkable is that they are very locked down. That is the appeal. Apps are a distraction, but it would be nice if I could have the files rsync to another device or something.
Does it have a browser?
We're going to have a non-websocket version of Alexandria, that should work on ePaper.
No. It has a file structure and PDFs with layers. That is it.
Ugh, PDFs.
Yes.
Without using PDF they'd have to convert handwritten text to machine encoding, which isn't always accurate.
Yes. I have to begrudgingly admit that PDF is the best available solution for mixing text and vector drawings. They save a path and a tool. The path itself, I think, encodes angle and pressure.
Couldn't you just build your own and include a dedicated browser that only runs Alexandria?
Yes. There are more open alternatives. Like the Supernote that are android based that you could put some effort into. I really don't like embedded browsers though. The idealist in me recoils from the waste and bloat.
How do you get your files off the tablet ?
They have a cloud and a USB web interface. If you don't want to use a USB cable you have to pay for cloud access. Then you can do Dropbox integration, get an app on you phone etc. it's annoying.
Curious how it compares with say an iPad. I understand it’s kinda more elegant and feels nice, but aside from that? I was just looking into obsidian for use with math formulas, and it looks like some plugins exist that allow you to paste equations from pdf direct into notes as latex (using some AI behind the scenes) and another which allows you to scribble with a stylus (technically it seems like the math plugin only works on desktop but still pretty cool if it works). I’m thinking this is the best I can do, but sounds like you may have some insights
I cannot compare it to a modern iPad. I have not tried one. I imagine an iPad has better features, color, responsiveness, integrations etc.
But I didn't want better. I wanted to write. With a reMarkable2, you turn it on and write, it doesn't do anything else. It is nice to look at, nice to hold, and nice to write on.
If you have a could subscription. It does have OCR but I am not sure it works well with math. I haven't tried it in a while. I don't publish, I just use it as a notepad. Math still seems best done by hand. I don't need to hunt for symbols, I just write them down, same as Euler, and Gauss did.
The main benefits over paper are endless scrolling pages so you can work a problem to its end, and staying organized.
The drawbacks are poor scrolling if you need to look at prior work, smaller than paper screen size, and lack of export options.
Also, while you can make straight lines by holding your stylus down, there isn't a way to make a circle, so diagrams are limited by my own limited artistic ability. I 3d printed my own compass to use. But it is never around when I need it.
Thanks for the detailed reply. I feel you on paper being king for learning math, but I was hoping to copy key formulas and proof snippets I could easily refence from an ever growing slew of pdfs I’ve got, for easy reference. And they’re ugly when I write them down (too many sub/superscripts, vectors, etc).
I may have to consider replacing my paper notebook with this remarkable device though. that might be the perfect stack for me!
You can certainly put all you math PDFs on it and add note pages to them or write on them etc. There is copy/paste functionality but I don't think it works on the text layer. I vaguely think I tried it awhile back for the same reason.
That’s cool. Gonna seriously consider one as replacement for notepads 🙏
One last question if you don’t mind. Nice folio worth spending on? Looks nice (probably dont want keyboard version), but 170 for the nicer one seems steep
My wife has the nice one, but she got me the sleeve by mistake. I have to say. I kinda prefer the sleeve. It has a place for the stylus whereas with the book folio you have to rely on the magnets. Granted the magnets are really good and a satisfying way to hold onto the stylus, but it is harder to trust when you are on the go.
I also like using the device by itself. If you want more protection it you are out and about a lot you can get a much cheaper plastic folio from Amazon. They aren't as durable as the one from remarkable but they probably do a better job protecting the device as they are rigid and the official one is not. We have those for the kids. They have dropped them. The case cracks but the device is fine.
As for the stylus. You can get them cheaper elsewhere but not sure I can recommend it. The magnets are weaker, the response not quite as precise and the eraser side isn't accurate.
Thanks again for further explanation. Very helpful. Think I’ll go with the sleeve, and I’ve gotta have the eraser side extra on the pen.
I’ve got it in the cart but gonna wait a day or two to decide for sure, Christmas just happened recently after all 😅
If we could convert handwriting to Ascii or Unicode, we could totally do it.
ePaper is a crap experience die to law refresh rate, and poor visibility in real light. Try out the daylight tablet and stylus. Its a upgrade on e-paper.
It is barely acceptable for what I need it for. It is the right direction.
I'd love to try a daylight.
Part of the charm of a remarkable, though is that it really is just a notebook. No apps etc. also I charge it maybe once a month. That feels like magic.
