I've been on HN since about 2008, and the change is steep.
Since the site acquired social clout, status seekers have swarmed in vying for status, and an opinion orthodoxy has formed that's becoming increasingly intolerant.
> Alternatively they might build specialized branded hardware which people could only use for what corps allow them to do for nice monthly fee.
That's why I'm still holding on to a bulky Core 2 Duo Management Engine-free Fujitsu workstation, for when personal computing finally goes underground again.
Apparently for as long as it will enable Microsoft to profit by training its LLMs on people's code.
For people uncomfortable with working on free/libre stuff with git directly I always suggest Codeberg as an alternative, but hands on git is also an excellent option.
I expect this will be challenged and overturned as unconstitutional as the similar effort was in 2021, however it's insane as it stands, especially coming from a caretaker government.
Within software engineering circles, the idea of the engineering notebook was reintroduced in Hunt and Thomas' The Pragmatic Programming, where (Topic 22) they call it an "engineering daybook".
Personally, I've been using one form or another of journals and notebooks for over three decades. I did go through the "plain text is king" .txt phase, but, while search is useful, I always revert to a handwritten notebook.
I find that I have a sort of visual memory of the location of a note or scribble, and can sort of easily find my way back to it "in the lower-right side of the page near the end of the notebook".
Another meta-metric that's interesting to access and is lost when typing is the changing quality of my handwriting, and how it exhibits the underlying mental state.
The notebooks/journals started from standard local composition books (B5) to narrower 14x21-ish cheap hardcovers. There's also dates (manual), titles or topic tags (manual), page numbers (manual), cross-references with arrows (which do stand out amongst the handwriting, e.g. -> p. 20, or -> C/20 to xref back to notebook C when you're on notebook E), indexes (also manual), earmarked pages, and a physical bookmark string. I've also reverted back to pencil, which I find more "quiet" a medium - I've been using Faber Castell's sleek TK4600 since elementary school, and it was quite interesting to return to it a couple of decades later.
Plain text is still king nowadays, but it's also diagrammatic, and hyperlinked, the only difference being it is manual, and seems to assist immensely with the memory and personal internal coherence. I can write down a note to myself, working something out, and then return to it a couple of months later, cross-reference it and expand it, gradually reaching new understanding.
No need for slip card boxes when you have a running log of your thoughts and works that can be referenced and cross-referenced, nor is there a need to limit the length of your text because of the medium - write a bullet list if you want, checkbox it, or a 200-word vignette, or just let loose over a few pages, it's all good: a plastic medium for a plastic mind.
In all, for me journaling/notebooking is highly recommended. And for the younger folk who are keyboard-first, perhaps the deliberate slowness and scratchiness of this quaint medium will reveal a meditative quality.
I still use daily the Timberland backpack I got in 2009. Again, some wear and tear (actually just wear, thankfully no tears) but works great at the 17 year mark, even though it has gone through anything from daily use to travel to trekking.
Other backpacks have come and gone when I thought it'd need replacing, but kept trudging on. Now I don't want to have to let go of it, even though it looks "a bit" old.
I know it's not good for business to have long-lasting products. But some items like this backpack, a 2008 Fujitsu workstation, or a 2013 MacBook Air (not to mention the Faber Castell TK 4600) that simply keep on working become something akin to lifelong companion tools.
It goes to show the benefits of deep forethought and good design. And, I guess, the stubbornness of some users :)