Chicago’s Last Tannery — The Distance.

“It needs to be the best it can be because that’s really our competitive advantage,” Skip said. “We’re not cheap. If you came to me and said, ‘Wow, I need a million of something in a really big hurry,’ you’re probably in the wrong place.”

I really enjoyed this profile of Horween Leather Company in the new online magazine, The Distance. I actually have an affinity for fine leather goods and, increasingly, many of the ones that have found their way into my life use Horween. One Star Leather Goods, for instance, makes wonderful wallets and notebook covers — many using Horween Chromexcel. And, the Field Notes Cover from Hellbrand Leatherworks that is on my person daily uses it as well. It makes me that much more appreciative of these items knowing the care that went into them at the source — a US based family-owned and operated business.

Analog Markdown — The Newsprint.

Most recently, my written notes have been marked up in Markdown too.

The reason for this is simple: Markdown is so easy to use, so easy to read and so easy to implement that it was a natural progression to transfer the system to analog notes. Obviously, analog notes aren’t actually styled with italicized and bold letters. But the small syntax additions help add context that is otherwise hard to convey.

I often do this as well. Especially to denote italics and bold.

To Remember a Lecture Better, Take Notes by Hand – Technology – The Atlantic

“We don’t write longhand as fast as we type these days, but people who were typing just tended to transcribe large parts of lecture content verbatim,” Mueller told me. “The people who were taking notes on the laptops don’t have to be judicious in what they write down.”

She thinks this might be the key to their findings: Take notes by hand, and you have to process information as well as write it down. That initial selectivity leads to long-term comprehension.

The joys of screen-free thinking. — Writers on Writing — Medium

I have been writing, but if you follow me online there’s no way you could have seen it. In December, as part of my quest to cultivate one habit per month, I journaled every day: quietly, consistently, prolifically. I didn’t mean for it to be a secret, but the deeper I got the further I drifted from the Internet. My tumblr went stale. Old articles of mine resurfaced on Medium, but I didn’t pick up the conversation. I disengaged from industry conversations I normally would have participated in. I didn’t tweet once in three whole weeks. Online, it looked like I didn’t exist. (Or perhaps was on vacation.)

To the Internet, Something Was Up! And I confess?—?something was up. The truth is, I was writing: I was writing by hand. Writing with ink, pen and paper (not the app). And it felt?—?and “felt” is precisely the right word here?—?it felt great.

Beautiful read. And it’s not just about the joys and benefits of writing on paper but also reading as well. This part especially resonated with me:

Writing?—?by hand?—?makes me a better writer. And reading?—?on paper— that makes me a better reader, too.

Me too.

via Chris Lovie-Tyler