Notices by kepano (kepano@mastodon.social), page 2

I appreciate the nod to "File over app" from the Observable team in the latest announcement.

It's so cool that a Markdown file with code blocks can be the source for complex data visualizations and dashboards. This means the files are interoperable with #Obsidian

Here I am running an Observable site from Obsidian

These are all separate vectors:

1. VC vs user-supported
2. Files vs databases
3. Open vs proprietary formats
4. Open vs closed source
5. Extensible vs non-extensible
6. Private vs privacy-invasive

An open source app can be VC-backed, store its data in a proprietary format, have terrible APIs, and include telemetry

Why @obsidian is 100% user-supported and not backed by VC investors

Skiff raised ~$14m in VC to build an open source alternative Google Suite. Now it's being acquired by Notion and the code has been taken down.

All software is ephemeral. File over app.

For the last few months I have been learning piano with no prior music theory knowledge and the most frustrating part is how terrible musical notation is.

I am on the verge of rage-creating a new musical notation system 😭

If you have a Dropbox account, a new toggle has appeared for "Third-party AI" which is enabled by default

You can turn it off by going to your account settings

getting there🕵️

A math teacher at Grand Valley State University used #Obsidian to create a course textbook with exhaustive linking:

https://publish.obsidian.md/mth225

I like this structure because you can easily dig deeper on any concept you don't understand. Very well done!

People saying there should be fewer manifestos — I disagree, there should be far more manifestos. Everyone should have a manifesto.

Try to write down the 5-10 things you truly believe in. At minimum it's a good exercise.

File over app

File over app is a philosophy: if you want to create digital artifacts that last, they must be files you can control, in formats that are easy to retrieve and read. Use tools that give you this freedom.

Keep reading: https://stephanango.com/file-over-app

Why keep a diary...

One of my few prized possessions is this 70-page autobiographical book by my great-grandfather who was born in 1902 and was a farmer in France. Only a few copies were printed.

His chapter titles are truly amazing, each is about 1-2 pages:

- I saw the beginning of electrification
- I saw the first cars
- I saw the first airplanes
- I smoked my first cigarette at 7 years old
- I saw a total solar eclipse
- The telephone
- 1914: The war
- I had the Spanish flu

etc

From a traditional business perspective the Obsidian approach has many downsides:

we can only focus on 1-2 things at a time, we can't build lots of stuff in parallel like a bigger company can

we have to cover our costs, we can't subsidize pricing — charging a fair price is a disadvantage in the market

we have no lock-in, our users can leave at any time easily

the next big feature for @obsidian is not AI

@moshtodon @liztai I don't know of any app aside from Obsidian that has all the following:

1. stores data in an interoperable plain text data format local to the device
2. does not have VC funding
3. does not include telemetry
4. has a flexible plugin API for both desktop and mobile
5. is actively maintained and improved
6. gets quick security patches, e.g. the recent CVE-2023-4863
7. has end-to-end encryption for sync between devices
8. is free for personal use

What does your Obsidian graph look like? I'd love to see it.

The plan for Obsidian is to never grow beyond 10-12 people, never take VC funding, never collect personal data or analytics.

Continue building with the assumption that software is ephemeral, files matter more than apps. Use formats that are open and durable.

See our manifesto:
https://obsidian.md/about