Metaphorically speaking, it’s the Borg we’re dealing with, not the Klingons. All Janeway did was slow the Borg’s progress.

To me, obsidian is a thought-taking app, not a notetaking app. Thoughts are amorphous and incomplete no matter how much you embellish them. They don’t belong in only one place with only one label or pinned to only one date. They reach out to each other. Merge and split. They sit inside each other sometimes.

Obsidian gets that. It offers _just enough_ structure and automation and operating system (of a kind) to force the binary file system on some silicon to work like our brains do...and not the other way around.

He eschews a lot of the common wisdom pushed by influencers in this space who tout "the one true way™" to stay organized. File splattered in the root? Sure. Unresolved links to notes that don't exist and probably never will? Why not! Blank daily notes that aren't carefully manicured journal tomes? Heck yeah.

His point is "perfect is the enemy of good." You could carefully curate and perfect your pkm...or you could have a life.

Someone needs to help me with the ethics here; is it okay to post hit-pieces or...?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46987559

The key to productivity is doing the _right_ things, not doing everything. Tools that make more possible frequently miss the point entirely.

It started out in the 1960’s meaning “humans with pointy ears and no emotions”, then in the 1980’s it was “squat humanoids with glowing fingers and a penchant for phoning home”, then in the 1990-2000 it was “infectious microbes that turn humans into zombies”. We pretty much all realized that the “life” part of “alien life” spans the entire breadth of what biology can produce. (The 2020’s even reduced it further to “RNA sequence which connects the entire human race except 13 folks into a vast hive mind”)

Widen the concept enough and lots more scientists will go “yeah something like thst that probably exists elsewhere, sure”

It is a privilege licensed by the State and regularly revoked through due process or expiry.

While your concern about mobility and privacy are valid, I would contend that public safety is what it’s to be weighed against. Some people really are better riders than drivers.

As semi-autonomous and autonomous cars become the norm, I would adore to see obtaining a drivers license ratchet up in difficulty in order to remove dangerous human drivers from the road.

…until your comment. Here! Take my “lived through the 80’s and 90’s” card.

Marksmanship is about hitting the target, not firing first. I would not want a deeply embedded personal assistant that’s always on and learning from me only to get things wrong and frustrate me. Apple’s users are grandparents and newbies who will have even higher standards for Siri than experienced developers who might be more lenient.

…but then, upon delivery, there was nothing. No customer appeared to adopt it even in its rudimentary form. Radio silence. The horsetrading of IPv4 addresses continued and we heard nothing about attempts at adoption for a very very long time.

It got filed away as a feature delivered to calm nerves about lacking that feature…not one that actually provided any forward value. How many other features did we ship that’s soul reason for existing was because lacking it caused discomfort, not because it genuinely helped?

The ease of use it brings is incredibly valuable and, if it gets you rapidly through 85% of what you need done (and leaves you in a good spot to take on the remaining 15%) then it’s the right tool to have used in that moment.

Off the shelf seasoning mixes are another great example. 85% of the solution (a tasty meal) in a bottle that leaves you to focus on the remaining 15% (cooking the rest of the meal)

Notice the timing of his statement. Right in the middle of the largest sporting event in the US. Eyes were elsewhere and it brought them back to himself.