I'm a big Obsidian user and (small) plugin author, but I'd move to something Obsidian like that was open source because there is a chance of enshittification, looking at this though I can't find any reference to any capability for adding plugins.
They can compare themselves to Obsidian however you like in the features table, but the strength of Obsidian is not in the vanilla experience but in the plugins.
Nothing can really help/console in this moment. But so many of us are thinking about him. I appreciated his blog, his strength. It will go on and make a difference.
If you ever need anything my contact details are on my profile and I would be more than happy to help in any way that I can. Technically, financially (I'm sure you have much closer resources, but the offer is there regardless).
The ability to live our lives online well predates the pandemic. Remote work hasn't prevented experiences (except perhaps being tied to a commute), it's enabled us to live more flexible lives.
My partner (extreme introvert), and myself (somewhat an ambivert) have travelled the world for 6 years as digital nomads and rarely if ever do extroverted things. But introvert is not the same as not leaving the house.
We've done ~50 countries, quietly, patiently and without broadcasting our lives for all to see. We've learned to sail and lived on a sailboat for a while without starting a youtube channel so the world can follow us doing it.
I find the article mostly to be flawed and ridiculous. Calling introverts selfish is obnoxious. This reads like a (fake) column from "Sex and the City".
Carrie: "I found myself wondering if humans would go extinct if they didn't go to bars every night".
That's what a lot of people don't get about introverts. Yes, I interact with people, and yes, I leave the house. I just interact with certain smaller set of people which I am not eager to extend on each opportunity (it may happen, but slower), and I leave the house when I feel like it - which may happen less frequently than some other people, so what.
I've always looked at introvert vs extrovert as how someone recharges their mental battery. I think of myself as a Social Introvert. I like socializing with other people when I'm recharged, but I need alone time to recover. When I'm done being social, I'm 100% done and can't be bothered to continue interacting.
Once you know LLMS make mistakes and know to look for them half the battle is done. Humans make mistakes, which is why we take effort to validate thinking and actions.
As I use it more and more often the mistakes are born of ambiguity. As I supply more information to the LLM it's answer(s) gets better. I'm finding more and more ways to supply it with robust and extensive information.
I don't really use them together exactly, I just alternate backwards and forwards depending on the type of task I'm doing. If it's the kind of change that's likely to be across lots of files (writing) then I'll use Aider. If it only uses context from other files I'll likely use Cursor.
I'm finding myself using the extensively in the learning way, but also I'm an extreme generalist. I've learned so many languages over 23 years, but remembering the ones I don't use frequently is hard. The LLMs become the ultimate memory aid. I know that I can do something in a given language, and will recognised that it's correct when I see it.
Together with increasingly powerful speech to text I find myself talking to the computer more and more.
There are flaws, there are weaknesses, and a bubble, but any dev that can't find any benefit in LLMs is just not looking.
Languages, syntax, flags, and the details... I too have touched so many different technologies over the years that I understand at a high level, but don't remember the minutiae of. I have almost turned into a "conductor" rather than an instrumentalist.
Especially for debugging issues that could previously take days of searching documentation, Stack overflow, and obscure tech forums. I can now ask an LLM, and maybe 75% of the time I get the right answer. The other 25% of the time it still cuts down on debugging time by helping me try various fixes, or it at least points me in the right direction.
The advantage of using LLMs for use in coding, as distinct from most other domains, is that you can usually just directly check if the code it’s giving you is correct, by running it. And if it’s not, the LLM is often good at fixing it once the issue is pointed out.
I'm not a particularly good writer, but I've written about how I use the SingleFile extension to capture a perma web version of everything interesting that I read[0]. It's a great open source tool that aids in archiving (even if only at the personal level).
I've been taking notes and blogging since the early 2000s and coming back so often to find the content that I'd linked to has disappeared.
Archive.org and Archive Team do amazing work, but it's a mistake to put all your archiving eggs in one basket.
I think both work, from a purely information point of view.
The SingleFile download preserves more of the original format. For a long while I was using MarkDownload and capturing the content that way, but a bunch is lost that way.
I also use Zotero for downloading journal articles (etc), that also has the ability to snapshot, but then I found it was locked up in Zotero. Where my current setup is a Jekyll repo on Vercel that means that the content is almost immediately accessible after the github push and deploy. Something that happens automatically after I click the SingleFile download button (configured in the extension).
I need do no more than grab the web link and paste it into Obsidian, where linking to Zotero from Obsidian is a royal pain (not impossible).
They can compare themselves to Obsidian however you like in the features table, but the strength of Obsidian is not in the vanilla experience but in the plugins.