Nov 25, 2023·edited Nov 25, 2023Liked by Eleanor Konik
For some reason, I cannot put my finger on, besides my obsession with Obsidian, thoughts like these are super important to me. Its like the dawn of a new age of thinking, maybe that's overboard. I have said before maybe its because I am an aspiring philosophical writer and am looking for inspiration to become a better writer, but also having a slightly different perspective on things improves our lives, maybe that's why your subscribers have good taste in things.
I really like the comparison you make between open source and being bootstrapped. I was talking about my concerns about Obsidian in Discord the other day, if Obsidian ever gets purchased by a large capital company. I'm really worried about that. Because of Enshitification and how many large corporations embrace new technologies, to expand their influence, and extinguish the technology to make way for their own closed and proprietary systems, which, IMHO does not serve the public good. The Atom editor is one example of that, for me.
I think that Obsidian is going in the right direction from a community perspective. But I also notice that when community projects, that puts this kind of control in the end-user's hands, once it becomes popular, its seems like its really hard for founders to stay connected to the ideals under which the endeavor was created. Its like the influence from industry's, that have been built from less then stellar ideals, always seems to infect people that are doing things for the right reasons. Maybe I am being to myopic.
Anyways, I also like the new slogan. Thanks for bringing these matters into the light. Every time I get a article from you, Im always excited to read it.
Tiago seems to still be enjoying Evernote, so even getting bought out isn't a total death knell! And honestly I use Notion for a lot of collaborative stuff, and I'm more worried about it because I think being profitable is important and I don't think they are yet...
IMHO Profitability for profits sake is fine. It's when a company buys out a product to embrace, extend and extinguish technology that helps the public good for self interest reasons that I have a problem with.
It seems to me there are companies out there that have a purpose to buy or purchase IP only to remove a technology to create a situation of less choice so that they can maintain a dominant position in a particular demographic.
Hi, Eleanor ~ I'm curious to see how (if at all) you incorporate AI into your note-making/writing/working processes. I've been experimenting with Chat GPT in ways both frivolous and serious, and it probably has some potential.
I mostly use it to reformat things, for example turning audio transcripts into something coherent and readable, or taking a raw import of highlights and annotations from Readwise, grouping by topic, and adding transitions and changing the formatting to be a bit more readable. I also use it as a more focused space than google to get answers to simple questions, so I don't need to leave my note window and get distracted by the stuff in my browser.
As far as writing... ChatGPT is godawful at writing good prose. But what I've learned as a mom is that so are most children's book authors. The number of unforced errors in board books is just egregious (culture war stuff aside, it seems weird for "counting with cow" to call a cow "he") and some of the rhymes are terrible, even before get into things like whether they fit your personal criteria of what is acceptable in a kid's book (for example, Montessori philosophy encourages exclusively sticking to realism before age 5). Plus, finding a kid's book that is perfectly aligned with your particular kid's particular obscure interest of the day is tricky, even with library access, because it's not timely. I personally find the proliferation of talking animals and pure fantasy in books aimed at three-year-olds annoying, for example.
Happily, ChatGPT and DALL-E exist, and they do a wonderful job of writing tolerable short stories aimed at children. You can even print them out with AI-generated images for the kids to color themselves if you're feeling crafty.
"Reformatting things" and "turning audio transcripts into something readable" sound very useful. Do you have any tut links you can share?
I've been trying to get ChatGPT to write decent tour reviews (walking food tours, etc) or, at the very least, come up with some kind of easy template. No luck yet. I think the trick is going to be creating the proper prompt.
I haven't tried using it to create prose but I have had fun getting it to create silly haikus and sonnets. The results are so cheesy they're fun.
I had an AVM bleed in 2006 that ripped 27 aneurysms in once mensa quality brain and left me incurably incontinent {on a county Medicare clinic budget}. If I dont keep my things exactkly in their place I'm likely to forget to put clothes on.
For some reason, I cannot put my finger on, besides my obsession with Obsidian, thoughts like these are super important to me. Its like the dawn of a new age of thinking, maybe that's overboard. I have said before maybe its because I am an aspiring philosophical writer and am looking for inspiration to become a better writer, but also having a slightly different perspective on things improves our lives, maybe that's why your subscribers have good taste in things.
I really like the comparison you make between open source and being bootstrapped. I was talking about my concerns about Obsidian in Discord the other day, if Obsidian ever gets purchased by a large capital company. I'm really worried about that. Because of Enshitification and how many large corporations embrace new technologies, to expand their influence, and extinguish the technology to make way for their own closed and proprietary systems, which, IMHO does not serve the public good. The Atom editor is one example of that, for me.
I think that Obsidian is going in the right direction from a community perspective. But I also notice that when community projects, that puts this kind of control in the end-user's hands, once it becomes popular, its seems like its really hard for founders to stay connected to the ideals under which the endeavor was created. Its like the influence from industry's, that have been built from less then stellar ideals, always seems to infect people that are doing things for the right reasons. Maybe I am being to myopic.
Anyways, I also like the new slogan. Thanks for bringing these matters into the light. Every time I get a article from you, Im always excited to read it.
Tiago seems to still be enjoying Evernote, so even getting bought out isn't a total death knell! And honestly I use Notion for a lot of collaborative stuff, and I'm more worried about it because I think being profitable is important and I don't think they are yet...
IMHO Profitability for profits sake is fine. It's when a company buys out a product to embrace, extend and extinguish technology that helps the public good for self interest reasons that I have a problem with.
It seems to me there are companies out there that have a purpose to buy or purchase IP only to remove a technology to create a situation of less choice so that they can maintain a dominant position in a particular demographic.
Reminds me of how much dating apps these days suck. I'm so glad I found my husband in the glory days of ok cupid
Lot of that going around it seems, not just with dating apps.
I forgot to say that the mention of Enheduanna was interesting.
Hi, Eleanor ~ I'm curious to see how (if at all) you incorporate AI into your note-making/writing/working processes. I've been experimenting with Chat GPT in ways both frivolous and serious, and it probably has some potential.
I mostly use it to reformat things, for example turning audio transcripts into something coherent and readable, or taking a raw import of highlights and annotations from Readwise, grouping by topic, and adding transitions and changing the formatting to be a bit more readable. I also use it as a more focused space than google to get answers to simple questions, so I don't need to leave my note window and get distracted by the stuff in my browser.
As far as writing... ChatGPT is godawful at writing good prose. But what I've learned as a mom is that so are most children's book authors. The number of unforced errors in board books is just egregious (culture war stuff aside, it seems weird for "counting with cow" to call a cow "he") and some of the rhymes are terrible, even before get into things like whether they fit your personal criteria of what is acceptable in a kid's book (for example, Montessori philosophy encourages exclusively sticking to realism before age 5). Plus, finding a kid's book that is perfectly aligned with your particular kid's particular obscure interest of the day is tricky, even with library access, because it's not timely. I personally find the proliferation of talking animals and pure fantasy in books aimed at three-year-olds annoying, for example.
Happily, ChatGPT and DALL-E exist, and they do a wonderful job of writing tolerable short stories aimed at children. You can even print them out with AI-generated images for the kids to color themselves if you're feeling crafty.
"Reformatting things" and "turning audio transcripts into something readable" sound very useful. Do you have any tut links you can share?
I've been trying to get ChatGPT to write decent tour reviews (walking food tours, etc) or, at the very least, come up with some kind of easy template. No luck yet. I think the trick is going to be creating the proper prompt.
I haven't tried using it to create prose but I have had fun getting it to create silly haikus and sonnets. The results are so cheesy they're fun.
Rewriting popular fairy tales and children's stories in the format/tune of classic folk songs is a particular joy of mine 😂
you showed me yours; here's mine.
https://tripichickgmailcom.substack.com/p/the-chick-with-the-power-meets-the
I had an AVM bleed in 2006 that ripped 27 aneurysms in once mensa quality brain and left me incurably incontinent {on a county Medicare clinic budget}. If I dont keep my things exactkly in their place I'm likely to forget to put clothes on.
I write in google docs or substack.