kepano

@stephango.com

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making @obsidian.md

Software pace layers: formats, protocols, platforms, libraries, apps, intelligence. By @kepano, adapted from Stewart Brand
Screenshot showing design evolution of the Obsidian Web Clipper icon
Atlassian recently announced updates to how we use eligible customer data so we can deliver improved AI experiences for all customers. We designed this change with your security and privacy in mind - giving you control over your data contribution with new in-app settings and strengthening our existing privacy-preserving measures - so you can adopt AI confidently. These changes are reflected in our customer terms and will go into effect on August 17, 2026. As part of this change, we are: Updating how we use metadata and in-app data to improve apps and AI experiences for all customers. Introducing new data contribution settings in Atlassian Administration, so you can manage your organization’s contributions. Note: Initially, these settings will apply to data in Jira, Confluence, and Jira Service Management, including data in your Atlassian Platform apps (Rovo, Home, Teams, Projects, Assets, Goals, Analytics, and Administration). Strengthening our existing privacy‑preserving measures
Confidential computing This is the domain of confidential computing. Confidential computing uses hardware-enforced isolation to run code in a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE). The host machine provides CPU, memory, and power, but cannot access the TEE’s memory or execution state. LLMs are fundamentally stateless—input in, output out—which makes them ideal for this environment. For Confer, we run inference inside a confidential VM. Your prompts are encrypted from your device directly into the TEE using Noise Pipes, processed there, and responses are encrypted back. The host never sees plaintext. But this raises an obvious concern: even if we have encrypted pipes in and out of an encrypted environment, it really matters what is running inside that environment. The client needs assurance that the code running is actually doing what it claims.
I will reveal myself gradually you won't see me all at once your curiosity will be rewarded patience is required I will open doors doors you don't know about secrets dreams at my own pace you will never completely understand me I am always changing sometimes I will go away I am exploring myself there's a vast universe inside me you will not get bored sometimes I leave a door open for you to find you have to look for it
a bottle of kikkoman soy sauce
0.1 second is about the limit for having the user feel that the system is reacting instantaneously, meaning that no special feedback is necessary except to display the result. 1.0 second is about the limit for the user's flow of thought to stay uninterrupted, even though the user will notice the delay. Normally, no special feedback is necessary during delays of more than 0.1 but less than 1.0 second, but the user does lose the feeling of operating directly on the data. 10 seconds is about the limit for keeping the user's attention focused on the dialogue. For longer delays, users will want to perform other tasks while waiting for the computer to finish, so they should be given feedback indicating when the computer expects to be done. Feedback during the delay is especially important if the response time is likely to be highly variable, since users will then not know what to expect.
A few years ago, Paul Wieland, a 44-year-old information technology professional living in New York’s Adirondack Mountains, was wrapping up a home renovation when he ran into a hiccup. He wanted to be able to control his new garage door with his smartphone. But the options available, including a product called MyQ, required connecting to a company’s internet servers. He believed a “smart” garage door should operate only over a local Wi-Fi network to protect a home’s privacy, so he started building his own system to plug into his garage door. By 2022, he had developed a prototype, which he named RATGDO, for Rage Against the Garage Door Opener. He had hoped to sell 100 of his new gadgets just to recoup expenses, but he ended up selling tens of thousands. That’s because MyQ’s maker did what a number of other consumer device manufacturers have done over the last few years, much to the frustration of their customers: It changed the device, making it both less useful and more expensive to operate.
Thanks so much for reaching out and for the kind words about the game, we're thrilled you're loving Outer Worlds 2! It's great to hear you're even trying to contribute feedback on the issue tracker. You've run right into a common security feature where disabling 2FA also requires a current code to prove you're the account owner making the change. Since your issue is with the Obsidian account system (for the issue tracker) and involves account security, this is something our specialized account security team needs to handle directly. They're the only ones who can verify your ownership and safely disable the authenticator app link without a current code. Please email their dedicated support channel directly right now at support@obsidian.md. - In your email, explain exactly what you told me: you lost access to your authenticator app, you used a backup code to log in, but you can't disable 2FA because it still asks for an authenticator code. - Mention that you can provide any proof of account ownership they need. The support team at that address is equipped to work through the necessary identity verification steps to get that 2FA disabled for you.
Use the saw, fear the saw When I learned to use a table saw, my teacher impressed upon me that the machine wants to cut fingers. Fear the saw! Powerful tools can do powerful things. If you want to make handmade wooden furniture you must cut wood. Your desire to have limbs and your desire to have furniture are not at odds if you learn to use tools safely. There are table saws that will stop at the touch of a finger, but I don’t know of any chainsaw that won’t cut an arm. There is a limit to how safe a tool can be before its function is crippled. We should not stop making powerful tools because they are dangerous. Rather, we should empower people to use powerful tools safely. I use the saw, I fear the saw. I have handmade furniture, and I have all my limbs.
Screenshot of Obsidian showing a map of Taipei made with Bases
AI agents built into cloud apps will always be sub-par compared to state of the art agents that you can use with Obsidian. This is because your Obsidian data is in your control, in plain text formats that are ideal for LLMs to process. You can choose to run any of the best-in-class agents and AI tools: Claude, Gemini, OpenAI Codex, etc. You also have the choice to run local models and privacy-preserving options. Or you can use none of these and enjoy not seeing sparkly AI buttons everywhere. Remember that cloud-based note-taking apps are not end-to-end encrypted. This is inherently less secure, open to breaches, and allows companies to make your private thoughts part of their training set. Obsidian is not working on adding agents because we don't have to. We'll let the AI labs focus on that. We're 4 developers and our focus is on making great editing tools for plain text Markdown files that are always in your control.
A few years ago, when Slack transitioned us from their free nonprofit plan to a $5,000/year arrangement, we happily paid. It was reasonable, and we valued the service they provided to our community. However, two days ago, Slack reached out to us and said that if we don’t agree to pay an extra $50k this week and $200k a year, they’ll deactivate our Slack workspace and delete all of our message history. One could argue that Slack is free to stop providing us the nonprofit offer at any time, but in my opinion, a six month grace period is the bare minimum for a massive hike like this, if not more. Essentially, Salesforce (a $230 billion company) is strong-arming a small nonprofit for teens, by providing less than a week to pony up a pretty massive sum of money, or risk cutting off all our communications. That’s absurd.
Screenshot showing an example of a related notes view with Obsidian Bases
In order to focus on delivering a consistent, high-quality experience on paper.dropbox.com, the Dropbox Paper mobile app will be discontinued on October 9, 2025. If you already have the app installed on your device, it will no longer function after this date. You can continue using Paper on Web on any of your devices after this date by logging into paper.dropbox.com using your browser.
photo of toast with blackberry jam
1. You can drag views in the View menu to reorder them. The first one is the default view. 2. Right-click the View button to skip the view picker and edit the current view. 3. Bases can be embedded as .base files or as code blocks (like Dataview). Both use the same syntax. 4. Use [[BaseName.base#ViewName]] to embed a specific view. 5. Views have layout options. For tables you can set row height. For cards you can set card size and cover image. 6. The Results count is clickable and lets you limit results and export to CSV/clipboard. 7. With the Properties menu open, you can navigate to a property in the list using arrow keys, and hold Opt key (Alt on Windows) to move the property up or down the list. 8. Double-click a column divider to reset the column width. 9. You can place base files in sidebars to create custom views, like a recent files view, or attachments view. 10. When embedded in a note, this.file refers to the current note. In a sidebar, this.file refers to the active note.
1. New policy.json file with options for disabling community plugins, themes, Sync, Publish 2. Command line options for --policy-file "path/to/policy.json" 3. Command line options for --policy-json "{json contents}" 4. Environment variable for OBSIDIAN_POLICY_FILE and OBSIDIAN_POLICY_JSON same as the command line options
CATS: ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO YOU.
Our philosophy as far as how it would ever make sense for Obsidian is that it has to fit with the principles that are in our manifesto, which is that it would have to be private. We're not comfortable with the idea that our users' data could be stored in OpenAl servers without their consent. I think a lot of tools out there are just kind of defaulting to this feeling that there's an arms race. We've got to put Al into everything. Let's put a little magic button everywhere. I don't think that's us. We want to give users confidence that their thoughts are theirs, that things are not going to be used to train the next LLM. That said, I do think Al can be really powerful for certain uses. So the question is, in the long term, do we end up giving an API to the plugin community so that they can build those types of functionalities more easily? Right now, we're not working on it. We've been holding off and watching what's going on. We don't feel a sense of urgency to suddenly put all these things in there because, to be honest, the plugin ecosystem is there for you and you can do it if you really want that. There are things much more important to us on the priority list that we want to work on first, that we would rather set our time aside for with our limited capacity.