Bimoo

is there a city that has better street food than Taipei?

if there is I want to go there next

a quick demo of how I edit my website with /obsidian 1.8

write in obsidian → auto-build in jekyll → preview local site in web viewer tab → push to github → auto-deploy to live site

I've been making websites for twenty five years, and this is by far the nicest it's ever been

Obsidian 1.8.0 lets you open external links in tabs so you can multi-task on research projects, or quickly read an article without losing focus

Obsidian 1.8.0 (early access) is now available to Catalyst members for desktop and mobile!

- New web viewer plugin
- New command to download local images
- Improvements for iCloud on mobile

Web viewer is a new core plugin that lets you open external links within Obsidian. This simplifies reading linked content without leaving the app and makes multitasking on web research projects easier. This plugin is disabled by default, and needs to be enabled manually in settings.

Download attachments for current file is a new command that downloads all externally embedded images and replaces the external links with internal embeds.

iCloud no longer waits to finish syncing your configuration files. If a configuration file was offloaded, it will be redownloaded and you will be prompted to reload the app once the file was been synced.

Release notes:
https://obsidian.md/changelog/2024-12-18-desktop-v1.8.0

my partner took me to a ceramics class for my birthday and now I'm thinking we should make all our own plates and bowls and mugs

my 2024 side quest was making all the furniture for our house, maybe 2025 will be ceramics?

context: Bending Spoons is the rollup company that bought Evernote and is squeezing everything they can out of the remaining user base

Thanks for reaching out. Do you mind if I share this email on social media to gauge the reaction from our community?

what's one improvement you'd like to see in Obsidian in 2025?

Smooth brain business:
let's convert all our company data to plain text files so we can do analysis and training!

Galaxy brain business:
our company data is in plain text files

Microsoft just released a tool that lets you convert Office files to Markdown. Never thought I'd see the day.

Google also added Markdown export to Google Docs a few months ago.

https://github.com/microsoft/markitdown

my quick review of Gemini 2.0 Flash released today — it's really fast, and free (for now?)

Feels on par with Claude Haiku 3.5 in my Web Clipper testing. Here's an example:

here's an example of using Obsidian Web Clipper to extract the transcript from a YouTube video then run it through Interpreter to summarize the key points

you can do the same with your highlights, or any page content you want — and run templates based on URL patterns

The latest version of Obsidian Web Clipper adds Interpreter which lets you extract page content and manipulate it using natural language.

This is super useful to create consistent data structures for research within your vault. You can run it locally using Ollama.

https://help.obsidian.md/web-clipper/interpreter

cloud computing allows startups to outsource computing to Google

quantum computing allows Google to outsource (outverse?) computing to parallel universes

Each year I ask myself these 40 questions.

This will be my eleventh year. It's still one of my favorite rituals. It helps me see how phases of my life wax and wane.

Each year since 2016, new translations come in. We're up to 30 languages! Thank you to all the contributors 🥰

https://stephango.com/40-questions

Self-guaranteeing promises

Companies break promises all the time. A self-guaranteeing promise does not require you to trust anyone. You can verify a self-guaranteeing promise yourself.

https://stephango.com/self-guarantee

If you've been thinking about getting Obsidian gear, now is the time.

Free shipping in the USA — or 50% off international shipping until Monday. Use EXTRAGRAVY at checkout.
https://obsidian.md/softwear

bed frame complete

Softwear update: "Fractal" is now available on the /obsidian merch store, silkscreened on t-shirts and hoodies.

Learn more:
https://obsidian.md/blog/fractal-softwear/

Obsidian Web Clipper 0.9.8 is out.

You can now choose to save highlights inline, using the ==highlight== syntax. You can also extract the highlights separately.

back home after two weeks exploring South Korea and Taiwan for the first time, it was amazing

Here's what I'm working on next for Obsidian Web Clipper.

Shameless ask — if you've been enjoying the extension, give it a review wherever you downloaded it. It really keeps me going 💜

what's your favorite?

We're getting close on some limited edition /obsidian merch by the amazing Shaun Yue. Which one is your favorite?

Shaun is the designer behind sci-fi interfaces you've seen in Andor, Rogue One, Prometheus, Pacific Rim, Mission Impossible, etc, etc

1. "Drive" — inspired by hard drives representing the physical instantiation of your files

2. "Fractal" — explodes the Obsidian logo into a fractal graph view

(these images show the back of the t-shirt)