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Contact Peter Kaminski

Weekend GPT Jam Tech Showcase

Weekend GPT Jams are hosted by Anne Murphy and Don Wackerly of Empowered Fundraising Consulting and Coaching, and are always fun and packed with amazing information.

Pete presented on Obsidian, March 23, 2024 as part of a Tech Showcase with other presenters.

Peter Kaminski

  • AI Instructor, AI Artist, Software Startups (innovation, technical co-founder, product and market architecture), Consultant (people and technology), Wiki Champion
  • Socialtext co-founder and founding product architect, 2003-2008
  • website: peterkaminski.wiki

Obsidian

  • Desktop and mobile tool for editing and managing text files, around 1M users
  • About (manifesto and team): https://obsidian.md/about
  • Markdown-centric, internal linking, tags, huge plugin ecosystem
  • Obsidian Sync, Obsidian Publish

Some Obsidian Features, a Quick Tour

  • file navigation
  • text editing (Markdown)
  • left and right sidebars
  • bookmarks
  • search
  • integration with your OS and apps
  • internal links
  • graph view
  • canvas
  • calendar
  • command palette
  • plugins
    • Git integration (version control)
    • Text Generator (GPT-4 writing assistant)

Why to learn Obsidian

  • to keep personal notes
  • to keep versioned personal notes
  • to work with a team, and keep team notes
  • it's free for personal use
  • the way it stores your data is local-first, transparent, and futureproof
  • each note is easy to repurpose and share
  • to create professional-looking websites that can be hosted for free
  • you can "link as you think", use tags, and other organization methods
  • it uses Markdown, which is easy to use and useful many other places

Kinds of things you can store in Obsidian

  • work and personal journal
  • "lab notebook" (not just for scientists!)
  • personal or team knowledgebase
  • drafts, templates for all sorts of docs and communications
  • client and project documents
  • work and personal task management
  • stuff from the web (bookmarks, pages, files, etc.)
  • non-fiction or fiction books you're writing
  • custom GPT instructions (various versions)
  • all your ChatGPT conversations

Ground Vehicle Types

Consider a range of ground vehicles.

  • Rolls-Royce Phantom (luxury)
  • Volvo S90 (premium)
  • Lexus GS 350 (upper mid-range)
  • Toyota Camry (mid-range practical)
  • Honda Odyssey (minivan, family-friendly)
  • Toyota RAV4 (SUV / crossover)
  • Jeep Wrangler (off-road capable)
  • HMMWV (Humvee, military / utility)
  • Pierce Arrow fire engine (technical / special purpose)
  • John Deere tractor (utility / heavy duty)
  • PistenBully snow groomer (specialty)

Obsidian is around the Jeep Wrangler level. A great vehicle for around town and on the freeway, but has a little more customizability and technical capability than, say, a Camry. The interface is basically the same as any other car. It's less comfortable than something fancier, but lovable and easy to live with. Maybe you've added a roll bar, some jerry cans of water or fuel, a winch, KC lights, etc. You need to know how and when to use 4WD.

Pete's "Markdown Ecosystem"

  • Millions of people have their own preferred ecosystem, this is mine
  • Massive Wiki - a wiki ecosystem that provides classic wiki utility, with a plurality of tools and processes that enable decentralization and federation of the pages; public benefit, not for profit
  • Obsidian - a personal knowledge manager that's based on Markdown files, free for personal use
  • HackMD - a collaborative Markdown editor, free for basic features
  • (above this line works for everybody, below this line it's more complicated and specialized)
    • Typora - clean, minimal Markdown editor, $15
    • Git - comprehensive and confusing collaboration and version control for text files, open source
    • Emacs and other software developer tools, open source
    • Pulsar, similar to Obsidian but developer-oriented

Resources

Obsidian

AI Art

  • Pretty Pictures with Pete ~3x/week emails with 9 objectively beautiful images and bonus images, plus archives of full-size images for your enjoyment and non-commercial use
  • coming soon: Getting to Mastery with Midjourney

Contact Pete

See Contact Peter Kaminski