A corporate-sponsored speaker came in right after we were ordered to come back to the office to try and boost morale or something. None of the bosses or directors were there, having sent an email that they were working from home, which really ticked everyone off. We gave this speaker a pretty hard time, ignoring him and talking amongst ourselves. His presentations were mostly about why remote work was never going to be the norm and some stuff that was union-bustingly awkward. He tried to get us up and involved with, “Okay, who can stand on one foot the longest! Woo! Let’s get that blood pumping!” My coworker, RJ, is an amputee so he popped his leg off and left it standing, sat back down and dug a novel out of his bag and started to read. RJ is my hero.
— Workplace morale-building competitions gone wrong,, on Ask a Manager
I’m still exploring Capacities, which looks like Obsidian 2.0. Two different products by two different companies, but it seems like the Capacities developers looked hard at Obsidian, learned from it, and improved it.
Capacities uses tags and objects instead of folders, which I hated the idea of, but now I think maybe I just haven’t seen tags done well until now.
The Capacities home page has the usual marketing folderol for notetaking and document management software. It’s a “studio for the mind!” (wow!) “Our computers made us think like them!” (Capacities says that’s bad.) “Folders and hierarchies limit our creativity!” (ok sure whatever if you say so) “Break the silo, create a network of thoughts!” (if we break the silo, where would we put the corn?)
I like the look of Capacities.
Here’s some of what I’ve been reading on Fierce Network lately
The killer app for 5G gets unveiled with iPhone 16. By Joe Madden, principal analyst at Mobile Experts. It’s AI, specifically AI’s need for big, fast uploads. Interestingly, Joe says that the applications for 2G, 3G and 4G were known when the networks were deployed — allowing wired applications to go wireless — but 5G uses are still emerging.
“Peak shaving” could help data centers solve the AI power problem — for now. Diana Goovaerts reports. Data center power consumption comes in spurts, putting a strain on power grids. But “… most data centers have plenty of battery and generator power available on standby as backup power in case the electrical grid goes down. With peak shaving, data centers can just put those existing assets to more active use.” (I achieved peak shaving this morning — new blade.)
The iPhone 16 may cause a surge in demand — a “supercycle.” “’Given the strong consumer interest in AI capabilities, we anticipate a supercycle of upgrades when Apple launches their new devices that will support an embedded Apple Intelligence expected later this year,’ said Rebekah Griffiths, vice president of Product Management and Strategy at Assurant, which collects phone trade-ins and prepares them for resale.’” Monica Alleven reports. I’m skeptical.
AT&T and Verizon aren’t worried about an iPhone supercycle (Dan Jones)
Brightspeed is replacing copper with a unique wireless technology. By Linda Hardesty
And something I listened to: The newly relaunched Five Nines Podcast, hosted by Diana. The introductory episode of the new series focuses on startup Vaire Computing with the ambition of becoming the next Nvidia using technology called “reversible computing” that reduces processor heat generation to virtually zero. CEO Rodolfo Rosini says existing processors are basically heaters that produce compute as a by-product.
Here’s something I saw while walking the dog: A seasonal display of horrors—witchcraft, skeletons and Libertarianism.
It’s been too hot to go out and do anything this weekend, so I’ve been blogging like crazy today and messing around with Capacities.
I’m considering switching to that from Obsidian.
Talk me out of switching. I may need an intervention.
Do you use DevonThink with Obsidian? If so, why?
I’m struggling with my Obsidian setup–I think it’s too complicated.
In addition to Markdown documents, I work with a lot of Microsoft Word documents, PDFs and Web URLs. Until now, I’ve stored all of those in Obsidian – even the Word docs.
Now, I think maybe I’d be better off keeping Obsidian for just Markdown documents and embedded images. Which is how most people seem to use it.
I’m a Mac user, and I know many Mac Obsidian users use DevonThink in conjunction with Obsidian for just the use case I describe. Markdown goes in Obsidian, everything else in DevonThink.
My question is: Why?
The main benefit, as I see it, is that DevonThink gives each document a unique URL, which can then be integrated into Obsidian. But there are other ways to do that, and these ways might be more lightweight than DevonThink:
- Use Hookmark.
- Create a separate Obsidian vault solely for storing non-Markdown reference documents.
- Just use the Mac filesystem and use path links. In this case, you could never move your reference documents from their existing folders, or else you’d break the link.
- Another app like Keep it or EagleFiler, which also serve as document libraries with links to documents, but are lighter weight than DevonThink.
Why do you use DevonThink with Obsidian?
(Perfectly valid answer, but uninteresting for this discussion: “Because I’ve used DevonThink for many years, it works for me, and I see no reason to change.” However, this answer can be made very interesting indeed if you tell us why it works for you.)
Today I learned Carrie Preston and Michael Emerson are married for 26 years. Given the types of characters they play, I am gobsmacked.
Preston’s signature role is as Elsbeth Tascione, a brilliant attorney who presents as an utter ditz—sort of a female Columbo. She played that role on The Good Wife and a couple of its spinoffs.
Emerson plays delicious, sociopathic villains on “Evil” and “Lost.”
Also, now I want to see an Evil/Elsbeth crossover.
Please join me and my colleagues on Monday and Tuesday for the Fierce Network Open RAN Summit, a free virtual event. I’m moderating the panel “Creating New Telco Opportunities in the Cloud with Open RAN” at 12:15 am EST Monday with Neil Coleman, product line management lead, Amdocs, and Rimma Iontel, chief architect, global telco, Red Hat.
A new reminder that Russian interference was never a ‘hoax.’
It just succeeded in a way that Russia could never have predicted.
The recent indictment claiming Russians funneled $10 million to a US-based conservative media company is just the latest example of Russian meddling.
Russians are writing MAGA talking points about how “people of color, perverts and disabled” are infringing “the rights of the White Population of the United States.”