Gabriel 🧱 🚧 🌐

Information Scientist, Web Dev, Pattern Enjoyer ✴️ 🔬 🧬 🌐

[Gabriel 🧱 🚧 🌐 @gabriel_export]

One of the greatest discoveries of the 21st century will be the Pattern.

[idan levin @0xidanlevin]

The gene, the atom, the bit, the three biggest discoveries of the 20th century

[Gabriel 🧱 🚧 🌐 @gabriel_export]

You must relate before you can understand. Understanding one-way is hierarchy, and understanding two-ways is equality.

[Manuel Simoni @msimoni]

I love French computing terms.
A program is a logiciel (from logique + -iel, by analogy with and opposition to matériel), and an OS is a système d'exploitation.

[Gabriel 🧱 🚧 🌐 @gabriel_export]

@liquidprismata Not sure what you mean "you want achievement without achieving".

I want to liberate people from having little to no choice or agency in how they may compute and interface with technology and each other through technology.

[Gabriel 🧱 🚧 🌐 @gabriel_export]

To be subject to interfaces that you cannot control or negotiate with, is tyranny.

[Gabriel 🧱 🚧 🌐 @gabriel_export]

@liquidprismata Only Sith deal in absolutes.

[Gabriel 🧱 🚧 🌐 @gabriel_export]

@liquidprismata I would prefer to not be forced to interface with anything without my consent, naive as that may sound. But if I must, under threat of force, I would at least prefer to do so under more flexible terms.

[Gabriel 🧱 🚧 🌐 @gabriel_export]

@liquidprismata Depends what optimal means and what graoh-based filesystem means. Git is pretty great. I'm curious what your findings were!

[Gabriel 🧱 🚧 🌐 @gabriel_export]

The entire "office" metaphor of computing has outlived its purpose. Files, folders, desktops, etc.

Now is the time to rebuild computing from the ground up with relationships as the primitive.

[Manuel Simoni @msimoni]

OpenDoc correctly observed that the contents of documents are opaque to the OS and lack composability.
Its answer was to give documents more structure from the top down.
A hypothetical bottom up alternative: make the filesystem so powerful that documents aren't needed anymore.

[Gabriel 🧱 🚧 🌐 @gabriel_export]

@liquidprismata I agree with him that the Obsidian team makes claims about Obsidian that are not as true as they make them out to be.

[Gabriel 🧱 🚧 🌐 @gabriel_export]

If Obsidian was open-source, this subtle proprietary lock-in would not be an issue.

[Tiago Forte @fortelabs]

I want to debunk the claim that I see a lot around here that Obsidian is "just plain text markdown files" which means "you can take them anywhere and open them with any app"

That simply isn't true

Yes, maybe the raw text of the notes is markdown, but many other parts cannot be moved elsewhere and opened by other apps:

1. The .obsidian/ directory contains your JSON config with plugins, settings, hotkeys, workspace state, link format, attachment paths – those can't be moved elsewhere

2. Plugin state files – Readwise's path-to-ID map, Templater's settings, Tasks plugin's database, Excalidraw's drawing data – even if plugins can be recreated, these settings cannot

3. .canvas files – JSON, not markdown. They reference notes by path and won't survive a move

4. .base files – JSON-based database/views over your notes. Same path-fragility

5. .excalidraw.md files – markdown wrapper around an Excalidraw JSON blob. Looks like markdown, isn't really

6. The link graph itself – backlinks, graph view, "linked mentions" – all computed from filenames and link references. They survive because the references are in the markdown, but they require Obsidian (or an Obsidian-aware tool) to materialize

7. Plugin-managed folders – Readwise output, Web Clipper output, Daily Notes location, Templates folder. Each is a folder whose contents are owned by an external system tracked in plugin state

8. Sync state – Obsidian Sync, iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive each maintain their own state about what's where and what's been resolved. Move operations interfere with this state

9. Embedded query results – Dataview queries, Tasks queries, Bases queries. The query is in the markdown; the result is computed live and never persisted

So technically you CAN move your files elsewhere, but you'd destroy most of what makes them valuable – the graph, the plugin state, the canvases, the embedded queries, the sync state, and any structural intent encoded in folder placement

Which means you're just as locked in to Obsidian as any other "proprietary" app, it's just a hidden lock-in that's obscured by inaccurate marketing

Saying "Obsidian is just markdown files" is like saying "your house is just bricks"

The bricks are real and moveable – but the architecture, plumbing, and wiring aren't bricks, and those are most of what makes the house function

[Gabriel 🧱 🚧 🌐 @gabriel_export]

@liquidprismata Sounds very cool!

[Gabriel 🧱 🚧 🌐 @gabriel_export]

@cryptoskraken @TheAhmadOsman Yeah, and they were right. Maybe we should just give up and do nothing again. 😃👌

[Gabriel 🧱 🚧 🌐 @gabriel_export]

@owocki Are you coming out as an Anarchist with this tweet?

[Gabriel 🧱 🚧 🌐 @gabriel_export]

Giphy's gif search that's baked into most stock keyboards has one of the worst searches ever and no browse. 👺

[stork @cool_junk_1000]

There is so much potential in AI coding... man... we gotta get serious about this shit. Insane things might happen soon. Fully cross-platform app development. Much more flexible UI -- a totally different shape for apps.

[Gabriel 🧱 🚧 🌐 @gabriel_export]

Attempting to navigate AWS gives me psychic damage

[Gabriel 🧱 🚧 🌐 @gabriel_export]

This has to be intentional ragebait

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Your kids will love this video!

Grok Imagine prompt:
The kittens with mittens start dancing and singing “we’re kittens with mittens” with joyful, energetic movements and playful expressions.

[Gabriel 🧱 🚧 🌐 @gabriel_export]

What a perfect tweet fr

[brian @brianonhere]

whoever designs online portals for local governments is making user interface decisions so bizarre and hostile they actually verge on avant-garde

[Bob Pritchett @BobPritchett]

@Marie_Haynes So a wiki in markdown?