Knowledge Management in the Age of AI • Hacker News Board

Re: Knowledge Management in the Age of AI

#81

Post by nextos » Mon, Jun 09, 2025, 1:52 PM UTC

edanm wrote: post #80

nextos wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what ways do you find VSCode or Cursor superior or more convenient to Emacs?

Note that I worked with Emacs already a few years ago, and it was Spacemacs specifically. That said, VSCode is - much nicer looking, a lot of things come working out of the box that I had to work hard to make work in Emacs (even with Spacemacs), a lot of great plugins exist and are easy to add to VSCode. Really it's the "great experience out of the box" and lack of weird edge cases where custom code/plugins interact…

Makes sense. I have no experience with Vi-like layers built on top of Emacs, but I think standard Emacs is much easier to use right now than it was in the past. Most major packages work really well with zero configuration. There's even a LSP mode (eglot) built in.

I think the problem is that most advanced users have incredibly convoluted .emacs files, mainly for historical reasons, and this has given Emacs a reputation of being overly complex and difficult to set up.

IMHO, the great advantage of Emacs is that it will always be around, and it's really open to customization in case you ever need that.

Re: Knowledge Management in the Age of AI

#82

Post by al_borland » Mon, Jun 09, 2025, 1:57 PM UTC

exiguus wrote: post #46

al_borland wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure on encryption, but the notes themselves are just files and folders, you can host and sync the files with anything you want. Unless you're talking about wanting it as a self-hosted web app?

My primary concern is the lack of encryption for the notes. This absence of encryption leaves them exposed and vulnerable. Relying on third-party services like Dropbox, iCloud, or similar platforms to sync notes across devices only heightens the potential for data exposure. There is also a Obsidian forum thread about that [1]. I believe the primary issue with nearly all note-taking tools is the lack of genuine encryp…

Do you have a current solution that addresses there concerns?

Re: Knowledge Management in the Age of AI

#83

Post by xxpor » Mon, Jun 09, 2025, 4:18 PM UTC

exiguus wrote: post #59

xxpor wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a trivial problem to solve. Full disk encryption, or something like https://github.com/tejado/obsidian-gpgCrypt

I like the gpgCrypt approach, but its not trustable.

Genuinely curious, why? The concept of GPG or something else?

Re: Knowledge Management in the Age of AI

#84

Post by UltraSane » Mon, Jun 09, 2025, 7:48 PM UTC

bob1029 wrote: post #41

I've been using pen & paper lately. The context switch between digital and analog is compelling. There is something satisfying about throwing a piece of physical paper away after pushing your commits. I tend to hoard information, so having a medium that is highly constrained keeps me honest with what I hold onto over time. Not being able to do full text search over my notes means I prefer to keep no more than ~one le…

Not being able to instantly search notes drastically reduces their utility.

Re: Knowledge Management in the Age of AI

#85

Post by larsmw » Mon, Jun 09, 2025, 8:31 PM UTC

edanm wrote: post #80

nextos wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what ways do you find VSCode or Cursor superior or more convenient to Emacs?

Note that I worked with Emacs already a few years ago, and it was Spacemacs specifically. That said, VSCode is - much nicer looking, a lot of things come working out of the box that I had to work hard to make work in Emacs (even with Spacemacs), a lot of great plugins exist and are easy to add to VSCode. Really it's the "great experience out of the box" and lack of weird edge cases where custom code/plugins interact…

I really dont get the idea of having a vim mode in emacs, og an emacs mode on VSCode. Why dont just use the keybindings for the editor you are using?

Re: Knowledge Management in the Age of AI

#86

Post by edanm » Tue, Jun 10, 2025, 5:29 AM UTC

larsmw wrote: post #85

edanm wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that I worked with Emacs already a few years ago, and it was Spacemacs specifically. That said, VSCode is - much nicer looking, a lot of things come working out of the box that I had to work hard to make work in Emacs (even with Spacemacs), a lot of great plugins exist and are easy to add to VSCode. Really it's the "great experience out of the box" and lack of weird edge cases where custom code/plugins interact…

I really dont get the idea of having a vim mode in emacs, og an emacs mode on VSCode. Why dont just use the keybindings for the editor you are using?

vim mode is far, far better than any alternative way of using a keyboard (because you don't have to ever move your hands from home row). Even without vim mode, just the vim keybindings by themselves are far better. Once I got used to using them, using a keyboard without them felt stupid.

Hence my using vim mode everywhere I can.

I also created a set of mappings to give me vim-style keybindings everywhere on the computer, so I can use vim-style bindings even within this very comment I'm typing on my browser. Obviously it doesn't support the full set of vim bindings, but just the basic movements and some other mappings (like selecting a word/sentence, backwards delete word, etc) are enough to get a huge amount of value.

Re: Knowledge Management in the Age of AI

#87

Post by I_complete_me » Tue, Jun 10, 2025, 1:01 PM UTC

jplusequalt wrote: post #70

sorokod wrote: post #3

The OP linked "You'll Never Think Alone"[1] is a good read. [1] https://publiccomment.blog/p/you-ll-never-think-alone-170518...

Great article, but I think this article will get a look of flak from the people who frequent HN.

Interesting the link was dead when I tried it. Then when I googled "You'll never think again" all I got was "You'll never walk alone". I thought: "I'll never search again".

Re: Knowledge Management in the Age of AI

#88

Post by exiguus » Wed, Jun 11, 2025, 4:13 PM UTC

xxpor wrote: post #83

exiguus wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the gpgCrypt approach, but its not trustable.

Genuinely curious, why? The concept of GPG or something else?

> Warning: Encrypted notes might be stored unencrypted on disk due to Obsidian's caching mechanisms, coredumps, or other reasons.

is one statement from the authors of the plugin.

Re: Knowledge Management in the Age of AI

#89

Post by exiguus » Wed, Jun 11, 2025, 4:18 PM UTC

al_borland wrote: post #82

exiguus wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My primary concern is the lack of encryption for the notes. This absence of encryption leaves them exposed and vulnerable. Relying on third-party services like Dropbox, iCloud, or similar platforms to sync notes across devices only heightens the potential for data exposure. There is also a Obsidian forum thread about that [1]. I believe the primary issue with nearly all note-taking tools is the lack of genuine encryp…

Do you have a current solution that addresses there concerns?

Currently, I use Joplin, which supports on device encryption and self-hosting. Previously, I relied on tools like git-crypt, TrueCrypt, or LUKS for encryption. However, as far as I know, git-crypt is not secure anymore. And using encrypted containers or file systems has the drawback of being difficult to share once they exceed a certain size.

Re: Knowledge Management in the Age of AI

#90

Post by xxpor » Thu, Jun 12, 2025, 2:16 AM UTC

exiguus wrote: post #88

xxpor wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely curious, why? The concept of GPG or something else?

> Warning: Encrypted notes might be stored unencrypted on disk due to Obsidian's caching mechanisms, coredumps, or other reasons. is one statement from the authors of the plugin.

OK, I agree that's bad behavior from Obsidian