# DeveloPassion's Newsletter 173 - Launching Soon ## Welcome Another week, another newsletter! I hope that you all had a great one 🤩 Last week, we escaped the ["nightmare" at home](https://www.dsebastien.net/developassions-newsletter-172-reboot-your-productivity/) and went to the Belgian coast with the kids. It was simply not possible to live at home with them, especially with my 3yo. So, I had to hit the pause button, once again. How frustrating! Also, my oldest son tried riding an electric scooter for the first time... and broke his right arm 😥. Anyways, now I'm finally back. Our ground floor still looks like a battlefield, but we just have to wait a few more weeks for it to finally be fixed. Patience is a virtue... Alright, let's gooooo 🚀 ## Product Hunt Launch: I need your help NOW! 🙏 I've decided to promote the [Obsidian Starter Kit](https://www.store.dsebastien.net/product/obsidian-starter-kit) on [Product Hunt](https://www.producthunt.com/), a famous platform for product launch announcements. **I need all the support I can get to turn this launch into a success 🎉** Before the launch, you can already share the [following link](https://www.producthunt.com/products/obsidian-starter-kit) to your friends and colleagues: [https://www.producthunt.com/products/obsidian-starter-kit](https://www.producthunt.com/products/obsidian-starter-kit) The product will launch on the 10th of August at noon, but the link is already available in preview: [Coming soon: Obsidian Starter Kit | Product Hunt](https://www.producthunt.com/products/obsidian-starter-kit) **Your support and upvotes can really make a *huge* difference** in boosting its visibility and helping others discover it. **If you’ve found value in the Obsidian Starter Kit, or just want to support my work, then now is a great time to act!** On launch day, you will have 24 hours to vote for the product (it's free and shouldn't take you more than a minute), and help it become one of the most upvoted products of the day. Let’s make this launch a success together! 🚀 ## Business Nihil novi sub sole... DeveloPassion is still in the "red", and I'm doing my best to keep this business alive. As I've explained in [previous](https://www.dsebastien.net/developassions-newsletter-168-last-hopes/)[newsletters](https://www.dsebastien.net/developassions-newsletter-171-not-the-future-you-want/), it's a tough time to be a creator. You can have all the grit, persistence, motivation, skills and knowledge you need... and still end up failing. Many people enjoy my work, but very few actually care enough to support it. As a consumer, it's something that I understand. What I failed to see before, is how impactful every single contribution *really* is. ![[image-16.png|Knowii new-resource dialog step 2: paste the link, then create]] Caption: Statistics of this newsletter Right now, we're at $112 per month, while my expenses are around $1K per month, even after my efforts to cut expenses. And I'm not even paying myself a single dime for all the work that I'm doing. If you care about what I'm trying to achieve here, then it's time to show it! There are two ways to do so: - [Become a paid subscriber](https://www.dsebastien.net/#/portal/signup) - [Buy my products, and let me help you grow](https://www.store.dsebastien.net//) ## The lab **🧪** This week, I've released version 2.2.0 of the [Obsidian Starter Kit](https://www.store.dsebastien.net/product/obsidian-starter-kit): [New Release: Obsidian Starter Kit 2.2.0](https://www.dsebastien.net/new-release-obsidian-starter-kit-2-2-0//) This release includes the book management system I built for myself, and [blogged about a few weeks back](https://www.dsebastien.net/how-i-manage-books-and-summaries-in-obsidian//). Don't miss it! [Obsidian Starter Kit and community](https://www.store.dsebastien.net/product/obsidian-starter-kit) By the way, don't forget that the [Knowledge Worker Kit](https://www.store.dsebastien.net//product/knowledge-worker-kit) now includes the Obsidian Starter Kit (and much more!): [Knowledge Worker Kit and community (BETA)](https://www.store.dsebastien.net//product/knowledge-worker-kit) ## New articles I've published a piece about interleaving books. It's a topic I discussed a long time ago on this newsletter, and I think more people ought to consider reading multiple books in parallel, and switching regularly between those (especially non-fiction ones): [Interleaving books](https://www.dsebastien.net/interleaving-books-3//) ## Note of the week Besides my blog posts and newsletters, I regularly publish notes over here: [README - DeveloPassion](https://notes.dsebastien.net/) Those are part of my Personal Knowledge Graph in Obsidian, and represent my ideas on various topics. You can see the list of recently added notes here: [Recently added - DeveloPassion](https://notes.dsebastien.net/50+Resources/56+Obsidian+Publish/Recently+added) Consider those as [evergreen](https://notes.dsebastien.net/30+Areas/33+Permanent+notes/33.02+Content/Evergreen+notes). They're not final. Here's one I want to share with you this week: Design your own forcing functions. Remove the burden of using willpower to achieve your goals! ## Quotes of the week - Freedom is not about doing what you want. It is about not doing what you do not want to - Freedom is the ability to live life in a prison of your own making, rather than someone else's — Dickie Bush ## Thinking and learning How good is ChatGPT at transcribing handwritten notes? Apparently much better than I thought, using with [@wfhbrian](https://x.com/wfhbrian)'s Transcribe GPT 🚀 My notes: [Transcribe GPT - DeveloPassion](https://notes.dsebastien.net/30+Areas/33+Permanent+notes/33.02+Content/Transcribe+GPT) You can find the GPT here: [ChatGPT](https://chatgpt.com/g/g-OMRBkoAV0-smart-connect-transcribe-notes) By the way, it's integrated in the [Smart Connections plugin for Obsidian](https://github.com/brianpetro/obsidian-smart-connections). An overview of how Jason Heppler uses Obsidian: [How I Use Obsidian | Jason A. Heppler](https://jasonheppler.org/2024/07/15/how-i-use-obsidian/) Do you understand Large Language Models? If not, then read this: [How Language Models Work](https://every.to/chain-of-thought/how-language-models-work) What will the future of education look like? The digital transition is still a challenge, and now AI is shuffling the cards again. I don't know when AI will be taught to our kids, but it should probably be sooner than later, if we don't want to have yet another digital divide... [Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education…again](https://www.gatesnotes.com/Brave-New-Words) Many folks discuss the Zettelkasten method. And for some reason, I always feel like it can be much simpler than some make it look like... PARA in Obsidian? Of course! But not only (cfr Obsidian Starter Kit): Explore the famous Feynman problem-solving algorithm: [ Feynman’s Garden The best description of my problem solving process is the Feynman algorithm, which is sometimes presented as a joke where the hidden subtext is “be smart”, but I disagree. The “algorithm” is a surprisingly lucid description of how thinking works in the context of hard problems where the answer can’t simply be looked up or trivially broken down, iterated upon in a bottom-up fashion, or approached with similar methods. Feynman’s thinking algorithm is described like this: ](https://www.marginalia.nu/log/a_108_feynman_revisited/) Beth McClelland is totally right: A PKM is not a bookmarking system! [https://www.bethmcclelland.com/p/resonance-filter-note-taking-not-bookmarking](https://www.bethmcclelland.com/p/resonance-filter-note-taking-not-bookmarking) What's the "shape" of information? [The shape of information](https://kucharski.substack.com/p/the-shape-of-information) We should all be relentlessly resourceful: [Relentlessly Resourceful](https://www.paulgraham.com/relres.html) LINK: - [[Obsidian Starter Kit v2.3.0 (Article)]] - https://www.dsebastien.net/obsidian-starter-kit-v3// LINK: - [[Obsidian Starter Kit v2.3.0 (Article)]] - https://www.dsebastien.net/obsidian-starter-kit-v2-3-0-your-knowledge-system-just-got-even-better// LINK: - [[Obsidian Starter Kit Launch - I need YOU (Article)]] - https://www.dsebastien.net/obsidian-starter-kit-launch-i-need-you//