48:10
A rainy walk through Kyoto's back streets
Put this on while cooking.
Everything you saved, coming back around.
Ambivience gathers your Watch Later videos, bookmarks, Instagram saves, and notes into one calm wall, kept as plain markdown in your Obsidian vault.
Download Ambivience
Runs on your computer. No account.
Done is a feeling, not a state.
robinsloan.com
An app can be a home-cooked meal
Software for four people. The best argument for building small, personal tools that never need to scale.
@quiet.rooms
That lamp. Find out who makes it.
22:37
Sourdough, start to finish
Packing list for slow travel
The rule: one bag, carried on. If it doesn't fit, it doesn't come.
- Two pairs of trousers, one smart enough for dinner
- Four shirts, a jumper, and a rain shell
- A paperback I don't mind leaving behind
- The small notebook, not the nice one
- Film camera and two rolls, no more
Skip the "just in case" pile. Everything on it can be bought on the way, and the buying is part of the trip.
Why paper notebooks still win
Send to Sam before the trip.
We are what we repeatedly do.
Will Durant, summing up Aristotle. Pin above the desk.
Walk without headphones once a week. Let the mind wander.
1:02:44
How to think on a slow Sunday
That's everything.
Why Ambivience
Saving something feels like progress. Then it sinks into Watch Later, a bookmarks folder, or a saved tab on Instagram, and you never see it again.
Ambivience pulls those saves into one place and keeps putting them back in front of you, a few at a time, in an order you pick. Open it like a scrapbook you made, not a feed built to hold your attention.
Two reasons you saved it
To watch or read
The talk you meant to get to, the article you'll read later. Mark it done and it leaves the wall. Not ready yet? Skip it and it comes back another day.
DoneTo see again
The quote, the recipe, the room you want to live in. These never get finished. Mark one seen and it goes to the back of the line until it's due again.
SeenEvery item can carry your own note, and the note comes back with it each time. Your own writing goes on the wall too: a ratio, a list, a line you don't want to forget.
Choose newest, oldest, or random. Build feeds of your own from tags, sources, and collections, like videos only, or everything tagged #cooking.
Every card is a note in your vault
One saved thing is one markdown file in an Ambivience folder inside your vault. Open it in Obsidian, add tags, link it from other notes, rename it, move it. The wall keeps up.
Ambivience / items / an-app-can-be-a-home-cooked-meal-4kp3aj.md
--- kind: link url: https://www.robinsloan.com/notes/home-cooked-app/ title: An app can be a home-cooked meal site: robinsloan.com author: Robin Sloan intent: revisit status: active tags: [software, essays] saved: 2020-02-18T10:25:00Z --- Software for four people. The best argument for building small, personal tools that never need to scale.
- Properties you add yourself are kept exactly as you wrote them.
- Edit a note in Obsidian while the wall is open and the card updates on its own.
- Delete sends the file to your vault's trash, never straight to oblivion.
- Stop using Ambivience and you lose nothing. The notes are still yours.
Bring in what you've already saved
- YouTube
- Watch Later and your playlists, from a Google Takeout export. Watch Later comes in as things to watch, other playlists as things to see again.
- Saved posts and collections, from your Instagram data download.
- Bookmarks
- Exported bookmarks from Chrome, Firefox, or Safari, with folders kept as collections. Safari's Reading List comes in as things to read.
- A list of links
- Paste them in, one per line.
Nothing is written until you've looked it over. Keep the collections you want, untick the rest, and decide what's for watching and what's for keeping. Links you already have are recognized, even when one is a youtu.be link and the other isn't. Titles and thumbnails are filled in for you.
Save from your phone with Obsidian
Make a new note in the Ambivience folder and paste a link on the first line. Anything you write below it becomes your note. When the wall next opens, it's a card.
Ambivience / Hammock time
Hammock time
https://youtu.be/f84n5oFoZBc
Watch on a slow Sunday.
Hammock time
Watch on a slow Sunday.
What it leaves out, on purpose
No account, no cloud
Ambivience runs on your own computer and reads one folder in your vault. There's nothing to sign up for.
No counters or streaks
No unread numbers, badges, red dots, or notifications. It's there when you open it.
No algorithm deciding for you
The order is yours: newest, oldest, random, or a feed you set up yourself.
No scraping or passwords
Imports use the export files YouTube, Instagram, and your browser already give you.
Download Ambivience
Version 1.0 for macOS, Windows, and Linux. Set up takes a few minutes.
Download Ambivience 1.0Needs Node.js 24 or later and a folder of notes, like an Obsidian vault.
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Install Node.js
Get version 24 or later from nodejs.org.
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Unzip and start it
Open a terminal in the unzipped folder and run:
$ npm install $ npm run build $ npm start
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Choose your vault
Open http://127.0.0.1:4747 in your browser and paste the path to your vault. Ambivience keeps everything in an Ambivience folder inside it and leaves the rest alone.
Questions
Does anything leave my computer?
Your saves stay in your vault. To fill in titles and thumbnails, Ambivience visits the pages you saved, the way your browser would. Nothing else is sent anywhere, and the wall only answers on your own machine.
Do I need Obsidian?
Ambivience works on a folder of markdown files, so any folder will do. Obsidian is the easy way to edit notes, add tags, and save from your phone.
Can I open the wall on my phone?
Not in version 1. The wall runs on your computer. On your phone, save into the Ambivience folder with Obsidian and the card will be waiting when you next open the wall.
Why don't my Instagram saves have pictures?
Instagram's export doesn't include images, so Instagram saves show as cards with the account name, the collection, and your note. Tap through to see the post.
What happens to my notes if I stop using it?
Nothing. They're plain markdown files in your vault, and they stay there, readable in Obsidian or any text editor.