Observable @observablehq.com · 26/09/2026Lol didn’t notice the 1password prompt in the database name field. Not a clean screen recording! Gotta add `data-1p-ignore` or something… 000
Observable @observablehq.com · 26/09/2026This has been an issue since we introduced SQL cells in 2021, & was exacerbated by later “UI cells”. Pressing tab inside the cell editor inserts spaces; pressing ⌥tab focuses the next cell. Somehow we never developed any keybinding for focusing controls outside the cell editor, “in-between” editors. 100
Observable @observablehq.com · 26/09/2026You can now create and manage teams in the new Observable, use Opus 5.5, connect to MySQL… but, most exciting, and by far the most overdue: you can now access SQL cells’ metadata fields by opening the cell menu with ⌃M. Keep those hands on that keyboard! observablehq.com/@observableh... 141
Reposted by ObservableJoshua Poddoku @joshuapoddoku.com · 24/09/2026In August 2026, 86% of the Earth's surface was warmer than its 1991–2020 average for the month. In a stable climate you'd expect about half. Interactive globe, month by month, from NOAA data, made with @observablehq.com observablehq.com/@joshua-podd... 011
Observable @observablehq.com · 23/09/2026We hope this email finds you… like, at all. “Submarine cables laid in the bottom of the Earth’s oceans”, visualized by @vasturiano.bsky.social observablehq.com/@vasturiano/... 060
Observable @observablehq.com · 23/09/2026(Vercel, for instance, changed personal accounts to trivial “teams of one” in 2024; would be interested to read more of their reflections. Certainly has advantages for onboarding companies.) vercel.com/changelog/20... github.com/vercel/commu...vercel.comEasier transitions between hobby and pro - VercelThe best way to deploy your Next.js site. 010
Observable @observablehq.com · 23/09/2026Could also write about whether your user account is inside of (e.g. Google Workspace) or transcends (e.g. GitHub) a corporate workspace. Does a user represent a person, or a person qua employee? 100
Observable @observablehq.com · 23/09/2026Related pattern we’re moving away from: calling the free individual user tier “Starter”, as if every person is just the pupa of an enterprise. (As opposed to being a respectable and complete entity in its own right.) 110
Reposted by ObservableMike Bostock @ocks.org · 22/09/2026A common pattern for SaaS but not good for community! 021
Observable @observablehq.com · 22/09/2026Also looks good in CMYK. observablehq.com/d/af95f28e87... 030
Observable @observablehq.com · 22/09/2026The concept of three lakes somehow all sharing a coastline was introduced by Kunizō Yoneyama in his 1917 “Theory of Continuous Set of Points”; he said the idea was suggested by Takeo Wada. Hence, “Wada basins”. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakes_o...en.wikipedia.orgLakes of Wada - Wikipedia 100
Observable @observablehq.com · 22/09/2026Pack four mirrored spheres inside the four walls of a tetrahedron (a pyramid). Paint the walls red, green, blue, and white. Then shoot rays out of your eyes. As they bounce, you find that the regions colored each color all somehow share a coastline. observablehq.com/@nxrix/wada-... 3156
Observable @observablehq.com · 21/09/2026When you make a notebook on your own, does it belong to YOU, or to a kind of “shell company” set up in your name? It was once the former. Then, like many SaaS platforms, we moved to treat every individual as an on-ramp to a team account. We’re going back. observablehq.com/@observableh... 290
Observable @observablehq.com · 21/09/2026Stephan Schiffels, @stschiff.bsky.social, a researcher who sometimes uses principal component analysis for genetics, here illustrates the concept using EU flags. observablehq.com/@stschiff/pc... 0101
Reposted by ObservableJo Wood @jwolondon.bsky.social · 21/09/2026Want to embed your @observablehq.com notebook cells in a Powerpoint-style presentation? I've created a tutorial and an interface to reveal.js that allows web-sharable interactive Observable cells to be embedded in full screen presentations. observablehq.com/@jwolondon/o... 0175
Reposted by ObservableMike Bostock @ocks.org · 16/09/2026We’re improving the experience of individuals on Observable by no longer forcing everyone into a “team of one”. It’s tricky to simplify workspaces when you have users in every conceivable state! Here’s the flow we built, and you can read more here: observablehq.com/@observableh... 1112
Reposted by ObservableVoilà: Francis Gagnon @chezvoila.com · 09/09/2026I'll update the starter pack. I'm looking for accounts that are posting dataviz regularly. It is not a who's who, it is not meant to bring followers, it doesn't surface rare posters. Its purpose is to bring dataviz content to its subscribers. Suggestions? 1165
Observable @observablehq.com · 09/09/2026New podcast: Last week, we launched a total rewrite of notebooks. Contra Joel Spolsky’s advice, @ocks.org has done many rewrites, from TiVo to Protovis to D3, and itches to do many more. Why? www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP1R...youtube.comNever don’t rewrite | Observable PodcastYouTube video by Observable 100
Observable @observablehq.com · 09/09/2026Just learned we’re on @chezvoila.com’s starter pack. Didn’t really know what starter packs are. Neat! Thank you! Good list! go.bsky.app/R3nSyyy 1155
Observable @observablehq.com · 07/09/2026Simulation of binary black holes. Original concept by Jeremy Schnittman and Brian P. Powell svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13831 Relativistic GLSL ray-tracing notebook by @nxrix.bsky.social observablehq.com/@nxrix/binar... Starfield & orbit controls by @laotzunami.bsky.social observablehq.com/d/cca8d2013f... 05510
Observable @observablehq.com · 07/09/2026Since Friday: show spinner for loading cell; export cells to CSV, JSON, HTML, CSS, text, Arrow; drag and drop onto files panel; notify when mentioned in a comment; reload clients older than skew protection; fix logging into old site with certain accounts. 001
Observable @observablehq.com · 06/09/2026Ah, don’t miss @fil.rezo.net’s parameterized version. (Based on reading Šavrič et al. and picking out the constants.) observablehq.com/@fil/paramet... 060
Observable @observablehq.com · 05/09/2026Lots of fixes/improvements since Tuesday’s relaunch: DatabaseClient backwards compatibility, BigQuery, more granular permissions, more prominent query cache ages, paste/drop files into editor. We’re sorry for the disruption and grateful for your feedback! observablehq.com/@observableh... 120
Reposted by ObservableNicole Mark (she/her) @nicoledesignsdata.com · 04/09/2026I had a few minutes between meetings this afternoon and tinkered with the new Observable chat. I attached a geoJSON file and made a beautiful map with a data table and bar chart alongside it in under 5 minutes. I can’t wait to explore it further. 031
Reposted by ObservableMike Bostock @ocks.org · 02/09/2026The new programmatic file attachment API is pretty cool and also powers our new fetch caching. observablehq.com/@observableh...observablehq.com 041
Reposted by ObservableMike Bostock @ocks.org · 02/09/2026Our data connectors are serverless Vercel functions. We stream Arrow IPC back to the client, using Flechette on the client to read tables. The client also automatically saves query results to the notebook. observablehq.com/@observableh...observablehq.com 251
Reposted by ObservableMike Bostock @ocks.org · 01/09/2026It’s finally here! So excited to be working out in the open again and for you all to try the new Observable. bsky.app/profile/obse... 16415
Observable @observablehq.com · 01/09/2026The new site is live at observablehq.com. The old site lives on at old.observablehq.com. Discuss in the forum talk.observablehq.com or email support@observablehq.com. Thank you! 040
Observable @observablehq.com · 01/09/2026Finally, read Mike verbatim on “why we continue to pour our heart and soul into this”: 141
Observable @observablehq.com · 01/09/2026We’ve also introduced powerful new notebook capabilities such as query caching and fetch caching, powered by versioned and programmatic file attachments. 130
Observable @observablehq.com · 01/09/2026The best interfaces get out of the way. We removed the “add cell menu” and “new notebook modal”. We now (once again) let individuals make notebooks without thinking about a separate concept of a “workspace” (of one). 130
Observable @observablehq.com · 01/09/2026Notebooks 2.0 embrace standard, vanilla JavaScript and TypeScript, eschewing past quirky syntax. Our open-source Notebook Kit supports file-based workflows, static site generation, and self-hosting. While any change is disruptive, we believe it’s worth it to align with standards. 140
Observable @observablehq.com · 01/09/2026Because the agent runs code instantly in the browser sandbox, inspects live runtime values, and sees user interaction, it’s dramatically faster and more visual than general-purpose AI assistants you may have tried. 130
Observable @observablehq.com · 01/09/2026We reimagined how computational notebooks could work with agents as the primary interface. Our new agent-first notebooks, called chats, are radically different from our human-first notebooks and yet seamlessly interoperate with them. 161
Observable @observablehq.com · 01/09/2026We rewrote everything except the database and the runtime. We aspire to deliver the best experience and anything less leaves us intensely dissatisfied. We don’t want more features — we want fewer distractions. We want focus and clarity. 150
Observable @observablehq.com · 01/09/2026For more than a year, we’ve been quietly building an all-new Observable. Today, that new Observable is live on observablehq.com. Read Mike @ocks.org’s announcement: observablehq.com/@observableh... 16115
Observable @observablehq.com · 27/08/2026When Plot launched some of us thought it’d be a huge problem that it couldn’t compile to D3, but the libraries ended up serving different audiences and we’ve gotten few complaints. Now, quickly asking an agent to inspect Plot’s generated DOM and write equivalent D3 yields somewhat spotty results… 010
Observable @observablehq.com · 26/08/2026Reminded of @domoritz.de’s thread by @keenancrane.bsky.social. When we developed Observable Plot in 2021, it was most notably “easier” than writing D3. When our agent writes Plot today, it is most notably “more coherent” (concise, compact, consistent) than having it write D3. 160
Observable @observablehq.com · 21/08/2026See? Read notebooks, write notebooks, learn about the world. Use Observable today! new.observablehq.com/publicnew.observablehq.comPublic notebooks | Observable 010
Observable @observablehq.com · 21/08/2026We were struck by how much goes into one chart and our call went way over. Also, we learned that we have a redirect loop in some cases where you’re changing your account’s email and logging in by email. And a focus trap on the cell toolbar. And UX confusion with pinned/hidden. 100
Observable @observablehq.com · 21/08/2026They wanted a chart similar to a Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA), but they needed to summarize the effect across many GO terms at once, in a simpler and easier to understand way. Hence, the lollipop chart in this notebook: new.observablehq.com/@neurogenomi... 100
Observable @observablehq.com · 21/08/2026They took a human cell line, introduced extra Olduvai domains, and measured the effect across genes classified by @geneontology.bsky.social (GO) terms: an open-source network graph with millions of annotations of tens of thousands of labeled categories of genes. geneontology.org/docs/downloa...geneontology.orgDownload ontologyDownload the ontology Gene ontology file formats: Files are available in the OBO, OWL and JSON formats. Three versions of the ontology are available as described below. 110
Observable @observablehq.com · 21/08/2026Jonathon and his coauthors cover this in “Olduvai Domains Downregulate Mitochondrial Pathways to Promote Human Brain Evolution and Neoteny”, now in preprint: www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1... 100
Observable @observablehq.com · 21/08/2026Neoteny holds “basal radial glia” cells as stem cells longer, so they can divide more before differentiating, so they can produce more neurons — which lets our brains get bigger. 100
