ATP has a lot of Apple talk, but the hosts fit the bill you describe as I’m pretty sure they’re all left of center. Not that politics come up a lot, but there certainly aren’t any off-color jokes. ATP’s John Siracusa hosts another podcast with Merlin Mann called Reconcilable Differences, and Merlin Mann hosts another I like called Back to Work, and they talk a lot about tech as well. Neither is a strictly tech podcast but I enjoy them all the same.
Logseq is pretty similar to Obsidian, and it’s FOSS. It’s still really young, but I’ve enjoyed using it more than Obsidian for my personal note taking style. It’s block-based and focused on daily journals, so instead of folders of individual notes the tags/references become interlinked pages. It’s been cool to see my daily logs become a web of concepts. Syncing is a new function they’re adding for supporters, but it can be done with Syncthing if you’re nasty.
It’s definitely a different way of note taking than Keep or Joplin and maybe not for everyone, but I hope I’m at least doing it justice and piqued someone’s curiosity!