100 lines
4.8 KiB
Markdown
100 lines
4.8 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "Day 6 Updates"
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description: "I don't really have much to say today so here are just a few things I've been working on"
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author: Amolith
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cover: /assets/pngs/calendar.png
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date: 2020-05-03T01:57:03-04:00
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toc: true
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categories:
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- Technology
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tags:
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- Zettelkasten
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- Doom Emacs
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- Emacs
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- NixNet
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- 100 Days To Offload
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---
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I haven't been able to come up with a specific topic for today so this
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is just a kind of generic update about me.
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## Zettelkasten
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In my [previous post about Vim,](/vim-as-a-markdown-editor/) I briefly
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mentioned being inspired to create a Zettelkasten by Daryl Sun in [his
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fourth 100 Days To Offload
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post.](https://write.privacytools.io/darylsun/100-days-to-offload-day-4)
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A Zettelkasten is a personal knowledge management tool that allows one
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to quickly retrieve useful information about a subject, relearn
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forgotten concepts, and discover connections between those concepts to
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form entirely new ideas. There are different processes recommended by
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different people but I think it's a very personal choice and depends on
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what your workflow will look like. Mine will be as follows.
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1. Take *very* concise notes on something I learned in a *physical*
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notebook
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2. When I'm able, go through those notes and add them to my [digital
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Zettelkasten,](https://git.nixnet.xyz/Amolith/zettelkasten) expanding
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them a little and fleshing the thought out more
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The last step is *the most important* as this is the one where you sit
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down and think about what you're adding and try to draw connections
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between it and what you already know. The goal is not to make the
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longest and most complete notes in the world but to add value to each
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*concise* thought by linking it with others and build a web for you to
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explore later. You might not see immediate benefits but a mature
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Zettelkasten with hundreds of entries will constantly surprise you as
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you tumble into your own store of knowledge and rediscover things. That
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surprise is actually one of the greatest benefits to this kind of
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knowledge management system; when something is surprising, we tend to
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remember it better.
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## Doom Emacs
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A friend of mine convinced my to try [Doom
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Emacs](https://github.com/hlissner/doom-emacs) and, so far, I am very
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impressed. Emacs itself is very powerful but, from what I can tell, this
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configuration adds a *lot* of value. The main one being Vim keybindings
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:wink: I'm looking forward to learning [org-mode](https://orgmode.org/) and
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seeing what it can do for my productivity. As a text editor and
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programming tool, I plan to stick with [Neovim](https://neovim.io/) on
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desktop/laptop, [Vim](https://www.vim.org/) on Debian-based systems,
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[vi](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Vi) wherever else.
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## NixNet plans
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Today, I fleshed out some of my thoughts on reprovisioning all of my
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over the summer. I'm going to have [Ansible](https://docs.ansible.com/)
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or [Salt](https://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/) build and deploy
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[LXC](https://linuxcontainers.org/lxc/introduction/) containers to a
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baremetal server from [Hetzner](https://www.hetzner.com/sb) running a
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*very* minimal [Alpine Linux](https://alpinelinux.org/) installation.
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Whatever setup I have for those will of course be available on
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[Gitea.](https://git.nixnet.xyz/NixNet) From there, my local NAS will
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use something like [borgmatic](https://torsion.org/borgmatic/) to back
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up files and databases from all of my servers and
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[LXD](https://linuxcontainers.org/lxd/introduction/) to create container
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snapshots[^1]. All of that will be mirrored to
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[BackBlaze](https://www.backblaze.com/) likely using their B2 model as
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paying per GB per month is generally the most reliable option. Under one
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of the others, there's always the possibility that I might upload more
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than they think is reasonable and start limiting me in some way.
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Short-term, I'm going to consolidate some of my servers to a single
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baremetal machine from Hetzner. Long-term, I'm going to look into
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building and racking my own servers in a datacenter in Germany, likely
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one of Hetzner's. This comes with a plethora of benefits but a pretty
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major detriment: the up-front cost will be absolutely *massive*.
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Building a rack server worth putting in a datacenter will be incredibly
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expensive at the start. Following that, all I have to pay is a monthly
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fee for however much space it uses in the rack and it won't be too much.
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Before any of that is even considered, I'm going to be spending a lot of
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time discussing things with my father; he did a lot of racking before he
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got his current sysadmin job and has a ton of advice to give, from using
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VoIP to powercycle the server to what networking gear to look at and how
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to organise everything within the rack.
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I have a lot of really big plans.
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[^1]: This one isn't *really* necessary as building the containers with
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Ansible/Salt is automated and it's a simple process to rebuild them.
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Snapshots might just take less time to redeploy should something go
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wrong.
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