Arch, if I want to revive the 20-something geek in me.
I’ve been using Debian in prod for very long time, but recently switched to Centos (and RHEL).
No idea when or why I got so radicalized against Centos/RHEL that I didn’t even want to try it for years, but after working with it for a few months, I’m absolutely in love.
When I started using Linux years ago, I had this feeling of order, that it just made sense.
But it died with all the bloat and faction wars in the community on how things should be done (e.g network management).
With RHEL, it all makes sense again. I know what’s going on and I am in control.
CentOS isn't the CentOS of previous years, which may have something to do with it. IBM killed it and now it's some sort of Fedora stream type thing that just reused the name?
CGP Grey is a Youtuber who became well known for deeply-researched videos on subjects of nerdy interest.
Many years after going full-time doing this, he encountered Zettelkasten and realized that "taking notes" is supposed to including paraphrasing, write things in your own words, and making connections to other facts you've found. (Cortex podcast #105)
He thought notes were just the transcription version of using a highlighter in a book: exclusively verbatim quotes, just to save you from rereading the whole book. Synthesizing knowledge was a separate process. He'd carried this belief his whole life — educational Youtuber, high school physics teacher, two college degrees.
He attributes this in part to being raised on standardized testing, where memorizing the teacher's sound bites was how you succeeded.
Taking notes feels so basic that we just assume everyone knows how, and that we ourselves are doing it effectively. I mean, it's just taking notes, how hard is it? But really it's a growable skill where technique matters, and you can plateau very low if no one tells you you're doing it badly.
It did take a huge amount of effort to go through the conversion process of my notes, but now it makes things much easier and works how my mind works to link concepts and ideas.