1---
2title: "Day 6 Updates"
3description: "I don't really have much to say today so here are just a few things I've been working on"
4author: Amolith
5cover: /assets/pngs/calendar.png
6date: 2020-05-03T01:57:03-04:00
7draft: false
8toc: true
9categories:
10 - Technology
11tags:
12 - Zettelkasten
13 - Doom Emacs
14 - Emacs
15 - NixNet
16 - 100 Days To Offload
17---
18
19I haven't been able to come up with a specific topic for today so this
20is just a kind of generic update about me.
21
22## Zettelkasten
23In my [previous post about Vim,](/vim-as-a-markdown-editor/) I briefly
24mentioned being inspired to create a Zettelkasten by Daryl Sun in [his
25fourth 100 Days To Offload
26post.](https://write.privacytools.io/darylsun/100-days-to-offload-day-4)
27A Zettelkasten is a personal knowledge management tool that allows one
28to quickly retrieve useful information about a subject, relearn
29forgotten concepts, and discover connections between those concepts to
30form entirely new ideas. There are different processes recommended by
31different people but I think it's a very personal choice and depends on
32what your workflow will look like. Mine will be as follows.
33
341. Take *very* concise notes on something I learned in a *physical*
35 notebook
362. When I'm able, go through those notes and add them to my [digital
37 Zettelkasten,](https://git.nixnet.services/Amolith/zettelkasten) expanding
38 them a little and fleshing the thought out more
39
40The last step is *the most important* as this is the one where you sit
41down and think about what you're adding and try to draw connections
42between it and what you already know. The goal is not to make the
43longest and most complete notes in the world but to add value to each
44*concise* thought by linking it with others and build a web for you to
45explore later. You might not see immediate benefits but a mature
46Zettelkasten with hundreds of entries will constantly surprise you as
47you tumble into your own store of knowledge and rediscover things. That
48surprise is actually one of the greatest benefits to this kind of
49knowledge management system; when something is surprising, we tend to
50remember it better.
51
52## Doom Emacs
53A friend of mine convinced my to try [Doom
54Emacs](https://github.com/hlissner/doom-emacs) and, so far, I am very
55impressed. Emacs itself is very powerful but, from what I can tell, this
56configuration adds a *lot* of value. The main one being Vim keybindings
57:wink: I'm looking forward to learning [org-mode](https://orgmode.org/) and
58seeing what it can do for my productivity. As a text editor and
59programming tool, I plan to stick with [Neovim](https://neovim.io/) on
60desktop/laptop, [Vim](https://www.vim.org/) on Debian-based systems,
61[vi](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Vi) wherever else.
62
63## NixNet plans
64Today, I fleshed out some of my thoughts on reprovisioning all of my over the
65summer. I'm going to have [Ansible](https://docs.ansible.com/) or
66[Salt](https://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/) build and deploy
67[LXC](https://linuxcontainers.org/lxc/introduction/) containers to a baremetal
68server from [Hetzner](https://www.hetzner.com/sb) running a *very* minimal
69[Alpine Linux](https://alpinelinux.org/) installation. Whatever setup I have for
70those will of course be available on
71[Gitea.](https://git.nixnet.services/NixNet) From there, my local NAS will use
72something like [borgmatic](https://torsion.org/borgmatic/) to back up files and
73databases from all of my servers and
74[LXD](https://linuxcontainers.org/lxd/introduction/) to create container
75snapshots[^1]. All of that will be mirrored to
76[BackBlaze](https://www.backblaze.com/) likely using their B2 model as paying
77per GB per month is generally the most reliable option. Under one of the others,
78there's always the possibility that I might upload more than they think is
79reasonable and start limiting me in some way.
80
81Short-term, I'm going to consolidate some of my servers to a single
82baremetal machine from Hetzner. Long-term, I'm going to look into
83building and racking my own servers in a datacenter in Germany, likely
84one of Hetzner's. This comes with a plethora of benefits but a pretty
85major detriment: the up-front cost will be absolutely *massive*.
86Building a rack server worth putting in a datacenter will be incredibly
87expensive at the start. Following that, all I have to pay is a monthly
88fee for however much space it uses in the rack and it won't be too much.
89Before any of that is even considered, I'm going to be spending a lot of
90time discussing things with my father; he did a lot of racking before he
91got his current sysadmin job and has a ton of advice to give, from using
92VoIP to powercycle the server to what networking gear to look at and how
93to organise everything within the rack.
94
95I have a lot of really big plans.
96
97[^1]: This one isn't *really* necessary as building the containers with
98 Ansible/Salt is automated and it's a simple process to rebuild them.
99 Snapshots might just take less time to redeploy should something go
100 wrong.