I will start!
- As a part of running the Lightning node, I have been learning about SSH (being able to remotely login to manage system processes) and come across a few key quality of life tech for managing remote connections. The first, is to not actually use SSH - but to use MOSH (https://mosh.org/) which allows low-latency, somewhat inconsistent SSH connections to survive. Great for when on an iPad or something like that on the go, and you switch to a different app, temporarily go offline, etc.
- TMUX (https://www.baeldung.com/linux/tmux), which is a linux tool for managing multiple windows/processes in your linux instance. When you ssh back in, you will magically find your pre-existing workspace/workflow available to hop back in and pick up where you left off.
- I'm currently learning Chinese, and enjoying a very excellent tool called HackChinese (https://www.hackchinese.com/) which has drastically increased the speed of my character acquisition and retention.
I use it for public facing services. For everything else I tend to favor FreeBSD. For desktops I literally have to use everything because work.
Once upon a time, I was probably in high school, I had time to try out everything. I was a happy Slackware user at the time, but tried all the BSDs as well (been running FreeBSD as well for a while). For some reason I always remembered OpenBSD as the most pleasant of all OSes I tried, I don't know why.
But yes, then work happened... Windows, then OSX and Linux... Years passed by. I was buying MBP after MBP every couple of years, as they would break down for various reasons, becoming obsolete, impossible to fix... but hey - the employer always paid for the last MBP, and ... isn't MBP the default tool for a programmer?
But now, no more. I am slowly transitioning to OpenBSD and I am not getting any job that provides free MBPs. Those things are simply disgusting.
On the topic of alternative operating systems, for Linux, NixOS is where it's at. It's not "simple" though, like OpenBSD, but it has other great properties.
Have you had any major hiccups with Graphene OS? Did you de-Google it as well?
It was incredibly smooth. I think it is de-Googled by default (that was my main rationale for moving to it) but I did install the Play Store on it post-factum. Some apps exist only in the Play Store unfortunately. At least this allows for a smooth transition - you can keep using some apps from the Play Store, while you slowly find alternatives.
That's good to hear, I suppose removing Google from the OS is already a big improvement.
Obsidian is dope. If you haven't read the book "How to take Smart Notes", it provides a LOT of context for the features in obsidian
Let us know if you find anything cool on the Health topic, that is a good way of approaching it, but be careful of the "Top 10 Foods To Avoid", etc. blogs, I have found the long-form discussion and explanation stuff pretty useful.
I upvote this because Obsidian, can't tell you how much I was looking for something likie this.
PD: Calibre is truly a beast
On the Calibre front - I'm sort of impressed how powerful the tool is and yet how bad the UX is :)
Have you tried Logseq? It is similar to Obsidian but open source
I have, it wasn't that great for me. Note that there are other at least 20 tools that are similar - all can edit markdown, all display fancy graph visualization, etc, but to me it comes down to small details, like good keyboard shortcuts, side by side view support.
Learning Chinese! Have a great journey to you.
In case you want to listen to some chinese bitcoin podcast, here is the link: https://fountain.fm/show/pQqWFNgsiqRJct1o9cYL
Great suggestion, thank you! It will probably be above my skill level, but I will give it a listen.
Old-school tech, but I got a lock-picking set from Amazon that comes with practice locks. My son and I are now discussing lock mechanisms and puzzling our way through picking the locks in different ways.
+1 for language learning. Doing Japanese via Duolingo. Incredibly difficult.
Rust for programming
I've heard good things, but I have never really worked with low-level languages. It will be a bit of a learning curve, I need a good reason to dive into it.
I'm using it to program a simple software for a POC bitcoin signing device (so called wallet)
Nothing fancy just a side project
Same
Gnucash! It's a great way to run your personal accounting. You need some knowledge since it follows strict double-entry accounting, but it pays off. Specially if you are starting to have finances where you have fiat accounts, BTC wallets, other investments, some debts, etc. and answering a simple question such as "What is my networth?" has become a nightmare.
depending on your level of nerdery, check out https://github.com/beancount/beancount . It's double entry accounting in plain text files. The thing. I like about it is it makes asset conversions really easy, which means you can easily make queries like "how much did I spend on coffee last month in Bitcoin terms"?
Yep thanks for suggesting. I did look on to it and also saw how it was clearly superior to gnucash in terms of handling btc as just another day to day currency. But accounting through CLI is just a bit too much for me.
yeah, it's a bit much...
Might be worth a look through their docs. You may find a bit of workflow that you can lift to GnuCash. GnuCash is awesome, I used it for a while a few years ago but it really is a power tool. I found that you need to really know what you want out of it to maximize its utility
Thanks for the recommendation! I've been using YNAB as my budget tool lately, though I rarely log onto it.
Thanks for mentioning Zettelkasten. I take notes compulsively whenever I'm reading or learning something, but I never tried making explicit connections between individual ideas. Definitely seems easier with software than note cards.
NixOS, paradigm shift
This is kinda mundane, but there's a service called Clockwise that plugs into Google Calendar and automatically reschedules meetings to maximize uninterrupted stretches of time to do work. My whole team uses it and it has noticeably improved my quality of life.
Nostr
Ableton for creating little musical experiments - I've been playing with this software synth lately:
https://www.discodsp.com/obxd/
when im cooking with electromagnetic radiation it makes me feel like im living in the future