And if he remains dead...
449 karma · joined March 10, 2019
I can't wait to run this as a thin client to my Lenovo P920 ML workstation.
It's a way to express love and sympathy in a very practical, nourishing manner. I hope it never goes away.
Prioritize your family over all else. Money is a renewable resource, your time together is finite and fleeting.
I will download and install today! Good luck!
For what it's worth, I tend to reflect on my systems every year (now) and revise. I try to stick to the new system for the year, and it works quite well. No 'distro-hopping' of productivity hacks.
On plaintext notes: I once worked with a VP who had a very specific approach to something. Years later, she is CEO and I am a consultant. I was able to pull up her requirements and deliver exactly what she needed.
On paper notes: Last New Year's Eve, I reviewed my journals from 2006 to today (my wife was asleep, I was bored). It was fascinating to see arcs and patterns that you would not if recorded electronically. Flipping pages, seeing handwriting change, these subtle clues cannot be dismissed.
Hope this helps.
Do you, though? Try reading Barbara Sher's "Refuse to Choose". There's a place in the world for everyone, and not everyone has to be an administrator to succeed.
Ping me if you want to chat.
I have an image of a photo of my dad in front of the NASA Crawler, but it was lost in a flood. He did navigation systems and the photo was from the launch of Apollo 8.
A headhunter called me out of the blue. We talked for 20 minutes, he had one -one- option for me that was a perfect fit, and I started working at a boutique consulting agency.
Fast forward 5 years; I'm leading a group of awesome consultants at an even cooler, massive consultancy. I'm doing work for clients I never imagined working with, and learning emerging technologies. Work is fun, clients love us, my team are brilliant and funny, I completely reinvented my career, and I'm making triple what I was a few years ago. Yes, there is a lot of grind, and I don't create like I used to. I don't want to give you the wrong impression, but it's AWESOME nonetheless.
Sure, I did super-cool stuff in 1994, and again in 2004. In the 80's too, if I think about it. I miss those days. Maybe I should have peaked then, but I'm too stupid to stop surfing whatever wave is in front of me.
Opportunities abound for anyone curious and willing to take risk. Age is -not- a construct (aches and pains are true), but as you age you acquire wisdom, and it's surprising that the stupid stuff I say to smart younger people who take it as profound. I'm actually helping people. I never dreamed that 5 years ago.
Oh, hey. Tech is too big to follow. Find your interests and pursue them, leave the rest. I love generative art and followed it for a few years, but it's only recently that it's more accessible. I'm one of the leaders in a 10K+ person org. At 55. In addition to my day job. Just have fun. It all works out in the end.
Life is a jungle. Swing from the vines.
What I do now:
- Meeting notes are always digital and plaintext for posterity and search, I use LogSeq
- I have a daily paper journal and calendar. These become interesting over time. Looking at my monthly calendar from 1993 in Prague is pretty cool. I was a cool guy back then, I swear.
- Paper journal for deeper thoughts, ambitions, plans, goals, insights. These matter, and that's where you can see the arc over time. I personally love a Pilot Metropolitan gel pen and a Leuchterm notebook. I have fountain pens and all that, but really, you need a balance between pleasure to use and not afraid to turn the book into a mess.
- For me, the joy of computing these days is using Stable Diffusion (SD) to produce incredible images. I don't want normal, I want whatever SD gives me. Its a surprise and delight. I recall an article in an art magazine about how a photographer gave his blind friend a camera; the images the blind friend produced were unbalanced, blurry and overexposed. Each one visualized a glimpse into a world we can't inhabit. SD does that for me now. I'll keep the old models as it improves.
- Oh (I've edited this like, 10 times), for brainstorming, there is nothing better than an 11x14 newsprint sketchbook. You can draw all over it in every corner and use spacial organization for your thoughts. Like a cheap, indelible portable whiteboard that you can take to the beach or mountains. Best thing ever. What about digitalization? Retyping is an editing exercise.
The reality is that you can go back to your papers and journals, often many years later, and see an arc, a leitmotif that you cannot with digital.
Yes, I have 20 year old plaintext notes, but there is something about flipping through pages of a diary late night or idly on a sunny day; seeing the scrawls, feeling the urgency or lethargy in the penmanship that cannot be replicated.
I have lots of devices, some of them quite fun and lovely, but really, pen and paper have the least friction and longest conveyance of subtle thought.