At then end of last year, I watched a NetworkChuck video on YouTube called I started a blog.....in 2024 (why you should too) and it really resonated with me. Not the complex workflow with Obsidian and Python. That wouldn't make any sense for my workflow, or lack thereof, but with the concept of a second brain.
I haven't read Building a Second Brain from author Tiago Forte, but I really vibe with some of the concepts NetworkChuck talks about. Now, some of it sounds a bit esoteric like "your mind is for having ideas, not holding them" (David Allen, Getting Things Done) and "we are surrounded by knowledge, yet starving for wisdom". However, I definitely consume too much information and my brain cannot handle it. I also like the idea of a "commonplace book" where my ideas can remain within reach. A lot of people would say, "just ask ChatGPT" for everything, but oftentimes I want to remember the specific thing I did and the reason why I did it. Also, sometimes ChatGPT is just dumb and wrong.
So the rest of this is going to be me just explaining to Future Curtis what he's supposed to be doing.
Projects and blog posts
A blog post is a post describing a single thing while a project is a collection of blog posts with companion information related to the project. Some projects may not have any related blog posts and some posts may not have any related projects.
For example, when describing installing Proxmox 8.3, that is a single task and would be suitable for a blog post. Meanwhile, configuring a 3-node Proxmox cluster with a Ceph storage backend is a project that's going to require a multiple distinct tasks that could otherwise be followed by themself or included in similar projects.
Motivation
Oftentimes I find myself needing to repeat the same steps over and over again, but infrequently enough that I don't usually remember the complete sequence of commands required. Moreover, using GitHub and the oEmbed Providers module, I believe I can embed Gists The Drupal Way™ the code can remain version controlled with git keeping the blog posts and projects up-to-date as processes improve.
Ideally I'd like to have a private Forge and sync the desired projects to GitHub, but I have a lot of things I want to do and that's very low on the list.
Second brain RAG
Speaking of ChatGPT, or large-language models (LLM) more broadly, I want to integrate it into a locally-hosted LLM using retrieval augmented generation (RAG). I can then use my Home Assistant voice assistant to ask the voice assistant how I fixed something previously. Combining this domain-specific knowledge with a larger model to allow for interactive problem solving. With the hardware I have, it definitely won't be fast, but it'll work for what I'm doing as a proof of concept.
The concept falls apart without content so I need to get better at writing and documenting what I'm up working on.
Motivation
It's cool. It's the future. I can learn it or the future can leave me behind. Plus, I've always wanted a magic Star Trek house and these little things are how you make it happen.
Ancillary benefits
Despite the millions of hours spent on the keyboard, I'm not a very good typist. Like, at all. It is not second nature and I regularly have to stop to reset my fingers because I get going to fast and I end up two words past where my brain has read. So, I'm hoping by forcing myself to do more documentation, I can get better at typing as well.
Finally, NetworkChuck talks a lot about the sharing of knowledge and how others may never be exposed to an idea except through you. Even with the vastness of the internet, sometimes it's the random blog post on an unkept blog that solves my problem.
So you should check out this video while I start building something great!
Stay tuned.
