# Welcome! My name is Corey, and this is the published side of my personal knowledgebase. > "The difference between screwing around and science is writing it down." - [Adam Savage](https://old.reddit.com/r/mythbusters/comments/3wgqgv/the_origin_of_the_remember_kids_the_only/ "Actually Alex Jason, as attributed by Adam Savage himself") #### About Me I work as a control systems engineer for data centers, and my academic background and prevailing interest is in computer science. I keep the computers powered and their apartments cool. My professional experience prior was in general industrial control system integration: airport baggage handling systems, water and wastewater treatment plants, and beverage co-packing plants. For field-specific on-the-job professional development, I fix stuff[^0] and document what I did, how I did it, and what I considered in working through and solving the problem, referencing vendor documentation and industry best practices when possible. For general professional development and 'interesting gap'[^1] exploration, I read about topics at the intersections of computer science, human factors, neuroscience, and linguistics, building my knowledge of each in a slow and structured way. For personal development, I combine my professional experience and professional development with my personal hobbies, interests, and experiences, and document the interesting parts with a "systems engineering" approach. Outside of that, I do some drawing and some bouldering. #### About My Notes Notes I publish are those I feel are particularly novel, or those that are potentially useful outside my own head. Publishing my notes forces me to develop the ideas and express them clearly to myself for others. I don't use spell-check in my notes. Spelling errors may exist. I try to write about a variety of things, within a finite and manageable sphere of interests. I try to avoid large swaths of quoted or exerpted text, preferring to link to sources and restate what I find notable in my own words, or include contextual links or tags. If a header is followed by "Source: {link}", the contents under the header *may* be an extended excerpt without quotation marks or indentation; compare with the source if unsure. Statements of fact without a source are generally understood to be my 'working understanding', and are open to correction and discussion. Nothing within "AI Content" blocks is taken as factual or true, even if the prompts imply that they were; all 'interactions' are non-deterministic computational outputs from a unique input, and the perceived truthfulness in any given output is co-incidental with reality. #### About My Organization I organize my notes using the PARA method[^2], which organizes information into four categories: *Projects*, *Areas* (of responsibility), *Resources*, and *Archives*. I've used PARA since May 2023, and its ease and simplicity cannot be overstated. I use it at home and at work, and I've found over time that my organization between the two is largely similar despite evolving apart, providing a common "path" for similar resources between the two. For example, I have programming files on my work computer and on my personal computer, and the path for both ended up being `/03 Resources/Programming/`. My git folder for both is `/03 Resources/Programming/Git/`. Both have `/02 Areas/Daily Notes/`, `/03 Resources/Screenshots/`, and `/03 Resources/Engineering/`. And so on, keeping "mental look-up" overhead to a minimum and consistent wherever I go and on whatever platform I use. I have my personal files split between my laptop and my NAS, organized in "best-guess" identical fashion, and one could easily be merged into the other with little reorganization required afterward. "Cleaning up" is moving a file to where I thought it was from where I found it, if I think I'll look there first the next time. Even if the files are apart, the knowledge is in the same hierarchy. The less time I spend "organizing", the better; the system should be invisible, instinctual. If something is where I expected to find it when I need it, or it is discoverable when I'm looking for something similar, then the system has done its job. [^0]: If I tried to go into any more detail here than "I fix stuff", you would probably stop reading, and I wouldn't blame you. [^1]: Graham, Paul. “How to Do Great Work.” Paulgraham.Com, July 2023, [paulgraham.com/greatwork.html](https://paulgraham.com/greatwork.html). [^2]: Forte, Tiago. “The Para Method: The Simple System for Organizing Your Digital Life in Seconds.” Forte Labs, 22 Aug. 2023, [fortelabs.com/blog/para/](https://fortelabs.com/blog/para/).