Libb

Les classiques sont par définition une valeur sure : leur maîtrise de la langue et du vocabulaire étant difficilement contestable.

En textes courts, Maupassant. Y en a pas mal d'autres qui sont excellents, mais tu as déjà tant à savourer avec Maupassant. Ce sera donc ma seule suggestion ;)

Il a écrit quelques romans, mais il a surtout écrit un tas de nouvelles. Je me souviens de ma première lecture de Boule de Suif. Dès le premier paragraphe, en plus de devoir ouvrir mon dictionnaire, je savais qu'il me restait plus qu'à fermer ma grande gueule toujours prête à critiquer pour savourer ce morceau de choix. Et j’ai pas été déçu. Un peu comme avec Flaubert d’ailleurs. En fait, tu peux voir Maupassant comme un Flaubert qui excellerait dans la miniature. C’est dire.

Classiques longs : Flaubert, Proust (attention, il m’a fallu trente ans pour arriver enfin à le lire mais je ne regrette pas d’avoir persévéré), Hugo (poésie comme prose), Balzac, Zola. Huysmans est pas mal aussi. Sa poésie, aussi.

Si tu n'as pas peur de remonter au-delà du XIX, la poésie et le théâtre français du XVII et d'avant sont très riches (et très bons, mais ça c’est pas la question). Molière et Racine, n’hésite pas. Tu peux aussi lire Saint-Simon, Montaigne, Montesquieu,…

Poésie : Rimbaud, ne laisse pas sa popularité te dissuader de plonger dedans (en plus d’être le génie que tout le monde dit, il maîtrisait la langue et connaissait la poésie comme personne). Baudelaire (je suis le seul à relire en permanence?). Mallarmé. J’ai un faible pour Eluard (ça remonte à l’adolescence, quand nous le lisions main dans la main avec le grand amour de ma vie tandis que nous nous cachions), Guillevic. Desnos, mais c’est différent avec lui (plus cérébral que viscéral en ce qui me concerne). Et, là encore, si ~~t’as peur~~ edit: si t'as pas peur de plonger dans ce qui se faisait avant : Villon et Ronsard seraient des choix que je ne contesterais pas 8)

Dernière suggestion si tu veux enrichir ton vocabulaire en te faisant plaisir à pas cher : dégote-toi un vieux dictionnaire Littré en plusieurs volumes.

Sérieux, c’est un pur plaisir de le feuilleter (je sais qu’il est dispo en ligne, c’est juste plus sympa de le feuilleter en papier je trouve). Et feuillette-le. Amuse-toi à lire les définitions et l’étymologie des mots avec les exemples d’usage distillés par Littré, plonge au hasard ou selon tes besoins. C’est une chouette promenade dans l’histoire du français, et Littré reste un sacré bon guide.

Tu peux trouver de très jolies éditions du Littré dont les gens sont heureux de se débarrasser pour trois fois rien (c'est triste au fond, mais je ne boude pas ces opportunités). J’ai payé mon édition 5 euros ; deux mois plus tard j’en ai récupéré une autre d’une dame qui les sortait sous mes yeux dans la rue, avec d’autres trésors, tandis qu’elle vidait la bibliothèque d’un appartement dont elle avait hérité. Elle garni à présent le bureau d'une amie.

Pas de contemporains à suggérer ? Si, pas mal même. Du XX comme du XXI, il y a de véritables trésors qui ne demandent qu’à être lus et savourés. Mais j’ai également une allergie viscérale à la petite poignée de moralistes et de justiciers auto-proclamés qui écument le web en quête de noms qu’ils ont jugés incorrects, ou pire, et s'estiment en droit de lyncher le naïf qui oserait en dire du bien ; tout comme je suis allergique à cette autre frange pas moins excitée que la première et qui trouve normal de harceler toute personne qui aurait l’audace de ne pas aimer les mêmes auteurs qu’eux. En bref, entre la haine aveugle des uns et l’amour envahissant des autres, je me contente de ne pas aimer certains de ces auteurs contemporains et d’apprécier les autres en privé.

doesn't matter if i take notes or not i still forget what is in the exam

Then, let me ask how do you take note while you're studying? It's a technique, it's not a magical wand quite obviously, nor is it in an On/Off switch. If it doesn't work there must be a reason why, I mean a reason other than 'it just doesn't work' ;)

I'm sorry if all what follows sounds painfully obvious but since you're kind of vague on your exact process/situation and I can't guess how you're working I think it's worth mentioning.

I mean, for example there is not much use in verbatim copying what you ear or what you just read in a book because, well, you're not an audio recorder or a camera, both of those tools would do the job way better than any of us can ever hope to do. So, since we're smart, we should use them to record instead of our brain which we shoudl use to understand what has just been recorded.

In fact, using the brain as a recorder is a gigantic waste our (limited) energy and won't help anyone learn or understand much. Instead, you need to, how do you say that in English? You need to rephrase or to reword the teacher's or the author's thoughts into your own words. That's how you internalize (make it your own) whatever you're studying.

When I was a student my rule was to write whatever the teacher was saying as stupidly as I could. I did not sweat writing frantically to copy whatever crap he was saying. I listened and summarized multiple of his sentences (teachers need (and often like) to repeat themselves) in a few words at most. I also devised my own shorthand to make it even quicker to write stuff down without getting tired. Back in my room, I would then read my notes and re-summarize them if not the same day, at the soonest opportunity so it was still fresh in my mind (this helps a lot). Internalizing that info make it so that as a student I could easily spend a lot of time partying or having fun (and I did) while still acing all my exams...without cheating, I mean.

Also, merely underlining passages in a book (even using many nice colors) is not of much use either. It's purpose should be to let you quickly locate what you think are meaningful sections, that's all. To understand/internalize the idea itself, the best way is still to summarize it into your own words. Be it a lecture or a book.

also happens when mom asks me if we have mustard in the fridge

I have no idea what's in our fridge or more exactly what needs refill. And why would I bother? Lists are made for that.

My spouse and I keep a small scrap of paper (usually, the back of an envelope—yep, we're that cheap ;)) for whatever is missing or soon will need resupply and the first of us the goes out to do some errands pick that list. Unsurprisingly, our fridge is always exactly like we want it without any effort from us to memorize anything. Mustard is getting low? Add it to list, problem solved. We all have limited brain power, don't waste it on useless crap like memorizing the content of your fridge.

Once again, all of this may sound obvious but that is also the fundamentals of learning/understanding and even memorizing anything. If you're willing to share more specific info on your issue maybe I, or anyone else more qualified, could give more specific suggestions?

What I'm pretty sure of is that more often than not that kind of difficulties is related to the process itself not to some inability.

Hope this helps.

Other Cons:

• Keep in mind a lot of people don't read much, if at all which is sad. Meanwhile, you still need to hire people.
• We're all motivated by money. Like you said you don't work for free. Neither would I. A job is a job and for most people it means sacrificing very precious hours of their time (time they will never get back, no matter how well they get paid) in exchange for that money. It's nothing but a contract which can be summarized as this: you give me money, I give you my expertise/willingness to sweat on my part of that contract. End of the contract. We're not family, we're not (yet) friends (and we never be), as an employer you have no say in what I do outside of work (no matter how it's becoming the norm to think the opposite), and what I like to read is none your business as my employer. Obviously, we may both be willing to talk about it but that's a personal choice. I just re-read P.K. Dick's Ubik, have you read it?

The same kind of ~~morons~~ sorry I meant to write very articulated persons that downvote posts everywhere on Lemmy, for no reason? Expecting them to express any semblance of reason in words would be like asking an oyster to do some tap dancing?

You should share some context: how do you study, in what conditions (quiet room, all by yourself, in a busy place, watching TV or listening to music?)? What do you study (Minecraft cheat codes, astrophysics, XIX French literature)? Using what methodology? (ie do you take notes or not, how. Do you read, and how?)

FYI, I cannot memorize anything if I'm not writing it down... longhand.
And I can hardly understand anything I read/study if I'm not taking notes while I'm studying/reading it. Even when I read a novel or an article, I take notes ;)

We're so few I quickly realized we all better be post from time to time for the communities I was interested in to feel more alive ;)

I did not buy new supplies, not a single thing!
I did not try any new app (edit: nor old ones ;).
But I did journal a little more regularly than last week which is great! Not daily, though.

And if you’re wondering, no, the dog did not ate my journal ;)

ça lit pas les bots? Il a pas droit a du temps libre? ;)

Most succinct? Messaging app vs Forum would do it it, imho.

How can I effectively balance these privacy, security, and physical risks to ensure the long-term safety and integrity of the FAMILY’S PERSONAL MEMORIES?

Imho you can't and you can. Let me explain:

You need to consider the value of your data for a stranger to steal. I mean, to break encryption one would first need to want to get your specific files and then have the time and money to do that. Unless you're some kind of personality or a criminal of some sort it is unlikely they would be worth the effort.

But what if there is a back door or if encryption stops working tomorrow?

That's a good question, even more so for us Europeans seeing our representatives pushing the idea of putting back doors in encrypted message apps... What will be their next target? Requiring every EU citizen to give some central bureau a copy of passwords and encryption keys even for offline storage and hard drives at home—because, you know, think of all the children! We would be allowed to scan every single file in the country so we can spot any pervert and punish them!

I store all my files encrypted (cloud and local as well) because I worry about unauthorized access (thieves, mostly edit: and data breaches obviously). But I also know here in my country, France, I'm required by the law to give a judge my password if they ask for it. That's fine (a judge needs to ask for it, and then I would obey) and that does not render encryption useless for me... at least for now.

So,

• Encryption does work. That doesn't put anyone above the law but it still is a great protection layer we should all be using.
• If one day politicians make it illegal to use encryption, or install backdoors, or if quantum computing happens, or AI take over our computers, or if aliens arrive from Planet Zyrklump with tech that make our encryption as useful as a pair of sneakers to an oyster... Well, that day, my personal data will stop being digital. It's already one of the reasons I stopped reading ebooks. I want privacy when I read—something I instantly get when I read a printed book. Up until the day it becomes illegal to read in print, I will read in print ;)

• Le tour d'écrou, de Henry James. Bof.
• Du contrat social, de Rousseau. J' suis vraiment trop con! J'aurais du lire ce bouquin y a des années au lieu de me fier à ma première et si trompeuse impression!
• Du côté de chez Swann, de Proust. OMFG!, c'est génial! s'écria-til finalement après trente ans à échouer dans ses tentatives de lire Proust (et oui, c'est génial, et oui j'ai échoué à le lire pendant trente ans ;)

Si vous voulez en savoir un peu plus sur mes impressions de lecture que 'Bof', 'j'suis trop con' et 'omfg!' qui sont malgré tout un bon résumé, ça me semble con de répéter ici ce que j'ai déjà écrit sur mon blog, là.

Et toi, t'as pas dit, t'as lu quoi cette semaine?

how much time should I spend with a distro to actually get the gist of the distro? a month maybe?

Why change would I change distro to begin with? I mean, you do as you like, quite obviously, but I never considered my objective to switch distro and test them all. I would see that as a waste of my time, as I'd rather be doing stuff with that computer.

The distro I switched to (approx 3 years ago) I only switched because I could not solve an issue I had using the previous distro. A silly issue that simply was non-existent with that new one ;)