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Show HN: Interface for all digital aspects of my life

beepb00p.xyz

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Re: Show HN: Interface for all digital aspects of my life

#41

Post by wasureru »

graphpapa wrote: post #29
AJRF wrote: post #26

Polar opposite - Does anyone enjoy digital amnesia? I feel like I might be a little weird here, but every so often I'll just go in and delete all my notes, reminders, apps, photos, etc and start again. Wondering if anyone else does this? I like doing it because it helps clear my head, even though the files or data are digital they take up some space in my head. I do it every few months, just have a fresh slate. I won…

I do something halfway in between - i routinely get frustrated with everything that’s not relevant to my present concerns, and just throw it into a folder called ‘archive’ and then move THAT into the big central archive folder. I never really look back through any of it but when I do it’s quite nostalgic.

I do the same thing too. I’m not sure if I’ll ever look back through any of it but it’s nice to know that if for whatever reason I feel the need to review old data, my future self will be relieved that it’s not gone into the digital ether.

Re: Show HN: Interface for all digital aspects of my life

#42

Post by wasureru »

AJRF wrote: post #26

Polar opposite - Does anyone enjoy digital amnesia? I feel like I might be a little weird here, but every so often I'll just go in and delete all my notes, reminders, apps, photos, etc and start again. Wondering if anyone else does this? I like doing it because it helps clear my head, even though the files or data are digital they take up some space in my head. I do it every few months, just have a fresh slate. I won…

I can relate. It normally happens when I’m so overwhelmed with my system, PKM (Personal Knowledge Management), todos etc. Maybe I should just embrace the discomfort and work with the existing data by extending/hiding/refactoring instead of destroying.

Re: Show HN: Interface for all digital aspects of my life

#43

Post by metalliqaz »

rl3 wrote: post #6

Fantastic job with this! Feels like I've stumbled upon a [vastly more productive] clone of myself. The best way I can describe this type of thinking is a very strong, overriding compulsion to think and live in an augmented, external, hivemind-like capacity. It's beautiful, but it certainly isn't normal. It makes one wonder what the etiology of such thinking is. Were I to guess, based on personal experience: hypomania…

>Feels like I've stumbled upon a [vastly more productive] clone of myself.

yep, same

Re: Show HN: Interface for all digital aspects of my life

#44

Post by GistNoesis »

karlicoss wrote: post #27
GistNoesis wrote: post #20

Is there a myDigitalLifeInAGlimpse function that would generate a full synthetic report, ready to be shared on social networks ? If you can add some social scoring, it would be great too. Maybe if you have a way of certifying it too, it would be great indicator to put on resumes to show how much better you are than those other candidates. What about the next step ? Have you considered just putting screen recording (+…

Hey, I've got a crude timeline of events (simply rendered as giant HTMLs), but it's private at the moment. I'll probably share some of it in the future, especially considering that some of the data is public anyway (e.g. online comments or tweets), it makes sense. Next step: yep, I throught about it a bit [0], agree that it would be great as a service-agnostic way of accessing the data, the same way we can see it wit…

I don't like your project. Data aggregation is powerful but very dangerous and I feel that you are handling it carelessly. I also get a strong Borg vibe here.

In the current state, people don't know how to handle their data correctly. You are just making it easier for some people siphon other's people data even more. And having their data played against themselves.

Most people are not quants. And becoming one is not something trivial. Having people play unguided with their own data is like giving uranium to little kids. They will have a great fun !!!

Re: Show HN: Interface for all digital aspects of my life

#45

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

I am of two minds about it.

First off, there is something deeply satisfying about seeing your stuff properly categorized and easily accessible when needed so I definitely understand the impulse. And the result looks like it does exactly that. Kudos.

There is a part of me that dislikes this level of insight someone can have into my life and habits ( yes, it is intended for owner use, but the data is there, neatly organized for someone to access ).

It is a weird comment for me, because I absolutely see the benefit of this project.

Re: Show HN: Interface for all digital aspects of my life

#47

Post by karlicoss »

GistNoesis wrote: post #44
karlicoss wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, I've got a crude timeline of events (simply rendered as giant HTMLs), but it's private at the moment. I'll probably share some of it in the future, especially considering that some of the data is public anyway (e.g. online comments or tweets), it makes sense. Next step: yep, I throught about it a bit [0], agree that it would be great as a service-agnostic way of accessing the data, the same way we can see it wit…

I don't like your project. Data aggregation is powerful but very dangerous and I feel that you are handling it carelessly. I also get a strong Borg vibe here. In the current state, people don't know how to handle their data correctly. You are just making it easier for some people siphon other's people data even more. And having their data played against themselves. Most people are not quants. And becoming one is not…

> making it easier for some people siphon other's people data even more

I guess you mean someone could easily steal your data, etc? I agree, it's a tradeoff, would be interesting to explore how to make it more secure.

> Having people play unguided with their own data is like giving uranium to little kids

Well, handling Uranium is a bit different. Can you elaborate on some specific examples?

I've seen people misusing statistics, and drawing misleading conclusions, sure. But even more people are using anecdata and broscience, which I think is worse.

Re: Show HN: Interface for all digital aspects of my life

#48

Post by simonw »

My version of this is called Dogsheep, and involves building tools that suck my data from various sources into SQLite databases so I can query it all using Datasette.

https://dogsheep.github.io/

I enjoyed reading this author's essay on why he doesn't think loading everything into relational databases is the best approach: https://beepb00p.xyz/unnecessary-db.html

I think I have a workarounds for most of the issues he describes there. One example: I mostly create my base table schema automatically based on the shape of the incoming JSON, and automatically add new columns if that JSON has keys I haven't seen before.

Very thought-provoking writing (and software) here.

Re: Show HN: Interface for all digital aspects of my life

#49

Post by simonw »

karlicoss wrote: post #15
samanator wrote: post #9

This has been on my development todo list for a year! What are your thoughts about allowing others to contribute new modules? I'm interested in a my.spotify and a my.film.traktv

I don't mind merging new modules at the moment, so would be happy if you try it out and contribute! But it's also possible to use your module without merging in the upstream HPI package [0] In the long run, I'm not sure how sustainable it is, since there are many different data sources and ways of representing them. This is also particularly difficult when you don't use the service, e.g. as a maintaner I wouldn't hav…

Have you looked at Pluggy much?

It's the Python plugin system that was spun out of pytest. I'm really impressed by it - it's a very clean design, and integrates great with Python packaging.

I'm using it extensively for Datasette, which means myself or others can add new features to the core software without needing to ask permission and in a way which supports trying out crackpot new ideas without sullying the design of the core software.

I've been thinking about usi it for my Dogsheep personal analytics suite too, which is currently split up into a bunch of separate tools in separate repos (since the only unifying interface is that they all spit out SQLite databases).

Re: Show HN: Interface for all digital aspects of my life

#50

Post by karlicoss »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #45

I am of two minds about it. First off, there is something deeply satisfying about seeing your stuff properly categorized and easily accessible when needed so I definitely understand the impulse. And the result looks like it does exactly that. Kudos. There is a part of me that dislikes this level of insight someone can have into my life and habits ( yes, it is intended for owner use, but the data is there, neatly orga…

I can see your concern! I guess I've got several thoughts on it:

- One is along the lines of post-privacy:

Lots of the stuff that I'm collecting one can find online anyway if they deliberately search for it. Tweets/reddit comments/instagram photos, etc. Some of it isn't public, let's say, Amazon purchases. But would I mind sharing it? Maybe not, who cares what I buy? Some ML algorithm that would show me ads? Whatever, I don't click on them anyway.

The more stuff I don't mind to be public in the first place, the less is the chance someone can use it against me. But I understand it's ultimately something very personal.

- Second is that I agree that the security professionals would handle the data much better than me.

I don't even mind Google keeping my data, if only it was easier for me to access it when I need it! So generally I would happily pay professionals for a service to keep my data safe, being able to access it and integrate together, and for the infrastructure around it.

Same way I'm using a bank to keep my money safe. But such infrastructure for data simply doesn't exist at the moment, because there is no demand for it from people.

And silos only benefit the companies that keep this data, so the change isn't going to be come from them. E.g. if you can easily access your tweets through a nice and fast local app, why would you even visit bloated twitter.com, which is trying to 'entertain' and 'engage' you?

I'm hoping that with projects like this, I can inspire people to think differently about their services and tools, and demand (from professionals, i.e. engineers/designers/product managers) for better means of using their own data.

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