Reminds me of the Feltron report[1], in the self-quantization realm. The person did it for 10 years and stopped in 2014. The accent was put on the visualization.
Show HN: Interface for all digital aspects of my life
71–80 of 95 posts
Re: Show HN: Interface for all digital aspects of my life
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Thanks, looks great, I'll check this out! So far I haven't even done proper research of potential solutions, because I feel like it would be overengineering at this stage, I'm still figuring out the core.
When I decided to add plugins to Datasette I asked around and pluggy was pretty much the universal recommendation - with hindsight it's worked out really well so I'm happy to pass on the recommendation.
Re: Show HN: Interface for all digital aspects of my life
#73One day you wake up and realize that you spent your life maintaining your system to improve your life instead of actually improving your life.
Only if you think of "maintaining your system to improve your life" as work. I would think of it more as play. It's not time wasted if you enjoy it. Hm. I actually don't agree with that sentiment as written. It's not time wasted if you enjoy it and have something to show for it? That's not it either. Maybe this. I view the work we're discussing like a programmer's equivalent of woodworking in your garage. Sure, it's…
> It's not time wasted if you enjoy it and have something to show for it
Yep, agree! I really enjoy it, my only problem is that there are too few hours in day :) I guess it depends on the goals though -- it's perfectly fine to build something just for the sake of it, as long as you have fun. One of my goals through is to stop/pause the active phases of building and spending more time using it. Partly because of the lack of time, partly because it means iterating and reflecting on whatever I've already built. So ultimately I agree that it's important to improve your life instead of building something that may improve it one day.
I mean, do I want my time back? Yes, sure, like with any learning in hindsight it always feels that I spent more time than necessary om this.
But the thing is, I did improve my life while building this! I've learnt so much: obvious things like building better and more resilient software to my preferences in terms of tools and services. I've started the blog to share this system and the related things, which made me appreciate writing, and I feel like I'm getting better at it. The whole quantified self thing was super useful: it motivated me to think and learn how my body works, to eat healthy, etc. However stupid it is, self-tracking gives me extra motivation for the regular exercise and trying to pish my limits.
Every new bit of data I'm adding is easier and smoother, so I can easily imagine myself using this system for years (and fixing minor bits that break once in a while, just like people fix things in their homes). Sharing it also means I can potentially improve others' lives, which makes me regret the time I spent building and researching much less.
> "if you wanted to canoe, why did you spend a year making your own"
I feel it's more like "you can rent/borrow a canoe, but you only have a spoon instead of a paddle which you can't switch. Oh and it can also collapse anytime. Why would you spend a year making your own?"
Re: Show HN: Interface for all digital aspects of my life
#74One day you wake up and realize that you spent your life maintaining your system to improve your life instead of actually improving your life.
One day you're a dipshit posting beta-tier comments on Hacker News. For you, that is probably every day.
Re: Show HN: Interface for all digital aspects of my life
#75One day you wake up and realize that you spent your life maintaining your system to improve your life instead of actually improving your life.
Without understanding the value beforehand it is truly difficult to improve it.
Re: Show HN: Interface for all digital aspects of my life
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Which parts of my city have I yet to explore? > Can I search all my conversation with John across 3 messaging apps, email, SMS and phone? These are totally pain points for me / questions I'd love to have some answers for... Anyone tried to get the historic iOS location data to answer the first question?
There is a open source digital forensics project called APOLLO ( https://github.com/mac4n6/APOLLO ) -- that could be used for personal use to get location information off your phone. Here's a blog post by the author, with a little bit of explanation: https://www.mac4n6.com/blog/2019/8/21/i-know-where-you-were-...
Oh, awesome, thanks for the links!
Re: Show HN: Interface for all digital aspects of my life
#77My 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…
Cool, that's similar to my project Timeliner: https://github.com/mholt/timeliner It downloads your data from social media (or other online sites) into a single sqlite database. It can even draw relations between various accounts/people. I use it to back up my Google Photos.
There's also heedy: https://heedy.org/
Re: Show HN: Interface for all digital aspects of my life
#78I 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…
> 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 ).
Well this is already happening. Google and facebook for example earns basically all of their money from this. They replaced advertisment middle men because they can track and quantize human behaviours and identities. They do it because they are able to aggregate the data and provide API for marketing people.
This is a tool that brings it closer to you as the creator of the data. it doesn't do anything new just exposes what's going on.
If you are able to open pages through EU check out data processing partners from GDPR consent you have to accept. Lists on every professionally built services are long. There are literally thousands of companies accessing, aggregating, processing and reselling the data and their analysis.
The tools you are afraid of already exist and are commercially available.
Re: Show HN: Interface for all digital aspects of my life
#79My 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…
It sounds like a ‘schema-less’/document database like Mongo might work better for API results, which are often non-relational but sorta-hierarchical instead.
(Shakes fist at the RTM API which would return one and many child tasks in different ways, so it took me an extra half-hour to write the convoluted Jq query.)
Re: Show HN: Interface for all digital aspects of my life
#80I have been toying with a similar idea for a very long time. I want to have an all-encompassing personal history for the same reasons I want good access and error logs. I want to see when something wrong happens, and I want the means to diagnose the problem and fix the damage. A few good examples: - Did I forget to write down any tax-deductible expenses? - What is my net worth? Is my current lifestyle sustainable? -…
> What is my net worth? Is my current lifestyle sustainable?
YNAB's method is excellent for this. TLDR: you record your expenses for some time, and then you begin planning them ahead for each month semi-automatically, putting in money for costly purchases in advance and leaving some for when shit happens.
I've been kinda looking for an OSS/self-hosted implementation of the method, but none seem inviting so far.
(G2A seems to have a Steam key for the old version of YNAB, under ‘You Need A Budget’—which version could sync via Dropbox, without its own cloud service. But the key costs quite a bit more than what I've paid for the app back then.)
> Which parts of my city have I yet to explore?
I'm using desktop QGIS to mark my trips, while OsmAnd on the phone shows the exported GPX on the go (among other pleasant features). In theory I can use OsmAnd itself to record the trips with GPS, or any of the other dozen apps for that, but personally I don't believe that Google won't suck the location up regardless of my settings.