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As a counter-point (I'm playing devils advocate because I actually agree with the author in general): at one time I found an old laptop that I hadn't used in qu

As a counter-point (I'm playing devils advocate because I actually agree with the author in general): at one time I found an old laptop that I hadn't used in quite some time. Excitedly I booted it up and dug around the file system to find ... nothing of interest. I thought there were treasure troves of stuff there but actually there was very little of interest at all. It made me think about those hoarder reality TV shows and how there is a digital equivalent of that. In some ways I'm glad all of my digital data isn't amassing and following me around. I'm not sure I really care about what I posted to MySpace pages back in 2003 or usenet in 1998. This is really a matter of ambivalence to me. On the one hand I would love detailed data about my history, even down to the exact GPS coordinates of my location every moment of my life. On the other, I am not sure this data would truly improve my life in any way. It may be that access to such data could make my life worse.

nielsole 7y ago
I have a location trace over the last year and I am using it for time tracking (how long was I in the office). Also I have a heatmap of all the places I have been that is really nice to look at. Also it has helped me in cases where bike sharing companies said: where did you leave the bike on 27th of September? We can't find it. Or the doctor claiming I didn't appear on the previous consultation and I should pay the appointment out of pocket. One look at the timestamped map and I can recall the situation.
- reggieband 7y ago
  That is really cool. Can I ask where you are storing that data? Is it something you cooked up yourself or a service you are using? One of my back-of-the-mind ideas is to combine GPS data like this with some kind of basic activity-type id. Like "working", "practicing guitar", "socializing with friends", etc. Then I could get reports on how I spend my time.
  - nielsole 7y ago
    I use the owntracks app with a selfwritten http server that dumps it into a postgres. Then I use grafana and leaflet for visualization. Regarding your activity tracking: I already also track pulse and smart watch movement, but plan on adding more inputs like the travel mode detection on Android (walking, cycling, driving) That together with my calendar data should give sufficient data for time reports :)
Tade0 7y ago
It made me think about those hoarder reality TV shows and how there is a digital equivalent of that. As a third generation hoarder this is how I tried to tame it - I started hoarding data instead of things. After a few major losses(a social network local to my country shut down without providing any option to export the data, I accidentally started formatting my backup drive after I just formatted my main drive) I developed a healthier relationship with my data. I'm still reluctant to delete things, but now I can at least bring myself to do it.

nielsole 7y ago

I have a location trace over the last year and I am using it for time tracking (how long was I in the office). Also I have a heatmap of all the places I have been that is really nice to look at. Also it has helped me in cases where bike sharing companies said: where did you leave the bike on 27th of September? We can't find it. Or the doctor claiming I didn't appear on the previous consultation and I should pay the appointment out of pocket. One look at the timestamped map and I can recall the situation.

reggieband 7y ago
That is really cool. Can I ask where you are storing that data? Is it something you cooked up yourself or a service you are using? One of my back-of-the-mind ideas is to combine GPS data like this with some kind of basic activity-type id. Like "working", "practicing guitar", "socializing with friends", etc. Then I could get reports on how I spend my time.
- nielsole 7y ago
  I use the owntracks app with a selfwritten http server that dumps it into a postgres. Then I use grafana and leaflet for visualization. Regarding your activity tracking: I already also track pulse and smart watch movement, but plan on adding more inputs like the travel mode detection on Android (walking, cycling, driving) That together with my calendar data should give sufficient data for time reports :)

Tade0 7y ago

It made me think about those hoarder reality TV shows and how there is a digital equivalent of that. As a third generation hoarder this is how I tried to tame it - I started hoarding data instead of things. After a few major losses(a social network local to my country shut down without providing any option to export the data, I accidentally started formatting my backup drive after I just formatted my main drive) I developed a healthier relationship with my data. I'm still reluctant to delete things, but now I can at least bring myself to do it.