This is why I'm building Timelinize [1]. It's a follow-up to my open source Timeliner project [2], which has the potential to download all your digital life onto your own computer locally, and projects it all onto a single timeline, across all data sources (text messages, social media sites, photos, location history, and more).
It's a little different from "self hosting" but it does have a similar effect of bringing all your data home and putting it in your control. We have to start somewhere, might as well start with bringing in all the data we've put out there. (It's not a replacement for self-hosted media servers, for example.)
The backend and underlying processing engine is all functional and working very well; now I'm just getting the UI put together, so I hope to have something to share later this year.
Probably out of scope for this project. But if this would include Browser history, and essentially include all the webpage you viewed, it would not just be Data you created ( which is currently the case ) but Data you consumed all on your computer.
Anyway I love this idea. Storing your data as Timeline, such as simple thing yet I never thought of it. Please submit shown HN when you are ready.
Edit: I was wondering why the username look for familiar, turns out it was the author of Caddy Server :)
Do you know some tool, to have all your feeds in one place.
I hate having to use Instagram, but a few friends post nice things.
Like timeline but with your own feed with only the things i want to see from the sources i want.
Like a daily "You missed this posts, images and ..."
I vividly remember talking to Eric Freeman at a conference (JavaOne?) about his LifeStream notion. I've wanted it ever since. (Freeman coauthored a book about JavaSpaces and IIRC had a booth demonstrating an implementation. https://books.org/books/javaspaces-principles-patterns-and-p... Another terrific idea ahead of its time.)
For instance, I'll remember where I was while listening to a podcast or song. But I won't remember which episode or the artist. I'd like to cross reference and search my listening history with my location tracking. Should be easy, right?
I've dabbled a bit with journaling, habit tracking, etc. I've created Shortcuts on my iPhone for quickly adding entries. When I circle back, I intend to add my location to each entry. Resulting in something like "20220324T120000 LAT/LONG I just saw a pair of bald eagles at the beach".
Another to do item is always tracking my location. One of the apps I've got installed is OwnTracks, but I haven't config'd the server stuff.
Any way, I'll definitely be trying your timeliner. Thanks for sharing.
Yeah, so that's kinda the idea. It's like an automatic life log from all your digital data. It can import Google Location History, for example, so you can see where you were at what time of day. Location History is kinda creepy with how accurate it is and how much data it contains (including mode of transport and device motion along with confidence levels!). So if we add a way to import your listening history, it will automatically cojoin with your location history and you'll have what you need.
This is nice, I've always wanted to build something like this, but it would integrate life choices and can show you where one's timeline "dead-ends," because you made the other choice.
The idea is inspired by the movie Bandersnatch. There's something so powerful about reflection with clarity.
I do have plans to add context to one's timeline; for example, to optionally overlay the weather on that day, or major world or local events. That might be helpful in understanding your own timeline entries in hindsight.
So the life choices thing is interesting. You're talking about divergence points, or nexus events (there are different terms in different literature/cinema), and charting your world lines, basically. (Some Loki and Steins;Gate would be recommended watching.) I am not sure how to do that, but would like to figure that out...
Not the first project of this kind, I see. But something we need more from.
But a kind of problem all those project have is their lack of modularity and thus their ability to integrate with other projects. For example, why are your sources builtin? Can you call external sources to allow any user usage of custom sources?
IMHO there are three parts for those tools. Fetching data, storing data and Letting People working with them. But most project I've seen so far for this, are doing all this together, instead of having individual parts, which would allow other people to build optimized parts for themself.
> It's easy to add data sources, but they still have to be programmed:
And do they need to be programmed in go and compiled into the app? Or can one write a shell-script or python-program and collect from their output?
> I'm not really sure what you mean by "optimized parts"
If you modularize a software to the point that the parts are working independent of each other, then you are able to replace them per demand. For example, you can use a different UI, which is better for your workflow. Or use different sources which are only relevant for your personal circumstances. etc.
We have this with email, where mail-servers and mail-clients are independent parts of the ecosystem. Where open protocols like IMAP allow for scripts and external programs to work side by side with your client to attach missing functionality.
This level of modularization is missing in most of those aggregator-tools I've seen so far. And I think it's doing more harm that benefiting the users. For example, what if your app is saving its entries via IMAP, and your UI would load it via IMAP to present it in an optimized interface? It would mean your timeline could also be filled by all other mail-capable sources, while the data in your backend could also be customized by any IMAP-capable tool, like filters, etc.
This looks very interesting. I see that Facebook is one of the data sources. Would you know if it’s possible to get posts and comments from Facebook groups (even if it’s just the ones by the user)?
Not sure actually... I'd have to look at what the Facebook API makes possible these days. It's been years since I've looked at the Facebook data source (I think it's pretty basic right now, just gets your own posts on your own wall/profile.)
very curious if you've come across prior state of the art here e.g. singly/the locker project... this stuff is annoyingly fiddly and standardizing it all seemed like tilting at windmills
It's a little different from "self hosting" but it does have a similar effect of bringing all your data home and putting it in your control. We have to start somewhere, might as well start with bringing in all the data we've put out there. (It's not a replacement for self-hosted media servers, for example.)
The backend and underlying processing engine is all functional and working very well; now I'm just getting the UI put together, so I hope to have something to share later this year.
[1]: https://twitter.com/timelinize (website coming eventually)
[2]: https://github.com/mholt/timeliner