From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Karl Voit Subject: Represent *everything* in Org-mode Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2011 01:54:08 +0200 Message-ID: <2011-07-18T01-13-54@devnull.Karl-Voit.at> Reply-To: news1142@Karl-Voit.at Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([140.186.70.92]:56142) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QibAJ-0004MF-CG for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Sun, 17 Jul 2011 19:54:28 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QibAH-0007nR-Au for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Sun, 17 Jul 2011 19:54:27 -0400 Received: from lo.gmane.org ([80.91.229.12]:32998) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QibAG-0007nB-TY for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Sun, 17 Jul 2011 19:54:25 -0400 Received: from list by lo.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1QibAE-00086O-1w for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Mon, 18 Jul 2011 01:54:22 +0200 Received: from mail.michael-prokop.at ([88.198.6.110]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Mon, 18 Jul 2011 01:54:22 +0200 Received: from news1142 by mail.michael-prokop.at with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Mon, 18 Jul 2011 01:54:22 +0200 List-Id: "General discussions about Org-mode." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org To: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org Hi! I need your thoughts and feedback on this idea: I am thinking of letting student(s) implement a (Python[1]) script that imports[2] all kinds of data sources to generate simple (and reduced) Org-mode heading entries and links to the original information in order to represent the users digital life as complete as possible. Imagine, you have got one (additional) «archive.org» (or «mylife.org_archive»[8]) which contains lots of small entries that represent many things you are doing on your computer: * emails you send and receive * tweets you write * weblog entries you write * usenet postings you send * files you are creating (with a datestamp in its filename) * bookmarks you save (in delicious?) * SVN/git commits you are committing * SMS you send and receive (via smartphone) * ... and much more With this system, you can visit any day in the past to see, what happened in your (digital) life that time. You can reconstruct pretty much anything you were thinking, working, ... that day. If you happen to know MyLifeBits[3] from MS Research, the papers from Gemmell et al or the book «Total Recall»[4] you already know what I am writing about: researchers implemented a (MS Windows only) system to capture your digital life even with digital cameras and screenshots of your desktop. With Org-mode and a bunch of «connectors» this should be a fairly easy job to do. Nothing proprietary here, the amount of data is not that much as with those binary information from MyLifeBits. I am thinking about a central management tool that writes the Org-mode file(s), lets you add tags to specific sources and correct time zone deltas caused by timestamps of services out of sync with the time zone you are living at. Then there are those «connectors»: one will parse through my maildir[5] to collect sent (and received?) emails in order to generate something like: * [[file:/my/maildir/the_email][Urgend: Server just died]] :email:work: <2010-01-17 Tue 08:12> :PROPERTIES: :FROM: boss@company.example.com :END: Another «connector» parses my monthly backup of tweets[6] in order to generate entries like: * [[http://twitter.com/status/0815][I hate dying hardware]] :tweet: <2010-01-17 Tue 08:15> Parsing a source like «locate» I can filter out files I am putting an ISO datestamp into and generate: * [[file:/albums/2010-01-17T08:21_rat.jpg][The rat that ate the \ server cable]] :file: <2010-01-17 Tue 08:21> With another «connector» I am parsing my weekly delicious[7] backup and generate entries like following for all my bookmarks: * [[http://killrats.com][How to kill rodents]] :delicious:animals: <2010-01-17 Tue 09:35> Without such a combined agenda view, you would possible never know which different things you were «using» that day when a rat was the source of a hardware downtime. This is not a new idea but as far as I know, it was never implemented that complete outside of MyLifeBits. So: is there something similar out there? Probably using Org-mode already? And: what do *you* think of this idea? I'd like to have a central tool that manages the connectors as mentioned above and small and easy to implement connectors for each data source. 1. I know that you guys would like to see that in ELISP but here at my side is sadly no ELISP knowledge available :-( 2. Currently, only one-side-import (and no two-side sync) is planned. 3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MyLifeBitso 4. http://totalrecallbook.com/ (I'll have to read it soon) 5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maildir 6. I am using http://grabeeter.tugraz.at/ 7. http://delicious.com 8. In order to keep daily agenda small/fast and only «Archive mode» complete -- Karl Voit