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Blog
- Your Data is Yours
- Your Data is Protected
- Your Data is Portable
- Computer: Folders
- Evernote: Notebooks
- Real World: Boxes
- Obsidian: Folders
- Definition of “In Progress”: An item is considered “in progress” the moment it enters the user’s active thought sphere. This status applies across the entire execution cycle: from the earliest stage of conceptualization and planning (even without a written structure) to the final phase of content creation. For example, a note for a video script can start as basic as a rough title and remain “in progress” until the work is formally concluded (e.g., the video is published) or the idea is completely abandoned.
- Content vs. Container Movement: To maintain the structural integrity for future work (e.g., future video projects), the default action is to move only the content (e.g., the completed script note) to a corresponding Container structure on the Timeline shelf, rather than moving the entire project folder. This allows for the movement of specific content from one status to another while keeping the main project structure ready for future reuse.
- Retiring Containers: There are three scenarios where the entire Container should be retired from the Action or Static shelves and moved to the Timeline:
- The activity is definitively abandoned and will not be revisited.
- The activity was a one-time task (e.g., a short, self-contained project) for which the organizational structure is no longer needed.
- The broader category of activity it represents is no longer active or relevant (e.g., ceasing video production or client consulting).
- Retiring Containers: There are three scenarios where the entire Container should be retired from the Action or Static shelves and moved to the Timeline:
- The Roles of the Timeline: Content in the Timeline is never discarded; it retains critical value by fulfilling several roles:
- Long-Term Reference: It serves as a comprehensive knowledge base or memory, allowing users to reference old data, documents, or images to connect past activities and inform current work.
- Reuse: It allows for the retrieval and reactivation of past projects. If a client returns, their Container can be located and moved back to the Action shelf for immediate reuse.
- Historical Archive: It securely stores all information that may never be consulted again. By defaulting all completed content here, the risk of data loss or uncertainty is minimized.
- Purpose: Static Containers hold frequently used or constantly consulted support materials. Examples include a Knowledge Base, family documents, or essential departmental manuals and templates.
- Flow: Content on the Static shelf must maintain utility. If an asset (like an expired document) ceases to be frequently used or current, it is moved to the Timeline for long-term storage, and the updated or new asset is placed on the Static shelf.
- Instant Status and Context: By linking the status (Action, Static, or Timeline) directly to the information (the Container), the system ensures that the context required to understand an activity is always immediately available alongside its current state. There is no need to reference a separate task list to know what a project is about or where it stands.
- Streamlined Flow: The act of moving content between these three defined states transforms organization from a cognitive burden into a simple, natural reflection of the work lifecycle (e.g., in-progress, support, or complete).
Is this WhatsApp AI antitrust probe missing the core privacy threat?
I’m not an AI specialist nor a WhatsApp user, but antitrust looks to me like the least of the problems here.
“Meta to face competition probe over AI use in WhatsApp, Ribera confirms.” —Euractiv
If there’s an AI feature working inside WhatsApp, isn’t it reasonable to assume that at least parts of the conversation are leaving the app? After all, it has to be analyzed by a model sitting in a server somewhere, undermining the end-to-end encryption Meta is constantly bragging about?
And whatever Meta is claiming to do to keep the conversations encrypted will never convince me. If history can tell us something about this company, it is how irresponsible they are with users' data.
Yes, I know most people will never visit my site, but I’m always adjusting small things here and there as a gardener who takes great care of his plants simply because he loves them.
Just found out that, of the 364 GB of disk space that I am currently using on my Mac, 101 GB is dedicated to my #Obsidian vault. Or, 109 GB if I count the vaults I use to record my YouTube videos.
iPhone market share is much smaller than I thought
I found the Hey there! You are using WhatsApp: Enumerating Three Billion Accounts for Security and Privacy a fascinating read. Unfortunately, it confirmed once more my perception of how Meta couldn’t care less about users' personal information. How is it possible that a single server could download all that data? Unbelievable!
Because of my love for numbers and graphs, I also spent a lot of time on the ones in the paper that, by the way, go way beyond WhatsApp. For example, the one below has to be the best representation so far of the Android-iPhone market share. I’m not a statistician, but I believe a 3.5-billion sample can generate a pretty accurate representation of reality.
To be completely honest, I thought Apple had a bigger market share in both the US and Europe, and it would be cool to see how things changed in a year or two. Meta said they patched the data downloading issue, but given their history of data leaking, I’d say there’s a good chance we’ll be able to see an updated graph in the near future.
Steppenwolf
It’s been so long since I first read Hermann Hesse’s Steppenwolf—back when I was twenty-something—that it feels like I’m encountering it for the very first time. But even barely remembering anything, my subconscious was probably doing its thing, because I’m still at 60% on Caliban’s War—yet for a while now, I’ve been fighting a constant urge to begin following those wolf’s steps one more time.
I couldn’t help myself anymore and started reading it today. Wow! One memory it immediately brought back was about how deep Hesse goes into our troubled human minds—essentially the polar opposite of the vastness of The Expanse. What a contrast! Let’s go!
Just a few weeks after the AWS issues, Cloudflare reminded us, yet again, of how centralization can make the web break so easily.
I'm not taking my chances anymore. From Apple II to Obsidian—My digital memories now stay local.
I can see how appealing something like the Pixel Journal can be to many people. It’s super convenient and will probably be connected to every single Google service—even Gemini—at some point. But just like the iPhone counterpart, in my opinion, it’s yet another way to imprison users in their platforms.
Pixel Journal now available for the Pixel 8 and 9 series. 9to5Google
I’ve lost just about all my digital notes from before 2008 because of how unreliable backup solutions were and the many times I switched to a different system (Apple II, DOS, Windows, and Mac) and software (WordStar, Word, etc.).
Even many of my posts online, which started as static HTML and then moved to proprietary platforms, were lost several times along the way. Thankfully, I could recover some of them by digging through the Internet Archive, but that’s far from ideal.
In 2008 I started using Evernote, which from the very beginning had something called the 3 Laws Of Data Protection:
The “Portable” part is technically true, and I could move all my notes to Obsidian last year, but it’s not as straightforward as they want you to believe. Anyway, I learned my lesson with the process and decided that my precious memories need better care.
I’m not saying Obsidian is for everyone or that it is the best solution, but having my memories in Markdown format and locally saved first gives me an immense peace of mind. I’m not taking my chances anymore; even my blog posts start as Markdown notes and are locally preserved in that format.
I'm delighted with my library in an Obsidian Bases table
There are some posts on my blog about books I’ve read, and, of course, their notes in Obsidian are categorized with properties, making it pretty easy to create a super-cool Bases table. The one below is one of the views of my Blog.base file, created by filtering notes with the type:Blog and tag:Books properties.
I enjoyed this aesthetic so much that I created a similar view for the Library page on my website. Of course, they are organized in reverse chronological order, and even with only nine books, it’s easy to see how my reading choices changed in 2025.
I remember saying to many friends and family members a few times that I needed a pause from the real world, as it is too crazy to bear. Maybe that’s why I’m reading a lot of fiction this year.
Anyway, because this represents just a tiny fraction of the books I’ve already read, I can’t stop thinking about how cool it would be to have my entire collection displayed like this.
There’s no point in waiting anymore. GoatCounter stats provide me with all the information I need, and I just removed the Google Analytics code from my website. I’m proud of one more small step, as I’m no longer contributing to the tracking and spying done by big corporations.
The Timeline System: A Unified Framework for Information and Activity Management
Author: Vladimir Campos
Date: November 10, 2025
Abstract
The Timeline System presents a low-friction methodology for managing digital and physical assets by structuring information based on activity status. At its core are Information Containers (or Containers), which define three distinct operational states—Action, Static, and Timeline. This structure is designed to manage content flow, reduce cognitive load, and unify task management with both active information and retained knowledge. This paper outlines the system’s structure, mechanism, and practical application.
pt: Timeline System: Uma Estrutura Unificada para Gerenciamento de Informações e Atividades
1. Introduction: The Container Metaphor
The Timeline System presents a low-friction methodology for managing information based on activity status. At its core are Information Containers (or simply Containers)—virtual spaces that hold pieces of information related to the same activity, topic, or project.
The system itself is defined by three distinct operational states: Action, Static, and Timeline.
To simplify understanding, this paper employs the vertical organization metaphor. Imagine three shelves and cardboard boxes to universally illustrate the movement of content. It is important to note, though, that these conceptual tools are purely descriptive, as the actual storage mechanism varies widely across digital applications (e.g., folders, notebooks, or boards).
2. System Architecture: The Three Container Types
The Timeline System defines three primary Container types, each corresponding to a distinct status in the lifecycle of an activity or knowledge asset:
| Container Type | Status | Function |
|---|---|---|
| Action | In Progress/Active | Ongoing activities, projects, and immediate work in progress. |
| Static | Support/Reference | Short-term support and frequently referenced materials necessary for daily operations. |
| Timeline | Complete/Historical | Completed activities or long-term support materials. |
Central to the Timeline System is the act of moving notes or folders between Containers to indicate a change in status. This mechanism reduces friction and leverages visual cues for activity tracking, redefining digital organization by merging time awareness, task management, and information structuring.
Examples of how the Containers are represented across various applications:
3. How it Works: The Shelf Analogy
The system can be visualized as a structure with three shelves. By moving an Information Container (or content within it) from one shelf to another, this signals a change in the status of the related activity.
3.1. Action (The Top Shelf)
The top shelf is the working surface. It holds the Action Containers—the boxes in use and the active work in progress.
3.2. Timeline (The Bottom Shelf)
The bottom shelf serves as the historical record. Once work is finished in the Action Container, its content is moved to the Timeline.
3.3. Static (The Middle Shelf)
The middle shelf, positioned between Action and Timeline, is the Static shelf. It houses Static Containers—assets that assist in day-to-day operations but are not necessarily tied to a specific project milestone. Extending the desk analogy, if the Action shelf represents the active working surface, the Static shelf can be likened to the drawers beneath, where frequently accessed reference and support materials are kept.
4. Conclusion
The Timeline System offers a robust and adaptable framework by unifying activity control and information organization. Unlike systems that separate task management from knowledge storage, the Timeline System treats the Information Container itself as the fundamental unit of work.
This unification delivers two advantages:
By clearly defining status through the Action, Static, and Timeline Container types, the system provides a visual and cognitive advantage, successfully merging time awareness and information structuring into a single, cohesive methodology.
I needed a way to easily carry my #Pi Zero, along with all its cables and connectors, back and forth between home and the studio. To solve this, I decided to build a mount using an acrylic board in true MacGyver style 🤓. Now I can just throw it in my backpack and start learning #Python and getting familiar with #Linux wherever I am.
I dubbed this one myself with my real voice. No AI involved. If it doesn’t start in English, you can switch to it using the settings/language selector (gear icon ⚙ at the bottom of the video player).
I’ve been using the Vivaldi browser for a few weeks, and overall, I’m pretty happy with the experience. Among its many interesting features, there’s a tracker-blocking feature, which made me aware of how much tracking Google is doing on my visitors because of the Analytics code I added to my site.
Of course I knew that was a thing, but seeing the numbers was a bit shocking, especially because the stats Vivaldi shows me are only counting my visits to my website. So, I decided to do my part and am now trying GoatCounter, which, in their words, “doesn’t track users with unique identifiers” and “identifies unique visits without cookies or persistently storing any personal data.”
I’ll be testing it for a few weeks, and if I’m happy with the results, I’ll remove the Google Analytics code from my site.
I’ve been gradually replacing my Action Containers subfolders and notes with Obsidian Bases tables. Each one has at least two views: (1) list of notes in progress, and (2) list of all notes of that kind. They are created using the status checkbox property.
Notes is a list of all my .md files (notes) in reverse chronological order.
As for Organizing Blog, that’s a table of posts I have to fix. Long story short, I made a mess when I imported my blog from Obsidian Publish and have been reviewing all my posts since. The status checkbox property is also how I can tell what notes I still need to work on.
Using the Unique Note Creator to save all of my notes and files in a single folder and my Notes table on Bases to find anything, as shown in a recent video, is working so well for me. The only thing I’m missing is a way to take a picture from inside a note on my phone. Imagine if the #Obsidian toolbar had an option like Open Camera to take a picture and have that picture saved in the default folder and the link created in the note.
I found this wonderful chair in the trash the other day! The broken leg is the only problem, and I can definitely fix it. Everything else is in perfect condition, so I just couldn’t leave it. I don’t know if you’ve ever sat on a chair like this, but the mesh is so comfortable, and it brings back so many memories from my childhood. My grandmother had many furniture pieces like this one.
Did I find a bug on Micro.blog? Somehow, Bluesky cross-posting survived a domain removal.
I’m sharing the following because I’m not sure if this is how it’s supposed to work or if there is a bug. I had two sites with two different domains, each one in a separate Micro.blog account connected to separate Bluesky accounts. To make things easier to explain, let’s call them site A and B.
After moving all the posts from A to B, I went to CloudFlare and redirected A’s domain name to B’s domain name, removed the domain name from A’s Micro.blog account, and downgraded that account to a free tier.
Everything was working fine, but every post I made on B was being cross-posted to A’s connected Bluesky account. At first I thought the CloudFlare redirect was interfering with it, but I realized that was unlikely, as the redirect was moving site traffic from A to B, which was the opposite direction of the problematic cross-posting.
Then today it clicked. Although I had removed the domain name from A and downgraded it to a free account, the Bluesky cross-posting was still set on that account. So, maybe, somehow the CloudFlare redirect is creating some sort of loop.
I just removed the cross-posting setting from A and will keep an eye on my next posts on B, starting with this one.
I’ve been doing so many experiments with #Obsidian Bases, but one of the first things I did was to make a list of all my notes to try to mimic the way I used the #Evernote list of notes.
I’m pretty sure some of you will ask me why I blurred tags and other information that doesn’t seem that private. Well, they are. For example, I have my car license plate as a tag, and because it starts with a number, it’s the first one that pops up in the list. Some of the Bases views have the names of places, like where my new home will be. The People property has the names of family members, clients, etc. Anyway, there’s a reason for everything I blurred.
As for having a separate account for the videos, I do have one and use it for most recordings. However, every once in a while I like to share my real account because it has so many details I tailored over the years, and it’s impossible to keep a 100% accurate copy of that in a second account.