The Column
A very “me” Column. Sorry about that.
Full-Stack Hobbyist
“Full-stack hobbyist” is not a term I’ve seen used elsewhere1, but a term I’m adopting for myself. Borrowing from full-stack development, where a single coder handles both the front-end (client-side) and back-end (server-side) development, I’m interested in all aspects of hobby-work. Building. Crafting. Writing. Story-telling. Drawing. Coding.
I don’t really like the term “Jack of all Trades”. Jack of all trades implies you do a little of this and a little of that. It doesn’t imply those things synergize to make a complete product. I like being a Jack of all trades in the pursuit of one.
Puzzle Boxes - a Perfect Full-Stack Hobby
This is why I like the thing I do.
Data Journal Page Updates
I have written extensively on my Data Journal, but still not covered everything I’d like to. If none of this is of interest, skip to the Top 5 and have a good one!
I made this graphic to illustrate the volume of things I track - I like the graphic a lot so here it is.
Goal Presence
if you don’t change anything, nothing will change. -dunno who
In December 2025, 2024, and 2023 I set goals to eat out less, workout more, and drink fewer unhealthy beverages. Simply setting those goals did lead to some improvement, but I think I could do better.
That is my new, incredibly ugly but useful widget. This widget shows a number of year-to-date tracking statistics. For my 3 main goals it also extrapolates through the end of the year to show where I will end up in December if I keep at current pace with everything.
By having this reminder on my Home Screen, I have increased the mental space this goal routinely takes up. I have increased the goal presence, and that’s a huge help in accomplishing things. After all, what gets measured gets managed.
Top 5: Superpowers of Utilizing Plaintext Systems
5. Free
I don’t pay to keep my system afloat.
4. Portable
Plain text is incredibly versatile. I can (and have) experiment with local LLMs utilizing my own stack of notes to answer questions I have. I can (and do) publish them to the web. I can (and have) open my notes in Obsidian, or VS Code, or in the terminal if I want. I can write simple, local, secure code to iterate through my notes and change their structure - or do anything else I want.
3. Fast
Do you know how fast searching plain text notes is? It’s instantaneous. You can’t even tell it’s happening. There’s no round-trip-to-the-clouds for every single little thing I do. It’s all right here. It’s all instant.
2. Yours
I own the hardware that runs my system. I own the files of my system. I designed the system to work exactly how I think it should work.
1. Forever
Plain text is plain text. It’s never going anywhere. Even if Obsidian were to shut its doors, there will always be a capable plaintext tool available. My whole system lives in a folder on my computer. I can (and have) made local snapshot copies of it. UTF-8 plain text files will be openable by any computer anywhere for forever.
Quote:
Cursive letters really do look cursed. - My 7 year old
Footnotes
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…until I just googled “Full-Stack Hobbyist” with quotes. I’m not the only person to ever come up with this concept. That’s okay! ↩