Fenn Lipkowitz and his Amazing Lifelog

December 9, 2011

Self-described hacker Fenn Lipkowitz gives a rich update to his lifelogging activities in the video below. Fenn created a detailed diary with start and stop times as a simple text file, generating a color-coded chart of daily activities.

During his experimentation, Fenn began to read about the Life Extension Foundation and visited a site known as Longecity, a community of self experimenters who share experiences on the neurochemistry of cognition.  In addition to monitoring and tabulating the time spent in various activities, Fenn also experimented with supplementation of various nootropic compounds to improve cognition and neural activity.  The compounds he used included amino acids, vitamins, fish oil, and ginkgo extract.

Fenn discovered drastic changes before and after his use of nootropics. Subjectively, he used a numerical scale and quantified his level of energy.  A graph showing a moving average of these values indicated a significant increase in his subjective assessment of his energy level.

Objectively, he performed typing tests as well as other brain training test found on Lumosity.  His typing speed increased from a maximum of 92 to 143 after the use of nootropics. Fenn also lost 15 pounds, now has a girlfriend, and said he feels like a different person.

Another interesting component of Fenn’s lifelogging was his tabulation of all the food he ate over an extended period of time. Fenn found that his logging of food preferences has caused him to no longer be addicted to sugar. Fenn’s lifelogging website as well as the source code for the program that he used can be found here: http://fennetic.net/sleep/

(Filmed at the Silicon Valley QS meetup at Stanford University.)

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