Topic Archives: Videos

Larry Smarr: Where There Is Data There Is Hope

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Ernesto Ramirez

“I never thought I would be getting into this business.”

This is the first sentence in a mind-expanding talk by Larry Smarr about his self-tracking journey.

In 1999 Larry moved from Illinois to La Jolla, CA to take a position at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Like most Southern California transplants he quickly adapted to the local norms and began looking for ways to improve his fitness and health. Continue reading →

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QS and Mindfulness

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Ernesto Ramirez

Can you use technology to be more mindful?

This question was at the core of a wonderful presentation by Nancy Dougherty at the second annual Quantified Self Conference:

Nancy acknowledges at the start of her talk that QS is often thought to be mainly about technology. But not everybody sees it this way. Alex Carmichael, for instance, has described QS as “a very mindful community.”

In her talk, Nancy explains how she stumbled upon the idea of integrating mindfulness into her QS practice: Continue reading →

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Adi Andrei on Hacking Your Subconscious Mind

Posted on January 10, 2013 by Alexandra Carmichael

Adi Andrei wanted to combine artificial intelligence, psychology, art, and storytelling for the purpose of self-discovery of the subconscious mind. In the video below, Adi explains why he’s focused on this, how to go about entering the subconscious, and what he’s learned about hacking it. (Filmed by the London QS Show&Tell meetup group.)

Hacking the Unconscious Mind from Ken Snyder on Vimeo.

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Amelia Greenhall on Gold Star Experiments

Posted on December 31, 2012 by Alexandra Carmichael

Amelia Greenhall, of QS Seattle, describes five simple and powerful self-tracking experiments she has been doing over the past few years that feel like getting gold stars. For example, she records everything she has learned, done, read, or accomplished each month. Check out Amelia’s insightful lessons in the video below.

Amelia Greenhall: Gold Star from David Reeves on Vimeo.

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J. Paul Neeley on Puns

Posted on December 26, 2012 by Alexandra Carmichael

J. Paul Neeley has done experiments on optimizing happiness, self-control, and most recently, puns! His mom and brother are great punsters, so he decided to measure how many puns happened over Thanksgiving weekend with his family. In the video below, J. Paul explains this fun experiment, shares what he learned about the pattern of puns, and warns that punning can be contagious! (Filmed by the London QS Show&Tell meetup group.)

Quantifying Puns from Ken Snyder on Vimeo.

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Neil Bachelor on Quantifying Lifelong Learning

Posted on December 21, 2012 by Alexandra Carmichael

Neil Bachelor has been tracking his daily learning for the past two and a half years, with 3,200 discrete learning events. One of his motivations for this is to create a data-based CV that reflects his real work and learning habits. Neil uses Faviki to bookmark things he’s learned. In the video below, he describes his process, shows different visualizations of his learning, and explains the challenges he faces in managing so much data. (Filmed by the London QS Show&Tell meetup group.)

Lifelong Learning from Ken Snyder on Vimeo.

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Crystal Goh: Inside My Brain

Posted on December 19, 2012 by Alexandra Carmichael

Crystal Goh looks at brains every day, as part of her work in a brain and sleep imaging lab in Berkeley. She wanted to know how her brain was different from other brains, in a quantitative way. In the video below, Crystal explains voxel-based morphometry, normalization and standard deviation calculations, and the scary, revealing things she has learned about herself by seeing her brain scan! (Filmed by the San Francisco QS meetup group.)

Crystal Goh – Inside My Brain from Gary Wolf on Vimeo.

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Jules Goldberg on Quantified Snoring

Posted on December 14, 2012 by Alexandra Carmichael

Jules Goldberg is a snorer, and estimates that he has spent 1/8th of his life snoring. The noise was bothering his wife, so he built an app called SnoreLab to quantify his snoring (mild, loud, or epic?) and help him reduce it. In the video below, Jules shares how he identified where his snoring was coming from, remedies he tried, and which ones made it better and worse. (Filmed by the London QS Show&Tell meetup group.)

SnoreLab from Ken Snyder on Vimeo.

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Brooks Kincaid: A Diabetic Experiment with Self-Quantification

Posted on December 11, 2012 by Alexandra Carmichael

Brooks Kincaid has been tracking his blood glucose continuously for the past two years, after 16 years of finger pricking and guessing. In the video below, Brooks openly shares what he has learned about the benefits and challenges of continuous blood glucose monitoring, and explains his preferred data view, the modal day snapshot. (Filmed by the San Francisco QS meetup group.)

Brooks Kincaid – A Diabetic’s Experiment with Self Quantification from Gary Wolf on Vimeo.

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Buster Benson: Why I Track

Posted on December 5, 2012 by Alexandra Carmichael

Twelve years ago, Buster Benson started tracking how different web links affected his mood (the Morale-O-Meter!), and he was surprised to find that other people were interested in his data. In this inspiring video, Buster shares some snapshots of what he has tracked over the past several years, including his famous 8:36 pm project and how he analyzes all his created web content. He argues that precision can be counterproductive, makes a clear distinction between objective and subjective data, and suggests creating your own boolean fitness function. (Filmed by the San Francisco QS meetup group.)

Buster Benson – Why I Track from Gary Wolf on Vimeo.

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