Joe Betts-LaCroix had a question. Which of the two exercises he was doing – dodge ball and lindy hop – was giving him a greater intensity workout? He used Fitbit to count his steps for every 5 minutes he performed these two activities. Watch his entertaining video below to see which exercise came out on…
From the Amsterdam QS Show&Tell meetup group – Yuri van Geest of Singularity University talks about making the invisible visible. He takes us on a journey 20,000 years into the past and then fast-forwards into the future. He argues that we are on the verge of moving from building things in the external world to…
This is a guest post from Marc Smith, an expert on analyzing social media networks. Thanks Marc! — I am very interested in the Quantified Self conference to be held in Mountain View, California, May 28 and 29. While I have attended just a few of the in-person meet-ups, which were engaging and intriguing events, I…
From the Boston QS Show&Tell meetup group: Ian Ayres, founder of Stickk.com, talks about his book, Carrots and Sticks, and how to “unlock the power of incentives to get things done.” His video is in three parts below, with over an hour of behavior change insights and goal-sticking goodness. Enjoy! (and big thanks to PK…
With so many exciting developments in the QS world, the air at Adaptive Path was full of energy for the 17th Bay Area QS Show&Tell last week. The theme this time was health and medicine. I watched on the livestream (big thanks to Robin Barooah and Justine Lam for setting this up!), so I missed all the…
Another day, another exciting announcement! Today we are announcing the first Quantified Self Conference, to be held May 28-29, 2011, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. This is a hands-on, collaborative conference for users and tool makers interested in self-tracking. It will be a “working meeting” for the QS community, where we…
One of the most common questions I get from people is, “do you have a list of all Quantified Self tools, or resources in a particular area, like heart rate variability or cognitive function?” We’ve been cobbling together a preliminary list of self-tracking resources over the past few months, but we are now very excited to…
Here’s some good news for those of you who live outside the San Francisco Bay Area or who weren’t able to RSVP in time for tomorrow’s QS Show&Tell meetup. This will be the first time that we will be livestreaming the event. The theme for this meetup is health and medicine, and details to catch…
Here’s a quick post for today to announce 4 new QS Show&Tell meetup groups that were recently born: 1. Brussels, organized by Candide Kemmler – Candide has jumped right in, already joining London QS organizer Denis Harscoat in a French radio interview about Quantified Self. 2. Washington DC, organized by Daniel Gartenberg – their upcoming meetup…
From the New York QS Show&Tell meetup group: Chris Woebken talks about his experiments in designing interactions to enhance our relationship with digital money. He asks the question, how can money be measured – in minutes, in sound, or in touch through electromagnetic gloves? Watch the video below to see Chris’ ideas for new form factors,…
Here’s a video clip on health tracking from RedeTV!, one of Brazil’s biggest TV stations. Steven Dean, organizer of the New York QS Show&Tell meetup group, gives a great overview of some tools he uses to track his health, and a Brazilian doctor weighs in with his perspective on the benefit to patients. It’s in…
I’m starting to wonder – is there any aspect of life that cannot be tracked? This week’s roundup on lifestyle-tracking tools moves into deeply personal areas like sex life, baby’s sleep schedule, amount of drinking, menstrual cycles, meditation, and media consumption. Proceed with caution if you are squeamish. It’s part of our regular tool roundup for the…
This is a guest post by Sastry Nanduri, co-founder of one of our annual sponsors, HealthTap. Please comment below if you’d like to be part of the “personal data hackathon” Sastry is suggesting: — HealthTap is an avid supporter and sponsor of Quantified Self. We share Quantified Self’s belief that quantification and measurement can lead to insightful…
Eric Boyd, a long-time QS member and now part of the Toronto QS Show&Tell meetup group, has a new project. It’s called HeartSpark, and it’s a heart-shaped pendant which flashes little LED lights in time with your heart beat. HeartSpark and Eric (video below) were featured on Engadget today – congrats! Thanks to @faisal_q for…
From the Amsterdam QS Show&Tell group: Matt Cottam talks about many of the cool personal informatics and biosensing projects designed by his company, Tellart. Some prototype projects include creative ways to encourage people to take breaks at work, remote teddy bears to connect the elderly with their families, a breath alcohol sensor for the iPhone,…
In advance of our next Bay Area Quantified Self Show&Tell meetup, which will have a Health and Medicine theme, this roundup post is on health- and medicine-related self-tracking tools. Blood pressure, genetics, medical test results, blood sugar readings, hormone levels, dietary experiments – if you have a self-tracking project, gadget, or app, we want to…
First video ever from the Boston QS Show&Tell group: Trapper Markelz of MeYouHealth is introduced by QS organizer Michael Nagle. MeYouHealth is trying to solve the behavior change problem and especially influence women, who tend to make health decisions for their families. Watch the video below to hear Trapper’s tips on how to bring quantifying…
I’ve been thinking for some time about the connection between self-tracking and mindfulness. At first glance they seem to be very different – picture the wired-up gadget wizard sitting next to the unadorned meditating guru. But step to the side and look from a different angle, and you may see meditation and self-tracking as two…
From the New York QS Show&Tell meetup group – Colin Schiller talks about how his productivity changed after having a baby. He experimented with using the Pomodoro Technique and only working eight hours a day. For four weeks, he tracked all the work activities he did in each 25-minute work segment. Watch the video below…
From the Bay Area QS Show&Tell group: Dirk Aguilar shows charts of his energy consumption – electricity, gas, driving, and flying. He annotated his graphs with trips and life changes, and was surprised to learn that while his gas usage dropped during periods of travel, his electricity usage remained high from all of his appliances passively…
