Listening to music is often a passive past-time; we listen to what we like, while enjoying the lyrics and beats. Even without much thought, music can be a tool to help motivate a work-out, stimulate a drive, or simply aid relaxation in a spa. However, when we take an active role in our listening, we…
The emergence of self-tracking tools that came with the advent of the smartphone was a boon for people like Shannon Conners, who have long been recording their personal data with pen and paper. Her lifelong collection of personal data has lead to the creation of insightful visualizations.
Mark Leavitt has a unique perspective in that he is both an engineer and a physician. In his retirement, he is applying his wealth of knowledge to keeping himself healthy. In this talk, Mark looks at how heart rate variability relates to his willpower.
When someone comes into your life and takes up a special place in your heart, do they also occupy a similar place in your data? Shelly used GMvault to look through 5 years of Google Chat logs to “hunt for signals that I loved my husband and not somebody else.”
In this talk from QS15, Steven Cartwright, associate director at the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, shows how seventeen years of location tracking has given him a wealth of data to explore in the form of three-dimensional data visualization sculptures.
Paul LaFontaine, organizer for the Denver QS meetup, shares his experience tracking heart rate variability (HRV) to understand “vapor lock,” his term for the inability to recall information that can occur during a stressful conversation. His analysis revealed a likely cause for this “lock up,” but the unexpected results led him to change his approach to meetings and conversations at work.
“My luteal phase went from 10 days to 16, which is a frickin’ Quantified Self miracle.” In this great talk, Ilyse Magy describes how tracking her menstrual cycle with the Fertility Awareness Method and Kindara worked for more than birth control. Tracking her cycle helped her understand how it affects her emotional state, and led her to find…
Jon Cousins has given wonderful show&tell talks on mood tracking. Like most methods for measuring mood, his process involves a subjective assessment of his well being. But what if there was a physical measurement related to mood that doesn’t involve blood work? Inspired by an anecdote about a man’s beard growth while working on a…
“My inbox has become a barometer of my stress level.” Email overwhelm is something that most people of first world means can relate to. Getting a handle on this digital deluge is a Sisyphean endeavor that is, perhaps, only endured by deluding ourselves into thinking that it is possible if only we found the right…
“That’s insane! I want to try it.” Bethany Soule is the co-found of Beeminder, a commitment tool which she characterizes as “goal-tracking with teeth.” Her and Daniel Reeves, the other founder, have spoken on how they tracked the development of the tool and integrating it with other QS tools. In this talk from QS15, Bethany tells…
“I don’t have a concrete goal. I don’t have a concrete aim to advance myself. It’s a way to explore different aspects of my life through data.” Since 2009 Jacek Smolicki has experimented with using personal data as a mode for artistic exploration. In this talk, he presents some of his practices: Making a collage…
Kouris Kalligas, a long time participant and contributor at Quantified Self meetings, is the creator of the very easy to use data aggregation service AddApp. AddApp is an iPhone app that makes it simple to gain insights from data gathered on dozens of different devices. While running his startup, Kouris has also been doing ongoing self-tracking experiments….
It’s been an honor to have Beeminder founders Daniel Reeves and Bethany Soule participating in Quantified Self meetings, giving us a chance to watch the evolution of their very useful tool for setting and achieving personal goals. These days they are working on the forefront of device and service integration. In this talk Daniel gives…
Let’s start 2016 with a very interesting talk by Randy Sargent about how to visualize the very large data sets produced by some kinds of self-tracking. Randy’s idea about using spectrograms, normally used for audio signals, to create a portrait of your own time series data, is completely novel as far as I know. If…
In this fascinating short talk by geneticist Jim McCarter, we see detailed data about the effects of a ketogenic diet: lower blood pressure, better cholesterol numbers,and vastly improved daily well being. Jim also describes the mid-course adjustments he made to reduce side effects such as including muscle cramps and increased sensitivity to cold. Jim begins:…
I talked with Vinod Khosla over the summer about machine learning and the Quantified Self. Khosla was a founder of Sun Microsystems and is one of Silicon Valley’s most experienced investors in Quantified Self companies. His portfolio includes AliveCor, Ginger.io, Jawbone, Misfit, Narrative, and many other toolmakers that people doing QS projects will recognize. In our…
Maggie Delano hit her head while helping a friend move. She was diagnosed with a concussion and, later, post-concussion syndrome. In order for her to heal, she had to give her brain a break from cognitively stimulating activities. In this show&tell talk, presented at the 2015 Quantified Self Conference, Maggie discusses how she tracked her progress…
We’re excited to share another round of personal data visualizations from our QS community. Below you’ll find another five visualizations of different types of personal data. Make sure to check out Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 as well! Name: Damien Catani Description: This is an overview of how I have been doing today against my daily habit targets….
In just little more than a month we’ll be convening in lovely Amsterdam for our 2015 Quantified Self Europe Conference. While some might call us crazy since we just wrapped on our big QS15 Conference in San Francisco, we like to think that we’re on a tour, inviting people from around to world to engage and…
I have had the esteemed pleasure for the last couple of years of helping speakers at Quantified Self conferences put together their talks. It’s a lot of work for me, but more so for the speakers. At the QS15 Conference last month in San Francisco, I took the opportunity to not only express my appreciation…
