Blog
Alberto Frigo: A 36-year Tracking Project
Ernesto Ramirez
July 3, 2014
“I’ve been systematically tracking my life since the 24th of September, 2003.” A little over 10 years ago Alberto Frigo embarked on an ambitious project, 2004-2040, to understand himself. Starting with tracking everything his right (dominant) hand has used, he’s slowly added on different tracking and documentation projects. Keeping the focus on himself and his…
Rain Ashford on Wearing Physiological Data
Ernesto Ramirez
July 2, 2014
Rain Ashford is a PhD student in the Art and Computational Technology Program at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her work is based on the concept of “Emotive Wearables” that help communicate data about ourselves in social settings. This research and design exploration has led her to create unique pieces of wearable technology that both measure and…
QSEU14 Breakout: Open Privacy
Ernesto Ramirez
July 1, 2014
Today’s post comes to us from Laurie Frick. Laurie led a breakout session at the 2014 Quantified Self Europe Conference that opened up a discussion about what it would mean to be able to access all the data being gathered about yourself and then open that up for full transparency. In the summary below, Laurie…
Alex Collins on Managing Type 1 Diabetes
Ernesto Ramirez
June 30, 2014
Last year Alex Collins was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. Prior to his diagnosis Alex was frequently engaged in different types of exercise and physical activity. After his diagnosis his doctor mentioned that he might have a hard time exercising and controlling his blood sugar to prevent hypoglycemia. In this talk, presented at the London…
A Code of Conduct
Maggie Delano
June 27, 2014
Quantified Self Labs is wholeheartedly dedicated to creating conferences and events that are safe and comfortable for everyone involved. This means providing a harassment-free experience for every participant, regardless of gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, ability, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, physical appearance, and beliefs. Providing this experience for our members requires a concrete, visible commitment…
Kiel Gilleade: Rhythmanalysis
Ernesto Ramirez
June 27, 2014
Kiel Gilleade has been interested in measuring and visualizing physiological data for quite a while. In 2011, he presented his BodyBlogger project at the 2011 QS Europe Conference. In that talk he described what he learned from tracking and exploring a year of continuous heart rate data. This year, at the 2014 QS Europe Conference,…
QSEU14 Breakout: Mapping Data Access
Ernesto Ramirez
June 26, 2014
Today’s post comes to us from Dawn Nafus and Robin Barooah. Together they led an amazing breakout session at the 2014 Quantified Self Europe Conference on the topic of understanding and mapping data access. We have a longstanding interest in observing and communicating how data moves in and out of the self-tracking systems we use…
Alex Tarling on Tracking and Changing Happiness
Ernesto Ramirez
June 25, 2014
Alex Tarling starting using the Mappiness app to track his happiness along with other contextual data. Over time the ritual of having to ask himself, “How happy am I?” three times a day started to get him thinking about how he thought about his own happiness and what that meant to him. In this talk,…
QSEU14 Breakout: What is Productivity and Why Are We Tracking It?
Ernesto Ramirez
June 24, 2014
Today’s post comes to us from Brian Crain. Brian has been testing different productivity methods for over three years. After his great show&tell talk desrcribing how he tracks his own productivity he led a breakout session on the topic. This led to interesting dicussion around how people tracked themselves and what they wish they could track better. You’re…
Morris Villarroel: A Four-Year Journal
Ernesto Ramirez
June 23, 2014
Four years ago Morris Villarroel was inspired to start writing things down. He started with a simple Muji notebook and begun adding some structure such as daily logs, life events, and review of books and articles he had read. In the process of filling out over 130 journals his process has evolved to include journaling…
QSEU14 Breakout: Lifelogging with Photos
Ernesto Ramirez
June 20, 2014
Today’s post comes to us from Cathal Gurrin, Rami Albatal, Dan Berglund, and Daniel Hamngren. Cathal and Rami are researchers at Dublin City University and Daniel and Dan work at Narrative, makers of a small lifelogging camera and application. Together, they led an interesting breakout session at the 2014 Quantified Self Europe Conference on photo lifelogging and…
Jan-Geert Munneke on Tracking Snoring and Sleep
Ernesto Ramirez
June 19, 2014
Jan-Geert Munneke has had an issue with snoring for quite a while. He started off his self-tracking journey by tracking his snoring with the Snore Lab app. Having this data led him to think about how he could understand what was going on while he was sleeping. So, he decided to incorporate more sensors to…
Brian Crain on Optimizing Productivity
Ernesto Ramirez
June 18, 2014
There are many people in the QS community who are fascinated by understanding productivity. We’ve featured many different talks that explore different methods for tracking and hopefully improving productivity. At the 2014 Quantified Self Europe Conference we were happy to continue this exploration with a show&tell talk by Brian Crain. Brian has been thinking about…
QSEU14 Breakout: Cartographies of Rest
Ernesto Ramirez
June 17, 2014
Today’s post comes to us from Josh Berson. Josh is a anthropologist and researcher at the Max Plank Institute. In the fall of 2014 Josh and his colleagues will be embarking on an ambitious research program to explore how we understand and engage in activity and rest. This research project, housed at the Hub at Wellcome Collection, is…
Steve Dean: Washing My Eyelids
Ernesto Ramirez
June 16, 2014
Steve Dean is the co-organizer of our New York City QS meetup group. He’s also an avid self-tracker, using different methods and tools to understand his life. About three years ago Steve started to experience inflammation along his eyelids. After seeing a dermatologist and being diagnosed with atopic dermatitis he was prescribed a treatment regiment….
Diabetes, Metabolism, and the Quantified Self
Ernesto Ramirez
June 13, 2014
This is a visualization of one month of my blood sugar readings from October 2012. I see that my control was generally good, with high blood sugars happening most often around midnight (at the top of the circle). -Doug Kanter Richard Bernstein, an engineer with diabetes, pioneered home blood glucose monitoring. What he learned about…