Blog
Arlene Ducao on Tracking A Brain on a Bike
Ernesto Ramirez
May 14, 2014
Arlene Ducao came to QS from using the WiFit to track personal metrics. As a researcher and maker she started to apply the lessons from self-tracking to another one of her interests, cycling. As a frequent bike ride she started with simple customizations like adding LEDs to her helmet. When consumer EEG devices came on…
2014 QS Europe Conference: Your Program
Ernesto Ramirez
May 6, 2014
The 2014 Quantified Self Europe conference is a “carefully curated unconference”. This means that all of our sessions come from the attendees. We are happy to announce that we have more than 100 separate talks and discussions planned. More than 30% of the attendees will be presenting in some way. This conference is for the…
2014 QS Europe Conference: Ignite Talks
Ernesto Ramirez
May 2, 2014
When we organized our very first QS Conference in 2011 we were bombarded with so many proposals from people who wanted to share their projects and self-tracking experiences we decided to add talks to our extended lunch breaks. The lunchtime Ignite session was born and now we can’t imagine a conference without them. Below is…
2014 QS Europe Conference: Show&Tell Talks
Ernesto Ramirez
April 30, 2014
What did you do? How did you do it? What did you learn? These are the three questions we ask people to answer in their Quantified Self Show&Tell talks. We’re thrilled to see the Show&Tell proposals coming in from registrants for the 2014 Quantified Self Europe Conference, with topics ranging from blood glucose tracking to novel uses…
2014 QS Europe Conference: Breakout Sessions
Ernesto Ramirez
April 29, 2014
We organize our QS conferences backwards: First the registrants, then the program. We like to keep things open to the last minute so we can get a sense of what everybody is working on and thinking about before making the final lineup. But eventually the printer’s deadline looms, and we have to say: this is…
Seth Roberts: The Best Way To Learn Is To Do
Gary Wolf
April 28, 2014
My friend Seth Roberts, pioneering self-experimenter and personal scientist, died last Saturday. Seth’s sister Amy, made the announcement yesterday on his blog. The news was unexpected and very sad. A few things Seth taught me: Doing lots of experiments keeps you supplied with new ideas. With sensitive and reliable measurements, tiny experimental effects can yield surprising…
Conference Preview: Tracking Over Time
Ernesto Ramirez
April 25, 2014
We’re fascinated by self-tracking projects that extend over long periods of time, and at the upcoming QS Europe conference we’re going to hear from two artists who have been making work out of novel personal data extending back for years. Since 2004, Alberto Frigo has taken a photograph of every object he holds in his dominant…
Conference Preview: Tracking our Bacterial Buddies
Ernesto Ramirez
April 23, 2014
We are not alone. No, there haven’t been any extraterrestrial sightings lately, but there have been many advances in understanding the organisms that make up the ecosystem of ourselves. Did you know that you are supporting almost 10 times more bacterial cells than human cells? These bacterial collaborators have a profound affect on health and wellbeing. Jessica…
Conference Preview: Discussing Families & Self-Tracking
Ernesto Ramirez
April 22, 2014
Last June, the Pew Internet Research Project released a report entitled, Family Caregivers are Wired for Health. The authors – Susannah Fox, Maeve Duggan and Kristen Purcell – found that 40% of Americans are caring for an adult or child with significant health issues. Of special interest to us: “When controlling for age, income, education, ethnicity, and good…
Conference Preview: Bob Troia on Tracking Blood Glucose
Ernesto Ramirez
April 21, 2014
We’ve learned a lot from the diabetics in our community, such as Jana Beck’s lessons from 100,000+ blood glucose readings, and Doug Kanter’s narrative visualizations of a year of his diabetes data. At the upcoming QS Europe Conference on May 10th and 11th in Amsterdam, we’re going to hear the interesting story of a non-diabetic who began tracking his fasting glucose…
Michael Cohn on Tracking Commitment
Ernesto Ramirez
April 17, 2014
Like many of us, Michael Cohn had a hard time “rationally regulating” his behavior. Even as a psychology researcher at UCSF, he was falling victim to procrastination and time wasting. He started exploring “irrationally regulating” his behavior by stating personal commitment contacts then using self-tracking via spreadsheets to understand how he spends his time and…
Rosane Oliveira on The Quantified Double Self
Ernesto Ramirez
April 14, 2014
Rosane Oliveiria is a researcher and scholar that focuses on integrative medicine, genomics, and nutrition. She’s also an identical twin. In 2012 she was struck by the different patterns of weight fluctuations that she and her sister, Renata, had been experiencing. Using historical data and medical records she was able to go back in time…
Fit Fifties, Sound Sixties: Maria Benet on Active Aging
Ernesto Ramirez
April 10, 2014
Maria Benet began tracking her activity a few years ago as a way to lose weight and take control of her health. What started with a simple pedometer and a few custom Access databases has morphed into a multi-year tracking project that includes news apps and tools. Her progress and data has even spurred her…
Joris Janssen on SenseOS
Ernesto Ramirez
April 7, 2014
Joris Janssen is a researcher who’s focused his work on combining sensing algorithms with psychological insights. Currently he’s a researcher and developer at Sense Observation Systems, a Netherlands-based company developing context-aware computing. In this talk, filmed at the Amsterdam QS meetup group, Joris gives a brief explanation of the work they do at SenseOS, then…
Eric Jain on Sleep and Moon Phases
Ernesto Ramirez
April 3, 2014
Eric Jain stumbled upon a study published in 2013 that found the a full moon was associated with less sleep. Being an avid self-tracker and a toolmaker he decided to find out if that was true for him as well. Eric used his tool, Zenobase, to import, aggregate, filter, and then analyze his sleep data…
QS Chicago Meetup Recap
Ernesto Ramirez
April 2, 2014
This guest post comes to us from Mark Moschel and Eugene Granovsky, the co-organizers of the Chicago Quantified Self meetup group. At their recent meetup on March 26, 2014 they had three great talks from community members. If you live in the Chicago area why not join the group! Dan Abreu on GeoTracking Dan travels a lot….
Talking QS for Kids with Sesame Workshop!
Gary Wolf
March 31, 2014
Sesame Street has been teaching kids to count since 1969. It was a big part of my childhood and I always loved it. After all, children get measured a lot: weighed, evaluated, tested. If we adults sometimes wonder how the powerful techniques of quantification can be used for our own benefit, rather than merely serving…