Blog

Welcome Ernesto Ramirez!

January 20, 2012

Anyone who has presented their work at a Quantified Self conference will already know the amazing Ernesto Ramirez. Ernesto is a doctoral student at UC San Diego’s Center for Wireless and Population Health Systems, a leader of the San Diego QS Show&Tell meetup group, a regular blogger here, and a positive force inspiring people to…

Numbers from Around the Web: Round 2

January 19, 2012

When we talk about Quantified Self and the meaning behind tracking there is always an underlying current that the numbers rule all. That there is a fundamental truth that is available and discoverable. But, in some cases self-tracking can take on different forms. For this week’s NFATW post I wanted to two projects that forsake…

Toolmaker Talk: Eric Gradman (Facelogger)

January 18, 2012

This is the eight post in the “Toolmaker Talks” series. The QS blog features intrepid self-quantifiers and their stories: what did they do? how did they do it? and what have they learned?  In Toolmaker Talks we hear from QS enablers, those observing this QS activity and developing self-quantifying tools: what needs have they observed? what…

Quantified Self Around the World

January 17, 2012

So there I was the other day sitting in a coffee shop and perusing the various Quantified Self Meet Up groups around the world. I was blown away by the how many people are taking time out of their busy lives to host and attend meetups in their cities. As we’ve mentioned before, Quantified Self…

K. Thomas Pickard on Restless Legs and Niacin

January 16, 2012

Thomas Pickard has had Restless Legs Syndrome for the past thirty years, but was only diagnosed ten years ago. Since his diagnosis, he has experimented with drug dosage, had his genome partially sequenced, and started a RLS/Niacin study on Genomera. In the video below, Thomas talks about what he learned about his sleep, blood and…

Do You Take Magnesium?

January 15, 2012

This is a guest post from Ken Snyder of Quantified Self London. Thanks Ken! — I have personally found Magnesium to be a great tool in getting better sleep, although I believe a more common use is to help get more sleep. In any event, I thought it would be interesting to hear from the…

Quantified Self 101: Keep It Simple

January 12, 2012

Here at QS Labs we’re here to help everyone, from the experienced researcher to the person who hasn’t done an experiment since they built that model volcano in sixth grade. We also try to listen to our community and we’ve heard many requests from individuals just starting their journey of self-experimentation. Well, I’m happy to announce…

Robby MacDonell on One Month of Transportation Logging

January 10, 2012

Robby MacDonell doesn’t own a car, so he gets around on public transportation and on foot. He spent one month tracking his use of various modes of transportation, using the app MyTracks. In the video below, Robby talks about how he evaluated the different location-tracking tools, how he built his own custom interactive Google map, what…

Rob Portil on Weight Loss and Muscle Gain with FitBit

January 9, 2012

Rob Portil is sixty-six years old and has been overweight twice in his life. He’s been using FitBit for the past four months, and has reached his target weight. In the video below, he describes how he experiences the daily tracking, how his sweetheart experiences it differently, which Four Hour Body workouts he does, and…

Corey Maass on The Birdy

January 6, 2012

Corey Maass is a freelance web developer who has spent the last six years getting his personal finances under control. He read every book and blog he could find on how to keep his bank account above zero, and built The Birdy to help himself and others in the same situation. In the video below,…

Numbers From Around The Web: Round 1

January 5, 2012

We got such great feedback on the orignal NFATW post that we decided to turn it into a regular feature. Every few weeks be on the lookout for new posts profiling interesting individuals and their data. If you have an interesting story or link to share leave a comment or contact the author here. Michael…

Amelia Greenhall: Weigh Everyday = Understanding

January 2, 2012

Amelia Greenhall lost forty pounds with the simple feedback of checking her weight every day. In a bulimic college environment, she set herself some rules starting out: no dieting, and only long-term changes. She read The Hacker’s Diet, and was inspired to track the 10-day moving average of her weight for two years. Watch the…

2011: Numbers From Around The Web

January 1, 2012

As 2011 draws to a close and we look forward to another amazing year of tracking and learning it’s great to look back and see what people were up to in 2011. I’ve been watching Twitter and it seems like a lot of our friends and acquaintances around the web enjoy breaking down their year…

Thomas Christiansen: Debugging My Allergy

December 31, 2011

Thomas Chistiansen of Mymee spent three years using a QS approach to reduce his allergies. He recorded his symptoms, intake of food, water, and supplements, as well as sleep, urination, and elimination. Through his careful observations, Thomas has been able to get rid of the eczema on his hands and can now manage through allergy…

Acne Cured by Self-Experimentation

December 29, 2011

In November, at Quantified Self Europe, Martha Rotter, who lives in Ireland, gave a talk about how she cured her acne by self-experimentation. She summarizes her talk like this (slides here): When I moved to Ire­land in 2007, I began to have skin prob­lems. It began gradu­ally and I attrib­uted it to the move, to stress, to late…

Nick Crocker: Floss the Teeth You Want To Keep

December 27, 2011

Nick Crocker‘s QS journey started with his dentist telling him, “Floss the teeth you want to keep!” Nick tells the story below of how he spent five years figuring out how to implement changes in his life, and how hard it was to add this habit to his routine. He also shares, Ignite-style, ten lessons…

Erik Kennedy on Tracking Happiness

December 26, 2011

Erik Kennedy wanted to automate his happiness, so he started recording mood-changing events every day to find out what really made him happy or unhappy. After gathering 330 events, he categorized them and discovered that friendships and work were making him most frequently happy, while sickness and girl trouble were on the less happy side. Erik…

Dave Kil on Optimizing Workouts

December 25, 2011

Dave Kil runs marathons. He has detailed records of all his workouts for the past year and a half. Recently, though, he started feeling that running was getting boring, and he wanted more variety in his workouts. So Dave helped create sensors that can monitor different activities passively, including cycling. He also added high-intensity training…