Blog

QS Resources on Delicious

January 29, 2010

We are trying a new approach to cataloging the many tips we’ve received about valuable resources related to the Quantified Self. We’re going to be using Delicious to tag the links. Self-quantifier extraordinaire Mark Carranza has volunteered to to take the tag stream and munge it into into a better, more useful resource list. But…

QS Show&Tell – Tips for Presenters

January 25, 2010

As we get ready for another big Bay Area QS Show&Tell, I thought I would post some tips for people planning to present. Feel free to add other tips in the comments. These meetings continue to be really fun and inspiring. Now that we are getting bigger, it is probably best to email if you…

New York QS Show&Tell #4 – Recap

January 6, 2010

Before the holidays we held our 4th NY QS Show&Tell at Meetup HQ. Thanks to our hosts Scott Heiferman and Camille Alexander from Meetup and a special thanks to our new videographer, Evan Creem. Self-Tracking Tools Garfield started us off by describing Jerry Seinfeld’s “don’t break the chain concept” as a success formula for writing…

Withings Wi-Fi Body Scale

January 4, 2010

During the November NY QS Show&Tell (#3), many of us were excited to learn about the wi-fi body scale by Withings when Bethany Soule showed us how she had integrated her own Withings scale using their API into her project Kibotzer.com, a tool that helps people track their progress toward all sorts of goals. This…

Non-Invasive Health Monitoring Tools

January 2, 2010

Non Invasive Health Monitoring with mHealth View more documents from Bart Collet. Is health going mobile? It certainly seems so. Belgian blogger Bart Collet posted this fantastic compilation of tools and services for mobile health. Many of the companies in this presentation I hadn’t ever heard of before, which goes to show how quickly this…

A Billion Little Experiments

December 21, 2009

I have been participating in the QS Show & Tell meetings since they started.  What those of us in the QS are working on today, and the interest we take in tracking and analyzing all aspects of our lives, is not quite mainstream yet. But many of us feel that like those pioneers in the…

Self-Tracking Resource Page

December 18, 2009

We have posted a page of self-tracking resources and links. You can find it right here. It’s pretty basic. If you know of a resource that is missing, let the list-makers know. This list would be 100 times better if there were a line or two annotation for each link, and maybe even a catagorized…

How To Measure Small Effects in Your Data

December 18, 2009

If you make a change to your daily routine or try a new medication, how do you know if it is working? This was the question Bard sent in for the QS Scientific Advisory Board. His challenge was met by Neil Rubens, Teresa Lunt and David Goldberg. Read Bard’s question and their answers below. And if…

Tiny Move Trackers

December 17, 2009

David Pogue’s column in the New York Times today reviews two fitness self-tracking tools, the Fitbit and the DirectLIfe.  Both are small monitors you carry that measure your physical activity — sort of like a digital pedometer. As he explains: The coolest Fitbit bit is the way it sends your collected activity data to its…

Do-It-Yourself Sleep Monitoring in Wired

December 15, 2009

For another take on the recent the Quantified Self meeting at the Wired offices, Wired Science ran their own report on the several sleep hacking experiments presented. They mentioned Wakemate, Zeo, and Matt Bell’s infrared sleep cam.

Bay Area QS Show&Tell #10 – Recap

December 12, 2009

Our tenth Show&Tell had about 100 people gathering at the offices of Wired magazine in San Francisco. Our host was Thomas Goetz, Wired’s executive editor and author of the upcoming book The Decision Tree. We had a great setting for our biggest meeting yet. Heartfelt thanks to Thomas, Philip Ferrato, Erica Jewell, and everybody who…

Stephen Wolfram, Keystroke Logger

December 9, 2009

In an interview for New Scientist, mathematician Stephen Wolfram says: “I’m an information pack rat,” he confesses. Recording our interview is just the tip of his peculiar obsession with documenting every moment of his life. “I have a keystroke logger that has collected my every keystroke for the last 22 years,” he says. “Every day…

Quantified Self in h+ Magazine

December 9, 2009

The Winter issue of h+ Magazine is available for download now. It includes the article I wrote about self-tracking, with five Quantified Self show-and-tell projects profiled. The editors decided against my original title (Self-Tracking: The Next Generation), but I do think the Quantified Life is worth living. Don’t you?

What Tools Should I Use To Make Tracking Easier?

December 6, 2009

Jeremy Johnson sent in this question for the illustrious QS Scientific Advisory Board, so we set about finding an answer for him. Gordon Bell and Seth Roberts responded with lightning speed! Jeremy’s question and their answers are below. If you have a question about your self-tracking that you’d like some help with, let me know….

“Factual” builds a data commons

December 2, 2009

QS folks who have been interested in and contributing to the creation of a new data commons: you may want to check out Factual. Factual is a Los Angeles startup whose goal is to host any kind of quantitative data in a convenient, open, and mashable architecture. It was created by Gil Elbaz, and launched…

QS Resource Links

December 1, 2009

We’ve been working on a page that contains links to all the resources mentioned on the blog, presented at the QS Show&Tell meetups, or sent in as tips by members of our group. Special thanks to Alexandra Carmichael of CureTogether for helping to put this list together! Please visit the page and add your suggestions…

New York QS Show&Tell #3 – Recap

November 9, 2009

Last week we had our largest turnout yet for the NY QS Show&Tell #3. Here is a recap with links. First, a special thanks to our hosts Cindy Hanson and Colin Kelly of Smart Design who not only provided us with a spectacular space but treated the group to some very smart snacks and drinks….

Health Hashtags: A Microsyntax for People and Machines

November 8, 2009

With the explosion of microblogging, tweeting, and status updates, it is clear that embedding personal metrics in social tools is on the tips of our fingers and is a natural extension to the personal toolbox. This post explores the opportunity of OHME (Open Mobile Health Exchange), a first-mover in the new world of Microsyntax, and a new…

NY Quantified Self Show&Tell #3 – Tonight!

November 4, 2009

New York area QS readers should drop by the NY Quantified Self Show&Tell#3 tonight at Smart Design. Steve Dean, who launched the New York meeting, has a great program lined up. Here’s his description, from the New York QS Meetup site. If you join the New York MeetUp, you can RSVP, and you will be…

QS Show&Tell #9 – Recap

October 29, 2009

The QS Show&Tell #9 was very fun and interesting. Here is a quick recap with links. We met at Stanford courtesy of Martha Russell of Stanford’s MediaX, and the evening began with Martha’s intro to her program, which links visionary research to industry applications. A list of fall seminars at MediaX shows a bit of…