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Matt Keener on The Brain and Self-Quantification: A Bidirectional Relationship
September 8, 2012
I had to post one more breakout session description for next week’s conference, because this project is so fascinating to me! Check it out, from brain researcher Matt Keener: Our brains sit at the apex of primate evolution, making it possible for us to think, feel and be self-aware, all made possible through the unique…
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Ian Clements on Analyzing his Cancer Data
September 7, 2012
Ian Clements has been self-tracking since 1974 – mostly exercise, weight, and general health indicators. But in 2007 he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. This set off a more comprehensive mission of self-tracking to figure out which lifestyle changes and supplements were helping him to live longer. In the video below, Ian walks through his…
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Martha Russell on Respecting Digital Identity
September 2, 2012
Today’s breakout session preview for the upcoming QS conference is from Martha Russell of Stanford MediaX. She describes her session “Respecting Digital Identity:” — Many aspects of our daily lives are now infused with digital experiences. We are interacting in digital spaces where, in accessing experiences and content, we voluntarily and intentionally create content. Due to mass…
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Full QS Conference 2012 Program Announced
August 30, 2012
The QS Conference is coming up next month. As many readers of this site already know, we run our conference with a programming method all our own. We call it a “carefully curated unconference,” which means that we make the program after we see who is coming, by reviewing the web links and twitter feeds…
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Vahe Kassardjian and Rafi Haladjian on Crossing the Data Desert
August 27, 2012
Today’s breakout session preview for the upcoming QS conference is from Vahe Kassardjian of INM and Rafi Haladjian of Sen.se. Below they describe their session “Crossing the Data Desert:” — Some people base decisions on facts and data, while some people base them on other foundations or beliefs. Let’s immediately forget about this latter group. For the former group,…
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Quantified Self and the future of healthcare
August 26, 2012
A few months ago Quantified Self received an invitation from the Health Informatics Society of Australia to speak to their members at their annual conference hic2012. They wanted to hear a QS perspective on the future of healthcare. I volunteered to go down under, to share some interesting self-tracking stories, and to speak about the possible…
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Why Self-Track? The Possibility of Hard-to-Explain Change
August 22, 2012
My personal science introduced me to a research method I have never seen used in research articles or described in discussions of scientific method. It might be called wait and see. You measure something repeatedly, day after day, with the hope that at some point it will change dramatically and you will be able to determine…
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QS Primer: Case-Crossover Design
August 21, 2012
We’ve already published this QS Show&Tell talk by Mark Drangsholt about using self-tracking to identify the triggers of his heart problems, lessen their frequency, and make good decisions about treatment. I’m re-posting it here to focus on attention on the interesting and powerful method Mark used, the case-crossover design, and invite you to think about…
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Numbers From Around The Web: Round 10
August 16, 2012
At some point, we’ve all been frustrated with our experiences interacting with the medical community. This isn’t a big secret, especially here in the United States. Many individuals involved in QS meetups around the world gravitate towards news tools and data sources that let them understand and interact with health-related data in news ways. Whether…
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New York QS Show&Tell #17 Recap
August 14, 2012
At our last meetup in New York, we had a packed house at NYU’s ITP, one of our great supporters of QS here in NY. Thank you to my co-organizers, Ben Ahrens and Brian Gallegos, who helped pull together this recap for the blog. DEMO HOUR Brad Hammonds and Stan Berkow gave a large-scale, real…
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Temple of Self: A QS Masters Design Thesis
August 11, 2012
Aarti Vashisht has done some interesting QS-related work for her MFA at Art Center College Design. She designed some prototype sensors that could be worn on our bodies in the future, and interviewed people to learn their thoughts on how these integrated sensors might impact their lives. This is an image of the sensors she…
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Nir Eyal on Knowing Your Behavior Type
August 9, 2012
Nir Eyal – Knowing Your Behaviour Type from Gary Wolf on Vimeo. Nir Eyal writes about “behavior engineering” encompassing user experience design, behavioral economics, and a dash of neuroscience. In this Show & Tell talk at the May 3, 2012 Silicon Valley QS meetup, Nir offers suggestions for behavior change design based on understanding the distinction between…
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What would you do with your microbiome sequence?
August 1, 2012
If you had access to free microbiome sequencing tests, to detect and analyze bacteria living in the nose, mouth, skin, gastro-intestinal, and/or urogenital areas of the body, what experiments would you think up? Would you compare oral bacteria in people with lots of cavities vs. people with no cavities, look for differences between people with…