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Personal Genomics – Reading This Week’s Stories
November 20, 2007
Kevin [posted earlier](http://www.kk.org/quantifiedself/2007/11/access-to-personal-genomics.php) on self-knowledge through consumer genetics and linked to Amy Harmon’s [story](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/17/us/17dna.html?ex=1353042000&en=4e47cebf58fa5d93&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss) in the New York Times. I spent the weekend catching up on the very successful wave of publicity orchestrated by [23andMe](https://www.23andme.com/ourservice/labs/), with major stories by Harmon in the Times, Thomas Goetz in [Wired](http://www.wired.com/medtech/genetics/magazine/15-12/ff_genomics), David Ewing Duncan in this month’s [Portfolio ](http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2007/10/15/23andMe-Web-Site),…
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Access to Personal Genomics
November 17, 2007
Personal DNA sequencing is here. The New York Times has an excellent story by Amy Harmon on what happens when you get your own DNA sequenced. She had about half a million SNPs sequenced by 23andMe, a personal genome start up. In the article she explores both her hesitancies and exhilaration in discovering her genetic…
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What is Self-Efficacy?
November 12, 2007
My curiosity about real world applications of objective techniques of self-discovery and self-management let me recently to some classic work by [Albert Bandura](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Bandura), who introduced the idea of [self-efficacy](http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/self-efficacy.html) into cognitive psychology. Self-efficacy is different than self-confidence or self-esteem. It is not a personality trait, or a set of general beliefs about oneself. Rather, it…
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Exercise for the Brain
November 8, 2007
[ ](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/opinion/08aamodt.html?em&ex=1194670800&en=87671c1cea6447e9&ei=5087%0A)Brain training games are fun for every fan of self-optimization. We don’t like to play them, we like to point out how unconvincing the evidence is that they really help your brain. Today in the New York Times, two neuroscientists take aim at brain training. They guess that the effectiveness of puzzles and mazes…
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Mapping the Complexity of Your Own Language
October 26, 2007
Steven Johnson, author of “The Ghost Map” and “Everything Bad is Good for You”, is the best textual naturalist I know. He has a remarkable talent for parsing literary forms in a fresh way. He was the first person to bring to my attention the sophisicated literary structure holding together modern TV serial dramas such…
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Self-Experimentation: The Case of Medical Marijuana
October 24, 2007
The history of “recreational” drug use and medical self-experimentation is deeply intertwined, especially when medicine is broadly defined to include psychology. In San Francisco, where I live, there are numerous [cannabis clubs](http://www.sanfranciscocannabisclubs.com/) selling pot to holders of medical marijuana cards. Over the last few months there’s been a burst of attention to the sometimes humorous,…
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Eleven Days Awake Self-Experiment
October 24, 2007
Bruce McAllister (left) and Joe Marciano Jr. (right) help Randy Gardner stay awake as he gets a checkup at the naval hospital. What happens if you force your self to stay awake. Can you control your sleep? How long can you stay awake? Most of us have no idea what our own body/minds would do….
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Nueromodulation: brain tuning in the lab
October 19, 2007
This [interesting blog](http://brainmagnets.blogspot.com/) by Dr. Topher Stephenson tracks the use of “neuromodulation” techniques, including electrical and magnetic stimulation of specific brain regions to produce desired changes in mood and behavior. This seemingly far-out technology is a major topic of applied research today, with new discoveries coming almost too fast to track. In [this post ](http://brainmagnets.blogspot.com/2007/09/9v-battery-for-depression.html),…
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Pioneering Geezers
October 19, 2007
To be honest, while I am a huge fan of William Gibson, I don’t read much of him. Don’t read much fiction in general. But every conversation I have had with Gibson, and every time I have heard him speak, or read an interview with him, I have come away amazed and giddy. He’s among…
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Nike + iPod Sport Kit
October 18, 2007
[The Nike + iPod Sport Kit](http://www.apple.com/ipod/nike/gear.html) is training people to monitor their physical state in real time. The great thing about the sport kit is not the wireless pedometer, but the integration of the pedometer into a relatively rich system that allows you to program your goals, compare results with others, and receive feedback during…
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Wrist-Device for Real Time Stress Tracking
October 16, 2007
A team lead by Thomas Kamarck of the University of Pittsburgh, an expert on measuring [psychosocial processes](http://pmbcii.psy.cmu.edu/core_c/index.html), is working on the type of wearable computer that I most want: a wrist-worn device to track physiological change in real time. The emphasis in this study is on psychosocial stress, and the device will measure sound, motion,…
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Medication & Memory: Isn’t there a machine for this?
October 12, 2007
In a hospital or a doctor’s office, you are usually asked what medications you have taken recently. Under conditions of distraction, I’m sometimes uncertain if I’ve given a correct answer. I think to myself: “okay, if I’m a professional question-asker, and I’m doubting my memory in this situation, how often are incorrect responses given by…
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Annals of Rationality: Cool heads are not best
October 11, 2007
I want to become more rational. So do many people I know. But shouldn’t the quest for more rationality itself be conducted rationally, so that we can avoid damaging mistakes? We probably all know people whose Spock-like anti-emotionalism does not seem to correlate with very good decision making, people who show outward signs of being…
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Healthvault, Phase 1
October 8, 2007
Health Vault is a new initiative from Microsoft that intends to be a solution for putting medical records “online” in a secure and practical way. So far it has gotten some good reviews from progressive doc blogs, such as Medical Quack, primarily because of the “secure” part of the equation. In fact Health Vault’s tagline…
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Self-experimentation with the anti-cancer drug DCA
October 8, 2007
People with particularly deadly forms of cancer can become desperate enough to self-experiment with non-approved drugs. Their ad hoc treatments can range in quality to random application or sometimes in concert with others trying the same thing, experiments with more value. New Scientist investigated a group of DCA self experimenters. In March 2007 they first…
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Counter-Intuitive Knowledge is Fun
October 2, 2007
The idea of quantitative self-reflection – knowing yourself better through numbers – is only interesting if the knowledge you get is not more easily available elsewhere. It’s the counter-intuitive knowledge, the “surprise” knowledge, that is the most fun, the most interesting, and perhaps even the most valuable. So, in the spirit of foiling intuitions, here’s…
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Time Yourself Washing Your Hands
October 2, 2007
My nephew sings happy birthday while washing his hands, a trick his mother taught him to keep him focused for at least ten seconds while cleaning up. Measuring elapsed seconds is one of the simplest techniques of self-regulation, but not so simple that an inventor named Charles T. Collopy didn’t try to patent a device…
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Do It Yourself Statistics
October 2, 2007
This free, charming, how-to site tells you simply and frankly how to do your own statistical analysis, complete with an odd-sweater-wearing mathematician to take you through the necessary Excel menus. The ultimate in geeky how-to for anybody who wants to be able to ask some basic analytical questions for themselves. Why take it on faith?…
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Learning a Language: Linkword Method
September 28, 2007
This story from the Christian Science Monitor describes a commercial language learning program called Linkword based on a well known mnemonic technique. “Target words” in a foreign language are associated with sound-alike words in the native language, and the link is represented by a vivid visual image. For instance. The Spanish word for monkey is…
