Quantified Self

When I arrived home this weekend, a small package was waiting for me. It included the Talking20 metabolite kit I’d pre-ordered. And tonight I finally got around of donating some of my blood to the spot card. The package included, 3 spot cards and envelopes, and for each spot-card: an alcohol wipe, bandage and 3 lancets.

It’s quick and easy to get started, but I also got some helpful assistance from my mother :).

The Quantified Self is all about getting data about ourselves. We distill information and use that to our knowledge to improve our lives and that of others. Self-knowledge trough numbers. As we use algorithms in our lives we don’t think that often about how they see us, but this is exactly what the New Aesthetic is about. And here’s the cross-over between the New Aesthetic and QS. Machines and algorithms run our lives, and how they look at the world causes us to act.

In one year I started with my idea to go the the first Quantified Self Conference in San Francisco, Mountain View. The idea brought me there, with all the helping hands of people supporting me. When Martijn and me got back, we agreed to organize a second conference in Amsterdam. The QS Amsterdam crew joined in and at the 26 & 27th of November we organized QS Europe. I never organized a conference so big and it was truly fantastic to see 250 people enjoying their time at the conference.

Even before I got a Zeo, I was wondering if the phases of the moon are of influence of my sleep quality. With the Zeo that offers an API, I finally had a chance to investigate. As it turns out after four months of experimenting: the phase of the moon doesn’t have any influence on my sleep quality or the time it takes to fall asleep. I’ve been building my own interface for the Zeo, because the flash based website doesn’t suit my needs, here’s a small screenshot:

I’ve started tracking my food intake with Foodzy about 13 days ago. And while doing that I already came across some interesting things. I’ve never been fully tracking my food intake, but the Foodzy app on my iPhone with extensive database (including typical dutch food) makes it quite easy. I’ve been tracking for thirteen days now. The first step I wanted to take is to generate a baseline of my typical food consumption(and thus caloric values), this way I can see where I can make improvements and measure the changes.

During the QS Conference the awesome guys from Zeo gifted me one of their sleep monitors. And 1 week ago it arrived by mail. I promised to create as much value in return if I liked the Zeo. And I do, I absolutely do. Here is why: As an average person sleep 8 hours a day you spend ¹⁄₃ of your life lying in bed… That’s a lot of time spend.

On the 25th of may my trip started with a 11 hour long flight straight to San Francisco to visit the Quantified Self Conference in Mountain View. The trip was funded by donations, ideas and people. Together with Martijn Aslander I’ve spent the first few days as a tourist and visited most of the spots that represent San Francisco. Then we boarded the Caltrain for Mountain View. I volunteered at the the conference which brought me way more then being just there as a guest.

I’ll figured out to publish this, not only for my archives, but also to share some insight into the data that a person could generate. Have a look at the things I’m tracking to function as an archive or feedback loop. If I have some more time, I’ll explain the things I use to make this all possible. Distance travelled (which cities did I visit?) Which people do I meet everyday?

This week I travelled to Brussels so I could give a talk at the Quantified Self Meetup group there. And I’ve been involved in the startup Scanadu which is about broadcasting your health. Together with people like Walter de Brouwer and Misha Chellam we are going to take a different approach to health. During my stay in Brussels I’ve learned a lot (including my level of French, it’s really bad!). Really liked the city though!

I am an avid user of shortcuts and like to improve my workflow and I would like to discover hidden patterns. This is what happens next. When I bought my Mac 2 months ago I dumped my mouse in favor of the trackpad. Did this influence my mouse/trackpad interaction? Sadly I can’t draw any conclusions about it because I switched my operating system too! However more recently I started using MacLogger and together with Jelle I’ve made some custom python and processing scripts that should offer more insight into my mouse usage.