Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Exist

exist.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 108 posts

Re: Exist

#91

Post by tel »

_mulder_ wrote: post #67

Micro-analysing ones life in this manner is wrong and counter productive on so many levels. Knowing how many tracks you listen to a day is interesting trivia only. Knowing how long you sleep for each night could be useful, but only if you have a problem with sleep and know, scientifically, what you're looking for. If you're consistently missing out on sleep and feeling ill as a result, you shouldn't need exist.io to…

I agree completely. I believe that this information is useless trivial unless it's (a) embedded in context and (b) consumed experimentally.

By "embedded in context" I mean you need to not just know a larger constellation of interesting information (steps, tracks, mood, location, &c) but also have available information that connects the various data points meaningfully—"I'm blue so I listened to The Cure".

By "consumed experimentally" I mean that you have to have a lever or action which you want to use conditioned on the information gathered. Simply knowing is possibly boring or creepy, but being able to change your own behavior using that information is power. For instance, the opposite causal pathway as above: "I'm listening to The Cure, so now I'm feeling blue" implies a lever you could pull to feel happier. This drives you to want to experiment.

If you have both of those then you're driven to use data like this experimentally and that's pretty wonderful. To anyone who also agrees or is just interested in what you can do with data like this I suggest taking a look at Ian Eslick's "Personal Experiments" [0] which helps direct a user to collect data and invoke an N-of-1 experimental design atop the collection.

[0] https://personalexperiments.org/

Re: Exist

#92

Post by bertil »

mjewkes wrote: post #9

I'm waiting for someone to make a life sampling application. N times per day, for M seconds, turn on all my phone's sensors and take a short video capture of my computer screen. Then upload that data (preferably to my own server, not yours). Every couple days, I'll log on and tag the data. At 17:56 on 12/05, I was sleeping, working on X, talking to Y, going to Z, etc. Sample 3-4 times a day for a year. Should get a r…

+1 for Reporter, but also Narrative, for the automated photo part.

Re: Exist

#93

Post by nzp »

yawz wrote: post #38
tedks wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hardly new; people had commonplace books in the 1600's. I think QS is probably more popular in communities like hacker news because there are a lot of people here that understand: 1. Computers think faster than you 2. Computers remember more than you 3. You can use the above to solve interesting problems. Combine that with pervasive computing/surveillance and you enable yourself to remember arbitrary amounts of…

1. Computers think faster than you Not yet. But they make calculations faster.

Not really. I'd be impressed with a robot that could do bipedal gate (for example) as well as humans do, but the problem is lack of computing power. A human doing mental arithmetic is not at all representative of what and how much the brain actually does during the act.

Re: Exist

#94

Post by garrickvanburen »

brador wrote: post #56

Anyone wanna share some QS findings they've made that changed their life for the better?

A few years back, I picked up a Zeo to help answer why I didn't feel rested in the morning. If you had told me the deceptively simple answer before I purchased the Zeo, I would have dismissively laughed at you. Today, the Zeo collects dust and I'm in bed before 10:30p.

Full write up here: https://garrickvanburen.com/archive/how-i-learned-to-get-up-...

Re: Exist

#95

Post by weavie »

brador wrote: post #86
weavie wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are, but there's something about having my phone in my bed with me that makes me feel a little uncomfortable. High fatty foods are supposedly good for testosterone production. Lower glycemic foods and higher protein is good for reducing cortisol production. I have experimented with stuff like DHEA, Indole-3-carbinol and avena sativa for more testosterone and less estrogen. But as I haven't measured I can't quan…

Fascinating. I'm gonna hit up Google for more. About the sleep app and uncomfortable having your phone in bed - turn on flight mode? The main sleep app on IOS is usually $0.99 and insightful. Try it tonight. The chart after a night of sleep alone is worth it.

It's more the concern about pulling the charger cable out while sleeping and waking up without a fully charged phone, but I'll have a go, it sounds interesting. I presume there are Android versions.

Re: Exist

#96

Post by benched »

roryokane wrote: post #31
normloman wrote: post #22

How many tweets you make? How many tracks you listen to? How is this data going to help you improve your life? Tracking your sleep is one thing. But most of this is just noise. The name Exist is creepy. As if, you don't truly exist until you can pigeonhole yourself into a couple of statistics. I swear, everyone here is mind blind.

“ Everyone here is mind blind”? https://xkcd.com/610/ I agree that tweets and tracks probably won’t help you notice any useful patterns. But I don’t see the name Exist as creepy. I interpret it rather as a way of saying that this is very passive software, and all you have to do to use it is to exist normally, as if it’s not there. Like existence is the context of this software, not the product they are selling.

That comic isn't one of xkcd's finer moments. It only works if all the people are coincidentally on their way to someplace like Mountain View or Redmond. You know damn right well that you're 'more conscious' than most people, and less conscious than Jeff Bezos.

Re: Exist

#99

Post by ejain »

_mulder_ wrote: post #67

Micro-analysing ones life in this manner is wrong and counter productive on so many levels. Knowing how many tracks you listen to a day is interesting trivia only. Knowing how long you sleep for each night could be useful, but only if you have a problem with sleep and know, scientifically, what you're looking for. If you're consistently missing out on sleep and feeling ill as a result, you shouldn't need exist.io to…

The best use of this data isn't for finding problems, but for evaluating solutions:

- Do I sleep better if I don't listen to techno music before going to bed?

- Does not exercising late in the evening help?

- How about not drinking coffee in the afternoon?

- Lowering the room temperature?

Sometimes the effects are obvious, but often they are subtle, and it's easy to delude yourself (for a while at least) that a solution is helping when in fact it isn't.

Re: Exist

#100

Post by xwei »

ejain wrote: post #99
_mulder_ wrote: post #67

Micro-analysing ones life in this manner is wrong and counter productive on so many levels. Knowing how many tracks you listen to a day is interesting trivia only. Knowing how long you sleep for each night could be useful, but only if you have a problem with sleep and know, scientifically, what you're looking for. If you're consistently missing out on sleep and feeling ill as a result, you shouldn't need exist.io to…

The best use of this data isn't for finding problems, but for evaluating solutions: - Do I sleep better if I don't listen to techno music before going to bed? - Does not exercising late in the evening help? - How about not drinking coffee in the afternoon? - Lowering the room temperature? Sometimes the effects are obvious, but often they are subtle, and it's easy to delude yourself (for a while at least) that a solut…

That is researcher's job. Need at least thousands ppl's stats to get a small conclusion.
Post reply on HN