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I put my whole life into a single database

howisfelix.today

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Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#101

Post by slfnflctd »

sbcorvus wrote: post #49

This looks like it requires a heavy amount of discipline to track everything consistently over time. How do you build that into your daily routine?

Capturing data was the main bottleneck I ran into years ago when I tried something similar with a little MS Access database. I spent lots of time making it pretty and defining fields and data types, but actually typing stuff in? I lost interest quickly.

It's possible the friction could be reduced here by having some kind of Generative AI try to help capture data, but then you'd have to verify that it was being done correctly... honestly, I think it's simply not practical for most people to do this.

Real life is messy. How much time you want to spend on recordkeeping to make it seem less messy or make you feel like you have more control is up to you. But sometimes it's better to embrace the mess and let go of control, in my opinion. Chances are, no one's going to care about whatever you do here in 100 years. YMMV as always.

Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#102

Post by ajstars »

The hardest part of this kind of personal data system is retrieval not storage. At some point you have more data than fits in a prompt, so you need to decide what's relevant per query. Did you build any ranking or filtering logic, or do you query specific tables directly?

Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#103

Post by bede »

> Probably obvious for many, but I didn't realize ACs don't transport any air into the room, but just moves it around

I had the same epiphany as you days after acquiring a CO2 monitor. Most people notice poor indoor air quality from proxies such as humidity and temperature. AC (without ventilation) eliminates these and tricks our senses very effectively, giving us cool and fresh feeling indoor spaces full of CO2 and devoid of oxygen.

Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#104

Post by dansmith1919 »

lejalv wrote: post #38

A simple back of the envelope calculation shows that Felix causes between 70 and 110 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year just from flying. Paris accord says 1.5t per person per year, from all activities, Felix's flying alonre is ~10-15x current European yearly per person emissions and ~50-75x those compatible with +1.5C.

That was my main takeaway as well. How do you do this without any shame? My man is emitting an amount of CO2 on par with an small African country

Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#105

Post by Noaidi »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #78
Noaidi wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone with Schizoaffective Disorder Bipolar Type, if you are not diagnosed with a mood disorder, tracking "swings in you mood" when you have no clinical disorder seems like a disorder of its own. I have had people tell me they were "manic". Then I showed them videos I took when I was manic and they see what I mean when I tell them they are not manic. We have come to a place where we do not want even normal fluct…

Maybe for some it's a lot more extreme than for others, but even if it's not so dramatic as to be categorized as a mental illness wouldn't you want to know if, say, there were a direct correlation between whether you went for your morning run and your mood later in the day?

Is this something that needs to be tracked to bring into your awareness? We have a memory storage device sitting on top of our spine. When I drink I feel drunk. Easy. If the change is noticeable you will notice it and remember it.

I am just trying to save you time and escape the cycle of "optimizations" which is where all this data logging leads.

Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#106

Post by lezojeda »

lejalv wrote: post #38

A simple back of the envelope calculation shows that Felix causes between 70 and 110 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year just from flying. Paris accord says 1.5t per person per year, from all activities, Felix's flying alonre is ~10-15x current European yearly per person emissions and ~50-75x those compatible with +1.5C.

[dead]

Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#107

Post by aurmc »

brodo wrote: post #4

The takeaways at the very bottom of the page are valuable: > Overall, having spent a significant amount of time building this project, scaling it up to the size it’s at now, as well as analysing the data, the main conclusion is that it is not worth building your own solution, and investing this much time. When I first started building this project 3 years ago, I expected to learn way more surprising and interesting f…

I ended up doing something similar to this project a year or so ago: for nearly an entire year, I tracked every single thing I ate or drank.

Who knows how many hours I spent scanning nutritional facts on the backs of boxes, estimating amounts of liquids, and even tracking sips of water. And weighing myself! Thank goodness I used a "smart" scale at least, and I didn't have to worry about carefully inputting my weight to an app each time.

But the whole project was an exercise in perfectionism. "I have to remember this sandwich and log it the next time I'm alone" made me anxious, but once I logged it, I felt a sense of completion. The database and my personal history are now at nirvana. Everything is complete.

All for me to learn things every human alive knows today: eat more food and you'll gain weight; eat less food and you'll lose weight. Yes, I can now tell you the exact average difference in calories I'll eat, statistically speaking, on a day that I have adderall in the morning vs a day that I don't. Yes, there's a similar (but much smaller) difference in average calories per day if I have caffeine in the morning as well. And I can tell you that I generally eat an additional 200-400 calories per day on a Fri-Sun than on a Mon-Thu. Wow, groundbreaking.

I've always had a lot of water, but matching foodanddrink.csv to my HealthKit data showed that I have more water on days that I walk more steps. Mildly interesting to see it written out for me? I guess. But was it worth cataloguing every cup of water? Absolutely not.

Was any of [gestures broadly at me pulling out my phone and cataloguing each item I ate] necessary to learn that? Of course not. It gave me a chance to look back at the database and say "Wowee! I did that! Every day for a year, wow, I'm so cool!" and not much else.

Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#108

Post by cobertos »

brodo wrote: post #4

The takeaways at the very bottom of the page are valuable: > Overall, having spent a significant amount of time building this project, scaling it up to the size it’s at now, as well as analysing the data, the main conclusion is that it is not worth building your own solution, and investing this much time. When I first started building this project 3 years ago, I expected to learn way more surprising and interesting f…

> however retrospectively, it did not justify the hundreds of hours I invested in this project.

Trying to extrapolate this conclusion to the entire "quantified self" movement is not correct. The issue is the time cost, not the act itself. If a trusted company came along (as if...) that sucked up this much data to allow you to answer these questions with minimal effort, I'm sure this would be a different story.

Anything at the fringes of tech with no tried and true solution requires hundreds of hours of effort. The author's conclusions are also personal, there are other styles of living and conclusions to be drawn that change the calculus on whether to do it or not.

Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#109

Post by piva00 »

oldandboring wrote: post #19
stevekemp wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similar epiphany a few years back when I started wearing a step-tracker/sleep monitor. It was kinda interesting to see how many times I woke up, or track hours, but to be honest I realised after a few months that when my tracker said "You had good sleep", or "You had bad sleep" I was already aware - I woke up smiling, or grumpy depending on how I'd done. I didn't ever look at the data and think "I want to go…

Same. I had a Garmin for about 6 months and I eventually just stopped wearing it and sold it. Knowing how many steps I took today, checking it several times a day to see if I was meeting my goal, knowing how many vertical feet I skied.. none of this data ended up meaning anything to me.

The best use I got from my Apple Watch was to use the companion app of my gym routine tracker (to track current loads and personal best) and play music so I didn't have to bring the phone to the gym.

That was it, I got extremely annoyed by notifications so over time just disabled them. Also for some reason the heart rate monitor glitched a couple times, got alerts about my BPM at 180+ while I was sitting on the couch.

Eventually I just stopped using it and now sits in some drawer.

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