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I put my whole life into a single database

krausefx.com

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Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#91

Post by josephkern »

The most interesting question is the one that cannot be answered in the context of this project.

> How does decomposing and displaying my life in a database change who I am or who I want to be?

The quantitative display is interesting as well; there are multiple sources where this information could be gathered from by OEMs. It does make me wonder if someone is using Apple Health, Apple Credit Card, an iPhone, and using Apple Music if most of this information isn't already available and potentially displayed in a similar manner.

Apple of course is just used as an example.

Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#92

Post by dmurray »

polote wrote: post #73
SamBam wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There were some, and it’s super interesting to look through those graphs, however retrospectively, it did not justify the hundreds of hours I invested in this project. This is my general feeling towards all quantified-self projects. Perhaps it creates interesting insights for some people, but I can imagine the kinds of conclusions I'd actually get from it will be things like "I'm happier on sunny days" and I'll say…

It doesn't make a lot of sense to try to correlate things with your mood that you think are correlated. Because giving a mood grade is biased. For example if you feel like you don't sleep enough, the day you will sleep a lot you will want to give a higher grade.

It's impossible to do a proper blinded experiment here, but in this case, even if you're measuring a placebo effect it's still meaningful.

If you think you should be feeling good today because you're well rested, you probably will feel better.

Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#93

Post by toto444 »

dpeck wrote: post #22
SamBam wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There were some, and it’s super interesting to look through those graphs, however retrospectively, it did not justify the hundreds of hours I invested in this project. This is my general feeling towards all quantified-self projects. Perhaps it creates interesting insights for some people, but I can imagine the kinds of conclusions I'd actually get from it will be things like "I'm happier on sunny days" and I'll say…

You’ve verbalized more about data science than most executives ever will.

Maybe the executive is asking the wrong questions and puts it on the data scientist. Hint : 'Can you create a report that shows that my last decision was a success ?' is not a good question.

Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#94

Post by mark_and_sweep »

Hbruz0 wrote: post #90

I'm very concerned about the openness with which you share your data. It's cool but damn you have so little privacy

This.

I'm surprised most sentiments on HN are "super cool" rather than "scary".

I guess some people prefer attention over privacy.

Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#95

Post by stavros »

lbotos wrote: post #86
SamBam wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There were some, and it’s super interesting to look through those graphs, however retrospectively, it did not justify the hundreds of hours I invested in this project. This is my general feeling towards all quantified-self projects. Perhaps it creates interesting insights for some people, but I can imagine the kinds of conclusions I'd actually get from it will be things like "I'm happier on sunny days" and I'll say…

For me "quantified self" has been half meditative. I have tracked daily water intake (and only water to keep it simple) and that has been a huge noticeable quality of life improvement. Waterminder on apple watch is the best. This year I added in daily mood tracking, and it's mostly focused on taking 5 minutes a day for myself to just jot notes down quickly. I'm using dailo and I have a few categories too (work good/o…

What was the quality of life improvement in tracking water intake? I find it interesting, because your body tracks it whether you want to or not, and I never found forcing myself to drink more water beneficial.

Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#96

Post by krausefx »

Hbruz0 wrote: post #90

I'm very concerned about the openness with which you share your data. It's cool but damn you have so little privacy

Author here. I actually researched & published many privacy projects (https://krausefx.com/privacy), and deeply care about being in control over your data, and being explicit about what you choose to share.

- The data is stored in my own, private database, not connected to any service - Much of the data visualised on that page, is data many larger companies already have about you. I figured, why wouldn't I want to benefit also? - The data shown above seems very personal but doesn’t actually expose any real sensitive information. For example, disclosing your current location, your home address, or stores and places you frequently visits is sensitive and potentially dangerous. Even looking at the map of my movement data on my page, you won’t get any more information that what most people have in their public Twitter bio.

I made sure all graphs are non-interactive, and had all personal information stripped out.

Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#97

Post by krausefx »

ryan_j_naughton wrote: post #28

This is super cool, but it is all manual data entry. I've tried manual data entry for tracking my personal metrics and the gaps make the data relatively useless. Consistency is key. Automation is key for 99% of the data with only a small amount requiring manual entry.

Author here. Yes, I agree. For this project, only 5% of the 383,000 data points were collected manually, the rest came from various data sources like RescueTime, Apple Health, Withings smart watch and such

Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#98

Post by krausefx »

sha-3 wrote: post #47

As totally awesome as this is, don't you have any problem publicly sharing your personal data?

Author here = I actually researched & published many privacy projects (https://krausefx.com/privacy), and deeply care about being in control over your data, and being explicit about what you choose to share.

- The data is stored in my own, private database, not connected to any service - Much of the data visualised on that page, is data many larger companies already have about you. I figured, why wouldn't I want to benefit also? - The data shown above seems very personal but doesn’t actually expose any real sensitive information. For example, disclosing your current location, your home address, or stores and places you frequently visits is sensitive and potentially dangerous. Even looking at the map of my movement data on my page, you won’t get any more information that what most people have in their public Twitter bio.

I made sure all graphs are non-interactive, and had all personal information stripped out.

Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#99

Post by [deleted] »

TomSwirly wrote: post #76
scrollbar wrote: post #7

This is super cool. In case you don't make it through to the project's webpage howisfelix.today, and read through to the end, here is the creator's conclusion: 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 s…

I think it's fascinating - and horrifying - that he tracks everything except his environmental impact on the planet. He has to be in the top 1% of polluters, given his obsessive flying and consumption of technology. Dozens if not hundreds of charts, depicting every single thing except the thing that is destroying our world. I filed an issue on his github.

[deleted]
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