4 ms·

> 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

by SamBam 5y ago

> 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 "yeah..."

dpeck 5y ago
You’ve verbalized more about data science than most executives ever will.
- hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
  It's a bit more nuanced. It's true that you do research looking for insights that would give you a competitive advantage, and you don't find many - and very often the results don't justify the cost. On the other hand, if you don't do that, you risk staying behind, so some form of data analysis is absolutely necessary for any business - you can't just run on your gut feeling especially once you exceed a certain size. As a side note, people tend to be very unimaginative in the initial stages of data analysis: very often they just take the data they have instead of thinking what data they need to have. And obviously the results correspond to the initial limitations. So much effort is put into data munging and other stages when your inputs are incomplete or plain irrelevant to what your business actually needs.
  - Breza 5y ago
    Data Science manager here. I've worked with companies that didn't know the profitability of their different client contracts because the data was stored in separate systems. Fixing that kind of thing is super profitable. Every additional data project after that adds less incremental value, and it's easy to hit the point where more analysis doesn't make enough money to be worth it.
- toto444 5y ago
  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.
  - joshspankit 5y ago
    It’s a great question when the desired outcome is climbing the corporate ladder
  - dorianmariefr 5y ago
    "Why am I the best?"
Tenoke 5y ago
It can be more useful in some cases. E.g. my Fitbit does get me to move more when I notice I've done too few steps and tracking mood, productivity etc. is much more useful when you actually try things like nootropics to actually figure out if they seem to help you.
- hanselot 5y ago
polote 5y ago
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.
- dmurray 5y ago
  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.
  - SamBam 5y ago
    "Am I really happier, or do I just think I am?"
lbotos 5y ago
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/ok/bad - food homecooked/takeout - vices) and just the space I've created to do that has been worth it. I don't expect to get anything too interesting long term besides patterns in takeout/cooking, but I find myself more connected to my day good or bad, and that presence of mind to combat the autopilot is worth it.
- stavros 5y ago
  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.
  - joshspankit 5y ago
    It’s surprisingly easy for some to get disconnected from the signs of dehydration. For example: when focused on a project I can go a couple days before realizing that I did not drink any water at all.
    - Semaphor 5y ago
      All that dehydration talk is fascinating to me. It’s like most people are aliens. I drink about 6L per day just in tap water, not including coffee and tea. I love drinking water and could not imagine limiting myself to what others perceive as their daily goal. And as the question tends to come up: I’m not diabetic, and I have a home-office job. I do vape.
    - lancesells 5y ago
      Are you not drinking anything to supplement your loss of water? You don't feel thirsty?
visarga 5y ago
It's still useful for uploading in a couple of decades. The more digital crumbs we leave, the more will be uploaded. Has anyone tried to fine-tune GPT-3 on their own comments?
- throwaway743 5y ago
  As a joke/experimental project, I trained gpt-2 (don't have access to 3) on Joe Biden speeches/interviews/press conferences, cloned his voice (mumbling and all), created a 3d model of him, and connected Twitch chat to make it interactive for the audience. Didn't do it for politics, just for lolz and prototyping a concept. Got to Twitch's advertising unlock, but stopped running it because it was a headache to maintain with my home setups/remotely. But yeah, not trained on my comments, but someone else's, and it didn't take a ton of content to get it going for gpt-2. Edit: Here's a clip for reference https://clips.twitch.tv/LovelyObedientTaroNerfBlueBlaster https://clips.twitch.tv/LovelyObedientTaroNerfBlueBlaster
scotty79 5y ago
Human life is just not that interesting it seems. Even when it's yours.

by SamBam 5y ago

dpeck 5y ago

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

hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
It's a bit more nuanced. It's true that you do research looking for insights that would give you a competitive advantage, and you don't find many - and very often the results don't justify the cost. On the other hand, if you don't do that, you risk staying behind, so some form of data analysis is absolutely necessary for any business - you can't just run on your gut feeling especially once you exceed a certain size. As a side note, people tend to be very unimaginative in the initial stages of data analysis: very often they just take the data they have instead of thinking what data they need to have. And obviously the results correspond to the initial limitations. So much effort is put into data munging and other stages when your inputs are incomplete or plain irrelevant to what your business actually needs.
- Breza 5y ago
  Data Science manager here. I've worked with companies that didn't know the profitability of their different client contracts because the data was stored in separate systems. Fixing that kind of thing is super profitable. Every additional data project after that adds less incremental value, and it's easy to hit the point where more analysis doesn't make enough money to be worth it.
toto444 5y ago
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.
- joshspankit 5y ago
  It’s a great question when the desired outcome is climbing the corporate ladder
- dorianmariefr 5y ago
  "Why am I the best?"

Tenoke 5y ago

It can be more useful in some cases. E.g. my Fitbit does get me to move more when I notice I've done too few steps and tracking mood, productivity etc. is much more useful when you actually try things like nootropics to actually figure out if they seem to help you.

hanselot 5y ago

polote 5y ago

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.

dmurray 5y ago
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.
- SamBam 5y ago
  "Am I really happier, or do I just think I am?"

lbotos 5y ago

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/ok/bad - food homecooked/takeout - vices) and just the space I've created to do that has been worth it. I don't expect to get anything too interesting long term besides patterns in takeout/cooking, but I find myself more connected to my day good or bad, and that presence of mind to combat the autopilot is worth it.

stavros 5y ago
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.
- joshspankit 5y ago
  It’s surprisingly easy for some to get disconnected from the signs of dehydration. For example: when focused on a project I can go a couple days before realizing that I did not drink any water at all.
  - Semaphor 5y ago
    All that dehydration talk is fascinating to me. It’s like most people are aliens. I drink about 6L per day just in tap water, not including coffee and tea. I love drinking water and could not imagine limiting myself to what others perceive as their daily goal. And as the question tends to come up: I’m not diabetic, and I have a home-office job. I do vape.
  - lancesells 5y ago
    Are you not drinking anything to supplement your loss of water? You don't feel thirsty?

visarga 5y ago

It's still useful for uploading in a couple of decades. The more digital crumbs we leave, the more will be uploaded. Has anyone tried to fine-tune GPT-3 on their own comments?

throwaway743 5y ago
As a joke/experimental project, I trained gpt-2 (don't have access to 3) on Joe Biden speeches/interviews/press conferences, cloned his voice (mumbling and all), created a 3d model of him, and connected Twitch chat to make it interactive for the audience. Didn't do it for politics, just for lolz and prototyping a concept. Got to Twitch's advertising unlock, but stopped running it because it was a headache to maintain with my home setups/remotely. But yeah, not trained on my comments, but someone else's, and it didn't take a ton of content to get it going for gpt-2. Edit: Here's a clip for reference https://clips.twitch.tv/LovelyObedientTaroNerfBlueBlaster https://clips.twitch.tv/LovelyObedientTaroNerfBlueBlaster

scotty79 5y ago

Human life is just not that interesting it seems. Even when it's yours.