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the rise of self-tracking - nest0r - 2010-05-03
The Data-Driven Life
"... Until a few years ago it would have been pointless to seek self-knowledge through numbers. Although sociologists could survey us in aggregate, and laboratory psychologists could do clever experiments with volunteer subjects, the real way we ate, played, talked and loved left only the faintest measurable trace. Our only method of tracking ourselves was to notice what we were doing and write it down. But even this written record couldn’t be analyzed objectively without laborious processing and analysis.
Then four things changed. First, electronic sensors got smaller and better. Second, people started carrying powerful computing devices, typically disguised as mobile phones. Third, social media made it seem normal to share everything. And fourth, we began to get an inkling of the rise of a global superintelligence known as the cloud...
...
... The contrast to the traditional therapeutic notion of personal development is striking. When we quantify ourselves, there isn’t the imperative to see through our daily existence into a truth buried at a deeper level. Instead, the self of our most trivial thoughts and actions, the self that, without technical help, we might barely notice or recall, is understood as the self we ought to get to know. Behind the allure of the quantified self is a guess that many of our problems come from simply lacking the instruments to understand who we are. Our memories are poor; we are subject to a range of biases; we can focus our attention on only one or two things at a time. We don’t have a pedometer in our feet, or a breathalyzer in our lungs, or a glucose monitor installed into our veins. We lack both the physical and the mental apparatus to take stock of ourselves. We need help from machines.
Watch out for those machines, though. Humans know a special trick of self-observation: when to avert our gaze. Machines don’t understand the value of forgiving a lapse, or of treating an unpleasant detail with tactful silence. A graph or a spreadsheet talks only in numbers, but there is a policeman inside all of our heads who is well equipped with punishing words...
... Electronic trackers have no feelings. They are emotionally neutral, but this very fact makes them powerful mirrors of our own values and judgments. The objectivity of a machine can seem generous or merciless, tolerant or cruel. Designers of tracking systems are trying to finesse this ambivalence...
... This mechanical empathy, barely more human than a recorded voice on the customer-service line, can hardly be expected to fool anybody. But a long line of research in human-computer interaction demonstrates that when machines are given humanlike characteristics and offer emotional reassurance, we actually do feel reassured. This is humbling. Do we really feel better when a computer pats us on the back? Yes, we do... "
Hmmph. No mention of Anki! ;p
the rise of self-tracking - delenir - 2010-05-13
I hope to see more mention of SRS in the future... Anki is literally the way I can measure my progress with Japanese in numbers. Everything else is just feeling or self-evaluation.
the rise of self-tracking - kainzero - 2010-05-13
I dunno...
I'd feel better talking in Japanese and not having to ask for what something means as opposed to getting a good score on JLPT1...
the rise of self-tracking - Womacks23 - 2010-05-13
kainzero Wrote:I dunno...They go together. I've never met a person who could pass JLPT1 with a good score and couldn't speak Japanese very well.
I'd feel better talking in Japanese and not having to ask for what something means as opposed to getting a good score on JLPT1...
Though I have met a ton of people who could speak Japanese very well and couldn't pass even JLPT2.
the rise of self-tracking - ta12121 - 2010-05-13
Womacks23 Wrote:This largely depends on what skills have been trained or obviously has put a lot of study into. My speaking has improved actually, although my understanding/reading is probably my higher strengths. I'm not worrying about JLPT 1 actually, cuz if you just read a lot of Japanese and can understand it solidly. I don't see any problems with passing JLPT 1, obviously studying will help even more,which is beneficialkainzero Wrote:I dunno...They go together. I've never met a person who could pass JLPT1 with a good score and couldn't speak Japanese very well.
I'd feel better talking in Japanese and not having to ask for what something means as opposed to getting a good score on JLPT1...
Though I have met a ton of people who could speak Japanese very well and couldn't pass even JLPT2.