The Column

Motto: The Quantified Masses, The Hunt for Ripped October, The Yes Man Cometh, All Other Potential Names I wrote this big huge long piece about the quantified self, but posting it now seems like beating a dead horse. There was one particularly important bit that I don't want to kill, so here's my "one last thing": The quantified self movement has been edging in on "mainstream" for years now thanks to Fitbit, Jawbone, and Nike. I think it is about to get a violent shove into the limelight by both Apple and Google. Apple's HealthKit (the heart on the right) and Google Fit (the heart on the left) are two platforms for health and fitness being built into the two dominant Operating Systems of the day. Apple's introduction of iOS 8 earlier this week gave the world the Health app - a central repository for all of your quantified health and fitness data. The Apple Watch will be a member of a large category of devices that feed data into this platfo...

Motto: Focus, by Marc Jacobs I'm writing this post in First Watch. If you don't know what First Watch is, I feel bad for you, and it is a breakfast & lunch restaurant that serves up the manifestation of deliciousness. My last (extremely long) post covered the year wrap up of the Life Tracker. I have come to additional conclusions since I wrote that post. For example, check out the standard deviation of my calorie intake by day of week: What does that chart show? Statistically, it's showing the standard deviation of my calorie intake by day of week. What that means is this: I eat most consistently on Tuesdays for some reason. Friday has the widest variety of calorie totals. I have not been tracking thing for the past week... and it's been crazy. It's not healthy, but I think the best part about working out, or eating healthy, or accomplishing a lot was the moment I got to write down at the end of the day "Aaron did well". I did yog...

Motto: Aaron, Meet Aaron This post is going to be long, but it's kind of a big deal. Hopefully some of you find it interesting. Last week I added the 52nd "weekly summary" into my Life Tracker. That means I've successfully tracked one full year of my life. With that, I've decided to call an end to the Life Tracker and claim victory in accomplishing the longest-running, most intense project I ever took upon myself. For those of you paying keen attention, you'll notice that I didn't start this project last September; I started it last March. I took off a week or two every now and then (including all of July, 2013), so getting 1 year's worth of tracker data actually took 17 months. Although I may not have tracked as consistently as I would have hoped, I managed to keep the project running for a much longer time than I anticipated going in. Along the way, I learned a ton of useful information. The idea came to me when I realized how unstructured an...

Motto: My Grass is Blue This is going to be a fairly short post. From last Wednesday to last Sunday Melissa and I attended the 43rd Walnut Valley Bluegrass Festival. Here are some reflections from my mini-vacation. The environment at Winfield is a completely unique and an absolute joy. Nowhere else would you ever find such a large, dense grouping of nice, accepting, and perhaps most of all talented people. Everyone camps at these festivals. The campgrounds are full up with tents, RVs, campers, bivvies, you name it. Melissa and I got to try out our new camping gear, which we were impressed with. Bluegrass attracts a wider variety of people than you'd expect. I learned this my first time at Winfield. I relearned it my second time. I cannot play music on anything. The older I get the more I resent that fact about myself. Melissa is trying to remedy this, but it's a slow process because I'm stubborn and particularly "average" in that area. Weaving between cam...

Motto: Infall Klocka Two weeks ago I wrote about how excited I was for September . We are not quite halfway through the month, and it's already been one of my favorite on record. There have been so many landmarks, milestones, good things, and good days. As of noon yesterday, I've been an early adopter of the Moto 360 smartwatch. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's this: The Moto 360 runs an Operating System designed by Google called "Android Wear". At its core, Android Wear is meant to be an extension of your phone, not a replacement of it. The user experience is built around quick, lightweight interactions with the device. If you are using Android Wear correctly, you shouldn't be gawking at your own wrist for 20 minutes at a time. That's not something we want. That's not a compelling user experience. That's not what will drive smartwatches to the masses. The watch keeps your interactions with it short and sweet by ...

Motto: Apple iWatch Air S C Plus Apple's iPhone 6/iWatch announcement happened yesterday. Here's a 10 point overview: 1. There are two new iPhones, the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 plus. 2. The iPhone 6 is 4.7", the 6 plus is 5.5". 3. Apple is FINALLY trying to replace the wallet with "Apple Pay". 4. Apple Pay uses NFC, something the iPhone has been lacking for years. 5. Apple announced the Apple Watch... it's not the "iWatch". 6. Apple Watch uses a rounded square form factor, with a squared screen. 7. The watch uses several input interfaces - a button, a dial/button, and a dual-mode touch screen. 8. The watch will also come in two sizes. 9. The watch will have tons of straps to choose from - a surprising amount of focus was spent on the straps. 10. The watch will sell for $349 (or more) and won't be available until 2015. Here are my thoughts, I'll keep this short: The iPhone 6 I think 4.7" is really a sweet spot in terms of s...

Motto: "What running features should each Column have?" Five months ago I wrote a feature post titled "Minimalist Thought Experiment". In that post I gave a definition of the phrase "thought experiment", ripped straight from Wikipedia. What I didn't say was how they are related to my life. I do thought experiments all the time. I love them. It's so fun to take something you know, throw all of your preconceived notions out the window and take a fresh look at it. You start with a very fundamental question. After the question is well defined, you start thinking of a broad outline of stuff. You take big strokes to cover all the facets of the problem. After you're fairly certain the 20,000 ft view looks about right, you start getting down to specifics. If it sounds like no fun, then you just haven't asked the right question. Thought Experiments I've Done: *Note these first 3 or 4 are very similar in spirit. EDC What minimal s...