Lifelogging Defined: You needn't wear a camera!

I was recently asked if I was still lifelogging even though I said I was not bothering to wear a camera. Similarly, Chris Anderson made comments that he doesn't lifelog. This prompted some clarification.

LIFELOGGING, the Bell-Gemmell definition is RECORDING (and saving) EVRYTHING.

• Whether something e.g. continuous time lapse photos, voice, video is recorded is: 1. techno economics plus can you do it;  2.  a matter of utility (i.e. personal economics is gain worth the pan), and 3. legality.  I never felt the SenseCam sequences were particular useful YET and I only used it for about 150  x 5 to 8 hours . Technology i.e. storage has to be essentially zero to want to retain the 20 plus Terabytes that is required for life and this may come when the imager has everything and the software to make it useful to aid memory recall.
• Gemmell’s company, Trov records and maintains a history of all of one’s stuff for insurance, valuation, trading, sale, etc. is a great example that lifelogging is increasing, not decreasing.
• More than ever being able to retrieve everything in life that “matters” is more than ever really critical. One aspect, of lifelogging that arose as we finished what amounted to the building of MyLifeBits, according to Bush’s Memex Blueprint was that personal info became distributed everywhere i.e. FB, Twitter, LinkedIn, bank, broker, etc. In this regard, a UK company, Digi.Me does scrape and maintain all of these data. I am an investor.  Also Evernote claims 100 Mega users... and OneNote similarly facilities storing everything
• Finally, I do my best to record every heart beat as I commented earlier 
• So bottom line,
  • SenseCam streams: don’t bother unless you have nothing in your life, although these tiny worn cameras do record interesting sequences for walks and meetings where you want to remember everyone. Things couldchange if audio recording weren't so illegal and socially unacceptable.
  • Your Stuff (use Trov): Yes keep track of valuable stuff cause you are its caretaker;
  • All  written and read and said communication: by all means including phone calls and general conversation if that becomes legal and socially acceptable;
  • Financial, and legal including personal transactions: Absolutely;
  • Physical activity and health: yes especially if you have a chronic health condition like everyone in the US AND are able to benefit by it (I'm on my 2^nd bypass and 3^rd pacemaker.

Here’s a comment I made to clarify issue of lifelogging and recording images.

We defined lifelogging to be the recording of every aspect of one's life including messages, photos, phone calls, and the constant imaging using the SenseCam for the purpose of memory recall, health, education, personal management, etc.   Unfortunately, the world focused on lifelogging to mean the constant recording of images--something I haven't found useful to do. Nevertheless I see an eventual path to such a future.  Meanwhile the world seems to be taking more pictures than ever, especially of themselves with smartphones.  Personally I still never delete anything that comes through my computer and consider this eMemory, the ground truth while using my bioMemory for URL and meta-data to it. 

Furthermore, about when our book, Total Recall, came out in 200, the  QS -Quantified Self groups started forming and today seems stronger than ever. I tend to define QS is a subset of lifelogging. 

Quantitative Self (QS) Silicon Valley meetup video, Gordon Bell, August 2010

From the Quantitative Self Meeting Notes 13 August, 2010.

"At the Bay Area QS Show&Tell meetup, Gordon Bell, legendary lifelogger at Microsoft and co-author of Total Recall gave a candid, engaging talk on his MyLifeBits project. He showed pictures from his SenseCam that takes a picture every 20 seconds while he's wearing it. He generates 1 GB of data per month, including a screenshot of every website he visits and the hundreds of pages of health records from his multiple bypass surgeries. Gordon considers his data to be a surrogate memory - he doesn't look at it unless he needs to remember something specific, and he enjoys making films from the pictures. Resources that he mentioned using include an Oregon Scientific pedometer and the Canyon Ranch preventive health resort in Lenox, Massachusetts. 

Watch the controversy below that emerged when Gordon speculated that if he had been wearing his heart monitor strap while bicycling, he could have prevented his last heart attack - a cardiologist in the audience disagreed that the tracking could have saved him."

http://www.kk.org/quantifiedself/2010/09/gordon-bell-on-mylifebits.php

Should recording a cop in a public place be illegal?

You'd think that recording what a police officer says in a public setting would be fair game, but in some places it isn't:

Drew is a free-speech advocate; his State Street appearance was part of an ongoing protest against a Chicago law restricting where artists can sell their wares. A Chicago police officer noticed Drew in the off-limits area, and told him to move along.

Drew was hoping to get arrested to test the city's law; he got his wish. Prosecutors charged him with two misdemeanors. He was not expecting what came next. After police found a small recording device in his belongings, Drew was charged with a felony for violating the Illinois eavesdropping law, which requires all involved to consent to any audio recording

Full article at NPR

NY Times: How to Lose a Legacy

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/12/how-to-lose-a-legacy/?scp=1&sq=%22lose%20a%20legacy%22&st=cse

On July 12, 2010 Ellen Lupton wrote about the conflict of legacy artifacts:

"An “heirloom” is an object steeped in family history, handed down from generation to generation: your mother’s wedding dress, your grandma’s espresso cups, your great uncle’s underwear. You can’t buy an heirloom at Pottery Barn or Ikea. It comes via gift, bequest or a heated sibling brawl. But who’s to say you actually want this stale old stuff?

The desire to pass objects on to one’s offspring is part of our longing for immortality. Even folks in the “die broke” crowd, determined to enjoy their remaining assets rather than leave them to the ungrateful grandkids, may secretly hope the family will love and honor their dearest possessions. In a culture of scarcity, useful things are rarely discarded, but in a land of superabundance and incessant newness, inheriting a household packed to the windowsills with books, furniture and memories of drunken holiday infighting can be more burden than blessing."

Total Recall covers this conflict.  Jim and I wrote about the other side--too many have a claim to a single artifact.  To us the issue is clear--get rid of physical stuff and replace it with more accessible and reproducible bits hat you can enjoy more often through a screen saver or videos.  Pass on the artifact while you have control and insure that it goes to someone who will appreciate it. Capture the precious artifact or whatever in gory detail including video, audio recordings, photos or 3 D photos and then share these bits widely with all of those who would have otherwise "fought" over it, or who would have discarded it.

"Digital genome" safeguards dying data formats: The Planets Project

This is an effort to preseve the plethora of digital formats for posterity, something we call the "Dear Appy" problem caused by varying media, operating systems, databases, applications, etc.  The Reuters article describe the project as:

"SAANEN, Switzerland (Reuters Life!) - In a secret bunker deep in the Swiss Alps, European researchers have deposited a "digital genome" that will provide the blueprint for future generations to read data stored using defunct technology.
...scientists carried a time capsule through a labyrinth of tunnels and five security zones to a vault near the slopes of chic ski resort Gstaad.
The sealed box containing the key to unpick defunct digital formats will be locked away for the next quarter of a century behind a 3-1/2 tonne door strong enough to resist nuclear attack at the data storage facility, known as the Swiss Fort Knox.  
"Einstein's notebooks you can take down off the shelf and read them today. Roll forward 50 years and most of Stephen Hawking's notes will likely only be stored digitally and we might not be able to access them all," said the British Library's Adam Farquhar, one of two computer scientists and archivists entrusted with transferring the capsule.
The capsule is the culmination of the four-year "Planets" project, which draws on the expertise of 16 European libraries, archives and research institutions, to preserve the world's digital assets as hardware and software is superseded at a blistering pace. 
 "The time capsule being deposited inside Swiss Fort Knox contains the digital equivalent of the genetic code of different data formats, a 'digital genome'," said the grey-bearded Farquhar, coordinator of the 15 million-euro ($18.49 million) project."

 http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64H4GE20100519 for the full story.