Look for me at the Quantified Self!

In the surprise and delight [1] category I am absoutely thrilled to announce that I've been asked to be regular contributor to The Quantified Self, the data-driven life blog that Wired luminaries Gary Wolf and Kevin Kelly run. Out-standing! My first post is Is there a data-driven personality? A big thanks to Alexandra Carmichael for the invitation.

You might want to check out their archives, which include things like whether eating butter can make you smarter, or A Visual Guide to Cognitive Bias.

[1] The 2x2 cell I'm trying to figure out is what Expected + Delightful would be. Ideas? The others are straightforward - "Pink Slip" and "Gum Surgery", for example?

Comments

[dorijoyreader]

hello again.
somehow [i wish there would be a way to determine an algorithm for the random way i seem to find blogs that i like] i found your post on "the quantified self" and just had to check your blog, which will take a while, i assume

(i was thinking, what i really thought i wanted with that algorithm was a way to find things i like on blogs, faster than at the current rate, but i am rethinking now, that if i would find more blogs i could like per month, then i wouldn't have time to actually check them...so, in the end a question: what is the right speed to slow down?)

((i am stupefied that all my delights are of the unexpected kind, at least so far, i'll keep thinking))

[Matthew Cornell]

Hi Dori! Unexpected delights? I'm curious what seeds you put out there to get make the delights possible. Re: an "interestingness" algorithm, that's a good question. State of the art isn't there yet, I think. I explored this in "Information provenance - the missing link between attention, RSS feeds, and value-based filtering" ( http://matthewcornell.org/blog/2007/1/23/information-provenance-the-missing-link-between-attention-rs.html ) where I tried to lay out how to determine value from input sources. Collaborative filtering is a good option. But as you point out, we always want to add more, but there are limits. So a regular "media review" might be in order?

Very nice to have your comment!