7:45pm: Blogged About Lifelogging

NPR's On the Media has a transcript from an interview last week [link via Obscurestore] with Gordon Bell. He's a senior researcher for Microsoft who's trying to blog about... everything.

The generic term for this is "lifelogging" (Microsoft's name for the project is "MyLifeBits", presumably for the dual meaning of "bits" -- pieces of stuff, as well as the technical term for the smallest pieces of computer data, ones and zeroes).

It's a pretty intense concept: It means recording everything you possibly can about your life -- phone calls, e-mails, napkin notes, visited Web sites... even, in this case, wearing a camera around your neck that automatically snaps a pic every minute.

Think of it as blogging, only nuclear-powered.

In the pre-computer days, when we collected stuff from our everyday lives, most of it was just pocket junk: ticket stubs, train schedules, receipts; anything with a short useful lifespan.

Sometimes, they became materials for collages or souvenirs for scrapbooks.

Wait long enough, though, and historians start calling it ephemera.

Anyway, do too much of it, and people call you a packrat; if you're a packrat long enough, maybe eventually you'll be a compulsive "hoarder", with a house filled with junk.

With data, though, it's different, since data storage is relatively cheap, as opposed to buying a new house when your current one fills up with stuff.

How useful would lifelogging be, assuming you're not some sociologist from the future? It's hard to say, but it's a thought experiment that raises some interesting questions.

For example, even assuming this recording happens in the background (because if you had to consciously stop and record everything, you'd never be able to do anything), how would you find what you need from that mass of data?

It's hard to say "this is important data," when "importance" is relative. If you have a grease fire, knowing where you put the saucepan lid is vitally important knowledge. So maybe looking at lifelogging helps us improve the way we search and find information. (That's just an example.)

Anyway, reading about lifelogging reminded me of the things:

* When the Pentagon talks about trying  something like this, it's seen as sinister

* Who else does stuff like this? Why, the Unabomber:

"He wrote about everything. He wrote about what he had for lunch on May 5, 1979, where he got the food, how he prepared it and what did it taste like," [retired FBI Special Agent Max] Noel said.

I'm out of observations, so I will wrap this up with a relevant Steven Wright joke:

"I have a map of the United States, life size. 1 mile equals 1 mile. It's a bitch to fold it."

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: lifelog, lifelogging, steven wright, unabomber, ephemera, gordon bell, mylifebits