As a self-proclaimed “science evangelist”, my favorite XKCD of all time is this one:

One day a few months ago, I suddenly decided I needed to get the “Stand back, I’m going to try science” shirt, but instead found that my favorite comic has been turned into a shirt! After getting it, I noticed that most of the shirts had models posing with the shirts, but not for this one because it was so new. Hence it was decided that I should be that model! I purchased a cheap Beanie Baby shark off eBay, a balloon, and borrowed some stuff from lab… and here they are:

Check out the rest here!

The up-and-coming website About.me is a personal splash and analytics dashboard. I was amongst the first group to check out the site. Check out my profile at http://about.me/jun/.

I jumped immediately and snagged the username “jun” since it’s usually taken early or too short. Although, now it feels somewhat of an oddball since it’s not consistent with my normal username.

The site is pretty basic, as it is suppose to be, I suppose. I do like the excuse to put a gigantic picture of myself on the page. I feel all bold and important, but I need to take a better and more recent picture. There’s limited customization, such as font and placement of the text box, but one can do a lot with manipulating the background. There’s a lot of potential for creativity. The current site connections are Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, tumblr, WordPress, Blogger, posterous, flickr, TypePad, and foursquare. I imagine this list will expand. Clicking on the icons open up pop-up feeds.

The second part of their pitch is an analytics dashboard:

Since I don’t use Facebook anymore, it’s only analyzing my Twitter. The number of tweets per week would be fun to watch. Although pure numbers hardly mean much. It would be more interesting to compare yourself against others. Hence I like EngageRank better. Plus, EngageRank uses a fancy statistical algorithm so it must be awesome :)

It would be interesting to see how About.me takes off. Will it replace business cards as the first access point for finding someone? Will it stay in tech crowds and be the directory of who to know in the tech world? Or will it just be pages with pretty backgrounds? There’s lots of work and potential ahead.

I’ve had my Fitbit for over two weeks now (after 3 months of waiting on back orders) and I am very pleased with it.

The Device
The Fitbit is small, fashionable, and can easily slide onto the rim of pants and undergarments. The display shows how many steps, miles, and calories burned in the given day as well as a flower indicating how active you have been. The battery life is excellent. I’ve only had to charge it once thus far (usually last 7-10 days). There is a mode to track “activities” such as exercise, sleep, or just to track how many steps it takes to go from point A to point B. The device is simple and sleek.

Web Integration
The web integration part of the Fitbit is the biggest seller. Unlike most pedometers that just give you a number that you will surely forget and becomes meaningless, the Fitbit tracks everything online. Data is sent wirelessly via a small USB reciever. Since I use a laptop and sometimes go on trips, I just plug in the reciever for a few minutes every day or every few days. The device can store 7 days of data.

The Fitbit tracks the number of steps and calories burned for every 5 minutes and plots them on the web interface. Over the course of the day, you can clearly see when you are most active, somewhat active, or sedentary. I was amused to see the exact times I sat down to eat or work on the computer. It also plots everything over the course of a month. You can set goals for each day and there is a progress bar showing your accomplishments.

Additionally, you can log food and approximate calorie intake via their extensive food catalog. However, it’s much easier to log processed meals than ones made from scratch. Either way, the approximations help give an idea of what we intake on a daily basis and how much exercise it takes to burn it off. Fitbit also allows you to log your water intake, sleep, weight, mood, and journal entries. You can connect with other Fitbit users to encourage eachother to uptake a healthier lifestyle.

Affecting Healthy Behavior
I’m not much of a health freak, but the Fitbit has changed a few of my eating habits or at least it has made me more aware. For one, I hate exercising and justify my lack of exercise by the fact I walk a lot at work. Indeed, at work I walk around 14,000 steps a day (twice the average Fitbit user), with my top record at 16,375. However, because I’m hardly “active”, I only burn around 2000 calories a day. This is still decent since I intake about 1600 calories a day. However, on weekends, my step count got to as little as 3000 steps (average 7000) and I didn’t even want to calculate the calorie count. Hence, it would be better to exercise, but at my current rate, things kinda even out and I am still relatively active (80-90% better) compared to the average user (7251 steps) and can maintain my weight.

Secondly, I think twice about eating snacks. It’s not just that it is empty calories, it’s also because I’m too lazy to go log it on the website. I have started drinking more water, but still have never made the recommended 64 fluid ounce. I have started watching my sodium intake as it is very easy to surpass the 2400 mg recommended per day. (It is now recommended to be 1500 mg.)

Lastly, I’ve found myself doing extra jumping jacks at the end of the night in order to round out a number of steps.

In summary, the Fitbit is a good $100 spent! It keeps detailed step metrics, plots them out on easy-to-read charts, and raises general awareness of food intake and exercise.