Gary Isaac Wolf

I’m a writer and researcher currently focused on new tools to support empirical reasoning.

I’m also the founder of Quantified Self.

Previously, I was founding executive editor of Wired Digital and a contributing editor at Wired magazine, a Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University, and a visiting professor at the School of Communication, Media and Information Technology at Hanze Technical University in The Netherlands.

I enjoy hearing from people involved in personal science and the Quantified Self community. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch:

Twitter: @agaricus
Email: gary@quantifiedself.com

Right now I’m writing a book called Personal Science: Learning to Observe. It’s aim is to inspire readers to seek answers to their own questions using an empirical approach. I’m fortunate that my book has five coauthors! They are: Steven Jonas, Martijn de Groot, Sara Riggare, Thomas Blomseth Christiansen, and Jakob Eg Larsen.

Quantified Self

The Quantified Self is a collaboration among users and makers of self-tracking tools who share an interest in self-knowledge through numbers. Our first international conference was held in 2011. Here are some links to key resources and ways to connect and contribute.

QS Website
Contains the QS Show&Tell library of hundreds of self tracking talks given at our meetings, including many with transcripts.

QS Forum
This is the place to get technical self-tracking questions answered by an expert community.

Weekly Self Research Chat
Think of it as a lab meeting with people who actually want you to succeed. Organized with my friends at Open Humans, where I serve on the board.

Public Zotero Bibliography
Feel free to add references I may have missed. Not filtered for quality. This is meant to be an open list of scholarly publications directly relating to self-tracking theory and practice.

Some Favorites

Spaced Repetition and Memory

The Memory Algorithm
How Piotr Wozniak operationalized a century-old scientific discovery and brought the techniques of spaced repetition into modern use. Below are links to two fascinating talks by Steven Jonas about unusual applications of spaced repetition in daily life.

• Memorizing “Trivial” Information: Using Geographical Facts As a Lattice For Knowledge.
• Memorizing My Daybook: Trying to Create Explicit Knowledge of Every Calendar Day

Wild Markets

Mushrooms and gold. Among the most and the least perishable commodities. And yet, subject to strangely similar booms and busts. Over the years I’ve written two long stories about the remarkable mushroom hunters and gold prospectors Cathy Wood and Shawn Ryan, which, if current speculations bear out, will someday be a book, movie, and a dubious but irresistible .eth domain.

• Background to my reporting on the gold discoveries in the Yukon Territory.
• From the New York Times: Magic Mushrooms and Gold Mania in the Yukon.

Tracking Emotions

• Can we feel good and bad at the same time? A guide to the “bi-polarity controversy.”
• John Cousins on Word Completion.
  This QS Show&Tell talk illustrates how to use a daily word completion test as a mood tracking instrument.

Editorial Archive

I’ve been meaning to restore my editorial archive since redoing my site, but haven’t gotten around to it. For now, this search link will get you roughly to the right place: “Gary Wolf” site:wired.com