[musha68k]

There is the old ops saying of "whatever gets measured, gets managed" and from my experience that is still very true. I'm not saying it's the best idea to "manage" all aspects of our lives but if you want to stay healthy and have a hard time implementing new beneficial habits, comprehensive monitoring might make the difference.

I've always hated running (last one on the tracks in high school, always) often trying but failing to pick up the habit later on during my 20s but only since the first mobile running apps came about I've been running regularly and enjoying it (I still remember my first "runner's high" I had in 2011!). That said I'm one of those old-school arcade gamers who enjoy hi-score hunting so gamification was a huge driver for me personally, people are different - do whatever "floats your boat" :)

There is just one problem I have with the whole "quantified self" (as well as IoT btw) movement which is the fact that the internet is quasi broken, you don't want to "get managed" by any third party - be it your government, insurance company or anyone secretly observing you really.

Things we therefore should be focusing on: down-to-earth complex systems design, cryptography, operating system security, etc.

In general we need to be mindful of the cultural as well as technical details of the systems we've inherited and by knowing and understanding - essentially our history - we should strive for building on top of those systems, making them more secure while still staying true to their original idealistic designs (this still includes probably many more rewrites than we care to face at this time).