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Richard Sprague
@richardsprague.com
· Jan 23
Personal Science Week - 230123 More DEXA
A fat and body composition update, plus longevity calculations
open.substack.com
Almost 3 months later, I retested my body composition with a DEXA scan from BodySpec. Good news: I gained more muscle. Bad news: I gained even more fat. Guess I'll double-down on my diet. Personal Science Week: open.substack.com/pub/personal...
More results with informal food tracking, this time with Gemini CLI and Obsidian: forum.quantifiedself.com/t/ai-assiste...
AI-Assisted Workflows for Personal Science
I’ve been trying the (free) version of Gemini CLI to see how it can handle my rough dietary notes. What I did: ▶ Click for an overview of my process Result Gemini gave me this (which seems pretty ac...
forum.quantifiedself.com
July 2, 2025 at 5:37 PM
More results with informal food tracking, this time with Gemini CLI and Obsidian: forum.quantifiedself.com/t/ai-assiste...
I stopped using dedicated food tracking apps and switched to the "Everthing App" instead. www.personalscience.com/p/personal-s...
Personal Science Week - 250508
Better food tracking with the new "Everything App"
www.personalscience.com
May 9, 2025 at 10:48 PM
I stopped using dedicated food tracking apps and switched to the "Everthing App" instead. www.personalscience.com/p/personal-s...
I tested only 12/16 on a test of how well I detect "misinformation". Does that make me a gullible fool? open.substack.com/pub/personal...
May 2, 2025 at 6:03 PM
I tested only 12/16 on a test of how well I detect "misinformation". Does that make me a gullible fool? open.substack.com/pub/personal...
If you can make it to downtown Seattle this weekend (Sun Apr 27), please join me: lu.ma/zqv9e6rh
April 26, 2025 at 1:04 PM
If you can make it to downtown Seattle this weekend (Sun Apr 27), please join me: lu.ma/zqv9e6rh
The Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1973 requires employers: "If you choose not to self-identify, your gender and ethnicity will be recorded by a representative based on visual observation." Do they use those skin color wheels from Apartheid South Africa? dynomight.net/2021/01/15/e...
What happens if you don’t fill out that ethnicity form?
Why do you have to fill out an ethnicity form to get a job in the US? What happens if you refuse?
dynomight.net
March 12, 2025 at 1:49 AM
The Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1973 requires employers: "If you choose not to self-identify, your gender and ethnicity will be recorded by a representative based on visual observation." Do they use those skin color wheels from Apartheid South Africa? dynomight.net/2021/01/15/e...
First good, balanced review I've seen of Upgrade Labs. As always, technology moves faster than science: cool gadgets appear faster than real hardcore science can prove they work.
March 6, 2025 at 2:17 AM
First good, balanced review I've seen of Upgrade Labs. As always, technology moves faster than science: cool gadgets appear faster than real hardcore science can prove they work.
Fellow vaccine believers! Prove you believe in science by getting *all* the shots possible. What do you have to lose?
March 3, 2025 at 10:30 PM
Fellow vaccine believers! Prove you believe in science by getting *all* the shots possible. What do you have to lose?
Almost 3 months later, I retested my body composition with a DEXA scan from BodySpec. Good news: I gained more muscle. Bad news: I gained even more fat. Guess I'll double-down on my diet. Personal Science Week: open.substack.com/pub/personal...
Personal Science Week - 230123 More DEXA
A fat and body composition update, plus longevity calculations
open.substack.com
January 23, 2025 at 2:15 PM
Almost 3 months later, I retested my body composition with a DEXA scan from BodySpec. Good news: I gained more muscle. Bad news: I gained even more fat. Guess I'll double-down on my diet. Personal Science Week: open.substack.com/pub/personal...
PSA to everyone concerned about misinformation and inappropriate content online. Trust me with your news feed and I absolutely guarantee you'll never see non-factual or inappropriate content ever again.
January 17, 2025 at 7:03 PM
PSA to everyone concerned about misinformation and inappropriate content online. Trust me with your news feed and I absolutely guarantee you'll never see non-factual or inappropriate content ever again.
Cooking is one of the most personal of sciences. A few tips at Personal Science Week: www.personalscience.com/p/personal-s...
January 9, 2025 at 7:17 PM
Cooking is one of the most personal of sciences. A few tips at Personal Science Week: www.personalscience.com/p/personal-s...
Can’t believe it took me this long in life to discover the moka pot.
January 1, 2025 at 12:26 AM
Can’t believe it took me this long in life to discover the moka pot.
I can’t think of a single famous person (celebrity, elected official, top CEO, etc) who died unexpectedly*. Can you?
*ie under 55, no other serious health conditions, “basically normal”
*ie under 55, no other serious health conditions, “basically normal”
Part of Dark Age 2.0 is the bizarro embrace of a twisted (read: wrong) history of COVID. Alas, many believe.
COVID was unprecedented. YES, we need to study & learn & improve. Benefits / harms of intervensions further explored. But let's not twist history to support ideological agendas.
Reminder👇
COVID was unprecedented. YES, we need to study & learn & improve. Benefits / harms of intervensions further explored. But let's not twist history to support ideological agendas.
Reminder👇
December 27, 2024 at 12:36 AM
I can’t think of a single famous person (celebrity, elected official, top CEO, etc) who died unexpectedly*. Can you?
*ie under 55, no other serious health conditions, “basically normal”
*ie under 55, no other serious health conditions, “basically normal”
Best self-tracking videos, plus more links at www.personalscience.com/p/personal-s...
Personal Science Week - 241226
Best self-tracking videos and more links
www.personalscience.com
December 26, 2024 at 11:58 AM
Best self-tracking videos, plus more links at www.personalscience.com/p/personal-s...
"We find that (1) most AI use isn't deceptive, (2) deceptive content produced using AI is cheap to replicate without AI, and (3) focusing on the demand for misinformation rather than supply is a more effective way to diagnose problems and identify interventions." www.aisnakeoil.com/p/we-looked-...
We Looked at 78 Election Deepfakes. Political Misinformation is not an AI Problem.
Technology Isn’t the Problem—or the Solution.
www.aisnakeoil.com
December 16, 2024 at 7:41 PM
"We find that (1) most AI use isn't deceptive, (2) deceptive content produced using AI is cheap to replicate without AI, and (3) focusing on the demand for misinformation rather than supply is a more effective way to diagnose problems and identify interventions." www.aisnakeoil.com/p/we-looked-...
Why don't women use ChatGPT? and what happens when inevitably they do ... plus more AI commentary relevant to investors: thewednesdayletter.substack.com/p/investai-e...
InvestAI etc. - 12/10/2024
AI for investors, explained in simple terms. An open thread updated weekly.
thewednesdayletter.substack.com
December 12, 2024 at 1:24 PM
Why don't women use ChatGPT? and what happens when inevitably they do ... plus more AI commentary relevant to investors: thewednesdayletter.substack.com/p/investai-e...
"According to researchers at Columbia University and the French National Institute, more than 6 in 10 people who share news URLs on Twitter don’t actually bother reading them" www.tabletmag.com/sections/art...
The Chained Reader
How the logic of machines makes us less human
www.tabletmag.com
December 7, 2024 at 12:37 AM
"According to researchers at Columbia University and the French National Institute, more than 6 in 10 people who share news URLs on Twitter don’t actually bother reading them" www.tabletmag.com/sections/art...
My experience with several "Biological Age" tests, plus results of a head-to-head comparison. What can they tell you? open.substack.com/pub/personal...
December 5, 2024 at 2:15 PM
My experience with several "Biological Age" tests, plus results of a head-to-head comparison. What can they tell you? open.substack.com/pub/personal...
GPT-4 could have been trained in 2012 at a cost of $5B and 3 months. State-of-the-art chips, like the kind the US restricts, offer a large cost advantage, but not an insurmountable tech advantage. epoch.ai/blog/introdu...
Introducing the Distributed Training Interactive Simulator
We introduce and walk you through an interactive tool that simulates distributed training runs of large language models under ideal conditions.
epoch.ai
December 4, 2024 at 7:54 PM
GPT-4 could have been trained in 2012 at a cost of $5B and 3 months. State-of-the-art chips, like the kind the US restricts, offer a large cost advantage, but not an insurmountable tech advantage. epoch.ai/blog/introdu...
Comedy shows have laugh tracks, so why can't Bluesky make "reply-bots" as conversation-starters. Loosen up the readers a little to encourage them to join the thread.
December 4, 2024 at 3:41 PM
Comedy shows have laugh tracks, so why can't Bluesky make "reply-bots" as conversation-starters. Loosen up the readers a little to encourage them to join the thread.
"How long have I got?" ‘Doctors' predictions for terminally ill cancer patients were inaccurate—they were correct to within a week in only 25% of cases and out by more than four weeks in a similar number.’ from BMJ study trusttheevidence.substack.com/p/assisted-d...
Assisted Dying Bill
The Problem of Predicting End of Life
trusttheevidence.substack.com
December 4, 2024 at 3:12 PM
"How long have I got?" ‘Doctors' predictions for terminally ill cancer patients were inaccurate—they were correct to within a week in only 25% of cases and out by more than four weeks in a similar number.’ from BMJ study trusttheevidence.substack.com/p/assisted-d...
Too much obsession with AGI makes AI industry leaders ignore the more important issues of how to help humans right now. thewednesdayletter.substack.com/p/investai-e...
InvestAI etc. - 12/3/2024
AI for investors, explained in simple terms. An open thread updated weekly.
thewednesdayletter.substack.com
December 3, 2024 at 4:25 PM
Too much obsession with AGI makes AI industry leaders ignore the more important issues of how to help humans right now. thewednesdayletter.substack.com/p/investai-e...
More people (not just sysadmins) should use Docker for everyday life. E.g. make a future-proof copy of your PhD source files. I dockerized my magnum opus with its mess of Zotero, R code, and data and now I never worry about moving to a new machine. It just works. hub.docker.com/r/personalsc...
hub.docker.com
December 2, 2024 at 6:43 PM
More people (not just sysadmins) should use Docker for everyday life. E.g. make a future-proof copy of your PhD source files. I dockerized my magnum opus with its mess of Zotero, R code, and data and now I never worry about moving to a new machine. It just works. hub.docker.com/r/personalsc...
Back in 2015, I was a subject in a Stanford research study where I submitted daily microbiome samples before/after a colon gut cleanse. I sent an identical sample to a DTC microbiome startup and sure enough, the results match 🧵
November 28, 2024 at 11:41 PM
Back in 2015, I was a subject in a Stanford research study where I submitted daily microbiome samples before/after a colon gut cleanse. I sent an identical sample to a DTC microbiome startup and sure enough, the results match 🧵