It is pretty amazing, but in a way, Wolfram is also demonstrating how not to do Quantified Self: the point is not stamp-collecting, but data-collecting + experimentation + analysis. Right now, Wolfram has maybe #1 and #3, but he doesn't have any of #2, and he doesn't seem to really appreciate this:
> And as I think about it all, I suppose my greatest regret is that I did not start collecting more data earlier.
Hopefully he can change that. For example, his observation about the 7% use of the backspace key is an obvious one. If he eliminated backspace entirely, he could speed up typing by as much as that much - nontrivial given how much time he apparently spends on email! An experiment would be using some typing tutor program for a few months and seeing whether the keylogging notes a decrease in backspace.
Good point. When I saw his email volume, I wondered how I would feel looking about at an entire decade and seeing how much time I spent on emails. I'd probably feel a lot of regret. But like you're saying the point of QS shouldn't be regret (or novelty), but identifying a 'problem' and fixing it asap.
Do they actually work for coder-style usage? Would I actually be faster in Emacs if I was constantly looking to see what my keyboard had been redefined to this time?
Intellisense/autocomplete in Eclipse and Vim is the one are of desktop computing where I do get assistance, and it works great. It's not autocorrect, but it's two characters and then tab of crtl-space or whatever and tab or arrow key to the word of my choice.
> And as I think about it all, I suppose my greatest regret is that I did not start collecting more data earlier.
Hopefully he can change that. For example, his observation about the 7% use of the backspace key is an obvious one. If he eliminated backspace entirely, he could speed up typing by as much as that much - nontrivial given how much time he apparently spends on email! An experiment would be using some typing tutor program for a few months and seeing whether the keylogging notes a decrease in backspace.