Meghan’s Data Log for 2/12/17

  • ID swipe for dining hall
  • Sent text messages
  • Used FaceTime
  • Responded to email
  • Browsed internet which added to my browsing history
  • Tapped ID to enter dorm
  • Updated Linkedin profile
  • Liked images on Facebook
  • Used Athena Cluster to print a problem set
  • Downloaded files needed to complete a SolidWorks tutorial
  • Received Venmo payment
  • Used terminal commands to complete 6.S08 assignment
  • Entered my name is the 6.S08 online queue to get help during office hours
  • Submitted my code for automatic checking on the 6.S08 website
  • Complete CMS.631 blog post

Krithi’s Data Log – 2/12

Emails sent
Internet browsing history
Z Center ID tap
Sent text messages
Sent facebook messages
Youtube video viewing history
Made phone call to a friend
Ordered food for delivery
Gave credit card information to purchase food
IPhone location tracking record
Apple maps destination record
Athena cluster printer ID swipe
Purchased snack at Verdes with credit card
Wrote notes in Evernote app
Spotify music history
Snapchat history
Accepted Venmo Charge
Transferred balance from Venmo to Bank Account
Paid credit card statement
Linkedin search history
Career Bridge job applications
Filled out Google form for 14.20
Wrote CMS.631 blog post

Kimberly’s Activity Log of Digital Data Created/Captured on 2-12-17

Time Type of Data Created Type of Data Captured Description
10:30 AM Time Phone alarm rang. Woke up, turned off alarm, and set a new alarm for 11:00 AM
11:00 AM Pictures, Emails Phone alarm rang. Checked email. Browsed Pinterest app on phone and saved pins
11:20 AM Form Submitted Add/Drop form to Registrar
11:30 AM Text Sent messages through Facebook Messenger
11:40 AM Email, Text Video, Links Sent an email that contained text, a video from YouTube, and links to websites
11:45 AM Numbers Went to McCormick’s dining hall. Swiped my ID card and returned a greenbox (logged in techcash.mit.edu)
12:30 PM Text Text Took notes in a Google Doc on the reading assignment for 6.813
1:00 PM Text Sent messages through Slack
1:15 PM Time, Numbers Ran on a treadmill (kept track of distance and time)
2:30 PM Event information Saved a Facebook event and added it to my iPhone Calendar
2:40 PM Text Sent messages through Slack
3:00 PM Text Text, Numbers Examined results/scores from an ultimate frisbee tournament. Visited teams’ Twitter accounts and filled out scouting reports in Google Docs
3:30 PM Monetary transactions Completed a transaction request on the Venmo app
4:00 PM Text Sent messages through LINE
4:45 PM Monetary amounts Monetary amounts Filled out CSS Profile (entered numbers) using data from forms. Paid a fee to submit it (recorded in credit card bill)
5:30 PM Numbers Went to McCormick’s dining hall. Swiped my ID card (logged in techcash.mit.edu)
6:00 PM Text Submitted a Google Form
6:30 PM Text IP addresses, domain names, servers Worked on homework assignment for 6.033. Used athena.dialup.mit.edu and terminal commands for DNS lookups. Submitted assignment on Gradescope
7:00 PM Text Data Worked on this data activity log
7:30 PM Text Text Took notes in a Google Doc on reading assignments for CMS.631
8:30 PM Text Submitted a room reservation form
8:45 PM Text Sent messages through Slack
9:00 PM Videos Watched YouTube videos (recorded in History)
10:00 PM Text Worked on this data activity log

Margaret’s Data Log for Sunday 2/12/17

Data created and captured in digital form on Sunday, February 12, 2017:

  • number of steps in Apple Health app on my iPhone
  • sent emails
  • saved pins to my Pinterest
  • took pictures which were saved as image files in my phone’s Photos
  • added events to the Calendar app on my phone
  • sent fb/text messages
  • filled out whenisgood form online
  • got a greenbox from dining, which was logged in techcash.mit.edu
  • created shared documents in Google Drive
  • bought pocket tissue from La Verdes, a transaction logged by the cashier into the computer
  • tapped my ID to get into McCormick Hall
  • logged progress on homework assignments in My Study Life web app
  • clicked ‘Going’ on a Facebook event
  • downloaded some files to my laptop
  • internet browsing history
  • wrote this blog post, which is saved in WordPress

Data Log – Zachary Collins

  • Debit Card Purchase – Bought coffee and food at the Student Center using my debit card; The transaction’s recorded by my bank and by Dunkin’ Donuts.
  • Dining Hall Meal Swipe – Got dinner in the dining hall by swiping my ID to access my meal plan.
  • Dorm Tap In – Every time I came back to my dorm I had to tap in to recognize my entrance.
  • Facebook Messages – Sent messages to a friend about the club we are involved with using Facebook Messenger.
  • Text Messages – Sent text messages back and forth with my brother
  • Spotify Streaming – I listened to music for a little bit using Spotify
  • Twitter Use – Went on Twitter a few times; My actions (scrolling, clicking, typing, etc.) were definitely recorded
  • Search Engine Queries – Searched a few things on Google for homework
  • Overwatch Games – Played a few games of Overwatch; Game data was definitely recorded
  • Stream Celtics Game – I streamed a Celtics game using Xfinity on Campus
  • Sent Email – I sent a few emails for a club I’m a part of
  • Downloaded Problem Set – I downloaded one of my problem sets from stellar
  • Printed Problem Set – I then printed it using the Athena Cluster in my dorm
  • Posting this Blog Post – Submitting this blog post in itself is recorded on the website

The Rhythm of Food

Google searches on the universal topic of food can tell a very interesting story about food trends. I recently came across The Rhythm of Food, a collaborative effort between Google News Lab and Truth & Beauty to explore patterns in food trends based on Google searches over the years starting from 2004. 

The one-page website provides a scrollable, rather adventurous experience of viewing food trends, starting with the rise and fall of certain diets, cuisines, and recipes between 2004 and 2016. Scrolling further yields a circular timeline for the apricot fruit with annotations that explain how to interpret the timeline. The popularity of Google searches for the food item is measured by a Google Trends score collected weekly.

Apricot circular timeline with annotations
Apricot circular timeline with annotations

A visitor to the website can view food trends by month to see what’s trending at a specific time of year. A visitor can also discover specific food trends with a more advanced search.

advanced search for food trends
advanced search for food trends

It is hard to simply stumble upon this website, and given the large collection of food items with timelines, I think this data presentation is for people curious about the seasonality of a specific food item or looking to discover food trends in general.

The website does a good job of presenting the data as a story. Each food item has its own story in the form of a circular timeline and the website presents the data visualizations in a story-like way that encourages the viewer to keep scrolling to answer questions like “What are the most common patterns?” Some timelines even have special annotations for events that triggered sudden popularity. Personally, I wish there was also a way to compare seasonal popularity between different food items in a single interactive visualization.

Tina’s Data Log – 2/11/2017

Maintaining your own data log, being mindful of the data you create, can open your eyes to the many ways you may unintentionally/unconsciously create data. And that raises the question: What counts as data? For the sake of this blog post, my working definition is that data is any saved, intelligible information or state or log that (almost) directly results from my actions.

  • Homework
    • Search history from looking up things I didn’t know about in my reading about positioning methods
    • created an basic weather checking app that sends requests to a weather API
    • blogged this post
    • highlighted and wrote notes (digital highlights and stickies) on a pdf of a reading I had for CMS.701 Current Debates in Media
    • a text file for notes on CMS.631 (this class!) readings.
  • Trip to Trader Joes
    • purchase data (credit card bill)
    • Uber request/trip/payment info
      • location data sent to Uber’s servers
  • Video for a Friend
    • took several photos
    • took several videos
    • edited these together to make another video
    • purchased a drink from a friend using Venmo
  • Social Media/Communication
    • emails and actions taken to interact w/ email (e.g. delete or star emails)
    • text messages on Messenger and over the phone
    • Facebook
      • liked a few pictures
    • every single request (HTTP, etc.) going out of my Chrome browser
    • stored cookies (visiting certain websites)
    • my Chrome web history

Reviewing my data log, I see that the majority of the bullet points I listed was media I explicitly created for human viewing. On the other hand though, the majority of data (in terms of size) was probably data that I wasn’t intentionally creating–my search/web history, HTTP requests and more.

Tricia’s Data Log 2/11/2017

  • Internet Browsing (data logged = unique/concurrent user): news, Reddit, this blog, readings for other classes
  • Email (data logged = text, files): TA staff emails, contacting professors, etc., one email had an attached html/jpg file
  • Chat/Text (data logged = text): I texted my family and talked to friends on Messenger
  • MITx progress (data logged = video views, question scores)
  • Video Browsing (prerecorded) (data logged = 1 view, other data to Google about my viewing preferences): I watched YouTube for fun and to see the Asian Dance Team (ADT) setlist.
  • Dance (data logged = video of me dancing, preferences about dances): I went to ADT auditions, and they filmed us dancing the choreography at the end. I also had to fill out a form that logged what dances I liked and my availability.
  • Music Preferences (data logged = thumbs up for songs on Pandora, stations listened to for Pandora)
  • Game Data (data logged = progress in game, network stability is also logged for League): I played Fire Emblem, Pokemon Go, and League of Legends.

Data Log: 2/11/17, Nina Lutz

Discrete Events:
  • Ordered stuff on Amazon
  • Ordered stuff on Instacart
  • Watched some YouTube videos
  • Make a Dominos order for a dorm event
  • Paid my credit card, and with my card for the things above
  • Splitwised my friend Joyce when she paid for the Uber to go to lunch with friends
  • Splitwised other friends when I paid for lunch
  • Used Lyft to get us back from lunch
  • MIT printer authentication when I printed some forms
  • Watched some Netflix
  • Blogged this post
All day: 
  • Steps counted on my phone
  • Background syncing on apps (DropBox, Evernote, Creative Cloud, iCloud) while I was doing my work on my computer
  • Social media (Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Tumblr, Snapchat)
  • Emails throughout the day
  • Text messages throughout day
  • Various MIT ID taps as I traveled through the dorms
  • Certificates and password keychain access when I was visiting certain sites
  • Various logs from my terminal when I was utilizing it to do different commands and write small pset scripts throughout the day
  • Internet history, caching, cookies, etc

Brandon Levy’s Data Log for February 9, 2017

On Thursday, February 9, I produced the following digital data:

  • Played Pokemon Go – hit the pokestop at my apartment building a bunch of times and caught a few pokemon
  • Fitbit – got 10,549 steps (met my step goal for the day despite the weather!)
  • Surfed the Internet – among many other things, I checked my email and Facebook, watched an episode of “Santa Clarita Diet” on Netflix, watched Wednesday night’s episodes of “The Daily Show” and “Full Frontal With Samantha Bee,” and used the WatchESPN app to watch the Duke vs UNC basketball game
  • Text messages – texted with a classmate about a group project and a friend about the Duke vs UNC basketball game
  • Swiped my MIT ID at a Pharos printer to print the readings for next week’s classes
  • Used my credit card to buy an external hard drive on Best Buy’s website