2679: Quantified Self

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Quantified Self

Title text: It's made me way more excited about ferris wheels, subways, car washes, waterslides, and store entrances that have double doors with a divider in the middle.

Explanation

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Cueball (presumably a representation of Randall in this comic) is talking about how he embraces the quantified self, a popular philosophy promoting monitoring yourself with devices and data in the hope to help your well-being. He claims to apply this philosophy to his life, but as is usual for Randall, he does so in his very unique and absurdly humorous way, with help from a smart watch or handheld mobile device.

Typically, fitness apps and wearable devices will track the number of steps that users take and distances walked or run, along with other measurements such as heart rate, blood oxygenation level, blood pressure, and mood. This is to encourage users to be more physically active. However, Randall has chosen to track a modified version of this metric, in which his path is post-processed by contracting it. Ordinarily, people begin and end their days in bed; in this case, it can get 'caught' where Randall has passed through topological tunnels. (See 2658: Coffee Cup Holes and 2625: Field Topology for details.) In the comic strip, we see that, over the course of his week, Randall has looped around his house twice (which could itself conceal any number of activities, so long as he left through his front door and returned through his back door) and crossed under two highway overpasses, a highway sign, and apparently the St. Louis Gateway Arch before almost returning home.

This comic appeared two days after Google's announcement that Maps Directions will be sortable by sustainability. This may be particularly notable because of tech industry discussions between employees and executives about cost-benefit analyses comparing sharply increased profits and productivity from work-from-home to the value of coastal region commercial office space holdings and leases, relative to scope 3 emissions.[1][2][3][4][5][6] Please see 2207: Math Work.

The title text mentions concepts useful adjuncts for such measurements and evaluations, such as passing (one way) through any tube, tunnel, ferris wheel, car wash, water slide or double door frame made of solid material that could thus capture the imaginary string and help to keep its ultimate distance as lengthy as possible.