
Year in Pixels - ingve
https://year-in-pixels.glitch.me/
======
kinduff
Hi HN, author here.

This is small tool I made during Friday and Saturday. The idea for this tool
is not new at all, but I've never seen this format online before.

The tool is based on an image I found on the internet[0] and was coded using a
Node.js server with basic jQuery for the frontend on the Glitch platform[1]

Hope you like it!

[0]:
[https://i.pinimg.com/736x/06/9a/02/069a02a83aca933e7a2e5edbd...](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/06/9a/02/069a02a83aca933e7a2e5edbd485703c
--life-in-pixels-my-year-in-pixels.jpg)

[1]: [https://glitch.com](https://glitch.com)

~~~
anildash
This is so cool! (I work with the Glitch team, and we loved seeing that you
mad this.) For folks who don't know, since it's on Glitch, people can view the
source and remix this here: [https://glitch.com/~year-in-
pixels](https://glitch.com/~year-in-pixels)

------
ktpsns
Btw, "Your Life in Weeks" is probably (?) the originator of this kind of
visualization: [https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/life-
weeks.html](https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/life-weeks.html)

~~~
prawn
It's incredibly sobering to see the weeks of your potential life shown like
that. You think about the weeks lost to work and weekends spent burnt out
recovering or sick or dodging bad weather. :|

~~~
n0tme
It makes me so freaking sad to see it like this.

~~~
JepZ
I wish someone would have shown me those charts when I was like 15 ;-)

------
phailhaus
Great idea for a personal tool! Two things:

The way this is organized isn't great for visualization. We read left to
right, but since days are laid out vertically this means that horizontally
adjacent cells are actually a month apart. A standard calendar interface would
be more appropriate for seeing how your mood changed day-to-day (and be less
confusing to interact with).

Also noticing that the line graph is deceptive; it only interpolates one point
for each month, by averaging the entire month together. That's more of a bar
graph.

------
chipperyman573
I made something similar to this[0] a few years ago for my own use (except I
would record my mood every hour). Honestly, using it ended up making me sadder
- most of the time you feel "meh" (5/10) and seeing that quantitatively can
really dishearten you. In fact, my average monthly mood fell from around a 6.3
to a 5.8 while using it, with no other major changes in my life.

[0]:
[https://frank.salmick.com/indexfiles/images/full/mood.jpg](https://frank.salmick.com/indexfiles/images/full/mood.jpg)
\- the red line is stress level and green line is mood

~~~
taneq
Well, given that people tend to perceive swings in things rather than absolute
values of things, wouldn't you expect to feel 'normal' unless things are
getting noticeably better or worse at that point? And given the coarse
granularity of the inputs, a drop of 0.5 seems well within what you'd expect
just from random noise.

------
braindongle
I can imagine something like this being useful in psychotherapy. Your phone
could ping you to answer once-per-day, allowing you to optionally enter
comments.

American Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry are strangely devoid of routine
outcome measurement. This would be a step in the right direction. Similar
Likert-type scales could also be useful for people who struggle with intrusive
thoughts or hallucinations.

~~~
elaus
I started using such an app (pings you each evening to choose your mood and
select some tags that describe your day).

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.daylio](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.daylio)
(not affiliated in any way)

~~~
nitemice
I've been using that app too, but I haven't found the data particularly
interesting or meaningful.

The other thing I've also been doing that I've found much more fulfilling is
writing down a daily highlight at the end of each day. I just add an event to
a dedicated calendar that summaries the best moment of my day.

It's been really interesting to look back over, and it's a great memory
prompt, because it gives me a way of looking back at the enjoyable times
throughout the year. I've been going for just over a year, and I really don't
see any reason to ever stop!

~~~
braindongle
Great idea. Especially because it's low effort. People just don't stick with
things that feel like a chore, but this just takes a moment and gets you
thinking about what's right in your life. Nice.

------
rplnt
This is nice, I would like to see an output of that, but there's no way I'd be
doing this daily through a web page. Something like a notification each day on
a smart watch (which I don't have) would work. Even phone would be a bit much
I think.

Which brings me to - definitely show the input before output on the phone. The
output is a huge empty grid for most new users, even for returning users it
might not show anything recent, input is something user would want to interact
with ASAP when using this service.

------
victornomad
I used to do the same but in analog way when I moved to the Netherlands. The
weather there affected so much my mood that I started to keep track of it
together with the daily color of the sky.

I kept a big paper sheet next to my bed with a bunch of pencils. The problem I
realized later on is that mood changes quite a lot during the day, so just
checking once a day might not be very representative.

I had "the diary" for 4 or 5 months until I moved out to a sunnier place :)

------
pisarzp
I think it’s great. I’d love to see somethin similar for chronic diseaseas.
When you see a doctor once per several months, it’s impossible to really tell
him if you are doing better or worse due to recency bias. I’d love to monitor
pain in my joints on a daily basis and have a real data points to show.

------
Camoute
Hi everyone ! The year in pixels is @PassionCarnets idea (first one is here :
[https://www.instagram.com/p/BOiEjvjA5Bm/](https://www.instagram.com/p/BOiEjvjA5Bm/)
). She explained how it works here : [http://bulletjournal.com/year-
pixels/](http://bulletjournal.com/year-pixels/)

~~~
kinduff
Hi, author here. Camille sent me an e-mail asking to add credits and I added
the corresponding text in the About section of the tool.

------
nicolashahn
Dang, I was planning on writing nearly this exact app as a side project. In
any case I've set a daily calendar reminder to update it, thanks!

------
twic
This is perhaps similar to the nikoniko board, although the point of that is
that it's public:

[http://agiletrail.com/2011/09/12/how-to-track-the-teams-
mood...](http://agiletrail.com/2011/09/12/how-to-track-the-teams-mood-with-a-
niko-niko-calendar/)

------
rayalez
Awesome app, congrats on launching! I love the idea. One thing I would change
is font, it's really hard to read now.

Shameless plug - I'm working on a similar project, a habit tracker with a
github-like heatmap(turn it on in menu>calendar):

[https://helix.startuplab.io](https://helix.startuplab.io)

~~~
eric_khun
I love the font. Was thinking to use it for one of my side project. But only
for titles , not for critical information?

------
Nr7
I like the idea. One small suggestion though. I'd change "great" to "good" or
"OK" or something. At current state the jump from "average" to "great" seems
too big to me somehow.

Edit: The difference between "Difficult" and "tough" are kinda vague too
actually IMO.

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ghotli
verbatim what i've wanted to implement. if the creator reads this, thanks.

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PotatoMatch
It's hard to tell how I feel on a given day. One minute I could be happy, the
next I could be sad. Maybe I need 'the last 20 minutes in pixels'

------
amelius
Facebook and Google probably already can tell you what your personal map looks
like for the last years.

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EastLondonCoder
Very cool! I wonder if a slightly more elaborate tool could help with tracking
of mood disorders.

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barnaclejive
Amazing = Red Difficult = Green ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

------
ktpsns
Beautiful!

