At Startup School NY, Chase Adam talked about winning a contest with Watsi by paying bar bouncers to not let people in if they didn't vote for them first.
This could probably be abstracted to app promotion.
I use an iOS app called, Reporter (http://www.reporter-app.com/). It prompts you with push notifications to answer a set of custom questions throughout the day- Are you looking at a screen? Who are you with? Where are you? How many cups of coffee have you had?
The reports also capture "background" data using the phones sensors: number of steps, temperature, volume, elevation, phone battery, etc.
Its great for lightweight tracking and all the data can be exported in CSV or JSON formats. Reporter can definitely help you track sleep hours, food eaten, and productivity (weight and body fat % can also be captured).
I would use Reporter app if you're on iOS. Here is a recent Ask HN thread: What apps or tools do you use to track things about your daily life? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8146114
It allows you to quickly fill out customized surveys (Your questions would be like: "Are you having a migraine right now?") and export the data in JSON or CSV formats.
I use an iOS app called, Reporter (http://www.reporter-app.com/). It prompts you to answer a set of user defined questions throughout the day- Are you looking at a screen? Who are you with? Where are you? How many cups of coffee have you had?- through powerful surveys.
It also captures "background" data using the phones sensors: number of steps, temperature, volume, elevation, phone battery, etc.
Its great for lightweight tracking and all the data can be exported in CSV or JSON formats.
Definitely go with Python if you know some R. Check out Learn Python the Hard Way (http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/). Either save the pages or just buy the book. It will be challenging, but you'll learn a lot and shouldn't need Internet, since everything is in the book.
I love PH, but I'm not so sure that's a good indicator of the hottest startups. A good amount of the hunts are just standalone products with no business around them.
Definitely not a post mortem as smoyer mentioned. Huge opportunity with the World Cup, I hope you take advantage of it. Looking forward to seeing some fast, unique insight from Champion that I could not get from my favorite sports outlets.
So are you suggesting that the interviewee goes through something similar to a portfolio? These are some of the projects I have done in the past, I wrote this code here to solve this problem, etc. I agree with something along the lines of "the best predictor of future performance is past behavior," but it could be hard to keep a consistent--dare I say level--playing field that way.