Welcome to The Polytechnist, the personal website of Stephan Reichl, where I share Field Notes, create Action Potentials, curate my Lifestyle Syntax, and collect Practical Wisdom.
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**Fit For Science** is a deep-dive podcast hosted by Rob (The Quantified Scientist) and myself exploring the intersection of research, health tech, and data-driven lifestyle design. Join us, two biological data scientists, when we discuss how we live our best life, using science, data, tech, wearables, and systems. We provide evidence-based systems, layered with practical "N=2" personal experimentation, to cut through the noise and enable everyone to become their best N-of-1.
🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify | Watch on YouTube | Other platforms
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Polytechnist is the archaic term for a person who studied at a polytechnic, loosely translating to "skilled in many arts”. As a multi-disciplinary lifelong learner I see myself as a practitioner of many arts, striving towards mastery. Here, I want to share actionable insights and tactics from my journey in hopes of empowering others on their path to reaching their full potential.
<aside> 🎯 Target audience: Fellow lifelong learners interested in actionable tactics in Data Science, Data-driven Lifestyle, or Performance Philosophy, including my future self.
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Field Notes are a chronological record of what I am exploring, creating, testing, and learning across biomedical data science, AI4Science, health technology, and data-driven lifestyle design.
They bring together short-form posts, research and project updates, open-source releases, podcast episodes, experiments, events, and other noteworthy signals from across the platforms where I publish. Think of them as observations from the field, captured in motion rather than polished into timeless conclusions.
Action Potentials are blog posts that provide original, educational, and actionable content in a concise format (~1,500 words i.e., ~5 minutes reading time) covering (Biomedical) Data Science, AI4Science, Data-driven Lifestyle Design, and Performance Philosophy.
Each article follows the same structure by stating a clear Objective (Why), followed by a timeless Strategy (How), and concluding with actionable Tactics (What). Every post is inspired by a question from my network, this ensures that it is relevant to at least one person beyond myself.
Analogous to the firing of neurons, my aim to provide a large enough stimulus with a low threshold to trigger an unstoppable chain reaction in my readers, helping them reach their full potential. A little food for thought but mainly food for action. An antidote against analysis paralysis.
Lifestyle Syntax is a compilation of my routines (e.g., morning routine), frameworks (e.g., nutrition), protocols (e.g., workouts), and collections (e.g., packing list) ****that have evolved over time. They represent my current level of convergence (i.e., local optimum) toward reaching my idealistic full potential (i.e., global optimum).
You can view them as the ever-changing open-source code of my life, encoding how I try to program myself for success and offering a behind-the-scenes look at what works for me.
The entries aim to be minimalistic to mainly serve me and others in their pursuit of realizing their potential through self-experimentation. After all, getting to know yourself is one of life's greatest adventures, or as the Oracle already pointed out to Neo: "Temet Nosce".