emilga

This 90min video by the Dobson himself is a great explanation of how to build one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snz7JJlSZvw

Caesar was said to prefer the company of fat men, with the implied causation that happy -> fat.

From WikiQuote [0]: "It is not the well-fed long-haired man I fear, but the pale and the hungry looking."

And from pg's determination essay [1]: "That's why Julius Caesar thought thin men so dangerous. They weren't tempted by the minor perquisites of power."

[0] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Julius_Caesar [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/determination.html

Here's a good documentary about Stuxnet as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGGxqjpka-U

It's also amusing to see a mathematician be more convinced by the computer simulation than the proof.

I've never tried the PAO system, due to the startup costs of pre-memorizing 100 person-action-objects.

But a simpler alternative which requires less work up front is the Major System (sometimes called the Phonetic system) [0].

The way it works it by assigning each digit a sound-value (or family of sounds). To remember a number, you then convert the digits to the letter-sounds, and fill in vowels that don't have a digit value to create words.

E.g. to remember Boltzmann's constant, I do this:

1.38 x 10^-23

1 has the letter value "t" or "d". So I use the word "tea" ("e" and "a" have no digit value), to remember the digit 1.

The 38 is converted to "m" and "v", which becomes "movie".

23 becomes "n" and "m", or "nemo", the fish from Finding Nemo.

Putting it all together it becomes: Ludvig [1] walking on bolts (= Ludwig Boltzmann), and in his right hand he's holding a old VHS movie on top of which balances a cup of hot tea. In his left hand he holds a frozen (to indicate the negative sign in the exponent) Nemo.

To make it memorable you can make this scene as vivid as possible: Ludvig is a cautious character who sniffles a lot; walking on bolts would hurt and make it difficult to balance the cup of tea on top of the movie; the frozen fish would be cold and slippery in the hand; the tea would smell nice; etc.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemonic_major_system [1] https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/525793520662380544/w9GJ... A character in an iconic Norwegian film.

Robert Bjork [0] talks a lot about this, in particular in [1], and also in his 1h long lecture "How we learn vs how we think we learn" [2].

It's important to distinguish between "performance" (how well you're doing right now) vs "learning" (how well you do after some time delay).

Compare blocked practice with interleaved practice. Suppose you're practicing calculating the area of different geometric figures of types A, B, C, etc.

Blocked practice means you do problems in the order of: AAAABBBBCCCC, etc.

Interleaved practice means you mix them up: ACCBAABACA, etc.

Blocked practice increases your performance (how well you're doing right now) because problems of the same type cluster together, i.e. you're able to "cache" the right formula and just plug in the numbers. But this doesn't help learning, because you're not practicing recognizing what features of the figure should prompt you to retrieve which formula from memory.

Interleaved practice reduces your performance, because more cognitive effort is required to retrieve the right formula, you might get it wrong, etc. But it improves learning, because you're training yourself to recognize which figure requires which formula.

So "desirable difficulties" can be introduced (of which interleaving is one) to increase learning at the cost of reducing performance.

[0] https://bjorklab.psych.ucla.edu/research/ [1] https://youtu.be/gtmMMR7SJKw [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxZzoVp5jmI

The problem with skipping memorization of concepts after having understood something is that two months later, you'll have forgotten those concepts.

The key realization, for me, is that conceptual understanding, intuitions, and key insights are themselves just pieces of information that can be memorized.

E.g.: Q: How to derive Bayes' Theorem? A: Write P(A and B) two different ways.

The ancient Romans and Greeks were known to use the Memory Palace technique, as other commenters here have mentioned. (It's mentioned by Cicero, in Ad Herrenium (of unknown authorship), and St. Augustine, among others.)

This was continued into the middle ages, by e.g. Christian monks, see Mary Carruthers' work [0], and the Rennaisance (e.g. Matteo Ricci), see e.g. Frances Yates.

For non-western uses of the memory arts, I'd recommend Lynne Kelly. She writes about aboriginal Australians' use of songlines, the African Luba people's use of lukasas, etc. (Lynne Kelly has done multiple podcast interviews that make for fascinating listen, as she's both an accomplished practitioner of the memory arts as well the history behind them.)

For a modern, practical introduction, Alex Mullen has some great youtube videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2_Zsm4K3xE&list=PL5fi_YS6Tf...

[0] Thomas Bradwardine's 14th century essay: https://books.google.no/books?id=sFxuCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT210&lpg=P...

Here’s a blind programmer using Visual Studio with a ridiculously fast TTS: https://youtu.be/94swlF55tVc

It would be so cool if the Native Americans independently discovered the Method of Loci (or something similar)! If so, I wonder if they also developed the same rules of thumb as the Greeks/Romans, like: space your loci apart, always view your loci from the same angle, store a fixed number of items at each loci, etc.

I'm aware of one interesting example where someone created a memory palace around an object that's not a building (or a route along a street). IIRC a person became blind and wanted to write a book, so s/he stored plot points at different parts of an intricate vase s/he was familiar with. (In medieval Europe, the fingers of the left hand were also used for memory purposes.)

Using a stylized bird gives you readily apparent loci: the beak, the head, each of the three feathers of each wing, etc.

Magnifying the bird and turning it into a path is clever, since your sense of place, amount of fatigue while walking, and on which side the sun hits you, would all help cement the route in your memory.

Thomas Bradwardine (1300-1349) recommends combining the two techniques. I.e. at each Loci you link together more than one item using the story mnemonic.

I think specifically I would second guess myself for the syntax of the cards I was creating - and if there was another better way to do it.

This kind of perfectionism has also been bothering me. ("I need to write the card perfectly, or else it's not even worth doing or even actively harmful.") But there's a couple of points worth remembering to change this belief:

1) If a card is bad, you will notice it when reviewing. It will be difficult to remember (i.e. you will fail the card often compared to other cards); it will be annoying to review (there's a general sense of "ugh" and/or confusion when you see the card); it will be unexpectedly time consuming to review, etc.

2) Bad cards can always be refactored. You can suspend the card (where the card is still in the database, but removed from the learning queue); reword; or split into multiple cards.

Michael Nielsen [0] gives an example of a card which asked for the syntax for creating a symbolic link in Linux. He always messed up the order of the filname/linkname, so he created an additional card that explicitly asked for the order of the filname/linkename in the ln-command.

3) The only way of learning how to make good cards is by just starting making cards, and then noticing which ones don't work.

When a card doesn't stick, it's useful to ask yourself what doesn't work and why. Is the back side surprising when you reveal it? If so, maybe rewrite the card to add more context to the front to make it clearer what you're asking for. Do you always miss one or two pieces of the answer? If so, maybe split the card into multiple cards, each of which asks for one part of the answer. (Or add an additional card to direct your attention specifically towards what you struggle with, ala Nielsen.) Etc.

4) There's diminishing returns on card improvement. Time spent on perfecting an already OK card is time taken away from creating new cards to remember new information. If your goal is to remember as much as possible in a given time, spending time on perfecting already existing cards is trade-off not always worth making. (The quote: "a poem's never finished, only abandoned" comes to mind to highlight this.)

[0] http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html

Geo-location is a fascinating topic.

Here's a Twitter thread where BBC solved a murder in Cameroon: https://twitter.com/bbcafrica/status/1044186344153583616?lan...

From a single video of the crime, they were able to figure out where, who, and when (!) the crime was committed. (Using Google maps.)

And here's Jeffrey Lewis presenting how they figured out "Where does North Korea Build Its Missile Launchers?" (1h video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9QbI8Jf4hg

Using "only" North Korean propaganda videos and commercially available satellite images and published memoirs from NK defectors, they were able to located the building where NK is making their TELs.

Does anyone have any other examples?

I agree with you that overly relying on flashcards will take away the intuition, which is critical in fields like mathematics.

Can't you just write a card that specifically asks you to give the intuition behind some concept?

E.g. "What's the intuitive interpretation of the gradient of a scalar field, \nabla \phi?" Answer: "\nabla \phi is a vector that points in the direction of greatest increase of \phi."

Etc.

More levels please! ;-)

Thanks for digging it up! :)

Do you remember roughly where you read that Feynman quote? (Or was it a video?)

I'd be really interested to read it.

Anki supports typing in the answer. (Here's the relevant section of the manual: https://apps.ankiweb.net/docs/manual.html#checking-your-answ... )

E.g. if your note field is called SpanishWord then putting {{type:SpanishWord}} in your card template means you're prompted to type the answer. (And Anki will show you a diff between your answer and the content of the field, so you can see spelling mistakes immediately.)

The pics from the Anki android app on the Play store shows how it works: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ichi2.anki...

Schopenhauer's essay on reading is brilliant and worth reading in its entirety [0]

When we read, another person thinks for us: we merely repeat his mental process. It is the same as the pupil, in learning to write, following with his pen the lines that have been pencilled by the teacher. Accordingly, in reading, the work of thinking is, for the greater part, done for us. This is why we are consciously relieved when we turn to reading after being occupied with our own thoughts. But, in reading, our head is, however, really only the arena of some one else’s thoughts. And so it happens that the person who reads a great deal — that is to say, almost the whole day, and recreates himself by spending the intervals in thoughtless diversion, gradually loses the ability to think for himself; just as a man who is always riding at last forgets how to walk.

[0] https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/essays/...

Just a suggestion:

If you download Kindle Mate (kmate.me), you can import your Kindle highlights to your PC and export them as a text file. Then you could make a script that parses this file line by line and saves it as a csv-file. Then use Anki csv-import.

EDIT: fixed the link.

As I recently learned, a dark pattern is a term used to describe deliberately misleading or manipulative user interfaces.

This twitter-account includes many screenshots for illustration: https://twitter.com/darkpatterns

Yes, it will.

Here's a good news-article [0] giving context to the report. Quote:

Director of Digital Services in the Consumer Council, Finn Myrstad, says they will now ask the Norwegian Data Inspectorate [i.e. Datatilsynet] to assess whether Google and Facebook violate the new Privacy Policy (GDPR) that has entered into force in the EU.

Furthermore:

The operation is coordinated with 23 European sister organizations in 16 countries. Of these, the Consumer Council states that 12 organizations will deliver letters to their respective data surveillance. At least six American consumer organizations are also behind the report.

[0] https://nrkbeta.no/2018/06/27/facebook-og-google-manipulerer...

"As a great Swiss historian once pointed out in another connection, history is the one subject where you cannot begin at the beginning." - J. M. Roberts

“Why should the laws of nature care about what I find beautiful?”

This article is a nice counterpoint to Paul Dirac's speech in favour of mathematical beauty in physical theories. [0]

Some quotes from Dirac:

What makes the theory of relativity so acceptable to physicists in spite of its going against the principle of simplicity is its great mathematical beauty. [...] We now see that we have to change the principle of simplicity into a principle of mathematical beauty.

Interestingly, he also says:

For example, only four-dimensional space is of importance in physics, while spaces with other numbers of dimensions are of about equal interest in mathematics.

It may well be, however, that this discrepancy is due to the incompleteness of present-day knowledge, and that future developments will show four-dimensional space to be of far greater mathematical interest than all the others.

His prediction here was almost correct. Except it was physics that started to take an interest in a higher number of dimensions.

[0] http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/events/strings02/dirac/speach.htm...

why there is a variety of e.g. beetle species inhabiting a given ecological niche, instead of a single super-optimized beetle species.

Are there really two or more beetle species occupying the same ecological niche, though? It would violate the competitive exclusion principle [0], and a quick google search doesn't return any results. (Also, the articles doesn't specifically mention niches.)

I thought the large variety of niches, each of which requires different kinds of specialization, is why there's such a diversity of beetles. (Different niches requiring different types of camouflage, different jaw-shapes, different digestive enzymes, different temperature tolerances, etc.)

It doesn't really make sense to expect a single "super-optimized" beetle, if, for examples, being able to eat food A and food B requires fundamentally different jaw-shapes.

Of course, random mutations in the genome is what makes different phenotypes possible in the first place, but (according to my layman's understanding of biology) this is already acknowledged.

And Dyson's example about a Peacock's feathers is famously explained by sexual selection.

I really like Dyson's talk about living through four revolutions, though. [1] (Space Technology, Nuclear Energy, Genomics, and the Computer Revolution.) He's a super interesting guy.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competitive_exclusion_principl...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq4p2qbE684

Is there anything about bacteriophages--including their manufacture and use--that actually makes them more "communist"?

I guess the bacteriophage RNA "seizes" the host cell's means of production (ribosomes). ;)

Kurzgesagt goes through bacterophages in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI3tsmFsrOg

I think this is the case mentioned by Kurzgesagt in the video, although he doesn't use names, so I can't be sure. Super cool, anyways!

At Phaenomenta in Flensburg there's an interesting exhibit that breaks the link between tactile sensation and visual perception:

An oval is placed flat on a table, so that you can touch it and feel it's shape.

Above it, and parallel to the table, is a lens that distorts the oval so that it looks perfectly circular.

When you trace the shape with your finger and keep your eyes closed, it feels like an oval.

When you trace the shape by looking through the lens, it both looks and feels like you're tracing a circle. The feeling persisted when I used my fingers to grip it.

Only by cupping it with my whole hand did it start feeling like an oval again, despite still looking circular. Pretty cool and weird!

Very cool lecture!

It would be interesting to hear him speak about the pros and cons of different body plans. Are three or six legged robots useful, compared to four legged ones? What about multi-armed humanoid robots?

Here's a Turkish whistled language in action: https://youtu.be/bQf38Ybo1IY?t=1m40s