what is the problem when you brain forgets things that are not important at the time? Your brain is working as designed.
Ask HN: How to remember technical topics which you don’t use/refer everyday?
61–70 of 82 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to remember technical topics which you don’t use/refer everyday?
#62Learn the basics of how human memory works, and techniques for making knowledge stick in long-term memory. Here's a few resources that teach this at an approachable level: [1] A Mind for Numbers (book): https://barbaraoakley.com/books/a-mind-for-numbers/ [2] Learning How To Learn (Coursera course): https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn [3] Make It Stick (book): https://www.retrievalpractice.org/make-it…
Third-ing the use of Anki, and I found it weirdly inspirational to watch YouTube videos of how Med Students use the system. It's some combination of being energized by their go-getter attitude, and being deeply relieved that I'm not in their shoes
Forthing the use of Anki. I actually do most of my studying on mobile, using Ankidroid. And though it works great on a regular LCD phone, I absolutely love it on an E-Ink ebook reader. I personally use the Barnes and Noble Nook, because you can install Ankidroid and a launcher in ten minutes without root on that device.
Re: Ask HN: How to remember technical topics which you don’t use/refer everyday?
#63I really don't think there is a way to get around repetition and practice. I am a competitive Rubik's Cube solver, and memorizing algorithms for instant recall is a big aspect for obvious reasons. If I go a couple months, without practicing, I need to brush up on algs.
Moral of the story, it is possible to get to the point where stuff is in your memory for a couple months comfortably. But beyond that you will have to do a bit of memory maintenance.
Re: Ask HN: How to remember technical topics which you don’t use/refer everyday?
#64No post body was provided.
Re: Ask HN: How to remember technical topics which you don’t use/refer everyday?
#65Make notes, in private and in public. I have a private "notes" repo on GitHub where I keep notes in the issues (the repo itself is empty). Any time I'm trying out a new piece of software I open an issue there, then add notes on the issue comments as I figure things out. I use GitHub issues because they have excellent backups and they show up on GitHub search - plus there's a really good API which I use to periodicall…
Clever use of private repo + issues. I wonder if you could give a screenshot of one of your "WIP" issues, to show what sorts of things you write down? What are some examples of "issues" that you currently have open?
Re: Ask HN: How to remember technical topics which you don’t use/refer everyday?
#66Make good friends. The beauty of a university campus is subject matter experts on anything are close by.
I used to think that Internet would make this easier but it's not the same as running into friends(with diff expertise) on campus everyday. You share your day to day probs. They share theirs. And connections across knowledge maps stored in different chimp brains happen.
Re: Ask HN: How to remember technical topics which you don’t use/refer everyday?
#67A set of three foot pedals: one for screen recordings, another for instant replay, and another for quick voice notes.
Usage: mash the leftmost pedal to toggle recording the screen; mash the middle pedal to save off the past 30 seconds of my activity (usually along with me verbally narrating what I'm doing, an oddball habit that has paid dividends thanks to this config) and finally, push-to-talk (drops an .mp3 in the appropriate folder; I usually just have it work the same as the leftmost pedal (i.e. saving an .mkv which just so happens to have user audio) because I'm too lazy to bash-script ffmpeg and OBS is already open.
Hardware: I have a tri-pedal set, made by the same manufacturer documented in the 'Vim Clutch' article here on HN (I'm too lazy to go find the URL but it will come up easily in a search.) The pedals are mapped to shortcuts in OBS for the functions described above.
Software: OBS Studio, Gnome desktop (NixOS), and Input Remapper. (More on this last one further down.)
Caveat: This currently only works under Xorg (not Wayland) because Wayland doesn't let OBS grab shortcuts outside its own window (Wayland is such a Karen.) There's a workaround that I'm working on, but it involves an OBS plugin called obs-websocket and a straightforward bit of Python scripting that I have nonetheless yet to finish, as well as Input Remapper (https://github.com/sezanzeb/input-remapper) so Xorg it is for now.
For bonus points, I made the destination folder the 'attachments' folder in my Obsidian vault. Then I can index them by subject, a task that is surprisingly entertaining, as links from topic pages in Obsidian.
Honestly. I don't remember how I thought before. This is the perfect thinking machine.
Re: Ask HN: How to remember technical topics which you don’t use/refer everyday?
#68Simply reading stuff is like passively watching TV/youtube. It evaporates fast. Active learning involves your hands. Two techniques work well for me.
First, I write code to understand the essence of a piece of software (I have written basic TCP/IP/ARP stacks, a Java compiler, a virtual machine, a database, a neural net library etc). It is a joy to write code for an audience of one when you don't have to worry about error handling!
The second is to add an entry to a diary recapping (in your own words)your own understanding of the topic. In my PhD days, I put everything in a single Word doc; I chose Word because I could draw diagrams in it, search with regexes, and the file was available offline. By the end, the file was thousands of pages long. Here's what I had in it.
1. For every paper or blog post I read, I put the paper's name, the URL, author's name (in BibTex form, but that's not germane to your issue). I captured my understanding of the paper (about half a page) and put together a list of questions for which I needed answers. There were some papers that went right above my head, so that entry was all questions. I had back and forward references to other entries in the form of embedded links. This exercise (it turned out) helped me smoke out scenarios that the paper had not mentioned. That becomes the basis for critiquing and comparing.
2. When my understanding of a topic improved, I would go back and fix some of the outstanding questions, along with a meta comment about what it was about my previous understanding that I couldn't answer the question in the first place.
3. I had design ideas, little bits of code, benchmark results etc all in a single linear order. When my advisor asked what I was up to, I could quickly look up the log of entries.
It is ok to forget; no one can remember it all. Just capturing the essentials and being willing to work from first principles is good enough for most interviewers.
Re: Ask HN: How to remember technical topics which you don’t use/refer everyday?
#69flashcards works for me..there will be certain technical material that i need to know but not regularly use. i review it once every 1-2 months and i can recall about 80% of the material. the big break through for me was using blank poker cards to make the flashcards. 3-5 card sets can usually cover a books worth of material.
in the past i've tried digital apps like anki and quizlet but i'd inevitably get distracted. the point is to come up with a system of review that matches your personality. if you want to remember stuff long term the big supported by science is spaced repetition.
the other system that works but is much harder is to teach someone. pretending to teach a class also seems to work...point is to explain it at level that a new person would understand forces your mind to really delve into the topic.
Re: Ask HN: How to remember technical topics which you don’t use/refer everyday?
#70The answer is: you don't have to remember it because tech changes too fast.
For example, knowing how to configure your network is useless if you only need to do it once every five years because (sadly) the UI will have changed anyway.