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Ask HN: How to remember technical topics which you don’t use/refer everyday?

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Re: Ask HN: How to remember technical topics which you don’t use/refer everyday?

#71

Post by sidedishes »

drakonka wrote: post #7

Sorry for the non-answer answer I'm about to give, but I don't really think you should have to keep these things in memory. At some point it becomes a waste of memory space (at least that's how I experience it). There ARE some topics I want to remember, and those I try to put in writing. Both because it helps them stick in my mind for longer and because then I have a reference to go back to if I need a refresher. I u…

I've beaten myself up many times in college for seemingly forgetting everything after classes finish. I spent a bunch of time trying to figure out how to learn and retain better. I tried Anki a bit but would inevitably forget things as soon as I stopped too. Forgetting is frustrating, and a situation where I -know- that I knew something before but not anymore is doubly so. But.. ultimately I think I've arrived at this view as well.

Your brain is not wired to remember things that you don't use. If you want to continue remembering, you have to continue engaging with the topic, and a lot of the advice in this thread is IMO just that (just, with a specific regimen / kind of engagement). It's completely natural to forget.

In fact, I'd go further and suggest embracing the forgetting and relearning cycle. If you really need to revisit the topic, you can relearn it again, and it'll be faster than the first time. And maybe you'll forget another time -- that's OK too, you can pick it up again even faster. In the end it's the discipline of relearning (the particular topic, and in general!) that actually continuously hardens. IMO there are parallels between this mindset and SRS -- though without the shame when you forget or miss a day of practice.

Re: Ask HN: How to remember technical topics which you don’t use/refer everyday?

#74

Post by lolive »

To me, you should rewrite your own version of the materials you have used to learn.

I do that in Obsidian, a personal knowledge management tool.

I copy/paste contente from the web in interconnected notes, and once the contents are no longer in their original form, but transferred into my own read/write notes, I refactor and reorganise them.

After a few refactors, some contents from different sources are now next to another in the same text. Or disappeared completely because another source has a « better » explanation. You can draw your own things, or add images from the web.

I think this process is a little bit like writing your own Wikipedia article.

The funny part is that when you come back to your notes later, you are astonished by the density of information connected together (just like Wikipedia).

Re: Ask HN: How to remember technical topics which you don’t use/refer everyday?

#77

Post by cyanf »

autoconfig wrote: post #49

Hey! As many have already mentioned in this thread, you might want to look into spaced repetition if you haven’t already. To summarize, it’s a simple algorithm that forces you to recall something at an increasing interval until it is committed to long term memory. Anki is a popular app that uses spaced repetition. I personally wasn’t quite satisfied with any of the options out there so I decided to build a new app to…

Hey, this looks interesting. What set this apart from Anki?

Re: Ask HN: How to remember technical topics which you don’t use/refer everyday?

#78

Post by annyeonghada »

digitalsanctum wrote: post #40

Prefer "learning" rather than "remembering." I prefer learning by doing and teaching others which coincide with the best ways to learn something and be held accountable. I don't remember where I first learned about learning but this pyramid gives a quick breakdown of which methods work best for retention [1]. [1] The Learning Pyramid: https://stephenslighthouse.com/2010/02/26/the-learning-pyram...

>Prefer "learning" rather than "remembering."

It is not a dichotomy and do learning without remembering does not exist unless we have such different definitions of learning that your definition does not imply any structural change on the brain.

Re: Ask HN: How to remember technical topics which you don’t use/refer everyday?

#79

Post by type-r »

autoconfig wrote: post #49

Hey! As many have already mentioned in this thread, you might want to look into spaced repetition if you haven’t already. To summarize, it’s a simple algorithm that forces you to recall something at an increasing interval until it is committed to long term memory. Anki is a popular app that uses spaced repetition. I personally wasn’t quite satisfied with any of the options out there so I decided to build a new app to…

Active Recall looks compelling but it makes me uncomfortable that it says "try for free" but there's no mention of pricing that I could find. What's the planned business model? As a user of Anki for multiple years now, longevity with these products is pretty important to me.

Separately, it's pretty surprising to me to see the very first review by the "VP of Engineering at Shopify" without mentioning the fact that they are an investor in Active Recall. [0] Feels like this is counter to the FTC's rules on endorsements. [1]

[0] https://www.linkedin.com/in/dalmaer/

[1] in particular, § 255.5 of https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/press-re...

Re: Ask HN: How to remember technical topics which you don’t use/refer everyday?

#80

Post by autoconfig »

type-r wrote: post #79
autoconfig wrote: post #49

Hey! As many have already mentioned in this thread, you might want to look into spaced repetition if you haven’t already. To summarize, it’s a simple algorithm that forces you to recall something at an increasing interval until it is committed to long term memory. Anki is a popular app that uses spaced repetition. I personally wasn’t quite satisfied with any of the options out there so I decided to build a new app to…

Active Recall looks compelling but it makes me uncomfortable that it says "try for free" but there's no mention of pricing that I could find. What's the planned business model? As a user of Anki for multiple years now, longevity with these products is pretty important to me. Separately, it's pretty surprising to me to see the very first review by the "VP of Engineering at Shopify" without mentioning the fact that the…

> Active Recall looks compelling but it makes me uncomfortable that it says "try for free" but there's no mention of pricing that I could find. What's the planned business model? As a user of Anki for multiple years now, longevity with these products is pretty important to me.

Hey! This will turn into a subscription service at some point but I’m still working out the exact pricing model. Any data that you put into the system however will always be available to you and exportable regardless of if you decide to pay or not. This is mentioned in an email when you sign up but I realize that the communication could be better around this.

> Separately, it's pretty surprising to me to see the very first review by the "VP of Engineering at Shopify" without mentioning the fact that they are an investor in Active Recall. [0] Feels like this is counter to the FTC's rules on endorsements.

Dion was using the product long before he invested and it’s not something that we’ve been trying to explicitly hide (as you saw on his LinkedIn profile). I have updated the review to state that he’s an investor. Thank you for calling this out.

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