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I No Longer Tell My Friends about Anki/SuperMemo

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Re: I No Longer Tell My Friends about Anki/SuperMemo

#71

Post by jmnicolas »

btrask wrote: post #57
TheDong wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you really think SR is the best thing ever, don't argue with people - prove us wrong. Prove you wrong how? By learning things with it? Plenty of people already have used SR to pass tests, aid in learning a language, etc. There are scientific papers that show SR to be an effective learning tool. I really don't get what you're asking for. It's not like SR learning is going to let you "unleash your strength on the…

> Prove you wrong how? By learning things with it? The author of the article is specifically struggling with his evangelism. He says he thinks the world would be a better place if everyone used spaced repetition. I don't know (can't imagine honestly) what sort of utopia he envisions, but he needs to show instead of tell. Just like I need to. It's so insanely hard to lead people. I think the only thing that works is t…

> Why do you think you need to fill your brain with snippets of data?

Because you can combine instantly different pieces of your knowledge to attain new insights.

If it's not in your brain you might not even think of Googling it.

Re: I No Longer Tell My Friends about Anki/SuperMemo

#72

Post by _y5hn »

bnralt wrote: post #46

One of the things that's always thrown me off about the LessWrong community (I assume this article is adjacent to it because of the mention of Yudkowsky and the "I too have cognitive biases" confession) is that members supposedly strive to be aware of their own biases, but often seem extremely hostile to people with differing opinions. For instance, the reaction this article to the author's friends disinterest isn't…

The first link details how it's easy to fall into the trap of preaching the gospel to others and even making them feel bad about themselves: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6NvbSwuSAooQxxf7f/beware-of-...

I think maybe you conflate complaining with hostility. Humans, even rational ones, complain when things go counter to their expectations. It's normal human behaviour, and everyone, everyone does it. It's so universal and basic, an AI would probably not be complete without it.

Re: I No Longer Tell My Friends about Anki/SuperMemo

#73

Post by edanm »

teekert wrote: post #21

When I first got into Linux I was like this. I regret it, now I very rarely recommend someone to try it and almost never help them set it up. I guest most people here understand why, tfa is very recognizable to me. Now 20 years later I run all my infrastructure from my basement, no cloud dependency for me, my OS does not spy on me and all tools I need for day to day life are Free... Freedom!!! See I proved them wrong…

> See I proved them wrong, they should have gotten into it... Right? Wrong! Nobody cares!

You're right, just like the OP is right. The people you're talking to you don't care about the specific things that you care about (privacy in your case, improved learning/memory in the OP's case).

That's understandable - different people care about different things.

Re: I No Longer Tell My Friends about Anki/SuperMemo

#74

Post by sjy »

refactor_master wrote: post #41
henrikeh wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m always curious about the “Anki should be prettier” comment. I use Anki a lot, so I’m not in the best position to judge its first-hand impression. But, what would you say should change? Both in terms of visuals and interaction? Genuinely asking.

Have you seen the iOS app, for example? https://apps.apple.com/app/ankimobile-flashcards/id373493387 It looks just as dodgy as “doctors hate this one weird trick”, and costs a ton up front. Why would I believe something like that?

I baulked at the $25 price as much as anyone else would, so I used the free desktop app, and web app which works on mobile (ankiweb.net), for a month. After that, I was happy to pay $25 to support the developer and get the ability to edit cards on mobile and work offline.

Re: I No Longer Tell My Friends about Anki/SuperMemo

#75

Post by segfaultbuserr »

_y5hn wrote: post #70
segfaultbuserr wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> See I proved them wrong, they should have gotten into it... Right? Wrong! Nobody cares! Same experience. But now I found having a cynical mentality is actually liberating, it allowed me to mostly ignore arguments and holy wars among people regarding to the platforms I'm using. I can only say, "It's simply my personal preference, and I fully accept any good or bad consequences of my choices. Talk to me only if you a…

Having preferences and letting other people have their preferences, doesn't strike me as cynical, but of maturity.

"Works for me" is the cynical part. For example, the Chaos Computer Club once used the phrase as the catchphrase for the 33C3 conference to highlight the problem [0]. It's defined as...

> A commonly used phrase by software developers to indicate that the bug reported by a user is not repeatable on their machine, and will therefore receive no more attention. Usually connotes a dismissive approach, where anything that is not visible immediately to the developer is "someone else’s problem" and is therefore not worth fixing.

[0] https://events.ccc.de/2016/11/22/hello-this-is-33c3-works-fo...

Re: I No Longer Tell My Friends about Anki/SuperMemo

#76

Post by dvfjsdhgfv »

I've used this kind of software I wrote myself when I was preparing for University. The results were spectacular for the subjects where memorization was crucial. But frankly, using it for learning things like maths is a PITA. I found out I learn much better with traditional exercise books, comparing my answers with the key.

Re: I No Longer Tell My Friends about Anki/SuperMemo

#77

Post by sjy »

btrask wrote: post #57
TheDong wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you really think SR is the best thing ever, don't argue with people - prove us wrong. Prove you wrong how? By learning things with it? Plenty of people already have used SR to pass tests, aid in learning a language, etc. There are scientific papers that show SR to be an effective learning tool. I really don't get what you're asking for. It's not like SR learning is going to let you "unleash your strength on the…

> Prove you wrong how? By learning things with it? The author of the article is specifically struggling with his evangelism. He says he thinks the world would be a better place if everyone used spaced repetition. I don't know (can't imagine honestly) what sort of utopia he envisions, but he needs to show instead of tell. Just like I need to. It's so insanely hard to lead people. I think the only thing that works is t…

The “Feynman technique” is all about writing your own notes, reviewing them to identify gaps in your knowledge, and organising them. That is basically how you are supposed to use spaced repetition software. In this context, Feynman’s criticism of rote memorisation just means “avoid downloading premade decks.”

Re: I No Longer Tell My Friends about Anki/SuperMemo

#78

Post by watwut »

sjy wrote: post #69
watwut wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually in history less so. Unless you are learning for some kind of odd test where they will demand ton of exact dates, you are better off learning how events related to each other and how they followed. Hardest parts of physics and chemistry in understanding. Again, you can use flash card memorization here and there, but the first of it is different.

I have no formal training in history, but Anki has got me much more interested in it. Before Anki, I tended to collapse centuries of history into ‘the distant past,’ which made it hard to appreciate how events related to each other, or distinguish between events separated by years and events separated by decades or centuries. I discovered, by using Anki for an exam, that it’s relatively easy for me to remember 4-digi…

I dont have formal training either. But I found that they collapse into blob when you don't understand them. Because then you are memorizing names of events without knowing what they actually were in any detail.

Once you listen to more detailed lecture or read more detailed book, they become clearly distinct due to many small differences and stories. So misplaced event suddenly "dont makes sense", because you can explain why it could not happen then.

Re: I No Longer Tell My Friends about Anki/SuperMemo

#79

Post by teekert »

notduncansmith wrote: post #42
teekert wrote: post #21

When I first got into Linux I was like this. I regret it, now I very rarely recommend someone to try it and almost never help them set it up. I guest most people here understand why, tfa is very recognizable to me. Now 20 years later I run all my infrastructure from my basement, no cloud dependency for me, my OS does not spy on me and all tools I need for day to day life are Free... Freedom!!! See I proved them wrong…

I’m sorry you feel like nobody cares. I relate to your message, and I think soon many people will appreciate the benefit of private/wholly-owned infrastructure.

Yeah there are indeed people that care, thinly scattered around the world. I found soms nice communities, like the Jupiter broadcasting and Ubuntu podcast communities. This is where I vent my enthusiasm nowadays, and I get much better responses :)

Re: I No Longer Tell My Friends about Anki/SuperMemo

#80

Post by AstralStorm »

sjy wrote: post #77
btrask wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Prove you wrong how? By learning things with it? The author of the article is specifically struggling with his evangelism. He says he thinks the world would be a better place if everyone used spaced repetition. I don't know (can't imagine honestly) what sort of utopia he envisions, but he needs to show instead of tell. Just like I need to. It's so insanely hard to lead people. I think the only thing that works is t…

The “Feynman technique” is all about writing your own notes, reviewing them to identify gaps in your knowledge, and organising them. That is basically how you are supposed to use spaced repetition software. In this context, Feynman’s criticism of rote memorisation just means “avoid downloading premade decks.”

Sadly Feynman technique presupposes you're taking good notes.

It is also extremely labour intensive compared to spaced repetition without noting - using direct material of similar or higher level, preferably different modality - passive, creative, vision, sound, kinesthetic.

How do you note a movement? Or sound?

You'll waste some time reading material you already know, but that is the essence of spaced repetition; the use of different modality makes it much more potent.

This is what the SR tools don't get, or where you need to put in huge amounts of time building decks. Most of them pose passive problems. Even the simplest learning books have exercises which are supposed to engage active modality, on top of testing.

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