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Ask HN: How do you memorize things you read?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you memorize things you read?

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't sure so had to ask. Where you making a joke? Did the sde have actual measurable perf problems?

The lack of recall led to severe perf problems. He had a hard time fixing bugs quickly on code he had written. A significant change from the past, I presume he has started smoking a lot of weed.

This can also be caused by persistent sleep problems, which a lot of people have had during the pandemic.

Re: Ask HN: How do you memorize things you read?

#82
post #60

Organization & Repetition. Any material which is worth knowing, but that will not become part of a routine (i.e coding patterns or structures that would be used everyday) which would enforce the learning through repetition will need to be reviewed/used/consumed at regular artificial interval instead. I've had a personal wiki for years, and moved to Obsidian.md two years ago. Content that I find usefull or worth keepi…

I like this approach. I'm likely to overload future me though. How do you determine where the limit is?

It is a balancing act, and it changes over time.

What I considered important to review at X interval last year, is perhaps not that important this year and so I lengthen the time between reviews (simply move the link).

And at some point the content is firmly embedded and does not need regular review.

Re: Ask HN: How do you memorize things you read?

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can vouch for this. I just gave an SDE a bad performance review because he could never recall any code he worked on or how it worked…

Is there scientific evidence linking marijuana to memory loss ?

Yes, although as always with drugs I am sure plenty of people will say that all those studies are flawed or biased.

You can see it change rat brains:

> As people age, they lose neurons in the hippocampus, which decreases their ability to learn new information. Chronic THC exposure may hasten age-related loss of hippocampal neurons. In one study, rats exposed to THC every day for 8 months (approximately 30% of their lifespan) showed a level of nerve cell loss at 11 to 12 months of age that equaled that of unexposed animals twice their age.

It has measurable effects on human performance:

> Among nearly 4,000 young adults in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults study tracked over a 25-year period until mid-adulthood, cumulative lifetime exposure to marijuana was associated with lower scores on a test of verbal memory but did not affect other cognitive abilities such as processing speed or executive function. The effect was sizable and significant even after eliminating those involved with current use and after adjusting for confounding factors such as demographic factors, other drug and alcohol use, and other psychiatric conditions such as depression.42

https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/mari...

Re: Ask HN: How do you memorize things you read?

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds more like they’re burned out. Subordinates going from great to terrible usually means the business is failing them, not they suddenly “started smoking a lot of weed”. I would take a hard look at your job as a manager.

No, he smells like pot.

Perhaps you should consider your part in that. Or if you could have had a more positive impact on his life apart from kicking him when he was down.

Re: Ask HN: How do you memorize things you read?

#86

Maybe your mind cannot be applied this way. I recognize you are being proactive by asking here, but the people you are competing against do not have this problem.

I have considered this. However it seems nonproductive because it just encourages me to give up. Better to assume it's possible and try.

Re: Ask HN: How do you memorize things you read?

#87
Summarize what you read. I started doing it by writing a tl;dr for each chapter and at end of the book a make a summary of the most important things. This is also handy to keep the summary digital to go back years after and have a quick read.

Apps changes but my current setup is using onenote and make pictures of important passage and summarize the book in a file.

Re: Ask HN: How do you memorize things you read?

#88
post #86

Maybe your mind cannot be applied this way. I recognize you are being proactive by asking here, but the people you are competing against do not have this problem.

I have considered this. However it seems nonproductive because it just encourages me to give up. Better to assume it's possible and try.

Okay, well the flip side is that the CFA pass rate is 25% so most of the people up to that point do have issue with both retention and applying what they learn

Curious to read other people’s strategies here

Re: Ask HN: How do you memorize things you read?

#90
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very much this for me. It's the reason I wrote notes instead of typed them in college. The intention was never to use the note for reference, but the act of writing them enforces your memory.

I'd think that for code, typing them is more effective than writing?

I've never written down code for school notes. At least nothing more than a few lines. There is no point.
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