Against 3x Speed • Hacker News Board

Re: Against 3x Speed

#281

Post by semireg » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

I haven’t read the whole article but I’m deeply opinionated about this topic.

I was a good but not great student in college. The computer science classes bored me to death.

Years later, post college, I wanted to learn iOS mobile app development. I used the Stanford lecture series but couldn’t stay focused until … I tried 2x speed. All of a sudden it started making sense. When I got lost I hit pause, rewound, watched a few min at 1x.

My feeling is that teaching and learning are gears in a machine. If they are mismatched in speed the student either gets lost, or purposefully gets themselves lost by daydreaming.

10 years later I still listen to podcasts and watch most of YouTube at 2x. It’s a sweet spot for me.

When listening to a very interesting podcast (shout out to How I Built This w Guy Raz) I’ll often pause to write down notes, but I’m almost never feeling like it’s too fast to ingest.

Sometimes I’m self conscious that I talk too fast around other people - giving them information overload. Too bad my brain and mouth don’t have a 1/2x button. Ha!

Re: Against 3x Speed

#282

Post by opportune » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 5:40 PM UTC

turdnagel wrote: post #240

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100%! This reminded me of a similar lesson beaten into us _repeatedly_ in college. I would study for a test and feel like everything was crystal clear. Then i walk into the exam and get absolutely destroyed by stuff i thought i understood.. over and over again. It was (unfortunately) a common experience. Seeing the answers afterwards, they usually involved facts i knew applied in a way i could not. That experience co…

I also had a similar experience in college, but I'm having trouble understanding what the lesson you learned was. Did you eventually improve?

I think this is a problem solvable by doing practice problems.

For me with Math this is something I learned the hard way many times. In more advanced math tests you will be asked to prove something novel (to you) using skills/material from the covered subject. So it’s not enough to know the theorems, you need to understand them at a deeper level so you can apply them in new situations or use a similar practice from the theorem to prove something similar.

This is pretty straightforward for most math/physics/other stem courses since they’re usually accompanied by problem sets in their textbooks, and it’s rare to have to do absolutely all of them as HW.

Re: Against 3x Speed

#283

Post by biesnecker » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 5:46 PM UTC

semireg wrote: post #281

I haven’t read the whole article but I’m deeply opinionated about this topic. I was a good but not great student in college. The computer science classes bored me to death. Years later, post college, I wanted to learn iOS mobile app development. I used the Stanford lecture series but couldn’t stay focused until … I tried 2x speed. All of a sudden it started making sense. When I got lost I hit pause, rewound, watched…

I'm in a similar boat. 1.75x is probably the best speed for me for most speakers, but until I was able to speed up audio/video I also had a really hard time paying attention in lectures / watching informative content.

Re: Against 3x Speed

#284

Post by fatbird » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 5:48 PM UTC

I know many teachers, and none that would agree that what they're doing is filling a cup. None stand there lecturing students, and expect them to recite it back. They all work hard to come up with different exercises, presentations, etc. just to do what the author says is necessary: creating direct experience. It's a core precept of modern education theory that experiential learning is best. His discussion of schools is a strawman.

Re: Against 3x Speed

#285

Post by exikyut » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 5:50 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #148

Thlom wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. Especially Youtube videos explaining and showing something really simple that takes like 5 seconds but they go on for 10-15 minutes. I suspect it has something to do with Youtubes algorithms that encourages creators to make long videos.

In part. There was definitely a 10 min target time for a long while. However, a lot of TV shows - particularly USA ones seem to needlessly repeat everything like there running a lecture for amnesiacs. Here's what we're going to say in the first part, here's the first part, we say what we said we would, now a recap, then a break so we review the whole first part ... now we're 10 minutes into the show and we've seen ab…

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/08/15/tell-em/

Re: Against 3x Speed

#286

Post by deltaonefour » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 5:50 PM UTC

colanderman wrote: post #247

Barrin92 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They will spend an entire sentence adding no content to what they conveyed with the first word It might actually be worth considering if that's the result of people truly adding nothing, or if it's the result of not being attentive enough to how others communicate, and what they communicate. People pause for good reasons and they repeat themselves for good reasons that aren't always obvious. It takes time to mull ov…

If I can predict exactly which words someone is about to say, the words add no information for me. Maybe they are there due to the confines of grammar, or maybe they are useful to other listeners, but they are not useful to me , and I can afford to speed through them. I will pause and replay if I was wrong.

I am also a logical automaton robot. I have no emotions. I only listen to words that are useful to me and I use predictions to increase my efficiency.

My IQ is 250. I am an android built on the planet Zweebs.

Re: Against 3x Speed

#287

Post by exikyut » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 5:51 PM UTC

stavros wrote: post #229

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In part. There was definitely a 10 min target time for a long while. However, a lot of TV shows - particularly USA ones seem to needlessly repeat everything like there running a lecture for amnesiacs. Here's what we're going to say in the first part, here's the first part, we say what we said we would, now a recap, then a break so we review the whole first part ... now we're 10 minutes into the show and we've seen ab…

https://youtu.be/7MFtl2XXnUc

aaaaaaAAAAAA𝗔𝗔𝘼𝘼𝘼𝘼𝒜𝒜𝒜ΛΛΛ

Re: Against 3x Speed

#288

Post by Ajedi32 » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 5:54 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #269

Ajedi32 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would go even further and argue that making students read or listen to lectures for any significant length of time without them being actively engaged with the lesson is sub-optimal. Newer learning systems like Duo Lingo, ALEKS, and Brilliant do an excellent job of constantly, actively engaging students with the lesson, tightening the feedback loop between teaching the student something and checking whether they ac…

While Duolingo is certainly better than the previous school standard of “here’s a textbook, here’s an audio tape to play on loop”, it’s nowhere near the level of a private tutor. I’m currently nearing a 2000-day streak and have repeatedly gold-starred the German course as they add more content, and Duolingo isn’t the only app I’m using. Despite this, while my vocabulary is OK, I don’t conjugate even close to correctl…

Sure, but it's also nowhere near the price of a private tutor. Regardless of subject, I don't think giving each student their own human private tutor is feasible. I've become convinced interactive, adaptive, software based learning is the next best thing, at least when done right.

For language specifically, the only way you're ever going to get anywhere close to the level of a native speaker is by actually conversing with native speakers. I'm still just starting out with Duolingo, but my plan is to finish the course I'm in (or at least get a decent way into it), then switch to Tandem or some other service that lets you trade lessons with native speakers of another language.

Re: Against 3x Speed

#289

Post by austinl » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 5:56 PM UTC

“You should be extending your stay among writers whose genius is unquestionable, deriving constant nourishment from them if you wish to gain anything from your reading that will find a lasting place in your mind. To be everywhere is to be nowhere." — Seneca c. 65 AD

I used to try to read a lot of books, but when I found I couldn't discuss them in detail in a conversation or recall their key points, I thought, "what is the point?" Now I try to re-read one book I thought was meaningful for every new book. I still enjoy reading new material, so this is just a rule of thumb. There's a ton a value in re-reading things!

Re: Against 3x Speed

#290

Post by adverbly » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 5:56 PM UTC

Speeding up is an incredible tool for active consumption. As with all tools, you have to know when to use it.

That said, most simple content I consume at 2x. Slower speeds waste time and dont provide enough info per sec for me to be fully engrossed in a topic.

I make heavy use of slowing down and taking notes and rewinding.