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How to keep track of what you've learnt

freestylemind.com

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Re: How to keep track of what you've learnt

#21

Post by tungstenfurnace »

shughes wrote: post #19
tungstenfurnace wrote: post #16

I don't think this is necessary. If something is boring, you'll forget it. If something is interesting, you'll remember it. You'll think about it a few times, and perhaps discuss it with other people. You'll link it mentally to other parts of your worldview. All these things will increase your ability to recall it when necessary, without effort. To improve memory generally, stay fit and live a sober and useful life.…

I guess, if you want to only know basic stuff. But engineers, programmers, physicists (etc..) can benefit from maintaining a large knowledge base of stuff that they wouldn't find interesting or have a conversation about. If you only try to remember stuff that interests you, you probably won't be as successful as someone who can remember even the uninteresting stuff. Besides, knowledge is a VERY powerful thing.

The ability to forget certain things is important. Knowledge advances by rejecting false theories.

Scientific and engineering knowledge fits together because reality is consistent. So it isn't necessary to memorise everything.

Rather than trying to 'drill in' certain pieces of essential info, it's better to improve the state of your mind, so that your memory works better generally. We waste a great deal of vitality by overeating, watching TV, etc. It seems to dull the mind and the memory significantly IME.

Forcing yourself to memorise stuff that doesn't interest you will tend to shut the mind down. It's like being at school.

Re: How to keep track of what you've learnt

#22

Post by christopherolah »

zzzmarcus wrote: post #8

This is a different method, but for the last few years I've been using Personal Brain ( http://thebrain.com ) for note taking on pretty much everything I read. There's a free version available that is unrestricted enough for most uses. Think of it as a mind map where every node has the potential to be the central node and where connections can be made from any node to any other. Mine, for example, has several thousan…

It'd be cool to make a whole desktop UI around that. Very cool.

Re: How to keep track of what you've learnt

#23

Post by Devilboy »

DenisM wrote: post #4
3pt14159 wrote: post #2

If someone made a really intuitive web app for this I would totally use it. Usability would be key though. Painless to enter data, easy tagging system, and easy wandering system to keep on top of everything.

Making an intuitive app would be half the problem. The other half is finding enough customers to pay for it - there is no obvious way to segment and/or target users, other that a single life-hacker post that you're going to get.

Make it free for users and work out how to monetize the aggregate data (sell it to Google?) somehow

Re: How to keep track of what you've learnt

#27

Post by mahmud »

camccann wrote: post #14
sam_in_nyc wrote: post #12

Interesting choice of image. The gears cannot turn. http://www.freestylemind.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/brai...

Maybe I'm being obtuse, but why not? The radius and tooth count appear to be the same on all four, and the directions of rotation match if each turns opposite the two it touches.

Because the gear movement vectors add up to a vector equal to the applied force, but opposite in direction :-D Remember, the magnitude and direction of a vector are the sum of the magnitudes and directions of the vector components. If you applied a given force to any of the gears, in any direction, you could tabulate the resulting forces and directions and add them up. What you will have then, for the image, is a four quantities of equal magnitude but where the odd numbered quantities have opposite sign than the even number quantities. Classic parallelogram.

Say, you applied a force to the green gear to move it clockwise, let's call it +N (for positive force of magnitude N; we chose +ve to mean clockwise.) All four gears are of equal size, so they have identical torques; they will all move by the same speed. Taking friction as negligible, we can expect any gear to produce a force of the same magnitude as that applied to it, but with opposite direction.

So back to the green gear, when we apply a clock wise force of magnitude N, it gives us back a counter clockwise for of N, which acts of the yellow gear (or the red one, if we choose to.) Yellow one is acted upon by +N, and it in turn gives us -N back (a counter clockwise one.) Feed that to the blue one and you get +N, which acts on red to give us -N.

Now, a force of -N is exerted by red upon green; BUT! we are applying a force of +N to green! What's going on?

The two forces cancel out and you have nothing.

Re: How to keep track of what you've learnt

#28

Post by c00p3r »

If you want to master a new technique on your sport, the best way is to repeat it as many times as possible until it becomes second nature for you.

Wrong. The best way is to create as many as possible associations of different kind - abstract, visual, verbal. The net of connected associations (or a mental map) is the key, not a while loop.

Write a list, picture your associations. Read aloud and capture it to a webcam. Then listen and watch yourself. That's much more useful than repeated reading.

Re: How to keep track of what you've learnt

#29

Post by atlei »

c00p3r wrote: post #28

If you want to master a new technique on your sport, the best way is to repeat it as many times as possible until it becomes second nature for you. Wrong. The best way is to create as many as possible associations of different kind - abstract, visual, verbal. The net of connected associations (or a mental map) is the key, not a while loop. Write a list, picture your associations. Read aloud and capture it to a webcam…

Well, you're both right, as you are talking about two different types of memory.

Associations are best with "normal" memory, but with sports (or piano/instrument playing, or touch-typing etc) we're talking about muscle memory, and there is no way around repetition-repetition-repetition

Re: How to keep track of what you've learnt

#30

Post by RiderOfGiraffes »

sam_in_nyc wrote: post #12

Interesting choice of image. The gears cannot turn. http://www.freestylemind.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/brai...

I believe you to be mistaken. The green and blue can turn clockwise, the yellow and red anti-clockwise.

They can turn, but it requires an external driving force.

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