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I No Longer Tell My Friends about Anki/SuperMemo

masterhowtolearn.com

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

#51

Post by keiferski »

henrikeh wrote: post #28
keiferski wrote: post #16

SRS is the classic technical user situation. Anki looks like it’s from 1995 and has a massive initial learning curve with specialized vocabulary to learn (Cloze, decks, etc.) When it’s advertised, the copy is overly technical and confusing to the average person. Just look at SuperMemo’s home page, for an example: https://www.supermemo.com/en To get widespread SRS adoption, two things need to happen: 1. The primary so…

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.

I also use Anki daily. Just off the top of my head:

- The UI is an ugly light gray with too much text. I'd make the design far more minimal.

- Too much of a focus on text. Video, audio and GIFs should be more integrated into cards, especially for stuff like foreign languages.

- Way too many options: note types, sort fields, tags, on and on. I've been using Anki for years and I don't even know what half of these things do.

- The entire process of adding cards is confusing and not immediately obvious. There's not even a tutorial.

- Premade decks have zero quality control and you have to go looking for them online.

- Above all, Anki just looks and feels like a chore. When I show it to people (like OP), the overwhelming reaction is always, "Meh." There's nothing exciting, beautiful or futuristic about it.

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

#52

Post by arcsin »

btrask wrote: post #8

I say this with all the kindness that I have... this article/guy is really sad. First of all, if you think you've found the world's ultimate fighting technique, don't try to show it to random people for approval. Use it. Anki yourself in secret until you're a super-saiyan, and then unleash your strength on the quivering masses. Hear the lamentation of their women, until they are begging you for mercy and also to teac…

> Even if you want to learn a language, if you can't learn it by using it, do you even need it?

I'm not really into flashcards, but I'm seeing a lot of comments like this, that flashcards are only good for memorization. I think they're more useful than that. You can use flashcards similar to how you would train a machine learning model, large iterations of input and feedback. People who are serious about language learning with SRS don't just study words but whole sentences per card. You could probably use flashcard to train yourself in many things that would be considered skills, not just knowledge. For example, you could put chess problems with answers on flashcards. If the resolution were high enough you could probably train yourself to recognize forged paintings. Things like that.

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

#53

Post by kazinator »

keiferski wrote: post #51
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.

I also use Anki daily. Just off the top of my head: - The UI is an ugly light gray with too much text. I'd make the design far more minimal. - Too much of a focus on text. Video, audio and GIFs should be more integrated into cards, especially for stuff like foreign languages. - Way too many options: note types, sort fields, tags, on and on. I've been using Anki for years and I don't even know what half of these thing…

I use AnkiDroid on Android. The UI supports a dark mode.

I can't imagine why anyone would want to use the original desktop Anki, which chains you to a PC or laptop. Though in the pre-mobile-computing era, such a program would have been attractive.

This technique begs to be mobile, so you can do reviews in any occasion when you would be otherwise idly waiting for something, like standing in line somewhere. Buses, trains, planes, waiting rooms, washroom stalls ...

You can micro-review. If you have just a few seconds to spare, you can whip out your phone and just do one review and put it away. That's one less to do later.

I sometimes do AnkiDroid reviews lying down in bed, before sleeping. You can turn of screen rotation and work sideways.

I've woken up in the middle of the night and completed the last few reviews of the day. That's possible from having the phone near the hand; no way would I get up, and sit at a desktop PC to do that, or even laptop.

The desktop Anki is completely pointless except for (1) serving as the reference implementation and (2) certain complicated maintenance tasks on large decks.

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

#54

Post by kazinator »

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?

The AnkiDroid app for Android is free, and is basically a reimplementation of Anki with compatible behaviors, storage formats and configuration. It's a complete, self-contained Anki implementation; it does not require anything on a desktop computer.

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

#55

Post by istjohn »

btrask wrote: post #8

I say this with all the kindness that I have... this article/guy is really sad. First of all, if you think you've found the world's ultimate fighting technique, don't try to show it to random people for approval. Use it. Anki yourself in secret until you're a super-saiyan, and then unleash your strength on the quivering masses. Hear the lamentation of their women, until they are begging you for mercy and also to teac…

The thing is, SR is the world's "ultimate fighting technique" in school. Outside of school and language learning there are more caveats. It's not always obvious which facts are worth memorizing, and sometimes we're not actually doing much new in our day-to-day work. It certainly won't in and of itself turn you into a 10X programmer. But neither will touch typing. It certainly doesn't hurt though.

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

#56

Post by theonemind »

btrask wrote: post #8

I say this with all the kindness that I have... this article/guy is really sad. First of all, if you think you've found the world's ultimate fighting technique, don't try to show it to random people for approval. Use it. Anki yourself in secret until you're a super-saiyan, and then unleash your strength on the quivering masses. Hear the lamentation of their women, until they are begging you for mercy and also to teac…

If memory helps, spaced repetition can help. You’re confusing knowledge with facts. You put in what you want to be reminded of at spaced intervals. Half of my spaced repetition stuff is actually my own personal philosophy and observations about life.

Knowledge isn’t that crap you get out of books. It’s whatever you can know that empowers you.

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

#57

Post by btrask »

TheDong wrote: post #35
btrask wrote: post #8

I say this with all the kindness that I have... this article/guy is really sad. First of all, if you think you've found the world's ultimate fighting technique, don't try to show it to random people for approval. Use it. Anki yourself in secret until you're a super-saiyan, and then unleash your strength on the quivering masses. Hear the lamentation of their women, until they are begging you for mercy and also to teac…

> 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 to lead by example. Any sort of talking is just fluff. You have to show people how to accomplish or attain something they care about.

As for SR itself... for decades we've had some of the smartest people (and perhaps even some of the best educators) like Richard Feynman decry rote memorization in the classroom. SR takes the worst 8th grade history class you ever had and doubles down on it. You can choose what to memorize, but it's still just memorization. Why not use a personal knowledge base (== your Anki deck) that you can refer to, and let your memory naturally cache the things you commonly use?

If you have a problem and you're considering SR as a way to solve it, my advice is to really drill down into what the problem is. Why do you think you need to fill your brain with snippets of data? (If you're just trying to pass a test, then sure, use Anki.)

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

#58

Post by segfaultbuserr »

btrask wrote: post #8

I say this with all the kindness that I have... this article/guy is really sad. First of all, if you think you've found the world's ultimate fighting technique, don't try to show it to random people for approval. Use it. Anki yourself in secret until you're a super-saiyan, and then unleash your strength on the quivering masses. Hear the lamentation of their women, until they are begging you for mercy and also to teac…

> If you want to be a walking encyclopedia, maybe SR is a good approach. But if you want to understand the world, be able to do things... SR can't help you.

Yes, merely memorizing a lot of facts is not very useful. But unfortunately, burning a lookup table to your head is often a crucial step for actually using many types of knowledge, and it's a real headache for beginners. I find it's entirely possible to fully understand a result, yet unable to clearly remember it. When you need to use the result, having to pause and think (even for a few seconds), creates a significant cognitive overhead. Being able to recall some results mechanically is often advantageous.

For example, a long time ago, it was lifechanging after I had discovered "man 7 units" and eventually remembered that 1 kilo = 1/(1 milli) = 1e3, 1 mega = 1/(1 micro) = 1e6, 1 giga = 1/(1 nano) = 1e9, 1 tera = 1/(1 pico) = 1e12, I was able to calculate much faster, and to say "The CPU is clocked at 1 GHz, which means it ticks every 1 nanosecond" without thinking. Previously, I fully understood what a SI prefix is, but I simply couldn't build a lookup table in my brain to map words to the number of zeros, and always needed to pause a moment to count. The man page allowed me to instantly check it while making calculation without leaving the commandline, effectively it was spaced repetition without software, and I finally remembered them...

This is when spaced repetition is useful - burning some lookup tables to your brain. It cannot help you to understand things, but it has its place. Just be aware of its limitation.

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

#59

Post by keiferski »

kazinator wrote: post #53
keiferski wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also use Anki daily. Just off the top of my head: - The UI is an ugly light gray with too much text. I'd make the design far more minimal. - Too much of a focus on text. Video, audio and GIFs should be more integrated into cards, especially for stuff like foreign languages. - Way too many options: note types, sort fields, tags, on and on. I've been using Anki for years and I don't even know what half of these thing…

I use AnkiDroid on Android. The UI supports a dark mode. I can't imagine why anyone would want to use the original desktop Anki, which chains you to a PC or laptop. Though in the pre-mobile-computing era, such a program would have been attractive. This technique begs to be mobile, so you can do reviews in any occasion when you would be otherwise idly waiting for something, like standing in line somewhere. Buses, trai…

I use Anki on desktop because it lets me type 1000x faster than on a phone. Hugely important for Cloze cards and language learning.

It really isn't even a comparison...the mobile app is only useful if I'm on the go and have a minute to do some cards. An hour on the desktop version will let you do hundreds, even thousands of cards, while mobile is maybe a hundred, tops, assuming you want to stare at your phone that long.

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

#60

Post by kazinator »

keiferski wrote: post #59
kazinator wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use AnkiDroid on Android. The UI supports a dark mode. I can't imagine why anyone would want to use the original desktop Anki, which chains you to a PC or laptop. Though in the pre-mobile-computing era, such a program would have been attractive. This technique begs to be mobile, so you can do reviews in any occasion when you would be otherwise idly waiting for something, like standing in line somewhere. Buses, trai…

I use Anki on desktop because it lets me type 1000x faster than on a phone. Hugely important for Cloze cards and language learning. It really isn't even a comparison...the mobile app is only useful if I'm on the go and have a minute to do some cards. An hour on the desktop version will let you do hundreds, even thousands of cards, while mobile is maybe a hundred, tops, assuming you want to stare at your phone that lo…

There isn't anything to type; just buttons to hit.
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