

How to keep track of what you've learnt - oscardelben
http://www.freestylemind.com/how-to-keep-track-of-what-youve-learnt/

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zzzmarcus
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 thousand nodes on topics from everything ranging from
science to literature to my business ideas to pretty much anything else.

Having everything in one place is great because I find that I'll often stumble
on something I added months or years before and I can associate it with what
I'm doing now. It often exposes patterns, reminds me of stuff I'd forgotten
and it's fun to explore.

I haven't found any other software like it. I'm not particularly anxious to
replace it but I think some competition would be great. A web app or something
non-Java would be interesting.

I've written about it more here, and in several other blog articles:
[http://marcusvorwaller.com/blog/archives/2008/07/18/personal...](http://marcusvorwaller.com/blog/archives/2008/07/18/personalbrain-
vs-mindmapping/) . I also did a quick video of how I use it awhile back
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTNlRPAq3gE> .

Hopefully that doesn't sound too much like an infomercial, I'm not associated
with PersonalBrain in any way, but I do really, really like using the software
and I'm surprised it isn't used more widely.

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

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3pt14159
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.

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DenisM
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.

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

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macco
Use mnemomesyne for that: <http://www.mnemosyne-proj.org/>

It is a great tool for learning and works with an efficient algorithm. Make it
a habit for learning every morning or every night.

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robryan
I always find it interesting that say if someone asked me to describer every
article I read on HN in a day I wouldn't be able to but if conversations with
friends come up where each of them were relevant I'm usually able to describe
there point of view and information and detail.

Also it's similar with studying, I will go through the material and write all
the key points down. I won't actually read them again, unless I forget
something relevant later in study. I find in the exam when I'm given a
relevant question I have near perfect recall on what I've studied no matter
how large the amount of knowledge that I've gone through in a couple of days.

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rsaarelm
I write down things I want to remember later in Emacs org-mode files. It would
be easy to set this up with org's SCHEDULED marker.

Just make a macro to emit a bunch of SCHEDULED markers for suitably spaced
future dates, run it on new items, and review the items when they come up in
the agenda in the future.

~~~
rsaarelm
And looks like someone's making an add-on to org-mode that implements the
spaced repetition with an actual Supermemo-style algorithm instead of an
inflexible fixed scheduling: [http://www.mail-archive.com/emacs-
orgmode@gnu.org/msg18554.h...](http://www.mail-archive.com/emacs-
orgmode@gnu.org/msg18554.html)

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tungstenfurnace
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.

NB: I'm leaving this comment because I'll have forgotten about the article by
tomorrow :-)

~~~
shughes
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.

~~~
tungstenfurnace
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.

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billswift
One thing he didn't mention that helps is learning and reviewing similar
things together. If you learn things that are too similar at different times
they can interfere with each other; proactive and retroactive inhibition. If
you link them and learn them together, they will not only not interfere with
each other, but can help reinforce each other.

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sam_in_nyc
Interesting choice of image. The gears cannot turn.

[http://www.freestylemind.com/wp-
content/uploads/2009/11/brai...](http://www.freestylemind.com/wp-
content/uploads/2009/11/brain.jpg)

~~~
camccann
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.

~~~
mahmud
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.

~~~
unperson
If you apply clockwise force of magnitude N to green gear, you would be
applying +N. Which would apply -N to yellow (not +N as you stated), +N to
blue, -N to red, and +N to green again, thus rotating the gears. You obviously
have a better understanding of this than I do, but you must be explaining some
part of this equation incorrectly.

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drp
I don't see a single mention of long term memory in this article. Cognitive
psychology is not a grab bag to use for marketing.

~~~
rsaarelm
The idea is pretty much spaced repetition learning
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition>), even though article
doesn't call it that or make any references to the existing work.

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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.

~~~
atlei
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

~~~
c00p3r
Sure! That repetition is called practice, which is the best teacher.

