Michael Nielsen

Those two links are fantastic. In addition to those two I’d add: http://super-memory.com/articles/20rules.htm https://andymatuschak.org/prompts/ http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html

Because of the touch input, it's limits (like no modifiers except on third party keyboards that do not offer swyping) and also the small screen, partially covered by the keyboard itself when you write. On a touch any human type a limited fraction of WPM than with a computer keyboard and the mental effort is much higher. They are just consumption devices, Emacs is meant more to produce than consume, like classic desktops vs modern ones. We are human, able to consume, but also to produce content, not to be driven by a remote platform but to drive ourselves with the computing to help, see the classic http://augmentingcognition.com/assets/Kay1977.pdf this is the model...

I can't recommend spaced repetition enough. I use it for everything: Phone numbers, names, business knowledge, dungeon and dragons, ... A different article[1] sums it up pretty well: "Anki makes memory a choice, rather than a haphazard event, to be left to chance." [1] https://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html

Instead of coining a new term, why not call it by the name everyone uses: spaced repetition? One of the best articles I have read on this is by Michael Nielsen: http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html

Dropping related Michael Nielsen’s excellent piece about space repitition here: Augmenting Long Term Memory http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html

Are you new to spaced repetition or Anki? I would recommend reading http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html.

For anyone looking to start their Anki journey, or extend on existing knowledge, I recommend the following read http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html It's worth noting, the author actually suggests against using others anki packs. They should be a personal experience. None the less I think these kind of things, are useful to find any gaps, and provide inspiration on how to structure your own collection.

yes, i went through the first two articles a few while back. i like the idea a lot, but i wish they would offer cards for offline (the author has a great article on srs: http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html)

It is worth considering the cost, yes. My time isn't so optimised that 15 minutes each day on Anki is otherwise going to be spent on deep work. http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html This writeup estimates his usage of Anki is 4-7 minutes of review time for each card over 20 years. So, if it's worth taking 10 minutes to remember a fact, it's worth putting in Anki. (This writeup also explains it's not worth putting things you don't care about into Anki). Anki seems well suited for domains where you need to quickly access facts from a wide domain, e.g. vocabulary for language learning. It's harder to see as important for programming. If you're programming you'll be able to recall the things you have experience using.

The Art of Problem Solving books are great and have complete solution manuals: https://artofproblemsolving.com/store You could schedule review of concepts and problems you understand with spaced repetition software like Anki to keep them in long term memory. (http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html)

Yeah it definitely makes it more difficult. If you want to try and figure out how make Anki / SRS work better for non-atomic content, Michael Nielsen has done some great work on this: http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html

Michael Nielsen (The author of the popular free online book Neural Networks and Deep Learning) has a great long form essay on using Anki titled "Augmenting Long-term memory": http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html

Quantum Country is another great introduction to spaced repetition (and quantum computing!) [1]. One of its authors also wrote a great essay about spaced repetition [2]. [1] https://quantum.country/qcvc [2] http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html

The best introduction to spaced repetition, Michael Nielsen's Augmenting Long-term Memory (http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html), includes a detailed explanation of how to use Anki for studying books.

I can see lot of doubts if flash card system is working. For some of the people certainly it is: http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html The above is the first link from the HN discussion which I really recommend to everyone: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17846356

I've increasingly come to value mastering the basics.[0] A quote from Michael Nielsen in his great article Augmenting Long-Term Memory (http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html) puts it very well: "Over the years, I've often helped people learn technical subjects such as quantum mechanics. Over time you come to see patterns in how people get stuck. One common pattern is that people think they're getting stuck on esoteric, complex issues. But when you dig down it turns out they're having a hard time with basic notation and terminology." [0] I suspect individuals who learn things relatively easily may undervalue that skill, because they typically were ahead in school.

I find that with anything where I feel I have to "start over" every time I try to get back into it, the solution is to consciously memorize the key points and the notation of anything I'm learning, using (Anki) flashcards. Michael Nielsen recently wrote a great overview of the process recently: http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html Making sure the basics stick in long-term memory, you can then build on that anytime in the future without having to review everything.

Michael Nielsen just this month published an essay on using spaced repetition (and especially Anki) to augment long-term memory. It seems to be part of his work with YC Research. I highly recommend it if this kind of thing interests you. It gives a solid overview of the theory and practical lessons from his daily use of Anki over the last few years: http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html

There is a category called incremental reading,you can find more elegant techniques if you look into it. My method is more primitive, I first get a simple overview of the topic (LLMs are great at this). Once I have a feel , i flick through the material book/paper highlight important info that stands out or info that I want to remember and personally for me, Im not trying to understand things as I highlight, once I'm done a chapter or a big section, I pull out my anki and start making questions against the highlighted parts. When Im making questions, usually I make one questions that corresponds directly and I use the highlighted part as the answer with minimum change expect for readability and then I make several other questions that takes different parts of the highlighted answer, so that I can have an almost lego like breakdown of questions that can help me recall the "bigger question", also I make sure the questions arent to direct and force my brain to think and retrieve the answer I hope this helps, this is the article that inspired me to read this way: https://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html

A poor workman blames their tools. My notes are basically like Smeegol's precious ring, and to burn them is unfathomable. But initially these notes they were garbage, I initially got into all these PKM systems and used a stripped down Zettelkasten, but then realised that I was focused on creating the system not the outcome. My wonderfully linked notes were never being seen, the notes I was taking was not connected to my current focuses. They were virtually all "maybe I'll use this in the next 10 years" type notes. I changed my goal away from following a system to focusing on getting meaningful changes in understanding from notes. This means having the ability to recall information, not rely on a second brain. I spent a fair chunk of time reducing my inputs to notes which are focused on my current goals: metacognition, mental health and business. If the note does not fall in these category it is not noted, I still read things for pleasure just noteless. The value of applying what I read in the short-term outweighs notes for possible futures. As possible futures are everchanging and so the likely value of these notes are heavily weighted down. I do have troves of notes which will be transformed when I need them, but these notes have a very high chance of being seen and are related to my goals, but not applicable currently. I delayed transforming these troves until I am applying them, as I will get the most value out of my notes when they are being applied Not someday…

A daily anki habit. The habit to check my cards, but also to add new ones. It's perhaps not a skill exactly, but it feels like a superpower nonetheless. I started creating flashcards when I began studying spanish for my wife. --- a very common introduction to flashcards is via language learning. But these days I put anything into a card that I feel is useful. It could be an actual event (like recently) with the russian attempted putsch. I might create a card like: ---- On { {c1::June 2023}}, { {c2::Yevgeny Prigozhin}} the leader of { {c3::Wagner}} group staged a rebellion by marching his troups towards Moscow after taking { {c4::Rostov-on-don}}. Within hours a treaty was brokered by { {c5::Belarus}} president { {c6::Alexander Lukashenko}} ---- these facts are all salient after reading about such an important event, in the moment. But now when I talk about this event years from now, it will spring to mind. I will also be forced to think about it from time to time, and remember the crazy (big) things that happened. I'll also use flashcards these days to study a new API, or learn a domain model in a new company. Important is to prune and actively delete cards that no longer make sense. So I suppose the skill is realizing how to use anki. It is a bit of a living entity. It's a habit/skill I've honed for over 10 years now. Some recommended reading for those wanting to add flashcards into their lives. 1. https://cognitivemedium.com/srs-mathematics 2.…

Books do work if you know how to be a good reader (I'm taking a course right now on "How to Read a Book" based on the Mortimer Adler book). The key to learning from a book is to interact with it kinesthetically and through metacognition. Skimming, outlining, writing notes in the margins, questioning, are all part of analytical reading. Furthermore, there's syntopical reading which tries to fit things into a larger tree and seeing how things interrelate through comparative reading. It's all really hard work, but the goal is deep comprehension (the kind that enables synthesis of new ideas). Memory is not the goal, though having a good memory helps when one is diving into a new book or journal paper. A memory aid like Anki can help one get up to speed quickly when there are lots of new vocabulary and concepts. [1] But memory alone will not lead to comprehension -- one needs to converse with the text as if one were picking the brain of someone who is our better. (if the author is not our better, best to just read the book cursorily, extract a few points and discard -- no need to do a deep reading) That said, having Anki as a memory aid can lower the activation needed to read the literature say of a new unfamiliar field. Another way to lower the activation to reading the literature is the "land and expand strategy" [2] where you read stories about thing you're trying to read rather than starting with the thing itself. [1] http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html [2]…

Multimedia and HyperText: The Internet and Beyond, by Jakob Nielsen, SunSoft (1995). https://books.google.nl/books?id=KgZXCCfP0rQC&pg=PA469&lpg=PA4… https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Jakob-Nielsen/dp/0125184085/ref=sr_1_1?crid… I hadn't come across this book before, but I popped for the Kindle edition, and found an excerpt about HyperTIES. It also goes into fascinating detail about many other early hypermedia systems. Jakob Nielsen writes deep well-researched books and articles about usability and user interface design, and he gives excellent talks and keynotes! (He's aka "guru of Web page usability", "king of usability", and "usability Pope", but definitely not "usability Godfather"! ;) ) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakob_Nielsen_(usability_consultant) https://www.nngroup.com/people/jakob-nielsen/ His raises important points about Hyperties' design being focused on ease-of-use by museum visitors and ease-of-authoring by museum curators and historians, the simple consistent keyboard interface, configurable link colors, and the definition window at the bottom of the screen that previews descriptions of link targets in context before you even visit…

I'm reading a lot and have done so for many years. It is one of the great sources of joy and richness in my life. Choosing a book is more difficult than it might seem. It sounds like you haven't encountered many great books yet. Humanity has produced about 130.000.000 books and roughly 4k are added each day. If you are an avid reader consuming one book per week from age 20 to 80, you'll get through a little more than 3000 books. Few people make it this far. 60 years of reading don't cover the output of a single day of publishing. There are many more great books than any single person can hope to get through in a lifetime. Regarding the reading speed: As you read more, you will get better. With enough practice, reading becomes a fully-immersive and effortless experience (though the ideas in the book might stun you!). Your eyes and your mind get more accustomed to the practice, for example through a better knowledge of vocabulary. Forgetting is a real issue that I struggle with as well. Spaced repetition is helping a lot of people [0]. Paul Graham (pg) makes some great points about how reading shapes the mind (so even if you don't remember all the facts, the act of reading still changes who you are) [1] I suggest you look learning strategies to process text more efficiently and to aid retention. There is a well-rated course called "Learning how to learn" on Coursera. [2] Since selecting books is such hard work, you can benefit from the reading lists of others, here's…

I worked on this project after reading the excellent article from Michael Nielsen "Augmenting Long-Term Memory" (http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html). I have always struggled to remember things I learn or read in the long term. And he gives a very interesting explanation of why we don't remember things in the long term. Indeed, to remember something, our memory needs to see it again and again. That's probably why advertisers we'll show you the same ad again and again. He also introduced a technique called Spaced Repetition Memorization that allows remembering almost anything. The idea is pretty simple: you have to repeat things with larger intervals each time you succeed in remembering it. In this article, he explains how he uses Anki, a software that was built with this goal. I decided to start using it. But Anki has many features and is done for people who want to dedicate time to learn to use it. It's probably perfect for very intense users, but in my opinion, it is not a product many people would be able to use and to get used to. And that's pretty disappointing since Spaced Repetition Memorization could be useful to many people: students, people wanting to learn a new language, readers, etc... That's why I decided to buy Tembo, for my use at the beginning, and for all the people who feel the same pain. Please give me your feedbacks. This first version is very simple, but that's also the goal.

> I think specifically I would second guess myself for the syntax of the cards I was creating - and if there was another better way to do it. This kind of perfectionism has also been bothering me. ("I need to write the card perfectly, or else it's not even worth doing or even actively harmful.") But there's a couple of points worth remembering to change this belief: 1) If a card is bad, you will notice it when reviewing. It will be difficult to remember (i.e. you will fail the card often compared to other cards); it will be annoying to review (there's a general sense of "ugh" and/or confusion when you see the card); it will be unexpectedly time consuming to review, etc. 2) Bad cards can always be refactored. You can suspend the card (where the card is still in the database, but removed from the learning queue); reword; or split into multiple cards. Michael Nielsen [0] gives an example of a card which asked for the syntax for creating a symbolic link in Linux. He always messed up the order of the filname/linkname, so he created an additional card that explicitly asked for the order of the filname/linkename in the ln-command. 3) The only way of learning how to make good cards is by just starting making cards, and then noticing which ones don't work. When a card doesn't stick, it's useful to ask yourself what doesn't work and why. Is the back side surprising when you reveal it? If so, maybe rewrite the card to add more context to the front to make it clearer what you're…

Also worth reading is the excellent (and pretty extensive) article by Michael Nielsen[1] showcasing how he used Anki to create an in-depth knowledge about AlphaGo. Personally, I've used Anki to keep remembering/revisiting the concepts that I use for a while and then move onto something else. Common APIs of programming languages and their standard libraries is one such area. I've found that while it's not really difficult to learn and get into the flow of using a programming language (or history, mathematics, physics for that matter), it's more difficult to try using the same knowledge after a break of few months. My main language at work is C# and Web Development, but I keep trying to learn other languages and domains in my free time. If I do not use the knowledge for a few months, I forget everything. But with Anki I have to just open the app for around 10 minutes a day and it helps me to recall such concepts in a timely fashion. I would suggest everyone who has the time and faces similar issues should give it a shot. [1] http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html

Perhaps "Using spaced repetition systems to see through a piece of mathematics " [1] might be of interest for you. I have read author's "Augmenting Long-term Memory" [2] and have incorporated a lot of his advice into my Anki practice. For me, it's quick access recipes (breakfast pancakes for kids), what was the name of the glacier that we hiked to last year, behavioral prompts etc. 1: https://cognitivemedium.com/srs-mathematics 2: https://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html

Take a read on this: https://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html The author, among other topics, makes a case for the creation of personalized decks. That practice has been really valuable to me.

https://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html I can't remember what I saw that lead me to that essay, but it got me thinking I should give flashcards another go. Like I guess many people, I also had tried once or twice, but very much the common downloading a couple of other people's decks then stopping a couple of days later. I'm not inplementing what he suggests very much at all in the end - but the idea is at least hinted at there, I think.