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One of the things I've realized just a few days ago was that we need better technology to absorb content efficiently. There are so many books out there that I

One of the things I've realized just a few days ago was that we need better technology to absorb content efficiently. There are so many books out there that I want to read, but might never be able to read because I will not have enough time. It would be amazing if there was just a way to download a book and understand its contents right into my brain in a matter of minutes.

bewe42 11y ago
Matter of minutes might never be possible or even desirable. But I do think learning can be done much more efficiently with the right tools. Working on that on my side projects ;) It comes down to good old note taking and expressing what you have learned in your own words or code.
- sitkack 11y ago
  One technique I have been thinking of is to use AI/NLP to automatically generate questions from the text. It might not know the answer, but it doesn't have it.
restalis 11y ago
The technology is evolving in that way, sort of. We have tools for content analysis and one of such analysis is text summarization. It would be extremely useful if text summarizators would become developed enough to be of any practical use. To be able to easily create a summary for the entire book, then if you're interested - for the individual chapters, and so on, each time in various volume/detail according to your time constraint and degree of interest. Pretty much like a zoom function you do on a very high resolution image.
rogeryu 11y ago
What is the status of that speed reading app? It would display each word in the middle of the screen if I remember correctly, and by that way you could speed up reading a lot. I don't remember the name. Maybe not recommended for a good novel, and I don't know if it would really help in reading a book with difficult content, but still.
- claudius 11y ago
  Reading speed is rarely the bottleneck in reading textbooks, just as typing speed is rarely the bottleneck in coding. In fact, I found that strictly limiting my reading speed, e.g. by forcing myself to spend at least two minutes on a page before turning over, has greatly helped me to understand texts better and more thoroughly. Actually, novels are the only part where I could see some value from speed-reading, as the plot is usually not all that difficult to follow and at least in most cases the language not nice enough to marvel at it, though I suppose the latter is what you meant by “good novel”.
vilius 11y ago
Last time I had to absorb content efficiently I went for Kindle and their text-to-speech set at faster pace. I followed the robot's voice by reading the book myself and writing down a summary sentence / keywords per every page read. This way it took me a day (from early morning to late night) to read a 400 pages long Lawrence Lessig's "Code 2" and write a review. Next day I managed to get highest score at the relevant exam. It kind of makes sense that reading + writing + listening allows one to deeply absorb content and probably is the best combination so far. It would be really interesting to see an interactive textbook that is combined with audiobook and asks you to read along and summarise every chapter. Not only it would increase speed of reading, but also help with memorising content.
- Luc 11y ago
  > It kind of makes sense that reading + writing + listening allows one to deeply absorb content and probably is the best combination so far. This is probably one of the best ideas I read on HN this year. It just seems to match up very well with my own study experiences, and the advice I have read recently in 'A Mind for Numbers' http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G3L19ZU http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G3L19ZU Thanks, I shall try this!
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
benkie 11y ago
That's what the idea behind IBM Watson is, because he can read much faster than any human and you can ask him anything without knowing anything about it yourself and he will give you an answer based on all books and scientific papers he was able to read until that point...only problems are a) you have to trust the evaluation and conclusions of a computer (better the programmer of the algorithms maybe) because b) probably nobody can verify the definite correctness or wrongness of an answer, because nobody has been able to study and to read as much about a topic as him. Exciting technology that is. And exciting times we are living in where computers start "knowing" more about any given topic than a human is able to about one single area and starts answering our questions about them...!

bewe42 11y ago

Matter of minutes might never be possible or even desirable. But I do think learning can be done much more efficiently with the right tools. Working on that on my side projects ;) It comes down to good old note taking and expressing what you have learned in your own words or code.

sitkack 11y ago
One technique I have been thinking of is to use AI/NLP to automatically generate questions from the text. It might not know the answer, but it doesn't have it.

restalis 11y ago

The technology is evolving in that way, sort of. We have tools for content analysis and one of such analysis is text summarization. It would be extremely useful if text summarizators would become developed enough to be of any practical use. To be able to easily create a summary for the entire book, then if you're interested - for the individual chapters, and so on, each time in various volume/detail according to your time constraint and degree of interest. Pretty much like a zoom function you do on a very high resolution image.

rogeryu 11y ago

What is the status of that speed reading app? It would display each word in the middle of the screen if I remember correctly, and by that way you could speed up reading a lot. I don't remember the name. Maybe not recommended for a good novel, and I don't know if it would really help in reading a book with difficult content, but still.

claudius 11y ago
Reading speed is rarely the bottleneck in reading textbooks, just as typing speed is rarely the bottleneck in coding. In fact, I found that strictly limiting my reading speed, e.g. by forcing myself to spend at least two minutes on a page before turning over, has greatly helped me to understand texts better and more thoroughly. Actually, novels are the only part where I could see some value from speed-reading, as the plot is usually not all that difficult to follow and at least in most cases the language not nice enough to marvel at it, though I suppose the latter is what you meant by “good novel”.

vilius 11y ago

Last time I had to absorb content efficiently I went for Kindle and their text-to-speech set at faster pace. I followed the robot's voice by reading the book myself and writing down a summary sentence / keywords per every page read. This way it took me a day (from early morning to late night) to read a 400 pages long Lawrence Lessig's "Code 2" and write a review. Next day I managed to get highest score at the relevant exam. It kind of makes sense that reading + writing + listening allows one to deeply absorb content and probably is the best combination so far. It would be really interesting to see an interactive textbook that is combined with audiobook and asks you to read along and summarise every chapter. Not only it would increase speed of reading, but also help with memorising content.

Luc 11y ago
> It kind of makes sense that reading + writing + listening allows one to deeply absorb content and probably is the best combination so far. This is probably one of the best ideas I read on HN this year. It just seems to match up very well with my own study experiences, and the advice I have read recently in 'A Mind for Numbers' http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G3L19ZU http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G3L19ZU Thanks, I shall try this!
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

benkie 11y ago

That's what the idea behind IBM Watson is, because he can read much faster than any human and you can ask him anything without knowing anything about it yourself and he will give you an answer based on all books and scientific papers he was able to read until that point...only problems are a) you have to trust the evaluation and conclusions of a computer (better the programmer of the algorithms maybe) because b) probably nobody can verify the definite correctness or wrongness of an answer, because nobody has been able to study and to read as much about a topic as him. Exciting technology that is. And exciting times we are living in where computers start "knowing" more about any given topic than a human is able to about one single area and starts answering our questions about them...!