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I hear you, and that's how I learned. :-) But I find it much tougher on the topics I'm learning today. Perhaps it's because the old stuff is hard wired becau

I hear you, and that's how I learned. :-) But I find it much tougher on the topics I'm learning today. Perhaps it's because the old stuff is hard wired because it needs to be, but I keep less of the new topics in long term memory because I can outsource that storage to Google?

larrys 13y ago
Yeah the memory thing is a problem for sure. I've noticed that and it worries me. A few years ago I built this php/mysql just to store things that I learned or figured out (correct syntax for rsync might be an example) so I wouldn't have to re google them. [1] But now what I'm seeing is that most things can be found by google quicker than in the format I am using the db for. (But it's still helpful because I can cut paste and edit). I also use a wiki to keep track of what I have found that is helpful. Putting something in the wiki seems to help a little. My point is in the past there would have been much more memorization reinforcement (see [1] below) than today. My brain is totally getting lazy because it knows the answer is right at my fingertips one way or another. When I used to do the 3x5 cards [1] I typed it up, printed it, reduced it, pasted it and the act of creating and using those "flash" cards made me memorize the answers. The other problem is the flood of information. To many cool and interesting things to test out and get the hang of. I remember back when I tried C for the first time (don't even think there was c++). Could work with that for a long time since there wasn't really anything else to play with. [2] [1] Old way of doing this used to be 3x5 cards or those 8.5 x 11 plastic (can't think of the actual word for it) cheat sheets like "Unix Quick Reference". See: http://www.bookdepository.com/Unix-Inc-Barcharts/9781572223974 http://www.bookdepository.com/Unix-Inc-Barcharts/97815722239... [2] I'm not a programmer but I do some programming to help with what I do. And have been doing it for a long time. So perhaps if I was doing this full time and my needs were different (instead of intermittent) this would be less of an issue for me.
- ZoFreX 13y ago
  Stop cutting and pasting and start typing. I try to copy from memory, but even writing it out while looking at the original still seems to help retention.
  - larrys 13y ago
    I actually do do that almost always. Habit started with books actually. Exactly true as far as learning and retention. Noting even that when learning php somethings that I cut and pasted had weird invisible embedded characters that caused things to fail [1]. That was actually a pretty good learning experience trying to take something that appeared correct character by character and figure out why it wasn't working by stripping things down the the basics. [1] Might have been on w3schools or something like that.
- mathattack 13y ago
  You're being generous about it being laziness. I'm blaming my own on old age. :-) But seriously, there are pros and cons with this. On the one hand, by outsourcing certain aspects of memory, we can hold much more. It's kind of like learning to call APIs rather than re-writing everything from scratch. On the other hand, I believe that instant recall has it's advantages. (I think our generation can do math approximations in our head faster than the current generation, and that's an advantage)
vidarh 13y ago
I keep searching for stuff and finding old blog posts of mine I wrote after the first time I solved the problem...
- Nick_C 13y ago
  and have little or no memory of writing... that happened to me only a few weeks ago. Pretty darn scary.
  - mathattack 13y ago
    Old age, too much of the bottle, or both? :-)
    - Nick_C 13y ago
      A little of both I suspect ;).

larrys 13y ago

Yeah the memory thing is a problem for sure. I've noticed that and it worries me. A few years ago I built this php/mysql just to store things that I learned or figured out (correct syntax for rsync might be an example) so I wouldn't have to re google them. [1] But now what I'm seeing is that most things can be found by google quicker than in the format I am using the db for. (But it's still helpful because I can cut paste and edit). I also use a wiki to keep track of what I have found that is helpful. Putting something in the wiki seems to help a little. My point is in the past there would have been much more memorization reinforcement (see [1] below) than today. My brain is totally getting lazy because it knows the answer is right at my fingertips one way or another. When I used to do the 3x5 cards [1] I typed it up, printed it, reduced it, pasted it and the act of creating and using those "flash" cards made me memorize the answers. The other problem is the flood of information. To many cool and interesting things to test out and get the hang of. I remember back when I tried C for the first time (don't even think there was c++). Could work with that for a long time since there wasn't really anything else to play with. [2] [1] Old way of doing this used to be 3x5 cards or those 8.5 x 11 plastic (can't think of the actual word for it) cheat sheets like "Unix Quick Reference". See: http://www.bookdepository.com/Unix-Inc-Barcharts/9781572223974 http://www.bookdepository.com/Unix-Inc-Barcharts/97815722239... [2] I'm not a programmer but I do some programming to help with what I do. And have been doing it for a long time. So perhaps if I was doing this full time and my needs were different (instead of intermittent) this would be less of an issue for me.

ZoFreX 13y ago
Stop cutting and pasting and start typing. I try to copy from memory, but even writing it out while looking at the original still seems to help retention.
- larrys 13y ago
  I actually do do that almost always. Habit started with books actually. Exactly true as far as learning and retention. Noting even that when learning php somethings that I cut and pasted had weird invisible embedded characters that caused things to fail [1]. That was actually a pretty good learning experience trying to take something that appeared correct character by character and figure out why it wasn't working by stripping things down the the basics. [1] Might have been on w3schools or something like that.
mathattack 13y ago
You're being generous about it being laziness. I'm blaming my own on old age. :-) But seriously, there are pros and cons with this. On the one hand, by outsourcing certain aspects of memory, we can hold much more. It's kind of like learning to call APIs rather than re-writing everything from scratch. On the other hand, I believe that instant recall has it's advantages. (I think our generation can do math approximations in our head faster than the current generation, and that's an advantage)

vidarh 13y ago

I keep searching for stuff and finding old blog posts of mine I wrote after the first time I solved the problem...

Nick_C 13y ago
and have little or no memory of writing... that happened to me only a few weeks ago. Pretty darn scary.
- mathattack 13y ago
  Old age, too much of the bottle, or both? :-)
  - Nick_C 13y ago
    A little of both I suspect ;).