rererereremembering

SuperMemo is a program that keeps track of discrete bits of information you've learned and want to retain. For example, say you're studying Spanish. Your chance of recalling a given word when you need it declines over time according to a predictable pattern. SuperMemo tracks this so-called forgetting curve and reminds you to rehearse your knowledge when your chance of recalling it has dropped to, say, 90 percent. When you first learn a new vocabulary word, your chance of recalling it will drop quickly. But after SuperMemo reminds you of the word, the rate of forgetting levels out. The program tracks this new decline and waits longer to quiz you the next time.



However, this technique never caught on. The spacing effect is "one of the most remarkable phenomena to emerge from laboratory research on learning," the psychologist Frank Dempster wrote in 1988, at the beginning of a typically sad encomium published in American Psychologist under the title "The Spacing Effect: A Case Study in the Failure to Apply the Results of Psychological Research." The sorrrowful tone is not hard to understand. How would computer scientists feel if people continued to use slide rules for engineering calculations? What if, centuries after the invention of spectacles, people still dealt with nearsightedness by holding things closer to their eyes? Psychologists who studied the spacing effect thought they possessed a solution to a problem that had frustrated humankind since before written language: how to remember what's been learned. But instead, the spacing effect became a reminder of the impotence of laboratory psychology.

...

"Piotr would never go out to promote the product, wouldn't talk to journalists, very rarely agreed to meet with somebody," Biedalak says. "He was the driving force, but at some point I had to accept that you cannot communicate with him in the way you can with other people."

The problem wasn't shyness but the same intolerance for inefficient expenditure of mental resources that led to the invention of SuperMemo in the first place. By the mid-'90s, with SuperMemo growing more and more popular, Wozniak felt that his ability to rationally control his life was slipping away. "There were 80 phone calls per day to handle. There was no time for learning, no time for programming, no time for sleep," he recalls. In 1994, he disappeared for two weeks, leaving no information about where he was. The next year he was gone for 100 days. Each year, he has increased his time away. He doesn't own a phone. He ignores his email for months at a time. And though he holds a PhD and has published in academic journals, he never attends conferences or scientific meetings.

Amazing piece on Wired about Piotr Wozniak, inventor of SuperMemo, the rest here.
(courtesy of Mithridates at Night Hauling)

Find one find all

I forget things.

My rent is 411 euros a month, but the cost of living goes up when there are too many things in my head. I am thinking about the book that needs a publisher and the agent who is looking for a publisher and the book I put aside a year ago and the book I am starting from scratch and I walk out the door without my keys.

The Schlusseldienst charges 50 euros to open the door. So walking out the door just once a month without my keys raises the cost of the apartment to 461 euros a month. Or more.

I go to the Schlusseldienst and tell him I am locked out and he tells me he can meet me at the apartment at siebzehn Uhr, 1700 and I say fine. It's 4.30. The mind which is taken up with the three books and the agent seizes on the 7 and thinks 7 o'clock, a long time to wait but it has to be done. I go to Yorckschlosschen, the jazz café on my corner, and order a Jever and Smoky Bacon Walker's Crisps. I read the café's copy of the Frankfurter Allgemeine, I think about the three books, time goes by, it's only 5 pm, it's 5.30 pm, I order another Jever, it's 6 pm, it's 6.30 pm, I pay, I leave. As I walk down the street to my house "siebzehn Uhr" goes through my mind and I think: 1700. 1700. 1700. Which is 5 o'clock. And now, of course, the Schlusseldienst is closed. What can I do? Where can I go?

My friend Ingrid Kerma is a painter who lives in London but has an apartment in Berlin near Kotbusser Tor. The key is kept by Barbara Colosseus, the web diva who designed my website and lives two floors up from Ingrid. I don't have Barbara's number. I take the U1 to Kotbusser Tor, go to Ingrid's place in Naunynstraße, ring Barbara's bell. She's there.

I let myself into Ingrid's apartment, call her to tell her I'm spending the night there. It feels pretty good.

In the morning I go to the bank for more cash. I think of the locksmith turning up at my apartment at 5pm, waiting for me, wondering what to do; I feel terrible. I need to apologise, I need to grovel, I need to offer more money, I need to atone. I pass a flower stall and buy 30 tulips for 12 euros. I go back to the Schlusseldienst, I explain in broken German about the 24-hour clock and the confusion this causes those who have not grown up with it, I give him 30 tulips, I apologise. This time the Schlusseldienst takes me to the apartment in his car. I offer more money but he says No, no that's fine.

In a separate but unrelated incident I am thinking about the three books and my agent and put water on to boil for pasta and go back to my laptop to work on one of the books or perhaps write to my agent. It's late. I go to bed. In the morning I go to the kitchen and the gas is still on under a dry pan with a blackened bottom.

Sometimes I lose things in the apartment. Every surface is covered with papers. I know the keys are here somewhere because I could not be in the apartment if I had not had the keys. So I can't leave the apartment without looking under all the papers until I find the keys.

Sometimes I put things in a safe place. I put my driver's licence, which I seldom use, in a safe place. I put my passport in a safe place. Later I remember that I put these documents in a safe place, but I can't remember what I thought would be a safe place.

Find One Find All is a device that can be attached to various things that get lost (key rings, wallet, remote control). Each object has a code. The device has a keypad. If you have located one of the objects, you can key in the code of a missing object on the keypad and the FOFA of the missing object will emit a signal enabling you to track it down.

It will not help you remember that you put water on to boil. It will not stop you walking out the door without your keys. But perhaps you've had this experience. You need a phone number. It's in your mobile phone. You can't find the phone. There are papers everywhere; you ransack the place but you can't find the phone. You call it on your landline; the William Tell overture burbles merrily from your pocket. You can't use your landline to contact your keys, your wallet, your driver's licence, your passport. FOFA might do the trick.