Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Miscellaneous babblings

My GOD, Excel 2007 is rubbish! Who the heck invented it? I've got it on my new laptop, and I'm going to have to download 2003, or better yet whichever version it was before that. Have you tried drawing a graph with 2007? It's the stupidest system I've ever seen!

Still, to compensate for that annoyance, I have got an old-style 10p coin, courtesy of Roel Hobo at the weekend (I swapped it for a legal-tender new-style one). It was minted in 1968, one of the first batch that were made as 10p rather than two shillings. I've added it to my collection of vaguely interesting coins!

Andre who posted a question as a comment to my blog entry of a few days ago: Yes, my memory system is the same as the one described here. And I've never used photos to keep track of my mental images. That seems to me like it would be very limiting - the images in my head have changed and developed as I've got used to them, and I don't think that would have worked so well if there'd been a real picture in my head rather than a vague idea.

New York! Getting the train down to London tomorrow evening after work, flying out early on Thursday morning. Woohoo!

And before I go, you could listen to Radio Nottingham tomorrow morning, at nine o'clockish. It probably won't be the worst thing in the world if you miss it, but they're interviewing me. Record it and play it in the evenings for the next few days, it'll make up for not having my blog to read!

9 comments:

Unknown said...

I AGREE THE NEW MS OFFICE SOFTWARE ISN'T VERY GOOD. YOU SHOULD TRY OPEN OFFICE INSTEAD. ITS FREE AND CAN BE DOWNLOADED FROM OPENOFFICE.ORG. IT IS ALMOST EXACTLY THE SAME AS EXCEL 2003.

Anonymous said...

Travel safely and have tonnes of fun!

Anonymous said...

Hello once again,

Thank you very much for taking the time out to answer my questions. I'm dead set on following in your footsteps for the time being, and it's extremely helpful to gain insight from the actual developer of a memory system. I'm trying not to ask too many questions because I have a feeling that it can get quite annoying in a short time. But I have just a few more important ones if you don't mind: Could you give me some sort of routine you had in the beginning for developing your list of images as well as committing them to memory? Perhaps you learned them erratically off and on, or you had some sort of strict routine involving spending a couple of hours a day over the span of month(s) year(s)? Maybe you crammed them all in a couple of days by pulling a few all nighters :p

I made that previous comment on photo management because I was thinking of developing a tool to facilitate learning your system. Something simple in the beginning like a flash card based system that allows you to practice by showing random digits, and then revealing the preset images that you have for them. But, as you pointed out, that type of thing has the tendency to restrict your imagination, which from what I gather, is the key to this concept. If you have any suggestions on this sort of thing, I'd love to hear it!

Thanks once again,
Andre

Anonymous said...

There are various sites that have ramdom number generators Andre. If you go onto Facebook I have collected quite a lot of things in a group called MNEMONISTS which you will find helpful.

Dai

Anonymous said...

Ben's interview on BC Radio Nottingham:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nottingham/content/articles/2009/03/03/ben_pridmore_memory_2008_feature.shtml

Anyone that wishes to attend The Welsh Open Memory Championships can contact me by e-mailing:
d.griffiths79@btinternet.com

Dai

Anonymous said...

Hi Dai,

Thank you for pointing me out to your Facebook group. I realize that there are a sundry of random number generators and the like out there, but I was trying to think of ways to go beyond that and tailor a suite of tools that people like myself can use specifically for making it easier to train their memory.

Regards,
Andre

Anonymous said...

That's the general idea Andre.
Send me and e-mail at:
d.griffiths79@btinternet.com
There are lots of other things you can do and many sites to help you. I collect that sort of thing for the purpose of helping people.

Dai

Anonymous said...

Andre, try MemoryLifter. It's a flashcard learning application and I use it for memory system images. You can add a photo to each one, and it's revealed once you've entered your answer.

Anonymous said...

Hi Katie,

MemoryLifter seems excellent so far. Now I just have to complete a list of 1000 images and their number associations :)

Regards,
Andre