Wisdom is the prime thing

There’s a great graphic on The Boston Globe’s website called: How to Nap. From the article:

Research on pilots shows that a 26-minute “NASA” nap in flight (while the plane is manned by a copilot) enhanced performance by 34 percent and overall alertness by 54 percent. One Harvard study published this year showed that a 45-minute nap improves learning and memory.

My favorite part of the article was that a study last year showed that just thinking about taking a nap brought down blood pressure!

I came across an interesting site: http://www.phonetic.com that helps you come up with word combinations to help in memorizing a phone number.

According to Wikipedia,

Richard Porson (25 December 1759 – 25 September 1808) was an English classical scholar.

In addition to his renowned work with ancient Greek texts, he is remembered for his prodigious memory. It is said that he could remember the complete text of Homer, Cicero, Horace, Virgil, and works of Shakespeare, Milton, and Gibbon.

A most intriguing article appeared in the New York Times on June 17, 1877 about Porson. From the article:

On another occasion, calling upon a friend, Porson found him reading Thucydides. Being asked casually the meaning of some word he immediately repeated the context. “But how do you know that it was this passage I was reading?” asked his friend. “Because,” replied Porson, “the word only occurs twice in Thucydides; once on the right-hand page in the edition which you are now using, and once on the left. I observed on which side you looked, and accordingly I knew to which passage you referred.”

…

Upon one occasion he undertook to learn by heart the entire contents of the Morning Chronicle in a week; and he used to say he could repeat Roderick Random from beginning to end.

Now, The Adventures of Roderick Random is a 500-page book, with some 190,000 words.

With rebuild_db.py you can use your iPod Shuffle as a memorization tool.

The iPod Shuffle has a feature to disallow some tracks from being played in Shuffle mode. Additionally, when in Normal mode pressing the Play button 3 times in quick succession takes you to the beginning of the iPod’s memory. These two features can be exploited for our use.

» Read the rest of this entry

I have a theory that it should be possible to learn to speak a language conversationally in a week’s time.

Here’s how. » Read the rest of this entry

We live in a society of constant distraction. It molds our minds into a state of continuously splintered attention. For instance, while doing some reading, the phone rings. As you get off the phone, your cell phone beeps to alert you to a text message. To answer it you get online to look something up, and in the process remember something else you needed to look for. You go to send an email, but a more pressing email demands to be read and answered. Now you’re back to your reading and are besieged by various thoughts. By the end of the chapter, you have trouble remembering anything you read.

What can be done to reclaim consciousness, hone concentration, and sharpen focus? » Read the rest of this entry