upvoted, because I’ve been wondering how the QM sequence is looked upon by physicists :)
realitygrill
Karma: 177
So, your earlier posts were basically lemmas? Certainly I appreciate all the reference notes.
“The biggest problem we have as human beings is that we confuse our beliefs with reality.”
-- Alan Kay, Programming and Scaling
Oh Rain, I praise thou so that your status may soar (temporarily) for your right action!
I had ADD diagnosed before, then retracted. Currently I am working on convergence insufficiency, which is significantly co-morbid with ADD.
I would just like to chime in that you’re not alone. My memory problems are horrendous, and I’ve had too much akrasia trouble to consistently do things like Mnemosyne or dual n-back.
As for memory techniques, I dislike mnemonics and my brain does not seem to be the type that can visualize things easily.
Yes, it’s been shown that you remember facts better if you think it will be tested later on.
I also resubmitted, having realized I signed up a year ago. Please use my new app!
I’d like to create one of these for evaluating the usefulness of information products (which by and large, suck).
Well, let’s hope you never have to. I didn’t think I’d have a situation like that, either.
That experience itself is similar to the hyperfocus state of ADD/ADHD—can anyone corroborate? I have had that diagnosis, then had it revoked. I have my own self-theories, including having low WM (which is why I recall that study), but I should really go try something like http://www.cambridgebrainsciences.com/
May I ask what you plan on studying? School was extremely easy for me once, and then extremely difficult (to complete).
The medical field (especially research) realizes that informatics is extremely important, but there’s not much consensus on implementation. I just caught a talk last week on the topic, and the speaker estimated that there were well over 200 “adjectivehere informatics” terms he found in a quick Google search—people just take whatever they originally did and add ‘informatics’ to it. Thus, terms like ‘pediatric endocrinology informatics’ abound in the literature...
You should also know that medicine, healthcare, and medical research as fields especially tend to be complex webs of conservatism, legalities, and other nasty little problems that must be overcome for change to occur (tip: check the cynicality on OvercomingBias). I think many technical people realize the cross-disciplinary opportunities available, but they just run aground.
Cool to meet you all :)
I think we need a venue in which it’s easier to talk. As for how often, I don’t know..
So, I was the incentive guy.
I loosely suspect this has to do with how you’ve conditioned your use of working memory and your amount of it. I’ve heard of a study where they found that some people with high IQ and high WM do poorly on standardized tests, because the situation narrowed and shrunk their WM temporarily. High IQ/low WMers did not appear to suffer this effect.
The analogy given was that you’re used to working on a nice executive desk, and suddenly you have to do the same tasks but with a clipboard and sheet of paper. Whereas if you have low WM, you’re already used to working with little space. In this crowd monitor size is probably a better analogy.
The chunking strategy puts more of your skills on autopilot, allowing you to do more higher level function rather than stalling out (see Sian Beilock’s new book Choke). I don’t really know what to think of those who are TOO open to stimuli, though.
As for my own experiences:
The most relevant situation I can think of is when I was in my first and only car accident. It was a two lane road, and in the opposite lane, a car was intending to turn left. Just before we would pass it that car was hit from behind and propelled into our car. Things went spinning; the car stopped. I was in the passenger seat and both my dad and I were dazed from the impact.
I had the strangest experience of being absolutely clear and focused—which I would kill to be able to activate at will, by the way. I was not able to move very fast, being slightly injured and whiplashed, and had lost my glasses. But my mind went clicking—even though I felt like I was moving through molasses, I saw smoke in the car and assessed it as dangerous to stay, roused my dad from semi-consciousness, unbuckled him and myself, pried open my door, got out and around and dragged my dad out to the opposite curb. Just no hesitation, one step after another, boom boom boom. This held for the rest of the day and allowed me to coordinate logistics before going off in the ambulance with my dad.
Like I said, strange, as if some ‘alert and analytical’ switch in my brain had been jammed for a few hours.
I don’t know if it’s cost effective, but the Ann Arbor-ites could try ZipCar.
I think I will be able to make it, also. Excellent!
Subject: Economics
Recommendation: Introduction to Economic Analysis (www.introecon.com)
This is a very readable (and free) microecon book, and I recommend it for clarity and concision, analyzing interesting issues, and generally taking a more sophisticated approach—you know, when someone further ahead of you treats you as an intelligent but uninformed equal. It could easily carry someone through 75% of a typical bachelor’s in economics. I’ve also read Case & Fair and Mankiw, which were fine but stolid, uninspiring texts.
I’d also recommend Wilkinson’s An Introduction to Behavioral Economics as being quite lucid. Unfortunately it is the only textbook out on behavioral econ as of last year, so I can’t say it’s better than others.
Have you ever read Group Theory and Its Applications in Physics by Inui, Tanabe, Onodera? I have never been able to find this book and it’s been recommended to me several times as the pedagogically best math/physics book they’ve ever read.
I imagine something like Lovasz’ Combinatorial Problems and Exercises, maybe also in a format amenable to spaced repetition. How many of us are qualified to contribute though? I certainly am not.
We could also write separate exercise books for different topics, and then each of us could specialize and sort of distributed pair-teach-learn in Bittorrent style. For example, Patrick has been helping me a lot (and I think he enjoys teaching me). I’d obviously like to return the favor, perhaps in another subject.
They wouldn’t be open to this currently, would they?