An upward arrow shaped like a human looking up?

Is there an RSS feed?

I've started a blog, and I'm kind of unreasonably shy about it. Especially given that it's, you know, a blog.

http://www.somnicule.com/

I'm looking for a simple an aesthetic symbol for humanism and humanity, from our ancestors looking at the stars and wondering why, and telling each other stories, and caring for each other in the distant past, to the invention of agriculture, democracy, civilization, the Enlightenment and the Renaissance, the improvement in the human condition, technology and knowledge and truth.

I think some of you know what I mean. Humanism Pt. 3 style chills.

Ideas I've thought of: hands, sails, brains, seeds, eyes, sprouts, flames. I was looking at getting symbols of both Apollo and Dionysus, but Dionysus in particular doesn't have anything particularly minimalist. An outline of human isn't connected strongly enough to the ideal I want to symbolize. The typical Happy Human is ugly. The "h+" thing is too narrow, and not visual enough.

EDIT:

The most appealing idea for me currently is a small sprout with a candle flame in between two or four leaves, inspired by the image and story here, maybe with the roots somehow obviously analogs of neurons. What do you all think of that?

It's weeks of casual reading to go through every posting in Main since 2007 (I know, I did it), and approximately nobody is going to go through every posting in Discussion. When I've done this and had it pointed out, I tend to leave the post up but link to the previous discussion.

habit-training techniques

What do you mean specifically here by "habit-training techniques"? What you describe above, or something else? (like, beeminder or ksotala's tips on habits etc.)

Good information! This is really more "a vote against flashcards" than "a vote against spaced repetition", though, at least given your concrete issues with flashcards. Spaced repetition is an algorithm for figuring out when to review material that you want to memorize; flashcards are one thing that spaced repetition is applied to, because it's easy to stick flashcards in a computer. As far as I know, no matter what object-level mnemonic devices you're using, spaced repetition is still strictly better than "when I feel like I'm forgetting" or "right before a test" or any of the other obvious review strategies, if you can deal with the cognitive load of scheduling things, or get a computer to do it for you.

Is there space for some sort of SRS that allows for input of the more helpful types of memorizations that you listed (pictures, venn diagrams, etc.)?

Anki is good for trigger -> response sorts of memorization, but requires a bit of hacking for other things. Combining mnemonics with spaced repetition, I've heard, is ridiculously powerful. I've got a card with three sides, Trigger, Association, and Response, to try and strengthen the trigger -> response bond. I've set it up so I've got Trigger -> Response, Association -> Response, Trigger -> Association and Trigger -> Association and Response cards. If anyone wants me to share this format, I'm happy to do so.

ETA: Combining this with habit-training techniques is, I predict, potentially powerful.

Covert conditioning is an interesting variant of operant conditioning where, instead of using an external stimulus to modify someone's behaviors, you just have them imagine themselves doing things and then receiving rewards or punishments. For instance, an alcoholic could imagine drinking alcohol and then immediately feeling nauseated. Or a student could imagine deciding to do his homework and then suddenly winning a million dollars.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure whether covert conditioning works. The linked Wikipedia article doesn't really give much evidence. If covert conditioning works, it seems like it could be very useful, especially in situations where ordinary reinforcement techniques are hard to use. For instance, one could easily reinforce sociability, which is hard to reinforce through ordinary methods because you don't want to look weird in public. Or one could train oneself to avoid unhealthy food by imagining that it makes one nauseated, precluding the need for actual emetics.

(Not going anywhere in particular with this, just curious what people's thoughts are.)

I have a Big List of Things To Try, or BLoTTT, because everything I do has to have a tacky self-helpy name even if I make it up myself. Lately I've just been, you know, trying them. It seems obvious, but it's easy to make this list and not do anything with it because you're always too busy or focused on something else or whatever. But really, it took two minutes to install f.lux and f.lux is awesome.

So is:

• Boomerang

• Anki

• Evernote

• Pomodoro

• Sunlight

• IFTTT

Not so awesome (for me):

• Rails

• Napping

• Large amounts of caffeine

But I learned!

• The Rails tutorial I started introduced me to TDD. TDD is great, so I'm learning to apply it to Django.

• Easier to appreciate proper sleep now.

• Low doses of caffeine are also great, and as yet it's nowhere near as addictive for me as it seems to be for other people. Still on a 1 day on, 2 days off cycle, to be safe.