All of adhearn's Comments + Replies

I don't have a definite alternative to Cloze deletions yet. I think that they are very effective in certain contexts (the example from the article of using overlapping Cloze deletions to memorize an alphabet generally seems like a great use.) However, I've found that they aren't helpful for me when trying to memorize, say, mathematical formulas. In particular, I feel that I start to "learn the deck", rather than actually learning the underlying material, and I never get a feel for the formula as a whole. So, I should really revise my comment abo... (read more)

Not sure if this is what you meant by "systemized", but here's my basic workflow for textbooks:

  1. Read chapter (or, more likely, some 4-5 sections of a chapter)
  2. Summarize/analyze chapter in an emacs org-mode document
  3. Generate anki cards from the summary
  4. (Optional) Expand summary with notes from lecture

Writing new cards takes a long time, so I try to spread out the work. Roughly speaking, one textbook chapter usually takes two days, and will generate 20-30 cards. (This is for physics and math, where I'm generating a lot of cards that are relativ... (read more)

0tgb
That twenty rules article (in particular Cloze deletions) seem quite useful and have good examples! Thanks for the recommendation. What would you suggest beyond Cloze deletions?
0Pablo
You can download Alex Vermeer's "20 rules" deck and use Anki to learn how to better use Anki. ;-)
2[anonymous]
I haven't started learning emacs yet but this is in my bookmarks and may be of interest to you: interactive shortcut tutorial
0ahartell
Thanks. This is exactly what I meant by "systemized."

StayFocused has a nice (optional) feature where you're required to type a long, complicated paragraph before being allowed to change settings. Additionally, it prevents you from making changes after you've run out of time for the day. Finally, it also blocks sites that are linked to from restricted sites, which works wonders for Reddit/HN browsing. However, you can have only one list of restricted sites, unlike the sets of sites that you get with LeechBlock. Additionally, you are forced to have at least one minute available for browsing per day, with an ad... (read more)

If it's on a weekend or late enough on a Friday, I would be willing to drive up from Bloomington.

An interesting analogy. Extending that, what we want to explicitly avoid is simple alpha reduction (where we simply replace one variable with another (unbound) variable). Extending the analogy to cover eta reduction is probably a bit of a stretch, or at least I can't see a meaningful way to do so.

I'm at IU, but I can make the trip (and might be in Indy that day anyway).