michael_nielsen

Great essay. Re "[in HCI] the overwhelming majority of papers seem timid when compared to early work on augmentation." I totally agree. Do you know of communities you think are doing better? I like @distillpub but the focus is ML, not augmentation or interaction.

Thanks! Full fledged communities, no. But nascent communities, sure - I find inspiration in lots of groups of artists, musicians, YouTubers, ppl writing “Explorable Explanations”, @Dynamicland1, etc.

Very interesting and useful read! As you may know, Simon had a lot to say about the relationship between pragmatically tinkering designers and rigorous scientists as well (The Sciences of the Artificial). https://monoskop.org/images/9/9c/Simon_Herbert_A_The_Sciences_of_the_Artificial_3rd_ed.pdf …

Thanks! Yes, I love that book!

whatever the technique - Anki, meditation, impressing your partner or whatever - being engaged deeply is the key... speaking from a personal experience

Yes, though I find Anki functions as something of an emotional prosthetic for me: it helps me care more. But it definitely works better for material I’m invested in; it’s a sort of engagement amplifier.

I’m a big fan of Anki too! Nice to see your approach.

Great piece -- when you were memorizing Dickens, what was your card structure? Was the front one sentence, and the back the next sentence in the book?

No, that would be too complicated (and violate the atomicity principle). It was short phrases used to cue the next short phrase. Very slow without larger chunks.