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michael_nielsen's profile
michael_nielsen
michael_nielsen
michael_nielsen
@michael_nielsen

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michael_nielsen

@michael_nielsen

Searching for the numinous. Co-purveyor of https://quantum.country/ 

San Francisco, CA
michaelnielsen.org
Joined July 2008

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    michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 28 Jan 2018
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    The use of spaced repetition memory systems has changed my life over the past couple of years. Here's a few things I've found helpful:

    3:52 PM - 28 Jan 2018
    • 561 Retweets
    • 2,405 Likes
    • Eli Parra 🌊 Rohan Williams Eric Fintan Kennedy نون و سیب 🍎&🍞 Andy luca  leli Adi rna1655
    54 replies 561 retweets 2,405 likes
      1. New conversation
      2. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 28 Jan 2018
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        I've memorized about 9,000 cards, over 2 years.

        5 replies 3 retweets 78 likes
        Show this thread
      3. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 28 Jan 2018
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        The single biggest change is that memory is no longer a haphazard event, to be left to chance. Rather, I can guarantee I will remember something, with minimal effort: it makes memory a _choice_.

        5 replies 20 retweets 227 likes
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      4. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 28 Jan 2018
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        Rule of thumb: if memorizing something will likely save me five minutes in the future, into the spaced repetion system it goes. The expected lifetime review time is less than five minutes, i.e., it takes < 5 minutes to learn something... forever.

        3 replies 16 retweets 176 likes
        Show this thread
      5. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 28 Jan 2018
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        I use Anki (https://apps.ankiweb.net/  ), both desktop and mobile apps. I've no affiliation with them at all.

        9 replies 19 retweets 283 likes
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      6. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 28 Jan 2018
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        I mostly enter cards on the desktop app.

        2 replies 1 retweet 37 likes
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      7. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 28 Jan 2018
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        I review cards on the mobile app, while going for walks, in line at the coffeeshop, in transit, and so on. I find it meditative. It takes about 20 mins each day.

        3 replies 3 retweets 83 likes
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      8. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 28 Jan 2018
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        I tried (and failed) several times to take Anki up.

        1 reply 3 retweets 50 likes
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      9. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 28 Jan 2018
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        But what finally made Anki "take" was frustration that I'd never really learned the Unix command line.

        3 replies 2 retweets 86 likes
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      10. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 28 Jan 2018
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        For fun, I wondered if it might be possible to use Anki to essentially completely memorize a (short!) book on the command line. It was. I didn't memorize all options, but I did memorize nearly all I could imagine ever using. This was very exciting!

        4 replies 1 retweet 71 likes
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      11. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 28 Jan 2018
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        A caveat: there is a difference between remembering facts and mastering processes. It's one thing to know a command; it's another to actually type the command.

        2 replies 9 retweets 87 likes
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      12. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 28 Jan 2018
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        To really internalize a process, you need to actually do the process. Still, I've found the transfer relatively easy.

        1 reply 5 retweets 61 likes
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      13. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 28 Jan 2018
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        (I've experimented with miming the actions while reviewing cards, but it doesn't work so well and is annoying.)

        2 replies 1 retweet 30 likes
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      14. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 28 Jan 2018
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        It's best to make cards as atomic as possible.

        3 replies 5 retweets 59 likes
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      15. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 28 Jan 2018
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        An example: when learning about soft linking I initially had a question "How to create a soft link?" with answer "ln -s filename linkname".

        6 replies 1 retweet 45 likes
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      16. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 28 Jan 2018
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        This was too complicated --- I always stumbled on the order of filename and linkname.

        3 replies 1 retweet 38 likes
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      17. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 28 Jan 2018
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        I broke the question in two: "What is the command and option to use to create a soft link?" A: "ln -s". And "What is the ordering of filename and linkname"

        4 replies 1 retweet 93 likes
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      18. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 28 Jan 2018
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        This sounds silly and obvious, but the improvement was very considerable: the two cards became trivial.

        3 replies 1 retweet 61 likes
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      19. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 28 Jan 2018
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        (There's something quite deep about memory in this example, which I don't understand.)

        6 replies 1 retweet 106 likes
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      20. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 28 Jan 2018
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        I use Anki for almost everything.

        4 replies 2 retweets 42 likes
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      21. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 28 Jan 2018
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        Learning places and all kinds of facts about my city, from the best things to order at a particular restaurant to demographic statistics (really) to favourite places in parts of the city I don't visit often.

        2 replies 3 retweets 44 likes
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      22. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 28 Jan 2018
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        Learning APIs.

        1 reply 2 retweets 37 likes
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      23. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 28 Jan 2018
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        Reading papers and books and watching videos. This is especially helpful for building mastery outside your area of expertise. You can (say) read a paper multiple times through, each time just grabbing what is easy, gradually building up an understanding.

        3 replies 3 retweets 84 likes
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      24. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 28 Jan 2018
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        For instance, this is how I read the AlphaGo paper (for my article https://www.quantamagazine.org/is-alphago-really-such-a-big-deal-20160329/ … ).

        2 replies 9 retweets 120 likes
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      25. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 28 Jan 2018
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        I read and reread the paper several times, as well as consulting a lot of adjacent papers, Wikipedia etc.

        1 reply 2 retweets 36 likes
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      26. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 28 Jan 2018
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        I added several hundred Anki cards while doing.

        6 replies 1 retweet 32 likes
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      27. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 28 Jan 2018
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        The early cards were mostly very simple things: facts about TDGammon (which used a similar approach to beat Backgammon), very basic facts about how Go works, and reinforcement learning and Monte Carlo Tree search.

        2 replies 1 retweet 43 likes
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      28. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 28 Jan 2018
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        Later, the facts got more and more complex.

        1 reply 2 retweets 24 likes
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      29. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 28 Jan 2018
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        Of course, I didn't master all the literature around the paper. But I think I made pretty rapid progress coming up to speed.

        1 reply 1 retweet 24 likes
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      30. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 28 Jan 2018
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        Now, just to write one article that wouldn't necessarily have been a good use of time. But a nice thing about Anki is that the information is retained. When the AlphaGo Zero and AlphaZero papers came out, they were very easy to read.

        1 reply 1 retweet 34 likes
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      31. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 28 Jan 2018
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        Verb form: I talk and think of "Ankifying" a paper or book etc.

        4 replies 6 retweets 68 likes
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      32. 3 more replies

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