memory

Jul 10 2011

Remembering Ohio (600th Post)

“And now they’re outside on roller skates, singing about the refrigerator!”
— The kid talking about dust bunnies

Recently I read a book called “Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything” by Joshua Foer. I started reading it partly because it looked interesting, and partly because my memory needs all the help it can get!

From Wikipedia:

In 2006, Foer won the U.S.A. Memory Championship, and set a new record in the “speed cards” event by memorizing a deck of 52 cards in 1 minute and 40 seconds. Moonwalking with Einstein describes Foer’s journey as a participatory journalist to becoming a national champion mnemonist, under the tutelage of British Grand Master of Memory, Ed Cooke.

The book had some interesting concepts about improving one’s memory. One idea involved using visual imagery to help remember abstract data. The graphic below is an example on how I put this to use.

Jill, the kid, and I just got back from a great week in Ohio visiting with Jill’s extended family. In the weeks leading up to the trip I kept asking Jill for reminders of the trip’s details (where we were going, when, etc.)

After reading the book, I no longer had to bother Jill with this question. Instead, I just created a memorable mental image that helped me remember the trip’s details. Here’s the image I conjured up to help me remember, along with some details:

What I wanted to remember:

  • We were flying to Pittsburgh on July 4th
  • We would be traveling from Pittsburgh to Sugarcreek, Ohio
  • We’d be seeing Amish country

How my mental image helped:

  • I pictured Harrison Ford from the movie Witness (takes place in Amish country) standing with Sugar Ray Leonard and Drew Carey (whose old TV show was based in Ohio)
  • All three stood in a creek (for good measure, I imagined sugar packets floating in the water)
  • Ford held a Pittsburgh Steelers helmet
  • Fireworks filled the sky above them (as if it were the 4th of July)

This worked out pretty well for me, and I’m sure I’ll be using this trick again in the future to help remember a few things (if I remember.)

BTW, this is post number 600. Our first post went out on Dec 29, 2006, about 236 weeks (or 1655 days) ago. Past ‘milestone’ posts:

By mike • by Mike, Misc, Travel • 1 • Tags: , , , , , , ,

Aug 21 2010

Memory Upgrade

“Sometimes fyashyights get yost. They fall awound stuff.”
— Lucy explaining how household flashlights go missing
(“Sometimes flashlights get lost. They fall around stuff”)

What do ya know, another memory post. Please contain your excitement.

Once I was sure our new iMac was a keeper, I quickly ordered an extra 4GB of RAM. I took some pics while installing the additional RAM and decided to post ‘em here, along with notes on the installation process.

iMac RAM Upgrade

iMac RAM Upgrade

iMac RAM Upgrade

iMac RAM Upgrade

iMac RAM Upgrade

iMac RAM Upgrade

iMac RAM Upgrade

iMac RAM Upgrade

iMac RAM Upgrade

iMac RAM Upgrade

iMac RAM Upgrade

By mike • by Mike, Geeky, Misc • 2 • Tags: , , , , , ,

Jul 4 2008

NASA, Shmassa

Memoryt

Warning: this is another “old guy reminisces” bit, kinda like this post.

I’ve been using Jill’s iMac lately. Because of this, I thought I’d soup it up a bit and order some extra ram (because we all know you’ve gotta max out the ram when you’re doing heavy duty stuff like cruising web sites and answering email, right?)

Anyway, while researching and ordering the ram, I made the very pleasant discovery that ram is dirt cheap these days, and it reminded me of a ram purchase I made way back in the mid-nineties.

Back then, I had just purchased my first Apple computer, which came standard with a whopping 8 MB of ram. Because I was working with (or more truthfully, trying to learn how to work with) graphics and such, I knew I’d need a little more power. So, to acommodate the power lust I bit the bullet and purchased an additional 16 MB. This skyrocketed my Mac’s total amount of ram to a staggering 24 MBs.

“24 MBs! Man, I probably have more computing power than NASA had when they launched those dudes to the moon!” I remember thinking to myself at the time.

Well, to this day, I’ll remember that purchase, because Fry’s was having a sale on ram and I was able to snag my precious 16 MBs of ram for $500 before tax. A lot of money, but a pretty good deal for the time. The cost breakdown was as follows:

16MB = $500 or
1MB = $31.25

Well, thirteen odd years later, instead of trekking down to the neighborhood Fry’s, I did a quick online search (dealram and resellerratings were helpful), found a merchant, whipped out my credit card, and ordered 4GB or ram for $88.  Cost breakdown is as follows::

4 GB = $88 or
1024 MB (1GB) = $22  or
1 MB = $.023

Isn’t that cool? What was approximately $31 a MB a few years ago is now a little over 2 cents a MB! Boy, how some things change!

4 GBs! Man, I bet I totally have more computing power than NASA had when they launched those dudes to the moon!

Yep, and some (geeky) things never change.

By mike • by Mike, Geeky, Time Capsule • 5 • Tags: , , ,