Forgetting Curves

A graph of "Memory" versus "Time". The baseline curve (solid line) is just a smooth decay over time. The "Spaced repetition" curve follows the same decay shape, but periodically "resets" the memory to the maximal value and then decays more slowly. "The educator's dream" curve is dot-dashed and never decays.

As a sports coach, I’m very familiar with that baseline.

10 May 2025

Performance Trajectories

A graph of "Performance" over "Time". The "Lone wolves" trajectory increases at first, then plateaus. But the "Those in community" trajectory steadily increases, and even accelerates.

As a lone wolf by default, this is a reminder to myself.

03 May 2025

Partitioning Skills

Different levels of partitioning skills for readers. Level one: A fiction and a non-fiction book. Level two: Two fiction books. Level three: Two fiction books in the same genre. Level four: Two fantasy books.

You know things are bad when you’re deep in the obsession phase for a story but you start mixing in characters and plot elements from the other book you’re reading.

26 Apr 2025

Noticeable Gap

A graph showing two quantities over time. "What I know" linearly increases with time, while "What I don't know" increases even faster. The gap is "What I notice".

Mastery is becoming at peace with an ever-widening gap.

19 Apr 2025

Compactify

A graph of "Complexity of notation" over "Time". At first, the complexity increases as you're learning a new topic. But then it decreases as you learn how to write equations in a simpler way.

Unfortunately, we often present mathematics in the opposite order, where we show the nice and tidy formula which only makes sense to someone with a lot of experience and intuition on the subject.

12 Apr 2025

Bankruptcy

A graph of "Size of reading list" over "Time". The size steadily increases until the person declares "reading list bankruptcy" and purges the list.

Who am I kidding: I sometimes get nervous about deleting anything, and so I just let the list languish. Sometimes, I switch to new services to achieve the same effect!

06 Apr 2025

Event Horizon

Someone asks their friend, "So, what's next after your PhD?" A thought bubble for the graduate student shows a timeline between now and graduation, with a bunch of question marks after graduation.

Any other graduate students feeling the same way?

29 Mar 2025

Retention

A graph of "Information retained" versus "Time in presentation". The first (solid) curve is an increasing linear function (What you hope for). The second (dashed) increases at early times, but then goes down as time goes on (What happens).

Two reasons: working memory overload and fatigue. It’s a fantasy to imagine that my audience will immediately soak up everything I share.

22 Mar 2025

Outline

Left panel (Writing with an outline): The writer makes clickety-clack sounds as they type happily away at a laptop and says, "Wow, a thousand words in an hour!" Right panel (Writing without an outline): The writer scratches their chin and is not writing anything.

As I’m in the midst of thesis-writing, I definitely understand the power of the left panel!

15 Mar 2025

The Distraction Hump

A graph of "Desire to distract oneself" versus "Time in focus mode". The curve initially skyrockets, but the desire for distraction then comes down and approaches zero as one stays focused.

Unfortunately, giving in to a distraction doesn’t pause your way through the curve, but resets you back to zero.

01 Mar 2025

To the past To the present