Reads, Listens

Reading list of books, magazines, newspaper articles, other physical documents, or online posts
Playlist of posts listened to, or scrobbled
Read Airplane Wifi Location Tracking to Tasker to Compass by David ShanskeDavid Shanske (david.shanske.com)
On my recent trip, I took Southwest Airlines for the first time in many years. At Indiewebcamp New Haven, I set up Aaron Parecki’s compass project to send my location data to. I have 59MB of location data since March 3oth, 2019. The problem is transforming the input from Southwest into the format ...

👓 Blogging Futures Prompt 2 | Write.as

Read Blogging Futures Prompt 2 (Write.as)

Infrastructure

For the second prompt of the Blogging Futures course, we want to explore the question of infrastructure of blogs.

The discussion has shifted to thinking about how we assess the infrastructure of blogs. This entails not only the infrastructural framework of writing on the web but the mental framework behind it too.

👓 Blogging Futures Prompt 1 | Write.as

Read Blogging Futures Prompt 1 (Write.as)

Paradigms

For the first prompt of the Blogging Futures course, we want to explore the question of paradigms.

At the heart of this course is a simple question: where do we want blogging to go? Embedded in that question is another equally important one: Where do we not want blogging to go?

So where do we want/not want blogging to go? Are there paradigms you find useful in exploring these questions? Does writing on the web even exist on such a spectrum for you or is it something more complicated?

Along with these questions, there are some paradigms below that could serve as prompts for your own reflection.

Happy writing!

Read Memo palaces without any preparation? (Art of Memory Forum)
Yes, I found it works for long term recall too. There are a lot more tricks to imaginary locations that make them work better. They aren’t as simple as normal locations because you can make them better or worse than normal locations. Some of these tricks dive into how memory works too, the most common issue I see people having with imaginary memory palaces is interference and linking. These issues appear because normal memory palaces do not really deal with interference because they have been ...
Read Why Do People Move Their Eyes When Trying to Remember Something? (Today I Found Out)
Lori asks: When you ask someone a question where they have to remember something, everyone seems to look up and off to the side. Why do we do this? Down and to the left, straight-head but unfocused, and, of course, up and to the right, when asked a tough question or to recall a long-buried memory, most of us shift [...]
Read Speed-reading apps may impair reading comprehension by limiting ability to backtrack (ScienceDaily)
To address the fact that many of us are on the go and pressed for time, app developers have devised speed-reading software that eliminates the time we supposedly waste by moving our eyes as we read. But don't throw away your books, papers, and e-readers just yet -- research suggests that the eye movements we make during reading actually play a critical role in our ability to understand what we've just read.
Read Outread Teaches Speed Reading with Pocket, Instapaper and Readability (Lifehacker)
iPhone: If you read a lot, it's probably a good idea to learn speed-reading. And the best way to learn is to go through your current backlog of things you want to read. So if you have a lot of articles saved in Pocket, Instapaper or Readability, you're in luck, because Outread will help you get through them and learn speed-reading in the process.
Read Speed Reading Apps: Spritz, Spreeder (Art of Memory Forum)

I’m really excited about a new speed reading app called Spritz 24. The only drawback is that it only allows readers to go up to 600wpm at the moment.

Spreeder 11 also looks good. I can read at 1,000 wpm there without it feeling too much like “skimming”, though it’s possible to miss an important word like a number when blinking – edit: see below. I think it would be better if the full text were written below it so that one could look up any words that were missed.

Those apps seem to break the speed limits mentioned in this article 5.

Check them out and let me know what you think…

Edit: I did some searching online and found some more apps, which I’ll link to below. I think the words are missed at 1,000wpm speed not because of blinking, but because certain kinds of text don’t work at this speed. I just tried it with some text from the wiki and I think that it’s too fast for lists and numbers in general. One improvement that could be made is to automatically slow down half or quarter the speed when encountering things like numbers and lists. Maybe it would also help readers if the apps would slightly pause at punctuation.

Edit 2: on further experimentation, I think the 1,000wpm speed is skimming. When using their simple-English examples, it works, but nothing beyond “skimming” when using normal text, like this random example 2 from Wikipedia.

Read Moving Your Eyes Improves Memory, Study Suggests (livescience.com)
If you’re looking for a quick memory fix, move your eyes from side-to-side for 30 seconds, researchers say. Horizontal eye movements are thought to cause the two hemispheres of the brain to interact more with one another, and communication between brain hemispheres is important for retrieving certain types of memories.

👓 rapid eye movement from dominique o’brien | General Memory Chat | Art of Memory Forum

Read rapid eye movement from dominique o'brien (Art of Memory Forum)
Hi, in a TV-show about all kinds of crazy world records I saw dominique o’brien memorising 50 objects that were placed on some kind of running track. When he was doing this, his eyes moved from side to side in a very fast pace. This reminded me of an incredibly smart IT-guy (I felt like Forrest Gump in comparison) that came to our warehouse to implement a new computer system. If he was asked a very difficult question he would look up in the air and his eyes would behave precisely like those o...

Possibly tangentially related:

  • If you sit on a swivel chair (safer than doing the same thing standing up) and gently place your fingertips on your closed eyes while you turn around and around, you’ll be able to discern that your eyes will still exhibit saccadic movement even though you can’t “see” anything. (Not sure if this is true for the blind, but it’s worth considering who this may not be true for and why.)
  • Rapid Serial Visual Presentation methods for speed reading (Spritz and related apps) work well primarily because they limit saccadic eye movements which take up a proportionally large portion of your reading time. (Ultimately I think there is an upper limit to how fast one can read and comprehend and retain information.)
  • The visual systems of chickens are responsible for their odd walking manner in which they throw their heads forward and then move their body underneath them while their head remains stationary. Essentially while their head is moving, they’re “blind”.

Is it possible that saccades of the eye are tied into our visual processing and memory systems in a manner deeper than we’re consciously aware? Does reading on a page help our comprehension or long term memories more because the words have a location on a page versus RSVP reading methods? Do our mental visualizations (imagination) change depending on these visual/reading methods? What effects to these have on our memories?

Some interesting questions worth pondering/researching.