What is SuperMemo 2008? September 29, 2009

Supermemo 2009 SuperMemo 2008 is a knowledge manager and builder. It helps you build knowledge trough the a mix of enhanced methods for learning and memorization.

Is an integrated environment design so you can read, view or listen any kind of information and following a series of progressive steps, gather bits of information from your fields of interests, and makes sure you remember up the limits of your capacity.

At its heart is a SRS (spaced repetition system) that although looks like other flash card systems, has its own algorithms develop over more than 20 years of research on the field of learning. Not a single other flashcard program offers protection from long delayed repetitions. If you don’t do 100 repetitions for a month you will get 300 items the next day, SuperMemo 2008 knows about human behavior and although it can’t make repetitions for you it helps you deal with delay in your daily repetitions by prioritization of your most important material.

Supermemo is a system integrated modules, so that you can take a big pile of information and processed it according to your current needs but with loosing your creativity purposes. It uses a series of other methods (priority, autopostpone, leaches, etc) developed trough many years to help you with information overflow and remembering what is most important.

Supermemo is better suited for semantic type of knowledge (the kind of knowledge that make you able to remember: What is the name of the president of your country) as opposed to procedural learning (the type that help you remember how to ride a bike). This is the kind of knowledge I more trouble remembering.

Supermemo 2008 has many new teaks over previous version: youtube incremental video has been a great help for getting trough a lot of opencourse clips from great academic colleges as well as many talk on this video platform. I wish this function is extended to other video formats in future builds of the application (it is continually updated), but truth be told I have more then enough to read, view, and listen and Supermemo 2008 is making it so much easier to deal with all this. This is one of the reasons I’ve been lost from blogging for more then 3 weeks (learning, learning, learning… and enjoying the ride).

I’ll make a complete review on SuperMemo 2008 as soon as possible. A lot of enhancements are so great they should have been included from the start… I’m always forgetting supermemo started as a solution for dealing with flashcard learning not the knowledge manager its come to be. Review will be centered in using this new enhancements an not if they are valuable or not, they are!

If this doesn’t fit supermemo’s site description of the program, its because is my personal description for of what it means to me, and probably should mean to you. SuperMemo has a somewhat high learning curve, but is great investment for long term knowledge. If you need fast cram solutions use any kind of flashcards (paper or other software).

When you decide to take the opportunity to enhance your learning with this great tool be sure to go the supermemo store from this link: SuperMemo 2008. That way you’ll buy me a beer!

Incremental Video – A way September 29, 2009

No there is no SuperMemo 2009, new Supermemo 2008 includes a lot of goodies, not many, but… Well long do, but its here, incremental video is great, I wish I had all my classes from college, ok maybe not all of them, some where totally boring. Incremental Video learning is here, is like having the opportunity to hear once a conference (jokes, dance video, what ever) and after wards you can look back to previous important sections only, and not wasting you time, with non interesting parts, is like watching a conference until you no longer understand, search related info, get back on track. I got so many video courses, I wish all of them where on youtube right now I want to get started, this is promising. Incremental Video Learning sounds like a complete learning tool, after all we learn mostly trough our eyes, don’t we. OK some also learn doing (but watching is very close) current science backs up that watching with the intention to learning helps you learn to do faster, so even if your not doing Incremental Video learning sounds great. So incremental video is super, but what it SuperMemo 2008?… I’ll make my description in the a new post.

A more detailed version – About August 26, 2009

Who Is writing this blog?

I have never though it was important to write much about me in this blog, as its objective is  to share our experiences on using and enhancing the uses of SM as a knowledge manager tool. But I was checking out visitors to the “About” page and it has some visitors so I’m posting a more detailed version today. Must hop fast into the my ride now.

Priority queue issue August 23, 2009

If you like Incremental Reading check out previous post a status report from a newbie in IR

The problem:

Priority queue includes dismissed elements

The experience:

First of all, if you think you read this before see note at the botton of the post.

Browsing trough my collection, I accidentally hit “alt+p” over a dismissed topic (folder in this case). To my surprise it had a high priority position 0.02 % (107 in a 54000 element queue).

To know some elements are never going to be postponed via autopospone is great insurance for high importance material. The only problem though that in this case this is a folder. To keep dismissed elements in the priority queue (even worst high in that queue) is not correct. This elements displace real high priority elements which also affects the autopostpone behavior that is the most effective way to deal with overload and hence with people leaving  supermemo after getting to a huge acumulation of material in their queue. If the autopospone + priority have this design troubles people won’t trust its knowledge to supermemo in the long run.

The priority queue is almost the main reason for using sm2006 but this high priority for dismissed elements simply is plain wrong, and should be even better in newer versions.

The Reason:

Design of a priority queue should  always based on pending material

You are only concern with “to do items”, in supermemo case those are memorized or pending.

Currently the priority percentage is been manage by the total items in the collection, which I feel is a design problem. You have an item with 6% priority in a total of 7000 items of which 50% are dismissed elements, Then in reality its priority is 12%, but of course no one will notice it at first hand.

Dismissed elements by default on any GTD management system goes to the bottom of priorities or even better have no priority at all.

Dismissed elements included in Piority window are useless

In the following scenario:

topic # 67: (dismissed element)

item #24: What is the most common cause of pneumonia? (memorized)

Topic #1542: (dismissed element)

Is not possible to make a decision about priority with regard to previous or folowing element in priority queue. Would you put it before or after the dismissed element, always before anything dismissed, wright?

Autopospone manages high priority material by not postponing them

Auto-postpone is great way for managing overload of material. By using a priority queue things get even better, that is unless the priority queue es flawed.

I consider the information in my collection according to an interval scale:

0-10% high priority

10-50% regular priority

50-100% low priority

Of course all information added to supermemo is always important, but priority has to do with what is most important over other important information.

Setting this interval scaling helps me decide the value of priority assigned to an element when needed, usually a mid interval is chosen inside the desired category

Autopostpone is set to never postpone elements with priorities lower then 10% in my collection.

After a while of including a lot of dissmised items more and more are going to be included with priorities in the 0-10% range leaving many items of high priority aside.

If you got many dismissed elements, and this fill up a lot of spaces in the priority queue, because if you don’t move dismissed elements to the end of the queue they will displaced really high priority elements making this item postponeable and the whole priority + autopostpone algorithm useless.

Proposed Behavior:

• Priority queue should only consider Memorized and Pending elements
• Priority total should only refer to this elements
• Dismissed elements should regain a new priority when added to the memorized or pending material, because of the change in its condition.

Current Work Around:

In my continue motto: “Don’t complain, fix it!”. Here is what I’ve been doing to deal with the problem.

Every once and a while (e.g. monthly or after adding a lot of new elements)

1. Open View: Dismissed
2. Undismiss
3. Dismiss this subset.

Dismissed elements are always put at the lowest priority possible (I previously though this was flawed) In this sense steps needed are less and simpler. Previous steps are bellow in gray.

1. Open complete collection in browser
2. Selected child dismissed
3. Undismiss
4. Change priority
5. Dismiss again the same subset.

Notes: (3) is necessary otherwise browser won’t accept changing priorities in dismissed elements. (4) Use a interval big enough to fit all dismissed items. (5) Don’t ever forget this step, else medicine will be worst then the disease.

I do this is by using autohotkey macros, but not plain keyboard will do it with ease.

This an updated post for problems on priority queue for dismissed elements

General Rule of Learning August 15, 2009

My mind is not wired like everyone else, I get that very often, I find my self doing math when I’m reading. I take something in something and end adding, subtracting, sometimes exponentially associating previous data, and finally having the x of my equation as an answer. By the way, my brain is not wired like any one else brain. No single brain is wired the same, but hey! this makes evolution possible, right?

The following is the way my brain played with a nice “rule” I read on a very interesting blog. The author has many ideas I share, there is a lot of thinking on the blog, unfortunately I’ll have to wait the priority queue of my SuperMemo until I read some more posts, I leave you the golden rule processed tonight before going to sleep.

Original:

The Golden Rule of Language Learning: Absolutely any method of language learning, as long as it includes regular exposure to the target language, will eventually yield fluency if followed faithfully enough.

Intermediate:

The Golden Rule of Language Learning: Absolutely any method of language learning, as long as it includes regular exposure to the target language knowledge,  will eventually yield fluency if followed faithfully enough.

Final:

The Golden Rule of Learning: Absolutely any method of  learning, as long as it includes regular exposure to the target knowledge,  will eventually yield fluency if followed faithfully enough.

Although this rule says nothing about how to learn, is says a lot about not stopping half way trough the learning process. Now, if lifelong learning is a must to excel in our current stage of development it means…  regular exposure to the target knowledge. This is where my beloved and faithful personal learning assistant Supermemo helps, he’ll make sure I don’t forget the Golden Rule of Learning.

How autopostpone affects the learning process. August 9, 2009

• Autopostpone should always be on – with conservative options set.

• Using autopostpone intermittently will make huge deleterious effects on your collection.

Faithful to the GTD management I’ve been trying to develop since a couple of months, a recurring theme about postponing and management of overload came to my focus of interest again.

I’ve always mistrusted leaving my learning processes on absolute autopilot by auto-postponing them, hence I’ve written about this issue before. Today I have a new understanding about what to do and not to ever do when dealing with auto-postpone (postpone for individual branches or subsets is not taken into account in this post).

In order to acknowledge the influence of auto-postpone in the items intervals by supermemo and excel table was constructed. At first I wanted to see a whole lot of combinations of parameters. But for simplicity sake, a single example table is showed  here.

AutoPostpone intervals by number of postpones

The individual intervals and delay factor will of course be different if other parameters are set, in any case I’ll be showing the intervals used in my collection.

Rows show in dark brown the intervals set by supermemo in each postpone (columns), light brown shows the degree of delay (used/optimal interval).

A delay of 2.0 means that the interval set is double of the ideal, 3.0 means triple long interval, etc.

Supermemo establishes the recall probability for each item during repetitions, and this recall probability is directly proportional to the degree of delay, but is influenced by the forgetting index, so this makes comparisons of the probability of recall also relative to preffered parameters.

For a Forgetting index of 20%. A delay of about 2.0 has a recall probability of 84%, and 3.0 has 73% probability, and 4.0 has 64%. So a higher index of delay means, you have to go back to square one on the learning process of the items at hand.

Before, I had autpospone turn off, mainly because I didn’t understand how the postpone parameters affected my learning process by modifying the intervals for the outstanding items and topics. This is no longer a limitations, and in fact I would recommend turning on autpostpone and living it that way afterwards.

Using autopostpone for a couple of weeks or months and the turning it of for another interval of time, and going back again to autopostone will make huge deleterous effects on your collection. Let me show you what I mean.

Lets start by setting a postpone factor of 1.1, max delay of 10, max postpones to 8, and starting optimal interval of 4. Autopostpone will set higher intervals if you do manage to make the repetitions until the item is opstponed 5 times or more.

Optimal Interval = 4
1º postponed interval = 5
2º postponed interval = 6
3º postponed interval = 7
4º postponed interval = 8
5º postponed interval = 9
6º postponed interval = 10
7º postponed interval = 12 (Intervals are set to next whole number, ea. 1.2 = 2)
8º postponed interval = 14 (Intervals are set to next whole number)

Here an item will have an interval of 14 on the 8th postpone, then it will not be postpone any further, here will assume that 4 weeks after 14th day, you finally make a repetition on this item taking an interval of 42 days (14+28).

If you turned of the autopostpone after the 2th postpone, but still don’t make a repetition on this item and before the 42th day you turn on the autopostpone, and by then you would normally (like in the first case) make the a repetition on this item, but because of having turned off before autopospone it will get postpone (until 8 postpones are made, in this example) according to the folowing values.

Optimal Interval = 4
1º postponed interval = 5
2º postponed interval = 6
42th day: autopostpone turned on
3º postponed interval = 42+4.2=47
4º postponed interval = 47+4.7=52
5º postponed interval = 52+5.2=58
6º postponed interval = 58+5.8=64
7º postponed interval = 64+6.4=71
8º postponed interval = 71+7.1=79

Then by not using autopostpone all the time, when you finally get to make a repetition on this item, its interval has gone up to a delay of 19.75 (79/4). Having autopostpone set all the time you get delay of 10.25, still high but not as harmful to your probability of recall as when you use autopospone intermitently. When autopostpone is set on and off more then once the effects are even larger.

How on earth did I got intersted in finding out about this postpone issue. Obviously because I did turn on and off autopostpone as I learned how to set the correct parameters (for my own requirements), only to find out it did make things worst. I started to check if there where items which had last repetition dated more then 30 days ago and that had one repetition (recently entered to the learning process, or mistaken on the last repetition) or two (meaning not yet consolidated). To my surprise many items where repeated more then 400 days ago, with only one repetitions done, and most importantly those where valuable data.

Botton line – Don’t mess with autopostopone use it all the time or never.

SuperMemo fan goes Incremental Reading August 7, 2009

I’ve done a lot less blogging lately (yeah right… like I ever did much).  My life is coming more and more entrenched by the existence of my external hypocampus. From the scientific point of view this structure makes it possible to form long term memories.  From a singularity point of view my external hypocampus (e.a. Supermemo) is become more important in life. Not that kind of importance that you live up to ways supermemo author says about giving up conventional life, but as an enhancement to no worrying anymore about my learning going into one ear (or both eyes) and not even reaching my cortex.

I’ve though Incremental Reading would be a great way to enhance my learning, but in order to get deeper in this practice I needed to know if I wasn’t the only one searching for this Holy Grail of acquiring vast amount of info. Fellow Supermemoer Nattan has done the job of going to the process of using Incremental reading and then telling how does it feel to take it from ground cero (almost). His been a fan of not overloading the learning process by limiting the input. His response about the experience speaks for its self check it out.

Incremental Reading: The Result

OK, I’ve been using Incremental Reading long enough to see a number of articles get digested from ARTICLE form to ITEM form. In short, I am now an Incremental Reading fan, I will never go back.
In long: For me, Supermemo has been a “pit-stop” on my learning journey. I would learn things through reading, watching TV documentaries, discussions with others, etc., and when I had time I would put it into Supermemo. Because I have always learned this way I never questioned the methods. I tried Incremental Reading in the past but I was not willing to give it the necessary priority.
When using Incremental Reading to the full, learning via Supermemo is no longer a stop-and-go process (Learn elsewhere, write down, put into Supermemo), but is an almost organic process, ideas constantly changing and becoming more refined. I no longer look at reading material as words set in stone, but instead as a brainstorming dialogue between me and the author. Ideas are presented, I “catch” the ideas worth further consideration, and I brainstorm with myself over what the true meaning is. Some ideas are clear when you first read them (And can quickly become a flashcard). Others are not so clear and require further brainstorming and dialogue to arrive at a clear statement (Therefore, a flashcard).
So my conclusion: It is a self-brainstorming tool, working towards the goal of your intellectual benefit (Assuming the reading material benefits you intellectually). I see no reason why it could not be used in SOME WAY in everybody’s life. Now that I’m using it regularly, I love it.
I am currently reading Atlas Shrugged, but I have found it more convenient to read through Incremental Reading; first I found a .txt file of the book and am currently reading it chapter-by-chapter (I’m much more likely to regularly read this now that it is in the Incremental Reading process). I plan to do the same things with other required reading material in my life.
Another thing! When I hit 30,000 items I am rewarding myself with an EEEPC 1000HE, a small but powerful XP Netbook. The sole purpose of the Netbook will be Supermemo. Then I will be able to take my Supermemo progress with me wherever I go.

Also, if doing this BY MYSELF is so enjoyable RIGHT NOW, I can’t help but wonder what it will be like when I find a girl that is of the same mind as me, and the two of us can carry on a constant exchange of ideas using Incremental Reading as a catalyst.

Follow up original post and comments here.

BTW: I’m also looking to acquire a notebook, the reason: Supermemo

I wish more IReaders would show up an help me CPR it, else it might go death as the post asked.

Incremental Reading advice required July 20, 2009

I’m a fan of using incremental reading for reading non vital articles, the kind of articles in the some day maybe list on a GTD system. As a whole it a wonderfull principle, that does make reading more entertained, but if it is more productive than traditional reading or not I’m not quite sure.

I believe the issue of incremental reading has potential for life long learning, once we have a tool to do it. Even better now that thanks to contribution of ideas about multiple color formating by reader Marcin Rybacki multiple ideas can be easily differentiated by themes inside a single article.

SQ3R (Survey, questioning, reading, reviewing, repeating) technique is a good way to ensure that the global idea of text read is acknowledge and as well to learn its content. If it also meant a systematical way to review knowledge afterwards probably this post would not come trough.

A little step at the time, the principles that make incremental reading a better reading technique are being collected in my SuperMemo database of ideas, but one head thinking is very prone to misdirection an overspecialization.

For those of you that use the incremental reading techniques, what are the best principles you would recommend to improved it? Do you believe incremental reading can be used to processes other type of articles, besides the “some day maybe type”?.

For those that don’t use the technique, but have heard about it, which are the reasons you departed from applying it your learning processes?

“Supermemo” for specific subset of people???? July 6, 2009

My mind struggles very much to comprehend many questions stated repeatedly in discussion groups as well as many blogs, why you don’t try to make supermemo universal. This is so, because I believe that a more universal supermemo would make possible filling  the gap of self-making each and every one of the items to memorize. I’m very lazy, I want to do the least to make the most of my time on more things, very oxymoronic as it sounds.

I finished reading reading previously commented interview. Many aspects strike me as surprise, every body in supermemo world were already aware of most of the things we constantly complain or at least talk about, even Dr Wozniak it self acknowledges simplicity, yet on a closing statement he goes on showing that for him SuperMemo is a program made for some and firmly states:

“My brand” of SuperMemo will always please only a very specific and small subset of people. However displeasing that is, I gotta live with this awareness. (Piotr Wozniak)

Source: http://www.supermemo.com/articles/interview.htm [Accessed: [2009-07-06]]

In response to you, Nattan, yes it looks like SuperMemo is made the way it is like some kind of locked door for those who don’t like the hard work, perhaps “laws of thermodinamics says that life shouldn’t be easy” but being lazy as I’m, we should try to make it easier (e.a. more effective).  Lazy as I’m. I wouldn’t stop digging  for diamonds because there is too much dirt to dig through (There’s even on the subject: Tree feet from gold), so I’ll love my supermemo for life and if ever dissapears I’ll have to perfect my programing skills are pays some one to build one again.

More reader’s than previously expected, even less talkers. June 29, 2009

A couple of days ago this blog got above the 1,000 visitors mark, something not so big to brag about. Nevertheless something good, it means people are reading. But, why aren’t you guys talking more. I guess, the writing will continue as ideas flow in and out the supermemo related algorithms. I’d like to learn more about the way people do to tackle the difficulty with Supermemo or solve special issues related to learning in general. Like for example, many would like a new current version of Supermemo software, but how would it look like, would it be a complete revamped program, and overhaul or minnor bug patched version?

Enhanced recall: Next day first repetition. June 4, 2009

Yesterday I read about a sigmoid curve of the probabily for recall based on equally spaced study sessions, basically it means that when you learn and relearn using equal periods of time between repetitions, at first you don’t recall and the sundenly you start recalling, and then you almost never forget. I was wondering how does this is related to the algorithms in which SuperMemo is based, for me looks very logical to make small interval at first to improve the posibility of recall. SuperMemo does not adhere to this principle, and many of the first intervals on my collection are spaced from 8 to 14 days. Should a next day, first repetition enhance our recall or even speed up the learning rate?

March almost over! March 30, 2009

Over a 16,000 item collection, that should make me proud, but I’m not proud of the almost 6,000 due items, of course they are all low priority items but, still not able to cope with them.

Last week I have been very much involved with TiddlyWiki (no sin here, this is a supermemo blog), but the reason I turned into this program is simplicity, how I wish my supermemo worked as a plugin in Firefox, everything in one place.

Can this be achieved, every single piece of information and the tools to handle that information in one single place? Maybe not, so I wondered, how did I get to have such a huge overload, knowledge hunger that’s the answer. At times I feel like a 30 days dieted hungry person, just going for more and more and more, even thougn I getting fat and not liking it.

I asked on a discussion group how do deal with taggin inside supermemo, not a single answer, that is the reason I turned into Tiddly Wiki. All I can say now information is there waiting to be processed and going into my overweighted supermemo.

Hope this will help me alot, it must…  see ya all.