Look, I don't want to either

There's nothing quite like tearing through a bunch of learning material. Maybe you're a sicko like me and watch video tutorials on 2x+ speed. Maybe that thought disgusts you and you prefer speed-reading one of the many excellent open-source textbooks. These moments feel like peak learning.

The rush & the oh no

Unfortunately, feeling like learning ≠ learning. Cramming info at top speed leads to abhorrent knowledge retention. That rush of “ohh I'm getting it all at once” fools us.

Most of us have sped-run memorizing material for an exam and acknowledged we forgot everything right after. But we tell ourselves that the 2x speed video can't be cramming. This sensation feels good! Exam cramming felt bad! Unfortunately, neither plays nicely with how our minds hold onto info.

On time is late

So if cramming doesn't work even when it feels good, what does?

There's a ton of techniques we can talk about, and we will in future newsletters! I'll start here: let's try quizzing ourselves on the material far earlier than feels necessary. Yes, even when we feel like we know for sure what's happening.

There's no shame in realizing we haven't quite gotten something early in the process. And we could save ourselves a ton of grief later, when that early misunderstanding can bite in hard-to-diagnose ways.

And when I say “us” that's not a rhetorical trick! In the next newsletter I'll let you know how early self-quizzing has gone for me during my attempts at neovim.

A data thing I liked

ry, (somehow) a static type checker for R like ty for Python by Maximilian Scholz

A not-data thing I liked

secret identity, a new bandcamp album by Russell Stone