What’d be really cool would be a firefox extension that allows you to highlight phrases, pops up a quick dialog box and then creates flashcards for mnemosyne. I think that this would basically give you all you needed for incremental reading. (With the addition of a bookmarking system, hey, Firefox already has that! :))
I now have 186 cards entered into Mnemosyne, most of them are about CSS, a handful are about drawing and vim commands.
I’ve gotten to the point where most of the cards aren’t that challenging, so I end up spending more time adding cards to it when I’m bored. I guess this is how spaced learning is supposed to work, gaining a lot of knowledge with little effort. Most days I’m reviewing between 3 and 18 cards.
Following the twenty tip to effective learning is very…effective. Cloze replacement is really easy and very useful for learning the sets/enumerations of values for CSS, and other things where it’s hard to formulate good questions. I’ve also used it to learn what color names are supported by CSS.
I also take every chance to rewrite the flashcards if they don’t make sense. This seems to have kept down on the number of memory interference problems I’ve had. I also have a pretty good understanding of CSS conceptually, so this has also helped.
I haven’t used any of the “advanced” features of Mnemosyne yet, embedding images, LaTeX, etc. I’ll be trying that once I start up my classes next week. The plan is to create cards from the notes in class and assigned reading every day I have class. We’ll see if it’s an effective strategy. Which reminds me, I got Tanenbaum’s book on operating systems, so I’m really excited. I love the cover.
A good challenge (besides using it for classes) would be to use mnemosyne to learn Norwegian. My mother wants to get the rust off of her Norwegian skills, as well, so it should be a good fit.
Woo, it’s been quite a week.
Went to two potlucks (one for interns/new hires at work, one at church). Finished watching Blue Submarine Number 6, went to California Pizza Kitchen for the first time in a while, explored Drupal, finished up another feature at work, setup my new laptop.
Did I mention I’ve started using mnemosyne? It’s a flashcard program that uses spaced learning. So far, I’ve been quite impressed. I’m using it to learn the CSS 2.1 specifications and keep some drawing techniques in the forefront of my mind, as well as anything else that comes to interest. I have about 60 cards now, The 20 Rules of Formulating Knowledge For Learning really has good advice on making cards for mnemosyne.
It definitely seems to make studying easier, I’m definitely going to try it this semester, as well. It should be really useful in Astrophysics and Operating Systems (my two hardest classes, besides Senior Seminar).
I haven’t been taking very many photos or hiking this week, and I forgot to exercise this evening, but that’s ok. I need extra time to prepare for the next potluck 
