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how to learn new content and never forget it

save this for your next academic year and finals, and it’ll save your grades and time.

1. whenever you read a paragraph with new content, close the book/look away and ask yourself: “what have i just learned?” explaining the concept to yourself right away and asking follow-up questions will change the way you retain new material forever.

2. at first, it’ll be daunting, and it’ll be pretty hard to actually bring yourself to do this. trust me, it’ll be worth it - as this is scientifically proven one of the most effective study techniques.

3. to try this out, set yourself a timer for how long you estimate learning a concept might take. now take away 20% from that estimate. you won’t be able to reach this goal with basic highlighting and re-reading techniques - but with active recall, you will.

4. once you’ve understood the concept, use spaced repetition systems like anki flashcards to force yourself to retrieve this information in a set period of time. this way, your brain will always be reminded of this concept before it could possibly forget it.

5. teach it to others as much as you can. as with the old wisdom “see one, do one, teach one”, one of the only guarantees you’ve really gotten something is when you can effectively teach it.

hope these are helpful for you!!

more content like this on my instagram, @softmedstudent

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So the other night during D&D, I had the sudden thoughts that:

1) Binary files are 1s and 0s

2) Knitting has knit stitches and purl stitches

You could represent binary data in knitting, as a pattern of knits and purls…

You can knit Doom.

However, after crunching some more numbers:

The compressed Doom installer binary is 2.93 MB. Assuming you are using sock weight yarn, with 7 stitches per inch, results in knitted doom being…

3322 square feet

Factoring it out…302 people, each knitting a relatively reasonable 11 square feet, could knit Doom.

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What are you studying? Which year are you in?

Thank you for the ask! I am studying physics for school, and I am at approximately third year standing.

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Romantic Science Summer

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You know what. I’m starting a new aesthetic, population me.

Romantic Science, AKA Dark Academia for STEM people.

Thrifting a lab coat and embroidering it with your initials and a little insignia, whose significance is known to you and your lab partner only

Watching The Theory of Everything and The Imitation Game and Hidden Figures and basically every movie about historical scientists and mathematicians you can find

Decorating your desk with old slide rules and vintage lab equipment. Your prize possession is a set of vintage lenses you found at a thrift store

Wanting an articulated human skeleton far, far too much

Getting a set of (brand new, NOT thrifted, be safe ppl) beakers to drink from, and putting them directly onto your stovetop to boil water for tea or coffee, because borosilicate glass can survive anything.

Secretly relating far too much to Henry Jekyll and Victor Frankenstein, because you too want to do a gay little science experiment that challenges god.

Thunderstorms and late nights in the lab, the light of the Bunsen burner glistening off of your flasks and scribbled chalkboard equations

Papering your walls with vintage scientific diagrams; even if you know that our understanding of the world has evolved since they were made, looking back at scientific history is amazing

Writing code late at night and feeling, in some metaphysical way, as though Ada Lovelace herself is with you in spirit

Being far, FAR too obsessed with the concept of emergent ai sentience and how it has the potential to be Frankenstein irl

Looking through a telescope on clear nights, whispering the names of the constellations and stars, painting a star chart on your ceiling in a burst of creative inspiration

Collecting and mounting samples from everywhere you can think of to pore over in an antique microscope

Bringing a field journal wherever you go, learning how to draw and label botanical samples, preserving plants and flowers for study later

Dreaming of what undiscovered mysteries lie in the deepest depths of the sea, feeling the thrill of discovery whenever you learn about a new species and one day hoping to discover one yourself

Just. Romanticise STEM.

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fuck you, my child is completely fine!

your child romanticises the idea of running far away and completely changing their personality, looks & soul as a way of coping with having no control over their life & being generally dissatisfied with who they have become

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Who has a ‘morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs’? Couldn’t be me, a person who started a dark academia blog.

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In 2021 I will not be Richard-Papening myself over mysterious and sexy snobs I will BECOME the mysterious and sexy snob

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all I want is for someone to be incredibly, obnoxiously pretentious at me about the classics so that I can judge them for being so elitist but secretly be swept up and captivated by their passion

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Why do I have to fall in love with teas which aren’t available in my area?

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I am full of poetry now. Rot and poetry. Rotten poetry. 

- Ernest Hemingway, The Snows of Kilimanjaro

(not my pictures)

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Julian Morrow is just Lord Henry if Lord Henry were somehow more of a coward, change my mind

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we all think we’re camilla macaulay when we’re really judy poovey

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I can’t help but wonder what The Secret History would have been like to read had I not immediately lost all respect for Julian Morrow as soon as it was mentioned that he had a drawer full of Montblancs. (bc... come on that’s about the tackiest thing I’ve ever heard of)

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The Secret History AKA the experience of starting a book for the Æsthetic (TM) and slowly falling in deep appreciation with Judy Poovey

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I would love to make a film adaptation of The Secret History that starts really aesthetic, with beautiful shots and dramatic lighting, mood music and wonderful sets. But after the murder of bunny and after their lives start to go down hill it slowly becomes less and less beautiful and much harsher, much more realistic and graphic and ugly, until it ends up extremely simple, no grand angles or romantic lighting, just the horror of what’s happening and what they’ve done. The costumes and makeup would also go from eccentric and beautiful (perfect makeup, suites that are far too neat and shoes too clean, perfect hair, aesthetic™️ dark circles) to how they actually look (unshaven, bad skin from constantly drinking and smoking and doing drugs, fancy clothes that need to see the hot side of an iron, hair that desperately needs brushing, etc). This would happen to bunny sooner though, in line with the whole arc leading to his death. The only person who might not get this treatment is Camila since I feel she was romanticized the entire time and always a version altered through Richard’s Male Gaze™️, never truly known. Hell, she might get even more romanticized, idk. and yes, it would look both excruciatingly 80s and weirdly Victorian. Anyways I put too much though into this, Goodnight. 

((((((And yes Judy Poovey would look absolutely ROCKIN at all times)))))

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My favourite used bookstore is opening again and I am hyped. Really want to read The Brothers Karamazov this winter, because winter is Dostoyevsky season apparently, but I refuse to buy it new when I might find a lovely old edition for a third of the price.