Memorization

[mythic_fci]

What have you memorized?

Here's mine: I use the forums so often that I've basically memorized BBcode.

Edited September 7, 2014 by FCISuperGuy

[lajoswinkler]

I'm good at eating donuts. I've memorized how to eat one as soon as I've ate the first one. Never had any problems with them since then.

[zaky133]

Patterns to solve the Rubik's Cube, the bass and treble clef notes for music and the formula to work out the area of a heptagon!

[razark]

iddqd

idkfa

idfa

iddt

idclev

and

idclip (or the original of idspispopd)

[Nuke]

all of my usual recipes.

[Thomas988]

I've memorized the entire French alphabet

ah

bay

say

day

eugh

ef

jay

ash

ee

jee

ka

el

em

en

oh

pay

koo

air

es

tay

oo

vay

dooble-vay

eeks

ee-greks

zed

Capitalization is for the weak.

[TheCanadianVendingMachine]

I memorized some of C++, and Python. And ARMA SQL

[cantab]

The name of this red-head pyromaniac guy. He's a nobody really.

[ZedNova]

I've memorized every useless and irrelevant fact on the internet.

[Capt.Joseph Kerbertson]

What have you memorized?

Here's mine: I use the forums so often that I've basically memorized BBcode.

My wifes SSN, mine, both kids, entire catalogs of music (who hasn't)

[CDK]

razark and Thomas988: WOW!

[vger]

I remembered how to tie my shoes!

[CDK]

Really... At least it still works.

[CDK]

I remember how to make a ship and post it as a download.

[Red Iron Crown]

Random sampling of some things I've memorized:

The NATO phonetic alphabet

The order of stellar spectral classes

The surface gravity in Gs of most of the bodies in KSP

The guitar chord progressions of a few dozen songs

The names of most of the Thomas the Tank Engine characters (Yay, kids!)

[General Rarity]

TWR over 1.2, and at least 4500 ms delta v to liftoff from kerbin and into lko. In stock, that is.... And 9600 ms delta v to get into a 300km x 300km orbit with RSS and no special configs.

[Rainbowtrout]

The band Japan's highest single on the charts, which was Ghosts, peaking at #8 on the UK charts*. Bear in mind, they're far before my time**. Also, everything that comes in useful on the show Pointless.

*It better be right, it's the only definitive obscure fact I know!

**I think, I'm too lazy to google it.

[TechnicalK3rbal]

Most of the rules and terms for fencing

A good majority of C# and Unity

[Beowolf]

Until my mid-30s I had an extraordinary memory. Not photographic, but the next best thing, I guess.

In the 1980s I was running an IBM mainframe. Outside my office was a wall of 3" binders with literally 100,000 pages of printed manuals. I used to routinely do tricks that'd leave everyone's jaw hanging open. For example:

The computer is having a problem...

Okay, I remember reading something that could be helpful...I have no idea when, where or what, though.

Walked over to the wall of binders, and without looking I'd pull down a couple of them based solely on muscle memory of their location. I didn't even check the titles.

Carried them back to my desk, and started flipping pages as fast as I can, until I run across the "right" page and stop.

It freaked people out! What I remembered was the "shape" of the paragraphs and headings and whitespace on that particular page. But I'd have no idea what was going to be ON that page until I found it. In fact, I think I still remember the "shape" of most of the pages I ever read in my first 30 years, though there's no way to tell how many are actually just "memories of memories" now. Creepy, huh?

When the superpower started fading away, my wife had to teach me how to take notes. For obvious reasons, I'd never bothered. These days I put everything into Evernote, and keep an Evernote-dedicated tablet next to my laptop. I bought the tablet specifically for KSP, in fact. Alt-tabbing several times a minute was getting too awkward. Between that and Google, I manage okay.

Please nobody accuse me of bragging or respond with cruelty. This was hard to share. Yes I was a freak and yes it gave me some unfair advantages in life. And when I lost it I fell into a deep depression for years, and very nearly committed suicide. All I have left from that gift are detailed memories of exactly how much I've lost, and frequent reassurances that I "still have a pretty good memory for a guy in his 50s." Thankfully, the reasoning and creative parts of my brain have held up somewhat better.

So what have I memorized? Darned near everything I encountered back then, whether I wanted to or not. Much of it's still in there, though to add new things I have to practice over and over just like everyone else. I think that worry stone I used to carry in my pocket was actually Kryptonite.