The Dominic System

I recently read (skimmed) a book called “Moonwalking with Einstein” by Joshua Foer which caused me to confront a problem I have. I suck at remembering “things”. Things like my visa number, birthdays, appointments, directions or 2000+ digits of random numbers. In "Moonwalking with Einstein" Josh tells the story about his journey to becoming the 2006 USA Memory champion. By learning a series of mnemonic techniques he was able to, among many other things, memorize the exact order of a shuffled deck of cards in under two minutes. As it turns out, you don’t need an astronomical IQ to pull off this feat; you just need an instruction book and some free time (or a lack of motivation to do all the real work you have to do). The way it works to remember a bank card number (using the Dominic System) for example is as follows:

Each number from 0 – 9 has a letter associated with it, and for large numbers, letters are grouped in pairs. My old bank number is 6018871025738825 and encoded it would read SO AH HG AO BE GC HH BE. In order to remember this, you create a story where each pair of letters represents a memorable (does not need to be memorable in a positive way) person that plays a role in the plot. The point is to create the most ridiculous and thus memorable story so it is easy to recall. My bank card story goes as follows:

“I walk into my office holding my bank card and am greeted by Shaquille O’Neal with a moustache dressed in a german WWII uniform (hint: Adolf Hitler) who leads me to the board room where Hermione Granger is dancing to Steve AOki. Over the music I hear fighting in the next room and see Bruce lEe fighting George Clooney while Hugh Hefner is chanting “Bruce lEe!” repeatedly.”

This may seem way too complicated for everyday use, but as you start training your mind, the associations eventually become as automatic like a trained musician reading sheet music... or so I’m told.

My favourite TED talks - part 1

For a year now, I've been completely obsessed with TED.com. For a while I was content with just enjoying the videos myself, but recently I've been trying to share the magic with others as well. Hence this post. Here is the first part of a list of my favourite TED talks (in no particular order):

Craig Venter creating (synthetic) life. No big deal or anything.

David Deutsch on our place in the cosmos. This man just knows how to speak.

Hans Rosling and his statistics magic. There are several TED talks by Hans Rosling. This was the first one I saw by him and really gave me some perspective on global development.

Theo Jansen building beach "creatures". I can't really explain what makes this talk great, but it blew my mind.

Sixth Sense Technology. This talk aired in 2009. Why on earth can I not buy one of these at Best Buy yet?

Growing Organs. This one is a bit slow in the beginning, but well worth it once it shows you living heart cells being printed from a standard desktop printer (around 11 minutes in).

Looking Inside the Brain. I wonder about the potential of this technology. Perhaps there are certain things better left alone?

Better Animations. Any video game fan (and normal people as well, of course) will will enjoy this talk.

Amazing Inventions. The title says it all. This guy actually invented a device that allows you to "aim" sound. It will be interesting to see what this does to the headphone industry.

Silk. Who would've thought silk was this cool!

Feel free to suggest any talks I may have missed, but know that there will be many more parts to this post.