Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
h a l f b a k e r y
Make mine a double.

idea: add, search, annotate, link, view, overview, recent, by name, random

meta: news, help, about, links, report a problem

account: browse anonymously, or get an account and write.

user:
pass:
register,


                                   

Memory Aid

Application that helps your ailing memory
  (+1, -2)
(+1, -2)
  [vote for,
against]

[Edited with details. See below]

Ever since we learned how to write our memory began deteriorating. But it got much worse with the PDAs. Nobody remembers anything anymore. Where did I put my keys. What was the idea I was going to write. Why am I here. Where is my car. What's my friend's name. What was that?

In comes the Memory Aid.

Every time you write a list item, rather than storing it on the web, it helps you memorize it in your BRAIN.

[Edited:]Here's a partial and short list of methods: Using rhymes, using arithmetic, made up short stories, true stories connected to the idea, connecting to a linked associative memory list, using music and rap, and making limericks.

Encouraging advertisements tell you how much better off you'll be with a good memory. You'll remember to smile at your friends and listen to them, and remember to look at the clock and turn off the computer (and mobile phone) and to turn it back on when you need to get back to work.

Details: This interactive application may suggest a way to remember the number or name, or may start a "discussion" with a choice of say 3 types of memory methods, and ask you to write in the answer, or press the button DONE.

Example: When application is opened you have 3 choices: Action Reminders / Text Reminders / Number Reminders

If you chose Action reminders, you write down the action. (There are some stored actions for rapid entry) Following you get: IN HOW MUCH TIME DO YOU WANT TO REMIND YOURSELF TO FEED THE CAT? (choice radio buttons for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 1/2 or 1 hour, or other) When you choose, it tells you what time it is now, and asks you DO YOU HAVE A WATCH OR CLOCK NEARBY? Then: HOW DO YOU INTEND TO REMIND YOURSELF (red string on finger? typing with left hand only, other.)

If you choose Text Reminders: You write down someones name: Mike Wazowsky. The app says: Wha't up with my key and how do we sky? With a button: [Other type of suggestion V] with the choices: Rhyme / Association / Your own / More...

Another example: If you write "Memory Aid idea" and choose [More...] then [Limerick]: You get:
There once was a mam who drank kool-aid
While memorizing a request for foreign aid.
Oh my dear - she then said
What is it with my head
Perhaps I should be using a memory aid.

Note: This is for REMEMBERING and NOT for MEMORIZING. You are encouraged NOT to memorize long unimportant lists like shopping lists. But definitely to memorize short important lists, like your subtasks in the next hour(not more than 3), and main tasks for the day (not more than 4).

pashute, Aug 16 2011

Electrically Generated Ordnance Denial Sphere Electrically_20Gene...e_20Denial_20Sphere
Hilarious [8th of 7, Aug 18 2011]


Please log in.
If you're not logged in, you can see what this page looks like, but you will not be able to add anything.



Annotation:







       So, the invention is //Every time you write a list item, rather than storing it on the web, it helps you memorize it in your BRAIN.//   

       Details?
MaxwellBuchanan, Aug 16 2011
  

       I thought writing things down - helped memory...   

       & I can kinda understand that - as you write you are cutting a pattern in your brain...   

       sorry -1 DAZ
po, Aug 16 2011
  

       So ... a list-making, reminder app where, instead of just typing in what you want to remember, it forces you to do something -- maybe type it repeatedly, or type it backwards, or think up mental imagery, or it quizes you on it or something -- that helps you remember it yourself?   

       Would be a variant of flashcard programs, but an authentically original, and easily up to a halfbaked standard of usefulness. [+]
mouseposture, Aug 16 2011
  

       My cat has serious memory issues, sometimes I'd put food right in front of her, and she would not finish it, then later when she got hungry she would go to the kitchen to complain, instead of picking up where the food is. She tried writing it down or using a PDA but it just aggravated the situation, can Memory Aid help her memorize in her brain?
nickthird, Aug 17 2011
  

       I am annotating this idea simply to provide a buffer between <nickthird>'s post about his cat and the inevitable response from 8th.   

       What were we discussing?
Twizz, Aug 17 2011
  

       The Talmud teaches: "Rabbi Eleazar was asked by his disciples: Why does a dog know its owner while a cat does not? He answered them: If he who eats something of that from which a mouse has eaten loses his memory, how much more so the animal which eats the mouse itself!"
pashute, Aug 17 2011
  

       So *that's* why elephants are scared of them. It all makes sense now.   

       Edited the idea with details for clarity, following Max's. (Every time I see your name I think of "Max You Can".)   

       The example is a suggestion. If somebody has a better memory trap, please tell.   

       [Po], we used to live next to a Syrian Jewish woman who had recently come to our country. The Jewish community there is in constant fear for their lives. (She told us hair raising stories about her family and childhood). Most of the girls in her town did not learn to read and write. She had a phenomenal memory and once watched me take apart and re-assemble a printer, and told me where some of the smaller parts where taken from, while casually discussing something else. She took "ulpan" a program to teach woman to read and write. She told me that the day she learned to read her first sentence was the day she forgot her memorized grocery list.   

       The bible and Talmud and ancient Greek myths and grim brother's stories were written and told (in their original respective languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and German) with a rhythm so they can be memorized. And so, 'he huffed and he puffed', 'be he alive or be he dead', 'once upon a time there were three little', 'trip trap trip trap', 'in a dark dark house'.
pashute, Aug 17 2011
  

       It has been thoroughly noted in studies of linguistics and social interaction that languages accumulate idiomatic sayings that fit into a number of common cadences, and that's an interesting theory: we say certain things in certain ways because they're easiest to remember.
Alterother, Aug 17 2011
  

       [pashute] its interesting you say she forgot when she learned how to read, not write - maybe due to the sheer amount of reading material that is naturally available in a city the brain allocated some of the short term memory to reading related tasks, like for letters and word size or other patterns, so other things fall out when it overflows.
nickthird, Aug 18 2011
  

       So, if I've understood the very confusing text of this idea, this is suggesting something like an app for a smartphone. You press a button saying "I want to remember something" and it pops up a message saying "Tie a string on your finger". That's pretty poor.
hippo, Aug 18 2011
  

       Perhaps a course of ECT would help that cat?   

         

       (I'm just filling in for VIIIth)
neelandan, Aug 18 2011
  

       Thanks, [nee], we've been busy laughing our lasers off at [rcarty]'s "Electrically Generated Ordnance Denial Sphere" idea <link>.   

       // Perhaps a course of ECT would help that cat? //   

       Results so far are admittedly unpromising, but that's no reason to curtail the trials. It may just be a statistical anomaly.   

       <wafts away smoke, starts to attach electrodes to next cat>
8th of 7, Aug 18 2011
  

       [8] Try shaving the head, next time.
mouseposture, Aug 18 2011
  

       [hippo] maybe its clearer now? I edited the examples section.   

       [po] what's DAZ? Deutsch Als Zweitsprache? (That's what GeekAcronym gives...   

       [neelandan] and [8th], you mind if I erase your posts. They are on that topic not mine?   

       I want to seriously concentrate here on this idea. Perhaps some of you can help out with a proposed interface.   

       SHARE: A great extension for this would be if users could suggest to each other methods, limericks etc. by pressing SHARE. to remember these things.
pashute, Aug 19 2011
  

       how very bloody ironic - I can't remember. sorry!
po, Aug 19 2011
  


 

back: main index

business  computer  culture  fashion  food  halfbakery  home  other  product  public  science  sport  vehicle