The Memory Masters 282
Vaystrem writes "Wired's Article 'The Masters of Memory' details the outcome of the recent U.S. Memory Championship ,where 'three dozen people who had, in just five minutes, memorized the positions of 52 cards in a shuffled deck and were now happily organizing cards in a new deck into the same order as the pack they had memorized.'" The article includes details of "the mind numbing upcoming world championship. Could you in a half hour 'memorize a random string of thousands of 1s and 0s'?" I'm still working on the mnemonic alphabet.
computers (Score:5, Funny)
SCOiiiiiinnnngggg? (Score:2, Funny)
He has stolen the Intellectual Property of my program.
open4free
Re:computers (Score:5, Funny)
I see you've never fed your hdd a keg of beer.
Re:computers (Score:5, Funny)
Ha! Oblig. PA references: (Score:2)
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=1999-10 -29&res=l [penny-arcade.com]
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=1999-12 -26 [penny-arcade.com]
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2000-06 -12&res=l [penny-arcade.com]
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2000-08 -20&res=l [penny-arcade.com]
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2000-09 -13&res=l [penny-arcade.com]
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2000-09 -15&res=l [penny-arcade.com]
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2000-10 - [penny-arcade.com]
Re:Ha! Oblig. PA references: (Score:3, Funny)
wbs.
I was thinking.... (Score:4, Funny)
7 is the number, and the number is 7, not 8 nor 9 (Score:5, Interesting)
The brain seems to actually have the sort of grasp of numbers that we sometimes ascribe to "Neanderthals"
Different people vary with the maximum innate value they just grok, with most people coming in about 5 or 6, rarely do you get 7, and vanishingly rarely do you get 8.
What has this to do with memory, you cry! Well, in the same fashion, we can innately recall small numbers of things, without doing an exhaustive search. This is useful for PIN numbers
Hack the system! exploit the underlying nature of your brain!
Simon
Re:7 is the number, and the number is 7, not 8 nor (Score:4, Funny)
re: exploit the underlying nature of your brain! (Score:3, Interesting)
After I read that I desperatly avoided mnemonics.
Re: exploit the underlying nature of your brain! (Score:3, Informative)
The story you are referring to is the true account of one the most famous subjects in psychology--"S" studied by the Russian neurologist AR Luria. He authored a book called "The Mind of A Mnemonist: A Litte Book About a Vast Memory." The man could not forget anything and was tortured his whole life by it. Highly recommended reading.
The number is 7+/-2 (Score:5, Interesting)
The technique you talk about regarding the grouping of multiple memoranda into a single unit is called "chunking" and was studied by another great in psychology, the late Herb Simon of CMU. He and Bill Chase found that chunking was basically what set chess masters apart from novices. They saw entire board configurations at once, rather than the relation of individual pieces.
The ability to appreciate the numerosity of multiple items without counting is called subitizing. I know less about this, but the average person can subitize up to about five items.
Anway, just wanted to give credit where it's due for what has become pop psychology fodder.
Re:The number is 7+/-2 (Score:4, Interesting)
Chances are it won't be that easy, but you get the idea..
Similarly, most people thing their fingers are only capable of counting to 10. But how many of us think to use our fingers to count in binary to reach 1024 (2^10) possible values?
Re:The number is 7+/-2 (Score:3, Informative)
Now, I notice you are listing them in groups of 4, which makes 64 groups of four. But, those groups aren't hexadecimal characters, they are hexadecimal words of 2-bytes in length.
Justin Dubs
Re:7 is the number, and the number is 7, not 8 nor (Score:3, Interesting)
How does that relate to visually counting items? I'm not a savant, but where I work I've had/developed an ability to count large numbers of items by what I could call the "two sets of five" method; if I'm doing inventory I can count items, without actually sorting them, by the ten - I 'see' two sets of five, the next two sets of five, etc - brain processes 10 10 10 10 5 1 = 46 - enter it in the Telzon and next batch (yes, I do inventory control, but it pays well
Re:NO, YOU ARE NOT SPECIAL (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry. Mod me flamebait for responding to an Anonymous Coward.
SB
Re:NO, YOU ARE NOT SPECIAL (Score:3, Insightful)
Who was whoring for karma? He was being a sarcastic ass and I threw it back in his face. Whoever modded me up did so on their own.
Look at my posting history and tell me I really care all that much about karma.
Dingwit.
SB
Re:7 is the number, and the number is 7, not 8 nor (Score:2)
[Available at http://www.well.com/user/smalin/miller.html]
The concept of putting more things together in groups to remember more than seven plus or minus two is called "chunking". The telcos paid close attention
Hmm (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Sponsored by... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sponsored by... (Score:5, Interesting)
Only at blackjack tables. That's the only common casino game where memory of what's happened before matters.
Some roulette tables actually have displays that show what has happened on previous spins, because any patern you might detect in that data only gives you a false confidence that might motivate you to play, in reality that information is totally useless in helping you predict what will happen on the next spin.
Re:Sponsored by... (Score:5, Interesting)
The idea that card counters are not welcome at blackjack tables is a myth. Instead of fighting the problem, they now have figured out a way to make money on it.
As an aside, this guy is an air traffic controller (I used to be one as well). Most air traffic controllers develop an incredible short-term memory, being able to memorize 3-D positions of several aircraft at once in conjunction with an in-memory 3-D representation of the surrounding airspace, available for immediate recall. All of this takes place while listening to a steady stream of aircraft identify themselves with 4- or 5-character callsigns, which are queued up for responses in the order they were received, while also monitoring landlines to various other air traffic control facilities. Not to mention being able to monitor the D-side working next to you talking about his hot night out, as well as the supervisor ranting over your shoulder about bullshit you could care less about.
The amount of information retained in short-term memory for a moderate to heavy session of air traffic easily exceeds the 104 discrete pieces of static information memorized from a deck of cards.
Short-term memory only works if it's exercised on a continuous basis. I've been out of that field for several years, and I'm lucky enough to remember a single telephone number at a time.
Re:Sponsored by... (Score:5, Informative)
1 card counter is a draw, 100 card counters is a loss. which is what you get when it becomes known you don;t mind counters. Counter often work in teams.
Re:Sponsored by... (Score:2, Interesting)
Sorry, but your friend is either lying to you or not a very good card counter. His concept of a "losing" table is riduculous.
Since the odds are only about 3% in the house's favor with basic blackjack rules, there will be "winners" at almost every table, just not as many winners as losers over time. In addition, successful card counters try to play at tables with fewer players so that they have more hands to maximize their return when the count is in their favor.
Good card counters can only tip an avera
Re:Sponsored by... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Sponsored by... (Score:2)
Re:Sponsored by... (Score:2)
Re:Sponsored by... (Score:3, Insightful)
Every good poker player already does that.. knows which cards he has seen that game, at least, any that matter (remember not all cards visible are always important).
The game of poker is ultimately a game of bluffing and one man -vs- the next.. a computer would not necessarily beat human players at poker.
Remember, the object is not to win each hand, but to win the other player's money.. and that COULD mean only winning one hand out of an entire sitting.
I could do that... (Score:5, Funny)
(Sorry I couldn't Resist)
Re:It's easy, it's Matrix-like, 4x8x8 = 256 bits (Score:2)
1000, 0, 100, 1, 1000, 10, 0, 1
Fill in any missing digits with 0's and you're set, with a compression ratio of 53% I might add.
Brain as a recording device (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Brain as a recording device (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Brain as a recording device (Score:2)
I'm good at some not at list-based (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I'm good at some not at list-based (Score:2)
>Now consider having to remember 500000 integers in order
Only for 500000 consecutive (or nearly consecutive) integers. 500000 ordered integers chosen randomly between 1 and a googleplex would be pretty freakin' tough.
actually (Score:5, Funny)
Passwords Anyone? (Score:5, Funny)
Easy. (Score:5, Interesting)
Pick all first (last) letters of each word. Include all punctation marks when needed.
Convert to 31337 H4X0R speech.
On some specific pattern (i.e. first letter of every verse) add Shift.
Trivial to make up on the fly.
Re:Easy. (Score:3, Interesting)
first lett
Re:Easy. (Score:2)
Say, you attach _ at the end of every password of yours, or use , instead of . and you waste every dictionary-based attack, even being VERY close to the right password doesn't matter. Not in dictionary - won't happen. And the number of possible substitutions... too big.
Re:Easy. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Easy. (Score:2)
Re:Passwords Anyone? (Score:2)
I'm going to have a busy weekend changing everything to a new one now.
*grumble*
Re:Passwords Anyone? (Score:2)
For those people I admin, I use a bit of l33t speak... and morr!$ isn't such a difficult password for him to remember, while giving at least a little bit more security. (Yes, I know not that much, but it's a start.)
Re:Passwords Anyone? (Score:5, Interesting)
Typing this from a Toshiba laptop, with sticker "Contains: Nickel-Cadmium, Nickel-Metal Hybride, and/or Lithium Ion battery" on the bottom.
The root password is
c:n-c,n-mh
Yeah, find my IP and get through NAT.
Re:Passwords Anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)
Now I just use the Keychain (OS X). I can just hit keys randomly and never see the password, then copy to the clipboard and paste into the browser when I'm ready
Mnemesis (Score:5, Informative)
Mnemesis [sourceforge.net]
you insensitive clod! (Score:2, Funny)
(cant remember shit).
-dirtbag
Correlation between memory and intelligence? (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess the thinking is, "well they do very well on tests". Sure, that's because they memorized everything. But do they Understand? There's a difference between knowing something, and really understanding what it means. I really think schools should focus more in testing how well a student really understands a subject, perhaps demonstrate the ability to teach it to someone else.
Re:Correlation between memory and intelligence? (Score:5, Insightful)
You bring up the usual objection.
However, you're limiting memory to declarative memory (where's my keys?, who's that girl?, what movie was that dialogue from?). But your skills are themselves (implicit) memories. You learn when young, something like language. You can construct proper grammatical and meaningful sentences later in life, only because your brain remembers what it learnt earlier.
Re:Correlation between memory and intelligence? (Score:4, Insightful)
The ability to synthesize new knowledge based on the experiences and knowledge you have learned is a much better measure.
Re:Correlation between memory and intelligence? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Correlation between memory and intelligence? (Score:2)
Nope, intelligence is memory. Your objection limits what is considered memory. You are restricting memory to objects and treating functions("utilization of data") as something else. But the functions themselves, are memories. You need to store the function neurally, in order to execute it later on in life.
This is a good introductory [amazon.com] book on memory.
Intelligence is memory. Intelligence != memory. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Correlation between memory and intelligence? (Score:2)
Many tests just determine whether you can remember something. Other tests ask oddball questions related to the subject matter, trying to get you to think. But that's really ju
Re:Correlation between memory and intelligence? (Score:2)
True intelligence is recognizing instantly upon hearing of the competition that if instead of memorizing it as a long string, you convert the binary to a decimal number, it's going to be a heck of a lot easier to remember. You just convert it back to recite it.
Why would someone memorize 101010 when they can just remember 42 instead? If hex is intuitive to you already, that's even better for long binary num
Re:Correlation between memory and intelligence? (Score:2)
if you did, that still wouldn't be intellegence.
being abole to figure it out with no prior information, that would be intellegence.
mnemonics (Score:2)
Colors, musical notes, mathematical formulas......whatever makes sense.
Does it have to do with the type of information?? (Score:2, Interesting)
Not all types of memory. (Score:5, Interesting)
In Schacter's memory book [amazon.com], an anecdote is presented about the 1999 National Memory Champion. She commented that she relied on post-its to get through the day.
It's not really ironic because memory competitions test how transient your memory focus is. Post-Its help those with attentional problems of memory.
In other words, these memory champions don't have all-around good memory skills.
Re:Not all types of memory. (Score:2)
Ask one of these competitors for just the 87th number in their sequence, and they're going to have to give you the other 86 numbers first whether you need them or not...
Re:Not all types of memory. (Score:2)
rhymes or pictures ? (Score:2, Interesting)
I've often wondered how the professionals, or even people with more than an average ability to recall do it. I've heard of two different ways. One is to make up a rhyme or a "keyword" to jog your memory of some object, or some series of objects.. The other is to have a snapshot or a visualized picture of something in your head.
I seem to personally work along the snapshot method, as I suspect many others do. If I close my eyes, I can visualize a page in a text, or a license plate, or a face. Somewhat imperf
Re:rhymes or pictures ? (Score:2)
Think you want to remember
in pronounciation:
R=4
G,K=6
S=0
V=8
D=1
So number 46408116 can be represented by sentence:
RoGeR iS VooDoo DucK
Now imagine your friend Roger covered with feathers, with lots of pins in his body. Ridiculous? Yes, but hard to forget. And then using the same key as for creating the words, you recover the number from t
Memory and English: An Informal Study (Score:2, Interesting)
"If you are a already memoriser..."
(from the front page of the linked website [worldmemor...onship.com])
Who needs memory when you've got, uh, um, what was it? Dang.
Re:Memory and English: An Informal Study (Score:2)
smokers "slash poinds" since smoking often ihibits hunger and ultimately you loose weight (a very healthy diet!).
Managers "slash money" since they never want to spend any
develops
Please let me know if i win a door prize.
Scientific American Frontiers Video (Score:5, Interesting)
A summary can be found here [pbs.org]
we named the dog indiana (Score:2, Funny)
How often... (Score:2, Interesting)
Instead, our brains are much better suited to recognizing patterns, which is why we can, as actors in play, for
Re:How often... (Score:5, Informative)
PIN codes, phone numbers, ID numbers, passwords, registration numbers.
They are hardly ever as long as 150 digits but they are EXTREMELY common.
> Instead, our brains are much better suited to recognizing patterns
RTFA, that's what the whole concept is based on. Just associate symbols with patterns/images and then create a story/image based on the set created.
Re:How often... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Long Binary (Score:2)
2) Map onto some letters. With redundancy (2+ letters to one number)
3) Map letters into words containing them. Create sentences.
4) Map sentences into sequences of images (just imagine things described by sentences). May be very abstract/ridiculous, no problem.
5) Store images in memory.
Reverse order to recover data.
Re:How often... (Score:2)
I never memorize anything I can look up.
Re:How often... (Score:2)
At the end of the play he was able to tell exactly which card was played by each player in each trick and if you had made a mistake (God help you), he would tell you which card you should have played instead.
Then there was the time that he played two games of (timed) blind chess simultaneously against me and my sist
A good memory would help.... (Score:5, Funny)
Reminds me of something similiar (Score:2, Interesting)
Memory triggers on close-but-not-exact matches (Score:3, Interesting)
One example: They'll read a question too quickly, recall a question they've seen earlier, and then give the answer to the earlier question, not the one that's actually in front of them. They'll then be befuddled why they missed the new question for a while until the actually reread all the words slow enough to see the change.
Re:Memory triggers on close-but-not-exact matches (Score:3, Interesting)
I've done that debugging, even to the point of having to narrow it down to one character before I could see it.
Memory lost to technology (Score:2)
Compatible with ipv6 (Score:2)
just find a clever encoding scheme (Score:3, Informative)
-John Von Neumann
Any decimal number has approximately 3/10 the number of characters of it's binary equivalent. There is no exponential change in the shear number of characters to process.
[e.g. 2^10=1024, 2^20=1M etc]
Thus If I encode my data from binary to HEX, I get better "compression" of information.
Note: IIRC, according to Algorithmic Information Theory, if I were trying to encode "all the data of the universe", then the fact that my compression scheme only reduces the amount of information by a constant and the computation for conversion would probably be so incredibly expensive, there exists no computational gain from Mnemonics.
However, if I'm given a piece of paper and allowed to use a clever encoding scheme than might be able to "memorize" anything. I only need to memorize a smaller number and the program, which encodes it. Thus deriving my result. Remember, by the rules of this competition I have more time than memory here. Frankly, I think an encoding competition would be more interesting.
I'm curious as to how this philosophy relates to AIT, Wolfram's Principle of Computational Equivalence, and foundational mathematics.
"There are two kinds of science -- physics and stamp collecting"
-Ernest Rutherford
(Or has he quoted similarly, if I wanted to memorize science, I would have studied botany)
Re:just find a clever encoding scheme (Score:5, Interesting)
They encode the data into easily rememberable kind they don't compress it, but rather expand - creating stories, images, pictures, sentences, through the "mnemotechnic memory" technique. Then they decode it just the same way.
Say, you have a memory medium that can remember arbitrary values from 0 to 256, it has a plenty of room, but it tends to float lightly, i.e. 128 may become 120 or 140 or 100, but not 20 or 210. So for your purpose instead recording byte values, you recode them to binary and record every "1" as two 255's and every "0" as two 0's, then record them. You need 16 bytes of your diskspace to store 1 byte, but it will NOT get lost - only really strong corruption could change the results...
Heyyyyyy (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Heyyyyyy (Score:2)
Retention? (Score:3, Insightful)
In the competitions, there is a time component. They have a very limited amount of time to commit the information to memory. Then, they must regurgitate it within a short period of time. If they were asked a {day, week, month, year} later, what percentage would be retained?
Can their techniques be used to retain multiple unrelated data sets simultaneously?
Basically, the question is: Is this merely a good parlor trick, or a useful mechanism for real-world use?
Re:Retention? (Score:2)
If they knew they needed to retain it for years they can certainly do so; basically, they would have to revise it at the end of the day, a week later, and a month later; and then they would know it pretty much forever.
Is this merely a good parlor trick, or a useful mechanism for real-world use?
Somewhere between the two. They need a mnemonic scheme for each kind of thing they need to learn, but, for example, remember
careful (Score:5, Funny)
Re:careful (Score:3, Funny)
It's doable. (Score:5, Interesting)
There are several techniques, and most of them use grouping and storylining. For example, this is the one I used:
Every card gets three possible meanings -- a subject, an object, and an action. Then you draw the cards in threes and make up a story on the spot. E.g. say you drew a two-hearts, jack-spades, and six-diamonds. In your designation chart, these cards have the following meanings:
two-hearts: subject: Madonna; action: seduce; object: boobies
jack-spades: subject: drug dealer; action: wave above one's head menacingly; object: bling-bling
six-diamonds: subject: bank attendant; action: pay; object: a wrapped packet of dollars.
So your combination becomes: Madonna menacingly waving a wad of dollars above her head. The key here is to visualize these things and make up a continuous story, as if describing what happened to you on the way to work. (Out of the door, I saw Madonna waving menacingly a wad of dollars above her head. I came to talk to her, and apparently she was angry because a drug dealer shot her car (jack-spades/three-spades/four-diamonds). I offered her a ride, and on the way to her house we saw from the windows of our car Saddam Hussein trying to hump a church building (king-spades/four-hearts/ten-crosses).). It's important to tie the previous action to the next (saw through the windows of our car), so you don't lose the sequence of events.
The cards are grouped by subjects -- all hearts have to do with sex, all diamonds have to do with money, all spades have to do with criminal element, and all crosses have to do with cults and religion. Usually just three possible meanings per card is not enough, because it can always be that you just CAN'T make something meaningful out of a combination ("Bank teller seducing an electric chair" takes... a lot of imagination to visualise, though if you manage, you'll never forget a six-diamonds/two-hearts/five-spades. Ever).
Sometimes you sure make up very amusing combinations. E.g. among the ones I recall is Saddam Hussein licking a cash register (king-spades/ace-hearts/ten-diamonds), Marylin Monroe wearing a punctured car tire on her neck (queen-hearts/queen-diamonds/three-spades), and Bill Gates seducing a bill fold (king-diamonds/two-hearts/two-diamonds), though this one could have actually happened for all I know.
The weirder you make your combination, and the more vividly it stands out in your imagination, the higher is the chance that you will remember it.
Mnemonics is quite amusing. It helped me make it through college without ever taking notes and learn three foreign languages. Definitely a very useful skill to learn and master.
Re:It's doable. (Score:2, Insightful)
This is actually very simple... (Score:5, Interesting)
You can use it for any serialization of numbers, and cards are very simple. You can also do this with binary (but be good at converting two digit decimal to binary and back).
Develop a set of references for most two digit numbers that have meaning to you.
Some I use for example are: 07 - think of James Bond, 22 think of 22 caliber pistol, 13 think of unlucky. It also helps to have a set for single digits, 7 think of lucky for example.
Then when you look at a series of numbers, all you do is make a story to fit the numbers together.
For example:
1307877299220713442
The story I would make up to remember this:
Unluckily, James Bond found a RX7 to get away back when I was born. During the getaway, agent 99 shot a 22 pistol at Bond but she was unlucky, and got shot with a 44 magnum twice.
(The story is often shorter in your head, but I wanted to make it readable for you guys)
In essence instead of remember numbers, you are remembering the plot to a story.
Without looking above here is the number set: 1307877299220713442
13 - Unlucky
07 - Bond
87 - Year of RX7 I had a long time ago
72 - Year I was born
99 - Agent 99 (from Get Smart)
22 - 22 pistol
07 - Bond again
13 - Unlucky
44 - 44 Magnum
2 - Twice
If you get your associations down for the number pairs you can create little stories and easily remember 100 digit or more sequences of numbers.
For card tricks, just add color to the story, I use blue and green to denote the difference between hearts and clubs, or sometimes will mix in the heart or spade or club reference into the story (i.e. the Queen took her Spade, etc)
Most people are impressed if you can just remember the number sequence of a deck of cards and not even bother with the suit, so if the extra colors for the suits throw you, just do the number order of the cards.
Start with a deck of cards, and I will guarantee you in a few hours or day, you can easily do this.
Just make up the story as you look through the deck, the faster you know your associations for a story, the faster you can remember the cards. You should be able to remember an entire deck by literally flipping through them as fast as you can read them.
Happy memorizing...
even easier (Score:3, Funny)
1307877299220713443 - 1
association, baby (Score:2, Interesting)
The "secret"? Association. For every sentence, I matched words to visual images as they might appear in an episode of C
recall time longer than memorizing time (Score:3, Interesting)
You get 30 min to memorize it, but 60 min to recall it.
You would think that it would take more time to memorize it, than to recall it. But maybe the speed of recalling is tampered by the speed of writing down 1's and 0's?
Based on own 'research' i concluded that with normal speed you can write 90-110 1's 0's per minute. The world champion of 2003 had scribbled down 3009 1's and 0's. So that would've taken him between 27-33 minutes. He memorized them in 30 (or less) minutes, meaning this guy can memorize binary numbers faster than i can write them down! But then again, why did he get 60 min to write them down? Do they use special recalling techniques in which you don't continuesly write those numbers?
how I memorize a deck of cards... (Score:3, Funny)
First, the set up.
You have to hype up your memory abilities, subtly
then you start flipping cards over.
you remeber the first eight and the last 5.
you bluff the rest.
Human memory is weird (Score:3, Interesting)
On the other hand, I remember things vividly from as early as 2 years old (events, dreams, etc). I remember phone numbers and lock combinations from childhood (I'm 35 now). Numbers have always been easy for me, though. I see patterns in them and tend to remember the patterns. I have an almost inexhaustable reserve of useless trivial knowledge and God knows why I remember it all. I excel at Jeapordy and Wheel of Fortune. I can understand (read and spoken) 9 languages, but I can only speak 2 of them.
But ask me to remind you of something in 20 minutes, or tomorrow, or next week, and there's about a 95% chance I'll forget. Ask me what I did 3 days ago and I'm more likely to get it confused with something I did 2 or 4 days ago.
I consider my memory excellent... For some things. For others, it's just atrocious.
Remembering Caltrain.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Eventually, we turned this into a casino game: Caltrain Casino
Each turn was represented by two or three throws of the die/dice.
The first throw represents which carriage of the train you have chosen. The second throw represents which event has happened. The scoring is as follows:
[1] Train is completely full and doesn't stop - you lose.
[2] Last two carriages are reserved for school trip - if you threw a one or two, you lose, otherwise you win.
[3] The carriage you chose was completely full - If your first throw was three or higher, you lose, otherwise you win.
[4] Train overshoots. If your first throw was three or less, you lose, otherwise you win.
[5] Train overshoots by half a carriage. Take another throw. If evens you win, odds you lose.
[6] Train arrives normally. You win.
The odds are 50/50 that you will win or lose.
John Henry's Memory (Score:2)
Could there _be_ a cognitive function of humans that is rendered any more obsolete by technology than edetic memory? Not even arithmetic is as 'rote'.
Celtic Druids were masters of memory (Score:4, Interesting)
Similarly, the Bardic class of Druids memorized their entire songlist, both music and lyrics.
In fact, because of this memory skill of the Druids, we know little of their rituals and depth of knowledge remain since they memorized it all. And as they were gradually hunted down and killed by the British, Romans and later Christianity, the extent of their knowledge has mostly been lost. We only know what others say about them, for the most part, and one thing that they all agree is that nothing was written down and all was memorized.
ttyl
Farrell