YHK - yet another hacker news clone

If Socrates were alive today, he'd encourage engineers to internalise the spigot algorithm

Then, like a MENTAT, they'd be able to tell you the 16afedf97fd4th digit of pi when prod

In hex, naturally https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bailey%E2%80%93Borwein%E2%80%9...

>The BBP formula gives rise to a spigot algorithm for computing the nth base-16 (hexadecimal) digit of π (and therefore also the 4nth binary digit of π) WITHOUT computing the preceding digits.

Moonwalking with Einstein is a fun read. I started using some tricks in real life. One of the key premises is that humans are much better at remembering sensory things than abstract ones.

A good example is remembering names: when one’s name is “John Baker”, it is so much easier to remember by silently adding “the” in front of it.

We’re also very good at remembering salacious stuff. I tried constructing my own memory palace for a grocery shopping list that included cream cheese. If you mentally make Claudia Schiffer take a bath in cream cheese, you’ll never forget that. (I read the book at least 10 years ago and still haven’t…)

In 1999 when I was about 12, I memorized 120 digits of pi with little issue. I had some extra motivation: once I got to 20-30 digits, a classmate bet me I couldn't get past 100, and he'd give me $1 for every digit I memorized past 100. Never saw my $20 :(. Pretty sure it was a well-executed nerd-snipe.

Having not practiced at all since about 2001 or so, I can still get to about 30 pretty easily. I didn't use any techniques specifically, I just kept practicing as far as I remember.