Brainhack

So my brilliant idea of cramweek, aka insantorium, was simply this: a blog about learning. One thing that I was procrastinating about leading up to these Exams O' Doom was how to do learn more efficiently and I came across heaps of different approaches - photoreading, memory pegs, holistic learning, etc, but there was no one resource collating all this. There are blogs for students, but I'd like to focus on the principles of learning and not crap like "sleep before the exam" (pshaw! overrated!). Interesting to me at least, and I'd hope to make it practical.

Will it actually happen? Perhaps. I'll check it out more carefully, see what's already in the field. Been reading up how to monetise blogs as well, and if I do venture out and do this, I want to start if off properly...and that involves learning about SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and blog techie stuff (CSS and server management crapola) and marketing and all that.

I've recently realised that if I ever do write a book, it'd probably be non-fiction as, alack, I cannot plot and my visual imagination is pretty crap. This is a potential topic. And I've decided that writing a book is one of my life's goals. It doesn't even have to be published. I just want to have the satisfaction. That's the liberating thing about non-fic - it's not a matter of talent. Beyond being able to string sentences together and structuring things, which I believe I can do, it's just perseverance and discipline and finding the right questions to answer.

Damn it's uncomfortable to air ambitions in public, even with, what, 2 readers? This is idle speculation at this stage.

PayItForwardCrossing

Yet another 3am ramble. An hour when world-nudging delusions can actually get the edge over "omg this is SO OPRAH" cynicism.

The inspiration: zenhabits on bringing people closer.
The pitch: Pay it Forward concept breeds with BookCrossing technology.

PIF is a kindness pyramid scheme where A does a good deed for B, who pays the favour forward to 3 other people, who each pay it forward to 3 more, and so forth. BookCrossing is where people leave used books in public places, with a code and URL stuck in it. Whoever finds it can log in on the site and enter the code, then passes the book on, so you can track the progress of the book across the world.

So to merge these: a way of tracking good deeds. When you do something good for someone, give them a Post-It with "record your good deeds at payitforwardtracker.com" on it. The recipient of the favour registers what was done for them, and what they have done for others. They too give Post-Its to their recipients. Thus, theoretically, you get a map of the spread of good deeds and a community of altruists.

I can already see flaws in it actually, because the people most in need of good deeds, the disadvantaged, may not have internet access. Hmmmm. Maybe it could be entirely internet-based good deeds such as...I dunno, designing a graphic for free, or buying someone one of their Amazon wishlist items (nah, too consumerist) or mailing them stuff they can't buy from their own countries. Maybe it could be set up in an existing web community. Maybe the "act of kindness" needs to be a specific act - what is a universal good deed?

Come to think of it, the Jerry library is a pay-it-forward scheme and an idea with potential I reckons. Tis simple - each borrower mails the library set to the next. The key elements are:

• A "good" that is scarce and valuable, but not priceless. Here the content of the library DVDs was rare, but the physical DVDs themselves don't cost much and are easily replaced.
  
• Decentralisation and self-sustaining. There are 3 sets of DVDs (two US, one Australasia), each with their own list. The admin only has to add new people to the list and borrowers contact each other for address details. The system relies on the next borrower harassing the previous person to hurry up and send the thing.
  
• A small "paying forward" burden. I've probably spent less than $50 setting up the entire thing, and each person probably spends less than $10.

Now how to extend this idea to something slightly less obscure? The "good" needn't be something physical, but c'mon, snail mail is fun to receive. Stamps and envelopes are so retro!

Food for thought.

Oy, this blog was meant to be a place to forge (ha! double entendre) my identity as a student doctor, but it seems there aren't that many opportunities in med for these Giant Harebrained Ideas I seem to like. Or maybe I just haven't looked hard enough. We had CPR training this week and the guy showed us some horrible comparative stats on how many Aussies vs Seattle folk survive cardiac arrests. We suck. It was something like 7% vs 70% (don't quote me on that). The dude attributes that to the lack of CPR training and defibs here. If true, that is DUH. CPR is so easy. Here, go learn it. Hey, maybe the Thing That Is Passed Forward could be "teach someone" so it'd be a pyramid scheme of knowledge. It worked for Christianity, why not CPR! "Teach it forwards".

Yknow what this sounds like? Public Health. Is that where this is leading? P-values and policy-making?! eeep. Maybe should've stayed awake in Health Economics lectures this week. Reminder to self: write about breadth vs depth of impact, helping individuals vs groups.

Ok, pressing "Publish Post" now in anticipation of a "wtf is this crap I wrote?!" hangover tomorrow.

Quack hacks

So I've been surfing the productivity blogosphere while.....procrastinating on my work. Ferric, innit.

HAHA ferric, ironic, geddit? I will go kill myself now. We only children have to amuse ourselves.

Did you know there is a significant proportion of the human (hipster) population addicted to Moleskine notebooks? (googling "Moleskine porn" came up with this) I would be one of them, but I'm too stingy. My friend did give me this bright red silk one for my birthday once, which I used as my Vietnam travel journal. A little red book in one of the last bastions of Communism, oh the wittiness! They are sexy though. Not communists, Moleskines. Well I'm sure there are some sexy communists. Fidel does it for me.

I had a point somewhere...the productivity and the lifehacking blogosphere. Apparently there are shitload of blogs telling people how to improve their lives every day in every way. Came across a post by Scott H. Young about holistic learning, which involves interlinking ideas between subjects and understanding the concepts behind knowledge by visceralisation and metaphor. Food for thought indeed, cos I feel I've lost the knack of studying deeply and internalising concepts. I wondered if his ideas could be applied to the study of medicine, which has a lot of rote memorisation and arbitrary info (looking at you, anatomical pathology).

But the gist I took from it was that medicine shouldn't be as hard as it is. It's just that the teaching, both in books and lectures, is horrible. Just one effing thing after another. Often no overviews of the topic, no attempt to present narrative and links rather than bare facts. People don't think in lists! The only thing I've come across that is remotely sensible is the Made Ridiculously Simple series which has silly cartoons and visual mnemonics (eg. the spider of Willis).

So, an idea for a blog: Quack Hacks, or Medicine for Dummies. Med is the combination of a number of disciplines, each of which can be deconstructed and which have their own tricks. Pharmacology, for example- I wish I'd been told at the beginning that all you really have to know at first/second year level is name, mechanism, uses and side effects (inc contraindications and interactions). And for the blocks we're doing this semester, neuro/endo/psych, drugs can be grouped by neurotransmitter, mechanism or disease. I haven't figured things out in other areas yet, like biochemistry, which is a blur of cycles and loops. Wtf.

Yeah, no good ending here. Go back to drooling over Chairman Mao, that fox.