Have you ever noticed how what you were doing before retiring can affect the things you dream about?
It is called the Tetris Effect. There is a nice summary of how it was discovered here
It helps me a lot. It is my habit to do most of my serious computing after tea at night.
If I retire with a serious unsolved problem , I sometimes dream about it , and sometimes wake up with the solution.
Does anyone else experience this strange ‘sleep on it’ method of cracking computer problems?
The Tetris effect has other promising applications . It can be used therapeutically.
Go to bed and dream about the problem and wake-up at 3AM, or some other obscene time, and solve the issue, sometimes!!!
Still have not cracked LFS, but am still trying!!!
I saw some post recently how someone was using an AI prompt, when attempting to describe the issue - solved it themselves…
Sometimes I’ll maybe start an email, or even a post here - about some issue I’m unable to solve - but - writing about it - helps me think more analytically about the problem and helps me solve it…
I ALWAYS wake up between 2:30 and 3:30 am - but NEVER have the answer…
Q: What does the dyslexic insomniac agnostic ask at 3:00 am?
A: “Is there a dog?”
The tetris effect sounds interesting. I read somewhere, that sleeping / dreaming is a bit like defragging a FAT hard drive - but obviously WAY more sophisticated…
I once had a colleague - who I discovered, instead of working on “work” he spent two days “defragging” the 60 DLT tapes in the robot / jukebox - so they were in numerical order… That guy was such a klutz - made my job 10,000 x more difficult than it had to be - he’s now an “SRE” (site reliablilty engineer - I can’t image that site is very reliable :D). I caught him out when I discovered a surrepticious laptop in a server rack connected to a spare port on the firewall - and he just ran Kazaa and Napster and WinMx and Limewire on it 24 x 7 - I kinda wish I’d snitched on him now - but snitching is not in my nature…
Teaching is supposed to help you master a subject.
I did a bit of maths tutoring years ago, it certainly brushed up my understanding of high school maths.
When at uni I used to cram by writing things out. Just expressing something in your own words helps you to retain it.
I used to cram late at night before exams. That works too. Recollection next day is improved.
I thought she was French, not German (No offence @Rosika and anyone else - I’m slightly more than 1/3 German myself - both my Grandmother’s spoke some German before they started school - and 3 of my great grandparents were of German ancestry - the rest were English or Irish or Anglo-Irish) - I digressed, it’s a common misconception that Germans don’t have a sense of humour…
Having said that - I find French humour (e.g. comedy movies like : The Dinner Game - or “Un Crime Au Paradis” both starring the late great Jaques Villeret) closer to Anglo humour, than German, and there’s even a difference between US “humour” and the rest of the Anglosphere (I prefer Aussie, British and New Zealand humour to American).
I used to have a German friend, and went to his place for New Years Eve party - and he put that on - apparently a tradition in Germany, to watch that English movie on NYE…
Dinner for one really is a must-see on NYE for a lot of people here.
A friend of mine watches it several times on that evening, as it is broadcast on every Regional TV programme at different times (plus: on the main ARD programme as well).
Some people can´t get enough of it, and that is on an annual basis no less.
That is a strange tradition… but then most traditions seem strange.
maybe because
they are something from the past
long held traditions are sometimes even seen as giving a vote to our ancestors.
I wonder is that the case here?
Do you do this to remember events and people from earlier days?
Basically it´s an 18-minute-long sketch (the original is in black-and-white)
In 1961, the sketch was produced by NDR for television in black and white and was shown for the first time in the programme.
In the show Guten Abend, which was also produced by NDR, Peter Frankenfeld, the sketch ran on 8 March 1963.
The direction was directed by Frinton, whereby Frinton was the actual creator of the production. The introduction in the German version speaks Heinz Piper.
Yes, at least partly, I guess. But it´s mainly the butler´s clumsisness which makes people cry with laughter, I guess.
… combined with a twist at the end.
(No offence 
