I think the “tagging” concept is why I can comfortably have fifty Wikipedia pages open at once, but I get lost only a few links deep when a link called “Carnot” takes me to a page that fails to use the same word and just uses “efficiency”. As long as the terms are consistent, I can usually get to the page even hours later and usually integrate it into the hole I had prepared for it while reading the original text.
On Wikipedia, go to preferences, click on “Gadgets” at the far right and tick Navigation Popups. It pops up a preview of whatever article is at the other end of a wikilink. The cure for mystery meat navigation, at least internally.
Thanks for the suggestion. I just tried playing with it, and will continue to for a little while, but right now I don’t think that it will help me.
1) It’s too slow. I normally read around 350 wpm (90% comprehension 1 day later), and read quickly at around 900 wpm (70% comprehension 1 day later). I usually read Wikipedia at my faster speed (they are discrete modes for me, rather than a continuum). On my connection, it takes about a second for a popup to appear, but even moving the mouse is an interruption. In my test just now, that reduced my reading speed by about half.
2) It requires concentration. This might change once I get used to it, but the way I pre-allocate an expectation for new information, and tag what I expect to go in there is subconscious, and happens easily at any reading pace. It seems to revolve around the association of a single word or word phrase. Just now, I had to focus on the popup and mentally note “Butte du Lion = Lion’s Mound” (and that’s an easy one!).
3) It’s only helpful for the corner cases, but I can’t predict those ahead of time. Wikipedia is pretty good about labeling links with the title of the page they link to. It seems that (a lot?) less than 10% of links violate this rule, and I can’t easily predict which ones; it’s only useful for me to see the popup when the page it links to is a redirect.
Ah ha! I just realized I could write some javascript to replace all links on a given site with the title of the page they link or are eventually redirected to. I wonder if that would be helpful? I would have to write different scripts for Wikipedia and LessWrong and TvTropes (maybe), but I don’t use that many link-heavy sites. On the other hand, it would ruin jokes and make some text nonsensical. Hmm.
Good question. By hand, and I don’t know how my results match up against more “official” methods, but here’s how I did it (a few months ago, so I remember it well):
1) I time myself reading 100 pages, and randomly sample from those 100 pages until I have a tight confidence interval for the word count of those 100 pages. This gives me my wpm.
2) The following day, I generate 100 random numbers between 1 and the number of lines per page in that book. For each page, I check 3 lines starting at that number (may bleed onto the next page). I count it correct if I remember the content of those three lines, and incorrect if I don’t. It’s subjective, but I’m strict. If the lines are
how childrens minds work. One of the Nickelodeon / producers, Todd Kessler, had actually worked on Sesame / Street and left the show dissatisfied. He didn’t like the
I count that as the facts:
1) Todd Kessler was a Nickelodeon producer
2) He worked on Sesame Street
3) but left dissatisfied
If I get any wrong (including failing to remember Todd Kessler’s name), that counts as a strike against the whole phrase, not just 1⁄3 of it.
Thus, my 90% comprehension rate means out of 100 samples, I got 7-13 wrong (most of those were in fact forgetting a person’s name, location, or organization).
3) Repeat for at least two more books to see how different writing styles affect my reading rate.
On the other hand, it would ruin jokes and make some text nonsensical.
You could append the title of the page they link to- i.e. joke(Aha! Jokes: Clean Humor and Funny Pictures!)- and that would just make the jokes faster and the text interrupted. My concern would be that many titles are overlong. Do you want every Less Wrong link to have the phrase “—Less Wrong” in it?
On Wikipedia, go to preferences, click on “Gadgets” at the far right and tick Navigation Popups. It pops up a preview of whatever article is at the other end of a wikilink. The cure for mystery meat navigation, at least internally.
Thanks for the suggestion. I just tried playing with it, and will continue to for a little while, but right now I don’t think that it will help me.
1) It’s too slow. I normally read around 350 wpm (90% comprehension 1 day later), and read quickly at around 900 wpm (70% comprehension 1 day later). I usually read Wikipedia at my faster speed (they are discrete modes for me, rather than a continuum). On my connection, it takes about a second for a popup to appear, but even moving the mouse is an interruption. In my test just now, that reduced my reading speed by about half.
2) It requires concentration. This might change once I get used to it, but the way I pre-allocate an expectation for new information, and tag what I expect to go in there is subconscious, and happens easily at any reading pace. It seems to revolve around the association of a single word or word phrase. Just now, I had to focus on the popup and mentally note “Butte du Lion = Lion’s Mound” (and that’s an easy one!).
3) It’s only helpful for the corner cases, but I can’t predict those ahead of time. Wikipedia is pretty good about labeling links with the title of the page they link to. It seems that (a lot?) less than 10% of links violate this rule, and I can’t easily predict which ones; it’s only useful for me to see the popup when the page it links to is a redirect.
Ah ha! I just realized I could write some javascript to replace all links on a given site with the title of the page they link or are eventually redirected to. I wonder if that would be helpful? I would have to write different scripts for Wikipedia and LessWrong and TvTropes (maybe), but I don’t use that many link-heavy sites. On the other hand, it would ruin jokes and make some text nonsensical. Hmm.
Where/what do you do to check your reading comprehension like that?
Good question. By hand, and I don’t know how my results match up against more “official” methods, but here’s how I did it (a few months ago, so I remember it well):
1) I time myself reading 100 pages, and randomly sample from those 100 pages until I have a tight confidence interval for the word count of those 100 pages. This gives me my wpm.
2) The following day, I generate 100 random numbers between 1 and the number of lines per page in that book. For each page, I check 3 lines starting at that number (may bleed onto the next page). I count it correct if I remember the content of those three lines, and incorrect if I don’t. It’s subjective, but I’m strict. If the lines are
I count that as the facts: 1) Todd Kessler was a Nickelodeon producer 2) He worked on Sesame Street 3) but left dissatisfied
If I get any wrong (including failing to remember Todd Kessler’s name), that counts as a strike against the whole phrase, not just 1⁄3 of it.
Thus, my 90% comprehension rate means out of 100 samples, I got 7-13 wrong (most of those were in fact forgetting a person’s name, location, or organization).
3) Repeat for at least two more books to see how different writing styles affect my reading rate.
You could append the title of the page they link to- i.e. joke(Aha! Jokes: Clean Humor and Funny Pictures!)- and that would just make the jokes faster and the text interrupted. My concern would be that many titles are overlong. Do you want every Less Wrong link to have the phrase “—Less Wrong” in it?