Help recommend more useless shit for me to memorize!

[Locut0s]

I'm on a memorizing binge recently. I want to see how much useless, well maybe sometimes useful, trivia shit I can memorize. So far I have:

Every country's location + all their capitals. I don't have some of the island nations yet but I'm working on them.
All 50 states (not the capitals yet)
All 44 US presidents in order. (But not the dates they serves) - I guess being Canadian I should memorize the prime ministers first but I can't be bothered they are so boring!
Major world rivers
First 4 rows of the periodic table.

What should I memorize next?

[salvorhardin]

1. Well, there's the obvious classic

Pi to the first 100 decimal places.

Or, on a more literary note, all of the famous Shakespeare speeches.
"Friends, Romans, countrymen..."
"The quality of mercy is not strained..."
etc.

[Locut0s]

5. π to 100 decimal places would certainly be a challenge... Hmm I'll put it on the list but....

I'll work on it slowly. Unlike other lists of things there aren't any mental sign posts or good mnemonics I can use for PI, it's just a lot of random numbers. That and other lists are easier to keep memorized simply by virtue of being interesting subjects. I love literature but have never had all that much interest in Shakespeare (yes I know I risk getting eaten alive for that). A decade + of bad English teachers left me with a love for literature and a hatred for the classic literature that's taught in school.

[salvorhardin]

13. Oh, I can relate to that

I lovingly called our high school English department's curriculum the "Life's a Bitch and Then You Die Lesson Plan". I'm not sure there was a positive, life-affirming book in the entire four years of reading. When I suggested a couple of science fiction classics be adopted into the curriculum, my teacher at the time told me "But science fiction is real literature."

Still, I highly recommend revisiting Shakespeare. It's highly entertaining stuff once you get past the language, and you'd be surprised how quickly you do.

BTW: If you just memorize Pi to the first twenty five or even ten decimal places you'll easily impress all be the geekiest geek.

[HeresyLives]

2. If you find your own PMs boring,

it's not surprising that Canada is facing a disaster.

[Locut0s]

3. Seriosuly you find our PMs interesting? I love the country but...

I've always found Canadian, well Canadian anything, to be boring to tell you the truth. But then I've never been much of a patriotic person, I don't much like patriotism in any form.

[HeresyLives]

4. Yes, peace, prosperity and progress are always boring,

to some people.

[Locut0s]

8. Hay I'm as much a pacifist as the next guy here. Seriously....

Still I stand by Canadian politics, again just about Canadian anything, being boring. And yes I am one of those people that find peace and prosperity to be rather boring subjects when it comes to history, literature, and the like. Like I said I'm the last person on the face of the planet that would be pro war of any type but as topics of interest when it comes to literature, art, history and the like suffering in all its forms has proven to be the more affective muse.

[alfredo]

6. Highest points in the lower forty eight states. Pharaohs

Miles Davis Discography

Songs written by Neil Sedaka

Titles of Vivaldi's concertos That will be a real test.

Tulip varieties.

Iraq Provinces

[Locut0s]

9. Not much of a music aficionado. Though I do like classical music....

Tulip varieties specifically don't interest me much but botany does. Hmm I'll have to add the major and minor Caldistic groups to my list. Kingdom, Phylum etc etc... but in more detail. Iraqi provinces looks easy:



But it's a bit too specific.

[alfredo]

15. Messier objects by their NGC numbers and popular names.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_object

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Messier_objects

[Locut0s]

16. Thanks that's a good one. Another that I'll have to do is all the constellations and their....

positions in the sky. Unfortunately there's too much light pollution here in Vancouver to see any but the brightest of them.

[alfredo]

26. There are Messier marathons where astronomy geeks try to view all of them

in one night.

[eridani]

7. Tom Lehrer's Elements Song

That way you won't have tow quit after 4 rows of the periodic table.

[Locut0s]

10. Hehe lol thanks for that. There's also Yacko's countries of the world which I love:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmwlzwGMMwc

Not the best tool for memorizing though lol.


Of course we have Yacko's countries song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB87KG326Gw

A bit dated now as the USSR is now like 16 different countries and Yugoslavia is like 5 or 6 different ones. Kampuchea is now Cambodia etc...

[eridani]

14. I find that music makes memorizing way easier

I did an experiment in high school to demonstrate that. It took about 90 repetitions to get the periodic table, and I never did memorize the alphabetical list. It only took 16 tries to get the Elements Song. Chemistry teachers report that songs about reaction sequences make them much easier to learn.

FARNESOL
(tune: Jingle Bells)

Take an acetate,
Condense it with a mate
Pretty soon you have
Acetoacetate.
Roll ‘em in a ball
To get geraniol,
Add another isoprene
And you've got farnesol.

Chorus:
Farnesol, farnesol, good old farnesol,
First it goes to squalene, then you get cholesterol. Hey!
Farnesol, farnesol, good old farnesol,
First it goes to squalene, then you get cholesterol.

Now squalene’s on a roll,
Becomes lanosterol
Extra methyls do
Come off as CO2;
Then comes zymosterol,
And then desmosterol
If you don't take Triparanol
You get cholesterol.
Chorus:


GRIGNARD THE BEAUTIFUL
(tune: America the Beautiful)

A carbonyl is polarized
The carbon end is plus
A nucleophile will thus attack
A carbon nucleus.

A Grignard yields an alcohol
Of types there are but three
It forms a bond to correspond
From C to lonely C.

A secondary alcohol
Requires an aldehyde
For tertiary carbanions
And ketones may collide.

When Grignards use formaldehyde
The product's primary
It sticks like glue to CO2
Joins C to lonely C.

[Locut0s]

17. I prefer using other mnemonics....

I have good spacial memory so for things like memorizing the countries of the world I just memorize what is next to what and learn all the shapes. For lists like the US presidents I stick to memorizing everything in short lists of 3s So it's (Washington, John Adams, Jefferson) then (Madison,Monroe,JQA).... I also use the first letter of the names of things in a list. Even if they form offensive or nonsense sentences it helps for example

Millard Filmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan became... MFJ... Mother Fucking James lol

Boron, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Florene, Neon became... Bacon of Neon.

[eridani]

18. Good point. My brain is more like a tape recorder than a camera n/t

[CTyankee]

29. You might want to list artists/architects/sculptors of the Italian Renaissance

by the century, bearing in mind of course that the Italians number those centuries in their own way (duecento, trecento, quattrocento, cinquecento meaning 200s, 300s, 400s, 500s, 600s...go figure). Then, what is the major attribute of each artist? (sfumato for Leonardo? perspective for Massacio? beautiful madonnas for Lippi? nudes for Titian?) Name each's top 2 or 3 paintings, buildings, sculptures.

I have embarked upon just such a study project myself in anticipation of another trip to Florence. There is a LOT to read and digest.

Good luck!

P.S. when I can't sleep I do the capitals of the U.S. states alphabetically which is harder than doing it by looking at the map. I think I've gotten it down, however...

[AlphaCentauri]

11. Next try the US Naturalization Test Questions

http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/blinstst_new.htm

[Locut0s]

12. Do you need 100% to pass? If not I could probably pass now...

[AlphaCentauri]

25. you'll need 3 or 10 random questions, probably,

but it's a good memory exercise to learn the 100 questions

[snot]

19. Good poetry. But you'll find it far less useless, so maybe not.

[Matariki]

20. The Hebrew Alphebet

along with what the letter names mean (Aleph = ox, Beth = house) and the numbers associated with them.

[Locut0s]

22. Good one. That and the Arabic alphabet. nt

[Occulus]

21. The text of a Constitutional Article.

Pick one.

[sakabatou]

23. Pokemon names. 493 names in total.

:P

[Locut0s]

24. I think I'd rather suffocate myself. Thanks anyway though. nt

[sakabatou]

27. LOL

[bigwillq]

28. Super Bowl Champions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Super_Bowl_champions