Study Tips, Cuphead and a Russian Missile Silo

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I’ll begin with a summary of the first video of my watch later playlist for completion’s sake, a longer version of which can be found in the previous post. Then, the thrill of the chase begins as I watch the next few videos in my playlist.

How to Fix All Your Sleep Problems with Science

:Video by 5-Minute Crafts

It’s your average 5-Minute Crafts video, if you’ve ever had the ill fortune of watching one before. I added this video back in 2017, and watched it soon after - upon this rewatch, I only realised I’d watched it previously when I vividly recalled attempting one of its “very scientific” methods to :fall asleep in 1 minute. This obviously did not work, and younger me was miffed. It goes without saying that half of the video had questionable accuracy and the description didn’t list any of its sources.

If I had a nickel for every time they suggested drinking milk before bed, I would have 3 nickels. Which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened thrice.

How to Study Effectively for School or College

:Video by Memorize Academy

This video was a good watch and very informative. Right off the bat it was stated that it was a collaboration between Memorize Academy and the “cognitive scientists” at learningscientists.org, so that transparency instantly puts it ahead of the game. The following is a brief summary of their top 6 study skills.

• Spaced practice: study at intervals over time instead of cramming near the deadline. Among other typical reasons why this is effective, the video also mentions how cashing in on revision now will reduce the load in the future, as you won’t need to relearn the same information.
• Interleaving: switch between different ideas during study. This encourages your brain to form links between these ideas and understand how they relate to each other.
• Elaboration: explain and describe ideas to yourself in as much detail as you can. They also suggest to relate them to examples in you day-to-day life.
• Concrete examples: the brain is better at handling concrete ideas than abstract ones, so relate abstract information to :a real-life example.
• Dual coding: combine words and visuals to more easily understand in the present and remember in the future.
• Retrieval practice: the one that they most highly recommend and that I most strongly agree with. Sit down and recall everything you know about the topic you’re studying: the 2 different options suggested are vomiting all your knowledge onto a blank sheet of paper, and doing past tests. It’s why so many students vie for those sweet, juicy past test papers (with their solutions).

I can’t possibly transcribe the entire video, but I would highly recommend giving it a watch. They give proper reasonings for each of the 6 strategies, which is a welcome relief. They also have free posters:

:x Personal Note

As a personal note, the Concrete examples part is in contrast to “first principles thinking”, which in my interpretation favours the core fundamentals of an idea rather than focusing on anecotal examples. I suppose they’re both sides of the same coin - maybe examples can be used to hook onto the concepts, and then you can dive into the first principles to more fully understand it. No real idea, honestly.

Cuphead Tips & Tricks

:Video by The Inhuman One

I was first introduced to Cuphead through :DanTDM in October 2017, and I was hooked ever since.

This video on how to master Cuphead included some straightforward tips such as “keep shooting”, but also had more advanced suggestions like making purposeful movements instead of erratic ones and maximising DPS directly before difficult phases. It felt a little bit like Sun Tzu’s Art of War but for Cuphead.

It’s a nice video that shows its genuine love for the game. I hope to get back into Cuphead one day and actually complete it.

Haydn - Sonata in D Major Ho. XVI/37

:Video by Top Classical Music

:Haydn is one of my favourite Classical composers. Not only did he make some great music and was basically a celebrity while he was alive, but he was also very good friends with Mozart and a tutor to Beethoven. It’s interesting how the latter 2 became far more famous in the modern day than Hadyn did, but them’s the breaks.

However, this sonata was a little underwhelming. The sonata is divided into 3 movements; the first was quick and lively, and my favourite; the second was too slow for my liking, and the final movement didn’t hook me in like the first movement did (although upon rewatch I admit it did have a nice motif). I would recommend listening to any of Haydn’s more famous compositions such as the :Surprise Symphony (a truly relaxing piece, trust me) or the :piece that would eventually become the German national anthem.

I might find myself enjoying it more upon rewatches, but personally it just wasn’t anything special.

How to fold the world record paper airplane

:Video by How to Make a Paper Airplane

I was an avid paper plane folder as a kid, so that must have been the motive for adding this to the playlist. Why not try fold this plane myself 8 years later and see how good it really is?

Unfortunately not very. A complex set of folds at its nose made it a very top-heavy paper plane. I gave it some test flights in a large room. It would glide along rather well at first, and then take a nosedive. Granted, I used a thicker-than-normal sheet of paper, but many of the comments in this video said the same about their planes too. I don’t know which paper plane competition this specific plane featured in to break the world record, but I wasn’t able to replicate the same feat.

I showed it to a couple of my friends, and one of them showed me his go-to personal world record plane, which is a model I recognised as the bullet plane and flew far better.

How to Make Yourself Study When You Have ZERO Motivation

:Video by Thomas Frank

And now we jump to 2018. In this video, the guy describes his “4-step process” that he goes through every time that he feels unmotivated.

Exercise: he demonstrated some scientific evidence behind this suggestion, which again was a nice respite from the knackering of 5-Minute Crafts. He suggests going out for a walk, but it appears any exercise is beneficial at a cognitive level.

Commit to a single task: he makes a wacky hamster ball analogy that surprisingly works really well.

Clear to neutral: another really great suggestion. Clean up your room or working space to a state such that you can fully focus on the task at hand.

Low effort hack: this suggestion amounts to avoiding “a blank piece of paper” at all costs. If you think you have any barrier to entry, forget about that barrier and just do something, even if it sucks. I hear this recommendation made across writing, coding and studying.

The rest of the video is just promotional material and a Skillshare sponsorship. But overall, a really great watch and it reaffirms the kinds of things I should be doing to avoid procrastination.

A Man stuck in an abandoned russion missile silo…

:Video by TheTanelChannel

The most incredible video ever made. I won’t say a word about this one, just watch it.

It all goes downhill from here, this video is the absolute peak.

I don’t know how to end this post after watching the pinnacle of all YouTube, so here’s a random comment from that video.