Living Life in Fast-Forward

ctwxman writes "A year and a half ago my boss approached me, asking me to finish some college courses to get certification in what I've been doing for the past 20+ years. The courses are offered by Mississippi State University. Since I live in Connecticut, I am taking my lessons on DVD and videocassette with tests, quizzes and helpful advice from TA's online. It didn't take me long to realize how s-l-o-w the whole lecture process was. But with WinDVD4, I started ramping up the speed. It didn't take long to get to 2x normal speed. Other than the lectures taking half the time, I didn't miss anything. Yes, the speech is a little clipped, but these are college lectures. There are no speed demons delivering at the MSU lectern. I posted my 'discovery' to our online student bulletin board and found many other students were scared of the idea. But, for me wearing headphones (important I think), these hyper lessons are just as good as watching at normal speed. Now, The New York Times (sacrifice of eldest child required) has legitimized my claim with this article showing how and why others are rapidly jumping on the high speed watching bandwagon."

Comments

A "Novel" idea

[alephnull42]

There was a Tom-Clancy-Type novel called "Full Disclosure" IIRC, where the basic idea of double speed audio was also included.

The plot was: US president gets into office, gets shot and injured, turns blind because of injury.

Nasty politicos around the VP try to have him declared "unfit for office" so that VP can become P.

One of the tricks the president used to overcome his handicap (on the advice of an experienced blind person) was to have documents read to tape, and then played back at 2x or 3x the speed, which approximated the reading speed of a normal adult.

Sorry, can't resist snide comment: If this technique were applied today, the president would probably increase his effective reading speed by 12 times, since he is rumored to read at slightly above 3rd grader speed. Maybe thats why his lips always look funny in the photos, they're constantly dry and cracked.