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How to Deal With an Aging Brain?
An anonymous reader writes "I'm sure this is something all older Slashdotters are aware of: as I get older my once-sharp brain is, well, getting worse. In particular, I'm not able to remember things as well as I once did. As a geek my capacity in this area was always what defined me as a geek. Nowadays things seem to go in OK, but then leak out. A few weeks later I've mostly forgotten. So, I ask Slashdot: how do you cope with your mind getting older? What's your trick? Fish-oil? Brain Training on the DS? Exercise? Or just trying harder to remember things?"
Simply take yourself out of situations where it matters ;p
Seriously though.. where I work a lot of the "older guy's" tend to migrate into roles where they don't need to keep mountains of info bouncing around their head all the time. Roles where people come to them for guidance and advice.. but don't expect them to know the ins and outs of the systems. Let the young guys be the walking encyclopedias while you chill-ax into retirement.
Stop using M$ crap, it has been shown to cause brain rot
Not knowing your age, i can't say if it is the onset of advanced age. I'm 47, I find that
and I don't pay attention, at least not as much as I used to, and therefore things are
harder to remember.
I get distracted because I think that I know where the conversation, lecture or whatever is
going and then I find out it took a different turn somewhere and I lost it.
Once I pay attention, I find that the old grey matter is still serviceable.
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. - Cardinal Wolsey
I think I'll take over the spaceship and kill all the astronauts.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Isn't there a firmware upgrade that fixes this yet?
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law - Aleister Crowley
I had an elective castration, and am on testosterone replacement after I found myself not remembering as well as I did before. Really helped in that area. Check your levels to see if they warrant some replacement.
Why did I click "Read More" again? Back I go, retrace the steps...
Choose 'all of the above' and anything else that keeps your mind active. Brain health is a topic with a huge volume of data on the Internet. Recent additions to the pile of info is that cannabis (THC) may help retard onset of senility. There are many things you can do. Your wetware is chemically based, and so any particular concoction that works wonders for anyone else many not work at all for you. The goal would be to match physical traits of yourself to those that benefit most from various remedies. If you are overweight, look for brain health options that seem to work for diabetics etc.
That's what I'm doing. Find best matches and experiment. So far so good. I think.
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I recommend Piracetam: the first Nootropic ("smart drug").
It is extremely safe, and is widely used in Europe to help reverse the effects of aging and to help against the deterioration of memory, among other things (note: I am not a doctor).
There are numerous forums and communities on nootropics, both for anti-aging and productivity-boosting needs. However, make sure you take the advice from those places with the appropriately-sized grain of salt, and always double-check everything with a proper medical resource (i.e. peer-reviewed studies).
I won't get into the details here, because I already did that in an older post (related to stimulants, but it is nonetheless relevant here too). Yes, I guess this qualifies as karma whoring ;)
My previous post on Piracetam: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=562684&cid=23523554
Wikipedia on Piracetam: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracetam
Erowid on Nootropics: http://www.erowid.org/smarts/
Secondly, I wonder if this testosterone effect is the same / similar in women. (I'm pretty sharp, but I'm also suffering from excessive testosterone... well, for a chick anyway.)
One of my solutions to the problem is a good set of vitamins. I tend to shy away from stuff like Centrum, and use multi-vitamin packs with a little more "kick" to them (and are a heck of a lot more soluable in the digestive system), and B12 sublingual drops.
If I have to ask myself the question "how long was it since I took my vitamins?" then the answer is probably about three days - that's how long it take for them to wear off on me.
As with a lot of processes in our bodies, good nutritian helps the brain considerably. Eat right, exersize, and take a good multi vitamin, and you'll probably see a lot of the memory issues go away. It works for me anyway - as with any random commenter on /., YMMV :-)
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr - looking for something to read? Check out my three free novels at MidnightRyder.org
It is guaranteed to help you gain a photographic memory. You'll never forget anything again! The secret to this amazing breakthrough is...Dammit, I can't remember.
Learn new things. That's how you "exercise" your brain. Things that are tough and cause "brain pain" are generally best for you.
Use it or lose it. No magic pills will help. Same for body, as for mind.
I never found having nearly photographic memory to be particularly necessary. I never saw the point of memorizing a lot of junk in school; I know how to read, I own the book, nobody could ever give me a single sane reason why it was worth spending days memorizing things for an exam. We all know it's gone again a few days later, but the book is still there.
I find the same applies to life in general. The important part is to be able to find solutions, and understand them when you do, not being able to recite every possible thing from memory.
If you remember "everything" without any effort, great! I don't. But, luckily, there doesn't seem to be much of a need.
Can't say more than that. I've seen many young hotshots that can run rings around me as day to day sysadmins. What I've became good at, as a sysadmin, is fixing something once and then automating the fix. I forget pretty quickly how I fixed the problem before, but I can always read the comments in the script I wrote to make sure it doesn't happen again.
The notion that memory == intelligence is just wrong. Just get over it, and let a computer do all the memory for you. Use your brain for what it's uniquely qualified to do.
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
This recent Slashdot thread (and the accomplishing article) discussed the effectiveness of brain training games.
In that thread, I pointed to Brain Workshop, an open source version of the game used in this study by Susanne Jaeggi, a psychologist at the University of Michigan. The study deals with improving "fluid intelligence" - the part of your mind that deals directly with the raw newness of experience or, as defined by Jaeggi, "the ability to reason and to solve new problems independently of previously acquired knowledge."
Others pointed out there's also a Javascipt version that's much more light-weight.
10: do
20: Eat, Drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die!
30: Heh, an aging brain implies you are still alive.
40: enddo
Sheesh.. some people!
The state you are in while your HEAD is detached... - wait, what?
I use to be very anal about remembering every detail. As I've gotten older I'm less concerned with this. I use technology (Outlook calendar/tasks, smartphone, Google Calendar for personal) to remember less and remind me when needed. I only concern myself with concepts and only sweat the details when it comes to actually doing the job.
I feel far less stressed out than I did when I'd try to remember every little ol' thing simply because I thought I needed to be a pedantic nerd. As a bonus I'm realizing there is more to living contently and I feel I have more time to spend on other things.
On top of it all I also make sure to leave the damn things at home when I'm going to do something and don't want distractions. Work can pay me 24/7 if they want me to be available 24/7. Otherwise when I'm not at the office I don't really care.
I do still take the time to know the important things: Birthdays, anniversaries, etc..
No sig for you!!
Lay off the alcohol and get more exercise. You'll notice a great change in about 2-3 days (of not drinking, exercise takes a little longer to kick in)
and I've started making efforts to use external memory as much as possible: calendars, phonebooks, todo lists. All the things I didn't need 10 years ago.
i've been told that a good diet and exercise can help, but it's not THAT bad yet.
i forget people's names right after they introduce themselves. i lose my car keys every morning.
my daughter (8) is taking advantage of this; "daddy, remember you told me you'd take me to a movie." shit, maybe I did.
At least that what I read somewhere (can't remember where though ;-)
In terms of dealing with a failing memory, my solution is to write a lot of stuff down. I carry a pocket PC with all my notes in it -- very helpful.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
Don't worry, though, there's hope for us all yet. Just a few days ago, my mother (88) told me how she'd met General Patton while she was taking a walk in April '45, a story I'd never heard before.
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I have to remember all kinds of shit now so the wife doesn't find out. I figure my memorization capacity has quadrupled since...er....what were we talking about again?
Some Books
But as far as forgetting stuff, I noticed that I was forgetting left and right when I turned 23. The difference is that instead of just focusing on college or something else, I had a lot of shit going on in my life and was constantly distracted and that hurt my memory. Now it is even worse. I think as you get older and you have more of a life, you just are more distracted and a lot of stuff you just won't pay as much attention to to remember as much. I'll bet if you throw in kids forget it....
I bet this suggestion gets ignored completely! This IS Slashdot after all!
Bah!
At the last performance evaluation, he told me that the quality of my work was borderline due to the fact that I simply could not remember things. We worked out a plan that if I "qualify" for termination in the next layoff, then I will simply pull out the gun and blow my brains out.
If I cannot survive in the competitive American market place, then I should not live. Most Americans support the concept that a nation is a free-market place. If you cannot compete, then you deserve to die. Hence, America does not have national health insurance: losers should die.
Since I choose to live in America, I (and my manager) accept the rules of the free market.
A major contributer to memory loss is the stress of worrying about it. Expect it to work when needed, and it's more likely to do so.
That being said, do a crossword puzzle every day. Take DHA (from an algal source NOT fish oil). Eat brewer's yeast; it has every B vitamin known, plus lots of DNA and RNA. Eat eggs (choline), and beets (they provide a chemical group that the rest of your body will use and leave the choline for making acetylcholine.)
Exercise your brain - it really does respond just like muscle tissue does; it will grow and become more vigorous.
Don't take large doses of B vitamins, just take some. Your food will provide a variable amount on top of the minimum, and that variation will enhance your brain's use of what's available.
Most of all; if you expect some function to fail, you will stop using it so much, it will atrophy from lack of use, and you'll have a self-fulfilling prophesy. Just as you expect to get better at what you do with practice, expect your body's cells to get better at what they do with practice. They will, if you let them.
On the one hand you take life too seriously, and on the other, you do not take playful existence seriously enough. Seth
Frisco-style: "Eat, Drink, and be Mary..."
Table-ized A.I.
Get a larger Hard Drive !
I'm fairly young, but this seems like an almost obvious answer to me (yay naivety!). For almost any situation, whether it be a conversation with a coworker, an article about the latest video card, or a night class, writing it down should help a lot. Not only do you have your notes as something to refer to should you forget, you also gain the added benefit of actually writing down what you learned.
Remember high school? If I didn't take notes on a lesson, I was guaranteed to do worse on a test. The same applies even as you get older - writing stuff down, even if the notes are minimal, should help with your memory problem significantly.
Obviously, YMMV, but even if it feels too nerdy for a self-described geek, I would highly recommend carrying a small notebook around just to take notes in. Give it a shot, you might be surprised at how well you begin to remember things.
For what it's worth... I'm in my mid 40's and have found two things of use.
/.) I do think we're inundated increasingly more each day (see goole article just a few down) and I'm tired of it. So I do, actively, ignore a lot of shit. I find that helps me stay focused on what I value and what I want from my life.
1. When I was an undergrad I had a class on African Traditional Religions, the prof. was Kenyan. He used to actively speak out against using notebooks in class. He insisted that his education was better, it was entirely an oral based schooling as was his home life. After this had come up enough times in his class as well as my anthropology classes I thought I'd give it a go. I already had a great memory and often found notebooks and their accouterments a pain in the ass. One day I just stopped using any kind of notes; instead I paid attention to everything I felt I needed to learn. At night, I'd replay my day before I went to sleep. My GPA went up, in one semester from a 3.3 - a 3.9 and stayed there until I graduated.
2. I find, the older I get the less I care about much of the inane crap that gets tossed at me. (apologies to
Between work and home I have 14 unique passwords and change them every 30-60 days. I don't use a personal phone book either. I'd rather keep this stuff in my head instead of writing it down. I still believe that maintaining an active oral/mnemonic storyline of my life will keep it active instead of seeing it wane so dramatically in my later years.
I've seen this hold true for many friends who are in the theater. I've seen many 60+ yr/olds grab a script and be off book in 24 hrs. Relying on devices, of any kind, weakens the mind.
Seriously, not having to remember things while you are sitting in front of your PC because you can always google for it is very bad for your memory ...
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
Actually, there is an entire class of racetams that can be used and each of them act a little different. Piracetam is considered the weakest of them all, and Pramiracetam is considered the strongest. I use Aniracetam and find that it helps quite a bit. When you stack them (Piracetam + Aniracetam) they work synergistically and you get an even stronger effect. Because they tend to use up your brains acetylcholine faster, people usually have to take a choline supplement with them a few times a week. The best form that I've found is alpha-GPC. It is the most bioavailable of choline supplements. The best part about these is that there are no side effects, even at high doses. Wiki - Racetam Class
There's the solution! Turn whatever you want to remember into a really lame song et voila.
In my case, I simply use technology.
I'm 25, and I have a neurological condition called Dyspraxia which causes short-term memory problems, among other things. (My long term memory works fine, and you wouldn't notice anything unusual just by looking at me) On any given day, I can usually remember only one or two pieces of information at a time in my short term memory, and I used to constantly forget about assignments, appointments, things I was told to do five minutes ago, etc. Over the years, I've had to adapt to this problem by devising workarounds.
I used to write things down in a planner book and keep it with me, but I kept losing it or forgetting to bring it with me. To solve this problem once and for all, I began using a tool called Taskfreak after a former co-worker told me about it. I have Taskfreak running on my server, and since it's a web app, I can check it from pretty much any location and at any time, unlike other software planners I tried in the past. Plus, its impossible to "lose" Taskfreak since it's never really in my possession to begin with. This tool has practically replaced my short-term memory, since the only thing I have to remember is to check it often. (The browser start pages on all my computers point to my taskfreak installation, so I see it every time I start Firefox or any other browser)
"It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
I started on a very, very cool tech R&D project in April at the age of 50. It's one of those things that is so involved that when anyone starts working there their brain swells up for the first month as it is filled up.
I have said many times why couldn't I be like 30 or 40 when my brain worked better and come across something like this?
I make up for the slowly decreasing short term storage by making a lot of notes. Make short term notes for what you are doing now. Then after the rush is over take a few minutes to flesh them out a little in case you have to do it again in a month and have forgotten what you did. It's not unmanly to make notes if it helps you kick the young whippersnapper's butts.
Don't multi-task as many things at once. This helps even the young. I used to work on six systems at a time. Now I do like two and get them right. If you're going to do things over and over take the time to script and automate if there is a ROI. Share the scripts, etc. with others to help save everyone time.
I draw on my 29 years of professional technical experience. I use the professional maturity gained over the years to spend an appropriate amount of time carefully crafting an important email or document. It ends up saving time in the long run.
Over the years you learn what works in business and what doesn't. Tech knowledge is important but learning how people and business works is important too.
I use my 29 years of IT experience in so many different things to my advantage. Last week I reduced a problem down to system tuning. I used those old skills and made a lot of people happy. In the old days system tuning was a way of life. Younger people who haven't dealt with low horsepower and don't do know things like that.
Use your experience with people and maturity gained over the years. I've got a deck of punch cards of assembly code on my desk to remind me how good I've been over the years. Today people can hardly imagine using assembly much less reading a dump. Might just have to do some of assembly in the future to get stuff to run faster.
Remembering stuff isn't what makes you a geek - remembering stuff is what your hard drive and the Internet is for. Being a geek is all about applying your one-eyed devotion to [hardware|software|cameras|games|knitting|etc] to the fullest extent and doing nifty things with it.
It's pretty well known that young people are better at raw ability where older people are better at anything that requires experience. So don't worry about forgetting stuff too much, concentrate on kicking arse with your experience.
If you are forgetting stuff, write it down. But keep on being a geek and stay fit, because mental and physical activity are two primary factors in retaining cognitive ability in old age.
/Mike
PS: wear sunscreen
-- "So, what's the deal with Auntie Gerschwitz et all?"
is that why you're always misplacing your keys and finding the phone in the fridge?
people become senile as they get older because the brain, like the rest of your body, deteriorates with age. how much it deteriorates depends on how you live. unfortunately, as many people get older they become less and less active, and it becomes a vicious cycle.
if you learn to place chess when you're young, and you never stop playing chess, you'll still be able to play quite well even in your old age. you won't be as fast as you were in your mid-20's, but you'll probably still be fast in your mid 80's as you were in your mid-to-late-30's. as long as you keep your brain active, the areas that you use regularly will not degrade very much. so yes, in theory if everyone remained active in their golden years, their brain will still function quite well in all the ways "that matter." but that's not how things are in reality.
in reality people become less active, both physically and mentally, as they age. they don't push themselves as hard mentally, and they also stop stretching their mind/creativity. senior citizens also tend to be less socially active, and a lack of regular social interaction/stimulation can also lead to mental decline.
it's got nothing to do with performing menial work for others. neurological degradation is not the same as becoming wiser. nor is becoming more and more useless the same as becoming sager.
Something about using memory training software that the author forgot to update doesn't sit right with me.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
I personally can't wait for Alzheimer's given all of the stuff (plus an ex) that I'd love to forget about.
Richard Feynman had a good story about this. Someone once published a paper that was supposed to have serious impact on his theory. The problem was, that when Feynman read through it he didn't understand it at all. He was all out of himself thinking his years as a researcher are over and he's just too old to understand the new stuff. Finally his wife talked him down and told him to try and go through the paper the old fashioned way - step by step, taking notes, just like when he was a student. And sure enough when he chewed through all the formulas slowly he understood it all.
The moral of the story is that we get too comfortable as we get older. We have more experience and our brains are trained cracking the hard stuff. You are used to understand complex things easily and you forget just how much energy it used to take when you were learning some fundamental ideas the first time. Just remember how much time you had to devote to understand calculus even though it's ideas may seem self-evidend now to you.
Now from time to time you encounter a problem that your brain will not crack right-away. You think you are too old for it but it is much more possible that you just don't have the patience to put as much effort into understanding it as you did when you were a student. And that is not a physical brain condition - it's just good old 'getting too comfortable'.
A lot of inappropriate moderation is the result of Slashdot's use of pulldown lists. People select the moderation, then use the mouse wheel to scroll further down the page to the 'Moderate' button without realizing that the pulldown list still has the focus. They then click on the page to set the focus properly, without noticing that 'Insightful' got turned into 'Troll.'
Never ascribe to stupidity that which can be blamed on bad UI design.
You can try neurofeedback which is a direct way to train the brain. Research this since there is a lot information out there, both for the expert and layman.
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Normally I stay out of threads like this, but I take exception to the high number of responses so far that have advocated taking supplements and vitamins. But that's what our society has come to these days, I guess. Got a problem? Take a pill!
I'm not that old but like most of us, I'm aging nonetheless. Here is what I'm doing to try to keep my brain in decent shape.
First, keep your body in shape. Recognize that the brain depends on the body. If you aren't eating right and aren't exercising, then your metal facilities are lower than they should be. Every single study that has been evaluated the link between exercise and brain function has found that there is a direct causal relationship. People who exercise regularly are smarter than those that don't, when all other factors are equal.
Second, keep the mind in shape. It needs exercise too. I usually get plenty of intellectual stimulation from daily geeky activities but when I don't, I read like a fiend. Read fiction, read non-fiction, read technical books (even ones you've already read). Keep learning. You'll never learn everything there is to know, but it's incredibly rewarding to learn as much as you can. In the past few years, I've taken interest in music, electronics, and a foreign language (German). All things that I wouldn't have dreamed I'd dabble in 10 years ago.
If it's memory in particular that you're having a problem with, see about getting more sleep. One popular theory for the necessity of sleep is that it gives the brain a chance to shut down the I/O bus while it evaluates, organizes, and stores information received during the day. Sounds plausible to me because I know I don't retain much when operating on minimal sleep.
I could not imagine not pushing myself mentally, regardless of how old I get.
Sitting around doing nothing would bore the crap out of me after a few days, and I'd have to go fix something.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Or ... has she told you the same story before, but you had forgotten about it.
The internet helps you remember things. I call it a pornographic memory.
FLR
Interesting question. I hate to admit it but I'm getting up there too, and in the industry I'm surrounded by people younger than me. Think positive though, that is the key. Experience brings a strong work ethic, keeping this up exposes you to different program and design environments etc and you learn how to accomplish jobs better. I'd say just take care of your health and think positive; keep taking vitamins and drinking tea and keep working your brain the same way you did when you were younger.
Really most studies show that mans brain power peaks at age 39, and I can say as someone approaching that age, I have never been more mentally capable as I was in my mid to late 30s. And I am 39 next month. Mylein peaks and then degenerates after 39, in recent studies, so mid 20s is out the window. I learned spanish fluently at age 31. Granted I was in Colombia and that was all I could speak. My father went to lawchool at 46, graduated at 52, top of his class, and, three years later had a phd in philosophy, again top of his class. Your mid 20's is nothing but hormonal and easy to get over hangover age. I did not come into my own physically and mentally until I passed 30.
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
I had an elective castration....
I voted Republican; I feel pretty emasculated as well.
Quite frankly, it sounds more as though you've archived it to secondary storage and have to read the tape back in.
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Do what I do. Up your caffeine dose eeeevvverry yyyeeaaarrr...........
Since I crossed the GEEZER boundry a few years ago (or so), I found that a proper diet is not to fry or nuke your brain to often ( 2 beers not 37, a couple tokes not 14 bowls) works well for keeping an edge. Exercise consists of occasional arguments with my x-wifes and moving to a strange place every 4-5 years. the best move is to a place where you dont know anyone or the language.
Proudly Butchering code for 20 years
Unfortunately since we're not to that point yet, I've started using Notefrog on a flashdrive.
I exercise daily, teach myself new things that I've always wanted to learn, do a lot of reading and challenge my mind in many other ways. I enjoy a few beers or glasses of wine often and do a little weed now and then. I don't take any vitamins and I don't do diets. I'm 63.
I realize that I have forgotten a lot of information I needed to know for school, work etc., but I recognize that I have forgotten that information because I no longer need it and I replaced it with new stuff I like.
There is a history of Alzheimer's in my family so I also keep myself informed on the latest research regarding prevention.
I can't remember the last time I forgot something.
About 3-4 years ago, I found that lots of "trival" details about certain things started leaking. Here is what I've found works
1) Remember the old hints about "a quiet spot to study" - yes it makes a difference. I find with my 2 kids running around, the TV blareing, the radio on, etc, I can't remember, my brain goes elsewhere (and it doesn't help that I have a chronic wound, and I'm on pain killers almost 24x7). Find a quiet place/time for the deep things
2)Personally, the thing _I_ tend to forget are appointments, and in particular, the details. "OK, I know my wife has an MD appointment one day this week, which day is it, and where and what time should I be picking up the kids that day?" A calendar - be it electronic, or written - the way my WIFE likes it (conflict here - causes extra work) is a lifesaver - write it down (and if you have an SO, have them write their stuff down). You can then "page out" that information till you need it
3)A Journal - Many years ago, a co-worker (Thanks Harry) taught me something important - keep a journal (I don't do as well as I should) - a bound numbered book you keep on your desk. Write EVERYTHING down, every day. Go to a meeting, write it in the book, get a phone call - it goes in the book. Have lunch with someone, in the book. Make an apointment to have lunch with someone? In the book.
This isn't only for memory, but if you faithfully keep the book, leave no blank pages etc, what you end up with a document that is legally acceptable as evidence. Just in case. It's like the scientists bound lab notebook. You'll find that EEs use them, etc -
4)Take a little time each day to have as "quiet" time. For me at least, the ability to sit down with a cup of coffee/tea/glass of water (or whatever) and just "clear my mind" makes a big difference - watch the birds, the clouds, or even (if you can get outdoors) look at a picture, gets my mind into a state where the rest of the day is a lot better memory and stress wise
5)A consistant routine. Remember I said about "offloading details" - I try and do as many things as I can on "autopilot", so I don't get overwhelmed in details - sort of like programming, a lot of the techniques in programming are all about "information hiding" - you can really do a lot of this in your life.
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
My father went to lawchool at 46...
Please note, spelling proficiency appears to decrease prior to age 39.
One trick is to tell them stories that don't go anywhere.
Like that time I took the ferry over to Shelbyville; I needed a new heel for my shoe. So, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on them. 'Give me five bees for a quarter,' you'd say.
Now where were we?
Oh yeah, the important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time.
I agree wholeheartedly. My brother went back to school and became an RN at age 50 (he was a medic in the Air Force in the 1950's), and I started learning Japanese when I was 47. I'm having to come up to speed on Java, Hibernate, AndroMDA, Maven, Oracle, and Spring for the project I'm on (I had no experience with any of them except Java 1.0) and even though it's hard to get all of them at once, I've made enough progress in 2 months to start fixing simple bugs. I've programmed in about a half-dozen other languages, and wrote code for everything from microprocessors to mainframes for the past 30 years, so that helped. I use my iPod to help me study Japanese vocabulary whenever I have a few minutes (like a 20 minute compile), and I occasionally read and post stuff on the Internet.
If I wasn't working I wouldn't be bored, because there are a lot of projects I've put on hold that I could be doing if I had the money and time for them.
Hopefully my brother and I can stave off the possibility of Alzheimer's that we may have inherited from our father and grandfather...
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
I'm using a similar piece of software to learn German. Anki is actively worked on and regularly updated by the author. You can even write your own plug-ins for it in Python, I believe.
It is a tell-tale sign of stress when people suddenly start becoming forgetful.
So I would advise you to deal with your stress, and your former good memory will come back. You know: exercise, sleep, lots of fresh air, proper, healthy nutrition, and yes that includes lost of fish. Decide for yourself that life is short and living is now.
It's amazing how many authors/writers/novelists/biographers about Chaucer's age take notes and squirrel them away. Dunno if there's any sort of indexing system for handwritten stuff, though - does anyone have time to index their own notes, except of course in Barry Hughart's Bridge of Birds?
Unfortunately, my experience mirrors yours. I did a couple of years of near-genius work when I was younger. Some of my own code reads like the Book of Revelations to me now. I can barely understand it, and I was never a slacker about inline comments. Apparently, I never knew what a good comment was, or what I'd done that was so noteworthy, because some of those remarks seem downright cryptic to me. I was no Steve Wozniak, ever, but I could write beautiful code once. That mind is a complete stranger to me now, at age 64.
I use FireFox and SQLite Manager to keep a searchable list of memoranda to myself, these days. It helps, it really does. I keep telling myself that.
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
Something younger technical people forget is that managing a group of people requires more skills than knowing how to obfuscate a perl script.
If technical people are great problem solvers they could apply the skills, allegedly learned doing "fun" stuff, to the problem of implementing productive teams of techies.
This nonsense about management being a dead end for techies needs to be put to rest frankly, a good manager will enable technical people to do their job by isolating them from all the bullshit that comes from higher hierarchical levels while at the same time setting realistic objectives for all the parties involved. Having being a techie should be a great plus for somebody managing other techies, not an artificial hindrance.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
In the original post, the use of "synergistically" is perfectly cromulent. The word has been a part of the pharmaceutical jargon for more than 50 years and is being used correctly in context.
Two drugs exhibit synergism when the effects of giving them together are greater than one would expect from the effects of giving each one separately. Aspirin and codeine are synergistic: when given together in moderate doses, the combined analgesic effect is greater than either given alone. This combination is often used in the early phase of mending a broken bone.
Contrast "synergism" with "potentiation": aspirin and caffeine are not considered synergistic since caffeine has no analgesic qualities by itself. However caffeine does potentiate the analgesia provided by aspirin. Two aspirin taken with a cup of coffee are more effective against headaches or sore muscles than just the aspirin alone. And cheaper than the many OTC pain relievers that are basically just aspirin and caffeine.
I only bothered to read the link for D, but that page clearly states that you have to be over 50 for D absorption to be impaired. It also lists side effects for taking too much vitamin D.
I think the message here should be go see your doctor. Don't go taking nutritional supplements based off what you read on teh intarwebs, otherwise you could end up increasing your risk of disease. I know there are lots of other supplements that are actually quite poisonous taken in the doses available in some supplements if you're not suffering from a nutrition disorder.
Nick
Einstein was wise, but many in the world are not. And a problem for many of the people this thread is about is that they are leaving unsatisfactory careers and trying something radically new. I quit a cubicle job at the phone company and next month will graduate from watchmaking school (thanks to a Slashdot posting from two years ago).
The problem is, it's REALLY HARD to try to learn a whole new set of skills in a new career at 45. (The flip Simpsons comments on this thread are just showing how slashdot has become polluted with idiocy when serious subjects need discussing.)
The final exam has a bunch of math, and the Swiss group that administers the test requires students to memorize the formulae. Fortunately it's only a few questions out of twenty or so on the test.
O~ Him that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. -- Francis Bacon
I haven't seen anyone mention sleep.
That's when your synaptic pathways are reinforced and new ideas are integrated into memory.
Our brains are as active when we are asleep as awake, just accomplishing a different process.
If you want to know something for a test, don't cram all night before, simply sleep on it.
If you can't figure out the solution to a dilemma, you might after a good night's sleep.
Finally, if you are well rested, you will be content enough to not mind that you can't remember what you did at work yesterday... ...what? Yesterday was Saturday? Did I sleep through it again?
false dichotomy...older people do not have to be 'set in their ways' and young people do not have to be full of nonsense ideas...it's fallacy to think so.
the best team is one with a range of experience and abilities all devoted to accomplishing a task or goal. people who are 'stuck in their ways' no matter what age are a drag on a work group or creative team. what's most important is that ego and self promotion are set aside by all
now, if you argue that the 'old and stubborn vs. young and nonsense' is the status quo, I agree. my point is, we should strive to move beyond those limitations.
Thank you Dave Raggett