I was helping a friend mow his lawn last Sunday. It took us 30 minutes to realize we needed to buy kerosene for the lawn mower let alone top up the hydraulic liquid. The fuel indicator was missing from this particular lawn mower we had rented.
It takes 1-2 seconds to know if my laptop battery needs to be charged. I just need to take one glance at my inbox to know I have 5 unread emails.
It’s amazing how clueless and confused one’s brain can be when there is no easily visible way to decipher the system status.
Just came across the Google Search Cheat Sheet today while trying to figure out how to directly search for the definition of a word.
define:quiescent
You should read every page of a book, right? Wrong. You don’t have to. I’ve been doing some technical reading of late and I’ve been finding the SQ3R method of reading quite useful.
The name is an abbreviation of the five steps of the strategy: Survey (or Skim), Question, Read, Recite and Review.
- Survey - Before you begin to read, scan the titles, headings, pictures, introductory paragraphs and chapter summaries. This helps you get an overview of what is coming up.
- Question - ask yourself questions as you read such as, what are the key topics in this chapter?
- Read - read for comprehension, locate concepts and facts and annotate the information in the margins of the book.
- Recite/Write – write down the key phrases that sum up the major points of each chapter and answers the question from step 2. As your teacher always said, it is important to use your own words, not just copy a phrase from the book.
- Review - After repeating steps 2–4 for each chapter you will have a list of key phrases that provides an outline for the chapter. Test yourself by covering up the key phrases and seeing if you can recall them. Do this right after you finish reading the chapter. If you can’t recall one of your major points, that’s a section you need to reread.
