Pi will always be geekily close to my heart. That is why the very first post on this blog was about Pi, and why the blog itself was started on Pi Day.

That is why I like to see people like the ambitious blogger who runs the Desktop blog, for challenging himself to memorize 1000 digits of Pi. Why he jumped from wanting to memorize only 50 digits not that long ago, to 1000 digits, is beyond me.

What is scary is that I can both understand and relate to every one of those New Year's resolutions.

Checking around other blogs for items on memory techniques, I ran into what at first appeared to be the most incredible coincidences in blog history.

It started when MSN Encarta posted an article about four tricks for improving memory. It caught plenty of people's attention, which isn't hard to do when you're Microsoft. Plenty of people naturally includes plenty of bloggers.

Full reprints of the article can be found at:

* Let's call it a day :)
* Green Place
* blacklabel
* Sampler
* weblogkoto
* I Started A Joke
* The Tunes
* WaveLinx

It may not get the coverage of MSN Encarta, but I've found Mentat Wiki to be more in-depth when it comes to memory techniques.

Update (11/17/05): This article is still making the rounds. Add STuDeNTLiFe to the list.

Over at the Explorer blog, Koh Xuan Yang has just posted some mind-boggling 9 by 9, 10 by 10 and 12 by 12 magic squares. Check them out, and be amazed!

Mindvention began here in Las Vegas today, over at the Palace Station Casino. Mindvention is a convention dedicated solely to mentalism. As I unfortunately didn't have the time available to attend the whole convention, I spent the afternoon in the dealer's room, and I'm glad I did!

Chuck Hickok was there, with his complete line of mentalist's tools, including his brand new book, Mentalism Incorporated, Volume 2. The new book contains just about everything that Chuck has published since the original book, except for his limited edition of the Diagonal Magic Square. I picked up the Diagonal Magic Square along with the new book, and I'll be pouring over the both of them in the coming days.

Mark Strivings was demonstrating his new trick, Mnemerica. The tools themselves are a clear board with 9 pegs, and 9 black disks marked 1-9, which magnetically adhere to the pegs. In the routine, the disks are mixed up, and used to create a random equation, the answer which has been predicted. The principles behind this are similar to Predict Perfect (scroll to the bottom), which I've mentioned in an earlier entry.

These are the ones that really caught my attention, but there were many other dealers with routines to catch the eye and melt the mind. This small taste of the Mindvention did prove to be the best advertising, so I may have to set aside a little more time and money for when it comes back to Vegas next year.

Once again, over at the Magic Cafe, there's another new discussion concerning memory, this time discussing the relative merits of mnemonic stacks.

For my tastes, these threads on memory work appear far too infrequently. Fortunately, I've managed to find a solution for this. Memory Mentor.com now has a forum dedicated solely to memory techniques! They focus on both recreation techniques and real-world uses, like learning language. They also have a great section on impressive mathematical feats, referred to as "Vedic Maths". If you haven't been to Memory Mentor.com yet, check it out.

As Doug Dyment points out there are trade-offs when working with memorized decks vs. sequential and algorithmic stacks.

If you don't want to take the time to develop a memorized stack, there are many great alternatives. The classic Si Stebbins (described in the above link) has many advantages, including being easy to learn. Over at Elknase's World, there is an exhaustive guide on how to work out any card in the Si Stebbins stack, given only the knowledge of the bottom card. No, you don't need to memorize this for live work, but it is of great help when construction a particular trick with the Si Stebbins stack. One thing you should be aware of is that, despite the note that mistakenly says otherwise, "opposite suit" refers to the other suit of the same color as the bottom card.

The classic problem with the Si Stebbins deck, however, has always been the "too perfect" alternation of red-black colors. Elknase has tackled that problem, with the Elknase Card System (originally named the Dominic Card System, but changed to avoid confusion with the Dominic Memory System). Don't let the fact that the introduction page is in German scare you. The free PDF explanation is available in both German and English. I'll leave the question of whether the random appearance of the stack is worth the added work for the reader.

Just a quick note for this entry. If you didn't download the "30 second Memorized Deck" PDF from Greg Webb's Free Trick download page, which I mentioned in an earlier entry, it has now been removed, and can no longer be downloaded.

Shortly after discussing memory training software in my previous post, I ran across another excellent free memory training program for Mac OS X.

It's called Studycard Studio Lite. After just a few days of testing it and using it, I can already tell you that is even more impressive than Genius!

The biggest noticable difference is that, in Studycard Studio Lite, you can add a wide variety of multi-media to your quizzes. This can really help when memorizing something like a card stack, where you actually need to get used to associating the visual of each card with its respective name and location mnemonics. Also, since mnemonics technique in general is largely a visual technique in the first place, this can really help lock stronger visuals into your mind for whatever you wish to remember.

There is a full version, called Studycard Studio, available for US$29, with site licenses available for US$299. Even with the free version, you get a 15-day trial of the full-featured version.