Memorize These Interesting and Useless Facts on Small Cards
I learned the NATO phonetic alphabet. Now I am learning to point to each country on the map. I will never need this information, but it’s good to know. I am learning with the free Tinycards card app , which is surprisingly similar to playing a mobile game, but you might feel good. Here’s the best nonsense knowledge you can glean from the app.
If you’re feeling addicted to mobile apps that are wasting your time, Tinycards is a great replacement. A beautifully designed app from Duolingo gives you the same trickle of dopamine as social media and mobile gaming. The minimum time required for a useful Tinycards session is around 30 seconds. Don’t try to learn something complicated or verbose (if that’s none of your business). Try these simple things that are good to know:
- NATO Phonetic Alphabet : Speak the words out loud like a fighter pilot. Great to pull out when making support calls.
- Countries of the World : Find out where each country is and what its shape is, continent by continent, with these beautifully drawn official decks. Oceania is strangely lacking, but the deck was made by someone else .
- Tarot Cards : Learn the names of the major arcana – 22 face cards of the Tarot deck. Then find out their forward and backward meanings.
- Pokémon : Identify the first 151 Pokémon. If it’s too easy, learn them from the silhouette . Or study 2nd generation Pokémon .
- Essences of Minecraft : Get to know the people, creatures and places of Warcraft for Kids.
- Harry Potter Spells : Cast 86 spells or at least find out their names and what they do.
- Disney Parents : Learn the names of all the parents from Disney cartoons.
- Logical fallacies : Become one of those annoying people who win arguments for technical reasons.
- Cheeses : Define cheese at a glance, like some Steve Urkel scholar.
- Patterns : dotted argyle, jacquard, crow’s feet, damask, imperial lattice and more. Impress your friends by pointing to the floor and shouting “Nice quatrefoil!”
- Deep Sea Creatures : Find out what the vampire squid actually looks like.
- Greek Gods : Find out the name of each god and what they were gods.
- Golden Age Hollywood Actors : Tell Bette Davis from Lauren Bacall.
- 500 quirky words : just like the daily calendar, but this time you will really memorize the words – words like casual, fun and decoded.
Unlike a basic card app, Tinycards controls which cards you see and when using a scientifically optimized spaced repetition method. It helps you remember things better, but it also means that when you try a set of cards for the third time, you feel like you are passing a video game level that has always killed you before.
There is even a way to change the difficulty setting: sometimes you come across a deck in which you already know half of the cards. Disable the simple cards with the eye icon and you only get the hardest ones.
Tinycards is great if you can find a ready-made deck. If you want to create your own flashcards for real learning, you may prefer other flashcards apps like Anki. But if you just want to find something fun to learn and learn for fun, Tinycards is your best bet.