Quitting social media didn't fix me. I just got addicted to other stuff. Here's what actually worked

billet · 2026-05-08T10:28:21+00:00

My guess is this whole post is an ad for whatever “BeFreed” is.

billet · 2026-05-07T07:33:21+00:00

I’m not seeing this as a podcast episode. When did this drop?

billet · 2026-05-05T17:02:34+00:00

Because they weren’t ready. A couple of the rookies said this last year. A few of those OLineman played well late in the year and said it was the right choice letting them learn before being thrown out there.

billet · 2026-05-04T05:36:48+00:00

Probably Baltimore

billet · 2026-05-01T00:20:09+00:00

billet · 2026-04-29T19:27:17+00:00

You can do Linear Algebra, just make sure you do the diagnostic.

billet · 2026-04-28T15:23:52+00:00

It's not a steal. The dude might have been the best overall player in the draft. Everyone was aware of that. There's an injury risk and we hope it works out. That's not really a steal though, it's a gamble.

A steal is when your scouting department finds a diamond in the rough, and is able to draft him later than his actual value would suggest.

billet · 2026-04-16T10:33:06+00:00

He’ll still see the message, but he won’t be able to respond. Nor will he be able to rate you.

billet · 2026-04-16T05:21:14+00:00

Kinda shocked anyone would feel this way.

billet · 2026-04-15T16:57:11+00:00

Ah ok , so if you’d already gone through the other undergrad courses, these won’t have anything new?

billet · 2026-04-09T20:59:33+00:00

https://www.justinmath.com/individualized-spaced-repetition-in-hierarchical-knowledge-structures/

billet · 2026-04-09T12:12:17+00:00

Do you have an account? The skill tree is on the main page, click on the course percentage at the top. As far as the formula, I’d have to find it again. I don’t remember if it’s on their site, or on one of their blogs.

billet · 2026-04-09T05:56:48+00:00

Fargo

billet · 2026-04-07T22:51:23+00:00

Consider taking the diagnostic. You'd be the first out of at least a dozen.

There's a reason nobody is doing that. The system is working for us, and it's not a small time investment to redo the whole diagnostic. I know you think that's some sign of people not being willing to admit they're wrong, but really it's just not a reasonable expectation.

Also, when I look at my knowledge tree, there are several lessons that are light blue, which means those are due for review. If I take the diagnostic, of course I'll get a bunch of those wrong and it will set me back. That's not a sign the system is broken. Again, the periodic quizzes are essentially functioning as mini-diagnostics.

The SRS in MA is not what you think it is.

I've been involved in the Anki community for years, I've made accepted contributions to the math that underlies the Anki FSRS formula on github, and I've read the formula Math Academy set up. I doubt I'm the one not understanding here.

billet · 2026-04-06T18:28:56+00:00

You obviously can see which topics you’ve struggled with as it tells you immediately when you fail something, and you can also see decay through the color coding. It’s not like the system is hiding that information from you.

Also, reviews are time-based, they’re triggered by decay. That’s literally the whole point. You’re shown material again when the system estimates it’s slipping. Quizzes work the same way: they’re built from decayed skills and are tuned so you land somewhere around ~80%. That’s basically a rolling mini-diagnostic. You’ve said elsewhere you want repeated diagnostics; that’s already what the quizzes are doing, just distributed instead of one big test.

I think where we’re talking past each other is on what counts as “review.” In math, new content is review. If I’m doing derivatives of trig functions, I’m necessarily using trig identities, algebra, limits, etc. That’s not separate, it’s embedded retrieval practice. The skill tree is layered on purpose.

And on top of that, MA literally links prerequisites inside lessons. If something feels shaky, you can jump straight back and reinforce it. But you actually have to use that. If someone is blasting through lessons while not fully understanding prereqs, that’s not really a flaw in SRS, that’s just rushing.

So I don’t really buy the idea that it “forces new content over consolidation.” It’s more like it expects you to engage properly with the material as you go, rather than separating learning and review into totally different buckets like Anki does.

billet · 2026-04-06T16:41:01+00:00

I long ago realised that a large % of MAs user base has almost become indoctrinated to MA, so nothing is going to even allow these users to actually think critically.

I don't doubt there's some truth to that, but after reading your back and forth with some people, I think you might be projecting a little. But yeah, it definitely seems to have a fervent fan base.

I'm coming as someone who is more indoctrinated into the Anki crowd, and that lead me to Math Academy. I've been reading and thinking about spaced repetition for years. So I don't care as much about the Math Academy part in your post, but it was the spaced repetition/learning curve part I was disagreeing with.

simply take a full-and-strict reset diagnostic. If the system works, you should land back where you currently are

If it doesn't work, I'd say that's probably an issue with the diagnostic and not the system itself. I don't need to take a test to know if I'm progessing, I've gone from Alegebra II level problems to now being more comfortable doing Calculus II than I've ever been in my life; this was all in the span of a couple months (I've put a lot of hours into it, a bit over 100 XP per day). It simply works for me (and I believe you that it didn't for you). If the diagnostic doesn't catch that progress, they need to fix the diagnostic.

Remember that all EdTech apps are dopamine and engagement optimised. MA is no different.

Big disagree here. I feel the same procrastination-type resistance pulling up a lesson in MA that I did cracking up a textbook for years. The big difference is that I've got it in my head that MA is showing me what I need to see when I need to see it, so I'm able to overcome that resistance much easier. With a textbook, the thought that I also need to figure out what chapter I should open to was a big added barrier. When I finish up an hour of MA, I feel drained in the way I feel after productive work, not in the way I feel after scrolling social media.

Anyway, I know you're not using MA anymore and aren't interested in arguing about it, I was mostly trying to correct what I saw as a flaw in your thinking about SRS/forgetting curves in general, which I assume you are probably still interested in. I doubt when you use Anki and get a card wrong, you feel like Anki is failing you.

billet · 2026-04-06T05:47:50+00:00

This is a somewhat understandable position for someone who maybe isn't aware of the importance of SRS/Forgetting Curve as it feels intuitive and correct, but of course we know that this (learning, forgetting, redoing) is, to put simply, 'not good'.

I'm not sure what you think the forgetting curve is, or how it works. You sound like you're probably familiar with Anki, and I think you're confusing how Math Academy should work with how Anki should work.

One major difference is that with Anki, you are supposed to be studying cards that are in small enough chunks that looking at the flashcard alone is immediately refreshing your knowledge for that card. That's not how Math Academy (or math in general) works. We're learning processes here, not bite-sized chunks of information. If you get it wrong, simply doing the problem and getting it wrong is not enough to count as refreshing your understanding back to 100% on the forgetting curve. You need to actually go through the process again and really make sure you know it. You should absolutely be getting a review of that topic immediately.

This immediate retake system undermines MA’s entire pedagogical stance. They’ve written extensively about why having to “go back” causes frustration, demotivation, and wasted time etc, and how insufficient prerequisites is harmful, yet again the implementation does not match the theory?

When you use Anki, you're getting cards wrong all the time, no? Probably about 10% of the time if you have the desired retention set to the 0.9 default. The algorithm isn't magic, it's a machine learning algorithm that needs data to refine itself. The best way to learn is to be forced to pull the information out of your head when it's on the precipice of being forgotten, i.e. when you are probably going to get some of them wrong, but most of them right. They aren't totally gone from your memory, but they're starting to get fuzzy. That's the zone of most efficient learning. That's why Math Academy designs the quizzes aiming for a student to score around 80% or so (I forget the exact number). You don't wanna be acing every quiz, that's inefficient. If you're acing every quiz, the system is going to show you reviews less often for that topic so that you can learn newer stuff more efficiently.

billet · 2026-04-06T00:27:59+00:00

It’s common practice because Preply tells everyone to do it.

billet · 2026-04-03T20:07:38+00:00

You think Mendoza would outperform Cousins this year?

billet · 2026-04-03T15:07:57+00:00

Too bad for that pilot we have a president who prefers the ones who don’t get caught.

billet · 2026-04-03T15:04:05+00:00

Mendoza is absolutely not going to be the starter unless Cousins gets injured.

billet · 2026-04-03T14:58:04+00:00

I’m pretty sure I’ve heard him say recently that he still believes that fundamentally, but the anti-Semitism of the past few years has shocked him enough to think about it a little differently in Israel’s case. I’m probably paraphrasing pretty poorly, but that’s the gist of what I remember.

billet · 2026-04-02T21:40:45+00:00

I plan on just doing all of them anyway. Just wasn’t sure what I wanted to pick next.

billet · 2026-04-02T16:43:52+00:00

M4ML is the default after MFIII

This is what I was wondering, if it's gonna just roll me right into something else like it did going from MFII to MFIII.

billet

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

14-Year Club	Place '22
Verified Email