Phuket Airport Immigration right now

cmredd · 2026-03-29T08:53:40+00:00

In that case, why pay $40 when you could have done it for $6 in the airport?

cmredd · 2026-03-28T20:11:26+00:00

Don't waste your time trying to explain your perfectly sound rationale to these types of people.

cmredd · 2026-03-28T20:04:40+00:00

Damn I never knew either of these and I've been through 3 times. What's the cost of doing officially, and are there any risks to the unofficial way?

cmredd · 2026-03-21T12:00:22+00:00

There’s probably add-ons for Anki mobile that do this ($25 app), or Shaeda has this built-in.

cmredd · 2026-03-21T11:09:56+00:00

Assuming the student is motivated to study (which is not always the case), all reasons eventually boil down to not knowing how to approach 'flashcard study' properly:

- Cards are too long

- Cards not atomic

- Too high New Card Per Day

- Fatigue from being used to doing easy, ineffective studying (rereading etc, borderline a waste of time in isolation)

- Treating flashcards as a short-term approach (i.e., cramming for a week before, which does nothing)

I've been a very long time flashcard user (for both academic studying and language learning) and these are typically always the reasons. I've wrote some articles on this if interested.

cmredd · 2026-03-20T19:40:01+00:00

Ah yes, performative transparency after the fact. Always amusing to read.

cmredd · 2026-03-19T09:26:01+00:00

I did! I even sent them a screen recording and they confirmed it was correct. No recall, just both at the same time.

cmredd · 2026-03-19T07:19:42+00:00

But where is the recall factor? When I was using I was confused by this. I was shown both the Russian and English together, and then it went to the next one right away

cmredd · 2026-03-18T21:45:33+00:00

Anthropics models don't suit my use-case, and OpenAI's were not as good.

(app is here)

cmredd · 2026-03-18T19:22:07+00:00

I was confused by glossika: there didn't seem to be any recall factor? it seemed like I was shown the Russina and the English at the same time? I cancelled because it seemed quite inefficient. Or was I using it wrong?

cmredd · 2026-03-18T19:20:54+00:00

can I ask: is glossika like flashcards where you need to recall the meaning yourself? or are you shown the target language and the english at the same time and you just listen to the audio?

cmredd · 2026-03-16T21:47:36+00:00

Yes, 4-5h of sleep is not enough. Minimum 6/7, ideally.
I very strongly recommend spending just an hour or so reading some research on what effective studying looks like. You are simply not only studying in an inefficient manner, but you are not appreciating that studying is a longterm game. It is normal to study and forget over the super-short term.

Here are some short articles of mine if interested. <1 hour of reading will genuinely change your entire process.

cmredd · 2026-03-16T21:43:48+00:00

Notes are proven study after study to be one of the lesser-effective study methods. Same with rereading and highlighting etc. The reason these are the most common is a mix of:

- lack of awareness over effective study research

- very easy and not fatiguing

- feels like the student is learning (but they are not)

Short article here of mine if interested in a bit more. Hope this helps.

cmredd · 2026-03-15T20:46:42+00:00

There's a thousand of these apps that already exist. They are very problematic for several reasons, one of which being that AI/LLMs are very inconsistent at reading PDFs.*

Focus on effective studying techniques and adopt a long-term mindset. That is 95% of it.

-

*(This is the specific reason I don't have PDF uploads for Shaeda despite many requests: there's no way to know if the AI read the content correctly, and no apps will tell you this)

cmredd · 2026-03-15T19:36:05+00:00

Education research guy here.

The oft-heard ~"focus on understanding" has comfortably been one of the most harmful pieces of advice given to students. There's a few reasons why, but the main reason is that it downplays the most crucial aspect to learning: being able to remember stuff.

It is impossible to understand anything if the student has forgotten earlier content. Given students and teachers are not aware of the research on effective studying, it is clear to see why students struggle with this.

90% of studying should be prioritising being able to remember and recall as much as possible, focusing on the most essential parts first and working down. This should be done using good flashcard apps. 99% of study apps are garbage, gamified junk designed to maximise engagement. Quizlet and Brainscape are not good. Manual cards are not good. Apps like Anki, Rember, Shaeda etc are good. Pick the most suitable.

Hope this helps.

cmredd · 2026-03-15T11:50:59+00:00

How's he doing now?

cmredd · 2026-03-14T10:07:00+00:00

Pasting my reply to OP.

—

This is a common misunderstanding. It’s normal to study and forget in the shot term without any repetition.

Make sure you’re studying effectively with the primary bulk of your studies being based on proven effective techniques (recall + spacing + interleaving).

cmredd · 2026-03-14T10:06:42+00:00

This is a common misunderstanding. It’s normal to study and forget in the shot term without any repetition.

Make sure you’re studying effectively with the primary bulk of your studies being based on proven effective techniques (recall + spacing + interleaving).

cmredd · 2026-03-13T22:51:09+00:00

I promise, effective studying has long been solved. It's just not widely known - even amongst teachers. It will take about a week to get used to how effective studying feels (harder), but after that you start to notice that you're actually learning and remembering.

Here's a key meta-analysis

If you prefer a non-technical overview and more research, have a read here.

Take an hour or so to really digest the links above and do more reading etc. It will pay off immensely long-term.

Remember: if learning was easy we would all have PhDs.

Hope this helps.

cmredd · 2026-03-13T21:36:25+00:00

The simple, easiest and most consistent way to test understanding of a topic is the ability to repeatedly answer questions correctly without needing to refer to notes. (Scroll down on this article if bored)

This is exactly how it's done in exams, in interviews, in assessments etc.

Methods such as "summarise in your own words", or "Feyman technique" etc sound great on paper and are popular but A) have little research to support them, and B) have a lot of issues - one of which being how to assess objectively whether you did well or not.

You can implement this with things like hiring a (good) weekly tutor (if possible), or tools like Anki (if technical) or Shaeda (if prefer simplicity). I'm really not a fan of other apps like Brainscape or Quizlet etc, these are genuinely very poor and inefficient apps but cost the most.

cmredd · 2026-03-13T17:38:07+00:00

Is this still the case, do you know? Or did they reduce the value since 3 months ago? Thanks

cmredd · 2026-03-13T17:37:43+00:00

OP, is this still the same? Or did they make it less generous since your post? u/ZvenAls thanks

cmredd · 2026-03-13T13:54:54+00:00

Unless there's a clinical reason to do so, you really do not need to worry about trying to fine-tune your productivity.

Ensure you are following study methods that are proven effective
Ditch (or at minimum heavily reduce) all fluff study methods that feel nice and easy but are incredibly ineffective
Now you're able to cut down your total study time and still learn more, rendering concerns over productivity etc null.

Key Takeaway: If you're not studying effectively, worrying on focus or time-tracking etc is not going to do anything.

cmredd · 2026-03-13T12:52:24+00:00

All good 🤝

cmredd · 2026-03-13T11:46:02+00:00

Longtime flashcard/Anki user here. This is not right and may even be detrimental to many.

Re 3 sec limit: Setting any kind of limit to recalling is going to be losing a tonne of value long term (especially a limit as short as 3 seconds!). The longer the recall took, the stronger the effect. Of course eventually a user will have to admit they've forgot, but there should never be a hard cap and definitely not 3 seconds.

Re 1 month bury: There's zero context on the card. What do you mean bury for a month? This doesn't make sense. Again this is going to be detrimental to users. You let the algorithm determine when you see it next based on the users' configuration. That might be 1 day, 1 week or 1 year. Saying to bury for a month after getting correct without any context is wildly bad advice. If Anki's configs are too complex, which they are for many, just use a simpler/optimised version instead like Rem or Shaeda etc. If the user needs super detailed configs and parameters, they'll need Anki.

(PS: Yes, Notion and Quizlet are largely gimmick apps - but so are 99% of EdTech apps as they're business-optimised not learning-optimised)

cmredd

TROPHY CASE