Things you wish you knew more about

[King Richard]

That is true, but sometimes it helps to understand how certain chord progressions/scales/riffs will blend with one another.

Eh, fair enough.

 

[waif]

I hate to flog a dead horse, but in my case at least if I read without music I'm subject to all sorts of irregular noise (cars, doors, talking, other people's music, etc) that is distracting. Listening to music I know well isn't distracting because my ears are familiar with the sounds and so they don't tell my brain to pay attention. Or something like that; I have no idea about the scientific aspects of this.

I wish I knew more about how the brain works. Of course, I'll probably be taking a cognitive neuroscience course in the next couple years, so there we go.

 

[cookiecutter]

how to make intelligent conversation with real-life women without either 1) perving on them and thus grossing them out or 2) boring them to tears.

I've found that having a basic familiarity with current events makes having interesting conversations easier. If that bores them to tears that might be a sign they are not interesting.

 

[Einherjar86]

I sometimes enjoy classical music when I'm reading. More often than not though, I prefer silence.

 

[mutantllama]

I'd advise against that for some people if you get distracted easily by melody.


I usually put on music for similar reasons WAIF does. It's nice for background noise, and I'd most likely get distracted by other noises, while a lot of the music I play I've heard a good amount of times. I also close my shades so I won't look outside.

 

[Einherjar86]

See, I can't listen to any lyrical music while I read, because if someone is saying something while I'm reading different words, I get distracted.

 

[Dak]

See, I can't listen to any lyrical music while I read, because if someone is saying something while I'm reading different words, I get distracted.

Mostly this personally. Black Metal being an exception since you can't really sing along with most of it anyway.

 

[cookiecutter]

See, I can't listen to any lyrical music while I read, because if someone is saying something while I'm reading different words, I get distracted.

This happens to me as well.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

Post-rock and stuff is good for reading.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

That's a waste of time. You could easily just research a subject on your own if all you want to do is have a casual exposure to it. If you are going to attend a class like that you might as well pay for it so it goes on your permanent transripts and be used towards something.

If you can actually stand reading textbooks, then yeah it's a waste of time. If textbooks bore you to death (which they do for most people), and your motivation benefits from the ritual of class and the interaction with a teacher, then learning the material less 'efficiently' is better than putting it off and not learning it at all.