Thread: whats the most useless shit you've ever memorized?

today, i looked at someones avatar at tank-net (a tank forum.. duh)
looking at it, i was able to identify it as a T-55 turret seen from the top, taken from a book about the T-55 in the osprey series of "tanks in detail" books.
i had only briefly shuffled over the pages with the picture about half a year ago, but still it was a solid ID.

this is completely pointless information that i've managed to memorize, without even trying.

so i ask, whats the most useless stuff you've ever memorized, and does anyone have a clue why minor things like these things stick to your mind like glue?

I remember back in middle school, there was a time when I had memorized every word of the movie The Lion King. When I was having trouble sleeping, I would start going through the movie in my head.

All I can say is, thank goodness that's gone now. I need all the memory I can spare for more important things.

Originally Posted by paralith

I remember back in middle school, there was a time when I had memorized every word of the movie The Lion King. When I was having trouble sleeping, I would start going through the movie in my head.

All I can say is, thank goodness that's gone now. I need all the memory I can spare for more important things.

Wow

But well done in memorizing the whole thing! It's quite an achievement. Maybe not the most useful one, but an achievement nevertheless.

The Family Tree of the Finnish Language.
Damn it was hard! I have a memory of a gold fish. I haven't needed that information after the test, so it was a waste of time and effort.

The 12 astrological signs? Don't ask me what order they're in, what months they cover, or what their characteristics are supposed to be, though. Why would I waste brain space remembering pseudo-science? Bah, humbug.

I used to remember nearly every movie with Kevin Bacon in it. to play this :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees_of_Kevin_Bacon

I was a whiz. Yes perhaps the most useless thing in the world.

well, wasn't thinking about the most useless thing you tried to remember, more like the thing you didn't want to remember, but did nevertheless.
like the mcdonalds jingle, or something like that, you've heard once, or twice, and years later you still remember.

the chatechismus - you know the standard question and answer booklet the catholic church issues (issued ?) so that young children could easily be indoctrinated in the "correct" way of seeing things

the following Q&A popped back into my head on reading Dawkins's example of the jewish boy who was taken away from his parents because he had been baptised :

Q. who can baptise ?
A. in times of need anyone can baptise

a few sprinklings of water, some magic words and hey presto, you're a catholic for life

so in theory i could walk around in Saudi Arabia with a vat of holy water, sprinkle people around me and declare them all catholics - i'm sure the fun wouldn't last long

I had once memorized the ENTIRE movie of "the emperors new groove". My memory is extremely good with everything except number-memorization. Because of this, if I watch a movie enough, I can sometimes remember everything word for word.

I also remembered every scene, expression, and the music that was used. And I only saw the movie about FIVE TIMES.

Man, That is impressive! If I remembered half of the books I've read, I'd be a walking encyclopedia. My memory is largly random! I remember stuff from when I was very young, like 3 years old, and random events from the past and some dreams that I can go through like movie. Not particularly noteworthy events, just totally random shit! I have many well formed concepts in my head of different topics that I know are correct, but I mostly can't remember at all how I got to my conclusions.

The Apostle's Creed. I'd like to light the Catechism on fire and stick it up Jesus's ass.

Not useless but I learned all my case and declension endings in Latin and Greek by singing them to tunes. I can still zip them out on demand to various beats. For example, if for some reason someone needs to know the ending of second declension accusative plural of a masculine noun I can get to it in a jiffy by running my own variation of the Beatles 'Back in the USSR' through my mind.

Originally Posted by Jellyologist

The Apostle's Creed. I'd like to light the Catechism on fire and stick it up Jesus's ass.

Thank you for cheering up my morning. I can't stop laughing...

Most useless 'forced' to memorize 'shit' was most of what was taught me in school.

Hence promptly forgotton as soon as I left the exam room.

Whats the most useless shit you've ever memorized?

Mostly things that women say.

I have a strong associative memory (I can link subject after subject endlessly... one memory brings another, effortlessly) and also a very good musical memory. Which is fun as I don't know to read nor play music, but there are thousands of music pieces I could identify just by a few notes (in some cases all I need are the first two notes, and sometimes the first one is enough), and then keep playing back the piece and even the record in my head... also can notice wether it's the first version I heard or a different one (and feel a bit upset at people who make "unfaithful" covers, btw). I guess that with proper training (listening to them) I would be one of those classical music nerds who can tell a director from another amidst a hundred different interpretations of a same composition...

Yet the corolary is that I do know and have unwillingly memoryzed many awful pop music pieces at-first-audition, and sometimes I feel ashamed to even know them... :?

Interesting discussion.......Dunno why this happens to me all the time, but totally useless shit is burned into my memory without the chance of beeing deleted ever......like:

The 9-Banded Armadillo always gives birth to identical quadruplets - hell I don'T even give a flying fuck wether the 9-Banded Armadillo goes extinct, or gives birth to identical umptuplets. Fuck, I don't really even like Biology.
I do not need this tidbit and I don't want it in my brain.

The Family Tree of the Finnish Language

Man ...........this sounds even more boring than beeing forced to memorize all Cristallographic Space Groups for the Final.

Hm. my brain is very random.

I'll remember some tennis scores (they're useless to me after I've played and won/lost the match right?) I remember one that I played at junior wightman cup I won 6-2, 6-2 over NAME I even remember her name. And where I played. This was oh at least 4-5 years ago.

I'll remember bits of information but most often I'll remember random or useless numbers. Like phone numbers of friends I never call (and they never call me. It's equal in anti-socialness).

Though my numeric memory is being squeezed out little by little from chemistry classes...

I don't have a lot of bio still memorized but I hated memorizing it because I knew I wouldn't use it much, if at all. Yet again it was something I was *forced* to remember. Doesn't mean I remembered it.

Pi of course is *never* useless....28 digits! :P

After orgo my memory's gotten worse. I'm probably not going to use it much if I go inorganic either....Except for maybe nomenclature and drawing structures of stuff I see around

edit: Actually organic probably is the most useless shit I've ever had to memorize. Though I'm in chem. I will *not* be going towards the organic side. I'm terrible at organic synthesis. Terrible. I much prefer Inorganic. It's just hard saying that because of all the hours I spent in memorizing it. Hm I wonder if I still remember my SN2, SN1, E2, E1 conditions? probably. Yep.

Aside from stuff I was forced to remember I actually do not remember useless 'shit' at all.

I was quite perturbed about my apparant poor memory for certain things and I was told my memory was actaully very efficient in that I only recall things I consider valuable.

Reassuring but at the same time I'd like to recall places I've been and what not, in case someone asks.

I usually memorise stuff better if I like it or perceive it as important.

I dislike how "intelligence" boils down to memory.


I've memorised lots of useless information. Well it use to be now its fairly blank.

*druels into a cup*

i wrote an Afrikaans poem when i was ten, about a dog who commits suicide. Thirteen years later, i wake up one morning and the poem goes through my head. So now i remember the whole damned thing.

Aside from that, i know the lyrics for every song in my music collection. Roughly ten thousand tracks. Plus god knows how many cheesy pop songs that unwittingly get stuck in there. I think that'll prove to be a waste of valuable brain space.

Originally Posted by TvEye

Aside from that, i know the lyrics for every song in my music collection. Roughly ten thousand tracks. Plus god knows how many cheesy pop songs that unwittingly get stuck in there. I think that'll prove to be a waste of valuable brain space.

Your brain is probably only 0.001% full anyway. But really that many songs?

Originally Posted by svwillmer

Your brain is probably only 0.001% full anyway.

a generous estimate. you would be absolutely amazed at how empty my brain is. lol