Agreed. Most of the people I've met who claim to to be eidetics confuse the two terms - and have neither abilities. I had one working here, his school friend also claimed the guy was eidetic - we sacked him because he was a fuckup who kept "confusing" things. He refused to admit he forgot things - they just "weren't important". And this guy was apparently a legend at Uni - so how come he constantly needed his password reset - and why lie when I'd say "again?" (confabulation?).

I suspect if real eidetics exist (total memory) they're smart enough to hide from researchers.

Fun with it? [screams in John Cleese voice] Who said you can have fun with it!! It's perfectly bloody simple!

Will those of you playing in the match this afternoon move your clothes down onto the lower peg immediately after lunch before you write home, if you're not getting a haircut unless you have a brother going out this weekend as the guest of another boy then collect his note before lunch, put it in your letter after your haircut. Make sure he moves your clothes onto the lower peg for you..

:-D bloody memory...

I have no problems with people using 20 year old tech - their mistakes are my advantages. Personally I wish everyone moved to HTML5 now. First thing I do is ask the client why they want a site, second is who's the audience - the decisions as to what to support stem from there. I still come across people who want just a single stylesheet for sites that serve to mobile and screen devices. A good third of the time (I'm just plucking figures out of my arse here) what the client wants the site for is just a colossal piece of shit. :-D

And now if you'll excuse me I'm going to see how the new kid is doing knocking up some sample templates for the client who flogs bullshit "miracle" diets... and after that I've got to quote on "a site that duplicates the functionality of r*%Tube" (sigh)

Recall == Remember. Makes no difference whether consciously memorized or not..

Have you never met people you've never met before (then)? Ditto with language, written or spoken. See "Danial Tammet" who learnt Icelandic in a week - considerably faster that those who claim to use techniques.

Sorry about the formatting, in a rush.

I think maybe your observation is ironic...

.Nice sophism..

If you call a 1 second process long winded....

Do you hear voices? You're not only twisting words, you're inventing things. Go back read again, the words haven't changed.

Yes - I can even remember when I did that (1998). It's kind of a prerequisite for my job, though I have, and will continue to reread it - it does change.

Much of this thread is about defining "photographic" - you seem stuck on what you "believe". The current "science" is that "photographic" memories do not exist. At the risk of repeating what's been said earlier - selective, partial, recall is not the same as a photograph. Eidetic never meant "only images".

Somehow, in your enthusiasm, you've turned using a key (facial characteristic) to remembering a person *and their name* into recalling just their first name. Is there something you're trying to say?

Perhaps you're just incapable of remembering what is written on the screen in front of you?

And what the fuck is wrong with the edits in the nu slashdot? paragraph tags or not, blockquotes or just quotes, and it still double spaces (sigh)

Of course I thought it was fiction at the time.... That bloody "Max Headroom".

Ri-ght, I'll buy Wii, or XBox, that'll learn 'em. Sigh.

Ignore the astroturfer - buy Sony, hack Sony, encourage everyone around you to buy and hack Sony. Grow a spine.

If you mean that Firefox installs can't be "packaged" for .msi then you've been misinformed. It sounds very much like the argument trotted out by Finance for Group 8 - it is not correct, we'll happily tender for that job.

Depending on who your clients are, and where they earn their money, your view might just be business suicide... I agree about the lack of a need to make sites appear identical in different browsers though. But I've just been reminded we have clients who still run OS/2 - major clients (think nationwide chain of service stations). Though all their systems are internal, one of the reasons we hold the contract is because we're the only company that doesn't lecture them, though I do have reservations about their 1980 email system which is routed through NZ. (takes hours for email to be delivered)

If supporting a colossal piece of shit pays a stable, hassle free, (and colossal) income, I'll do it (a good well documented plan means no headaches)- especially as these folks have a hardware and software system in place that has worked flawlessly for over twenty years - despite the fact that most of the operators are pump jockeys.

Won't someone think of the grammar nazis please!

Oops, I meen grammer nazies...

Possibly because of the fact that a lot of large corporations (and government departments) spent so much money on some software (Oracle and SAP I'm looking at you) that is dependent on IE (due to brain dead IT decisions) that anyone whose business is dependent on dealing with those folk *needs* to support IE6.

Sadly I'm guilty of taking advantage of the growing trend to build sites that don't support IE6. By which I mean - I build sites for clients whose clients are those same corporations and government departments who use IE6. It works really well for me.

Company A announces that they no longer support IE6 on their websites, corporations and government departments where the people who contract to outside companies can no longer view their websites *don't buy their services*. A few code tweaks and the willingness to live with half a dozen minor W3org in-validations meant that one of my clients went from the second largest service company in a country town - to the second largest in the nation. Simply because their competitors all proudly announced last year they'd no longer support IE6 on their websites - and I decided to go against the trend because my clients get their work from people who only use IE6. And yes, some of those people use foot rests, wrist rests, screen filters, wear beer coolers on their wrist, and have those huge upside down mice - but the money they control is the same as any other money.

I've interviewed a view "developers" (read point and click fffrontpage/ddddreamweaver operators) in the last twelve months who've given me great spiels on how *not* supporting IE6 was something you do "for the good of the user" - but in actual fact it is because they simply don't know how to. To the fellow who claimed he refused to support IE6 because he supported standards (while querying my non-use of Windoof) - how come nothing in your portfolio supported handicapped viewers?.

Horses for courses - if the site is commercial, and the clients use Mosiac 1.1 then I'll make the site support it - either design it to degrade properly, steer the browser to the correct code, or get a job you're capable of doing. Oh, and the decision by Joomla and other "popular" cms (by which I mean rubbish) not to support IE6 hasn't done some of the end clients any favours either.

We stopped supporting Netscape (and Mosaic) a long time ago - simply because we see no need to support them, but if there was - it's really not that hard.

Now ActiveX is a whole 'nuther barrel of rotten fish though....

Disclaimer:- I'm getting out of the industry so I'm not exactly digging my own grave pointing out obvious business failings in others.

It just works - there is no "I see a girl who's name I don't remember" - though I might find it hard not to smile when I think of her name, Bettina (Bettina == bluetits). Best of all I remember her voice and the colour of her eyes too, and the little scar on her eyebrow, the way she twitches her lips etc, and I met her when I walked through a office and was quickly introduced to the dozen or so people there (I don't remember how many people, but I remember their names and faces when I see or talk to them). I use her as an example because I met her last year, and saw her in a queue near me this morning, I could see she was trying to remember my name. (she has tits, they're prominent, she was wearing a blue top when I met her.

He's talking about the technique I learnt, I also learnt that the word/sound/image you use to associate with it doesn't have to resemble it - it just has to have "impact". I meet a lot of people in my work, I never forget a name because I always associate them with something, not their name, them. John Dwibbles is the name, the feature that stands out is his nose, I think "dick nose", and somehow I never forget his name - when I see the face I think the name, when I hear the name I see the face - ditto with the voice. And I'm not Mr Memory. The trick it two-fold - 1st consciously make an effort to "key" the memory, 2nd use a key that has "impact". Seriously it works, if anything the "riskier" the association, the stronger the key ie. the more fucked you'd be if you came out with the key rather than the name the more you'll remember it. And I've never accidentally said "howdy dick nose/syphilis/cheezel sweat etc.

Got a list to memorize? SMEG is easier the remember than MEGS, SPEW is easier to remember the PEWS.

Strangely the "key" doesn't have to be unique, you can have multiple bluetits and dicknoses, it only has to "key" one thing, that thing keys another etc,etc, till you find you remember a surprising amount of details (odour, minor characteristics, skin tone, micro expressions).

I did a speed reading course in my youth, that was the (neurolinguistic) technique they taught, it still works for me.

It seems risky at first, but it's never failed me eg. meeting new people on job sites - this is John Dwibble (dick nose, cos he's got a large nose) - I always remember the name, and even drunk I've never accidentally said the word I used to remember them.

How does that compare with the intensive immersion courses? Do you friends think in their second language?

On a separate note I learned to memorize faces - you just practice describing someone to yourself, after about a week it becomes a habit, just like mental summarizing during cramming sessions.