Method of loci

This learning project was started in 2013-09-27 by Desmotron.

## Contents

* 1 Introduction
* 2 use-cases
* 3 Using Method of Loci to create passwords
* 3.1 Famous actors path in various countries
* 4 Developing routes using software
* 4.1 Creating routes in Minetest
* 4.2 Creating routes using Mozilla Hubs
* 4.2.1 Learning more about Mozilla Hubs through activity

## Introduction[edit | edit source]

Taken from Wikipedia definition of Method of loci 13:43, 25 September 2013 UTC:

During the mental walk, people remember lists of words by mentally walking a familiar route and associating these objects with specific landmarks on their route. An example of this would be to remember your grocery shopping list in a mental walk from your bedroom to kitchen in your house. Let's say the first item on your list was bread; then mentally you can place a loaf of bread on your bed. As you continue mentally walking you can place the next item, assume it is eggs, on your dresser. The mental walk continues like this as you place consecutive items along a familiar route that you walk. So when you are at the grocery store, you can then think about this walk and “see” what you placed at each location. In your head you will remember bread being on your bed, and eggs being on the dresser. This can continue for as many items as you want to place on your path as long as the route continues. The more dramatic the images, the more vivid the memory. For instance: instead of "bread," try to visualize a baker rising through an elevator pod in your bed, serving fresh bread; instead of "eggs," imagine a golden hen dropping rainbow eggs on the dresser.[original research?] However, a single route is difficult to use for different lists of items for memory.

## use-cases[edit | edit source]

This section is about use-cases for method of loci (Q1758418) some of which may be related to more than 1 academic disciplines, see interdisciplinarity (Q849359):

* To create and memorize passwords - relatable, many people have to remember a lot of passwords.
* Screen lock pattern access with 9 or more or less numbers of nodes to create path combinations with.
* Screen lock personal identification number (Q674050). conventional pins range between 10 numbers: 0-9, though do alphanumeric pins exist, is it still called a personal identification number (Q674050) then?
* To memorize Wikidata Q items and properties to reduce error. - less relatable, more for 'expert use' of Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons structured data.
* To remember command-line interface (Q189053) commands. ie. sudo apt-get install (for Debian-based systems) or ie. 1. top -b | grep minetest 2\. kill -9 12345(12345 is an example that is assumed in this example was in the output using the top -b command) by placing 'encoded' pieces in a path.

## Using Method of Loci to create passwords[edit | edit source]

In a password you may sometimes use words, many words combined together. One could use Method of Loci to memorize these words. In this section one could demonstrate how that could be achieved. Using ideas from the "Introduction" section of creating a path, one could create a path with landmarks that represent various words. To make guessing the password harder one could use words that are from more than 1 language and to remember in what language a word is in, one could have an actor or a character(which could be played by many actors) that is visualized as being part of a landmark whose subjects are something specific like(many topics) ie. gold, voting, fishing, singing etc.

As long as the memory is something unusual like ie. a character that is not expected to do something, does something unusual, ie. Leonard Hofstadter (Q512382) from The Big Bang Theory (Q8539) sits in a boat inside a cave with no water and fishes through the ground(demonstrates a "magic world" in contrast with the world this character is usually in, which mostly resembles our world) and not something usual like what we expect a character to do.

### Famous actors path in various countries[edit | edit source]

This is a list of actors who might be used in some of the techniques that might be developed: Big Bang Theory characters

* Leonard Hofstadter (Q512382) played by Johnny Galecki (Q295739)
* Sheldon Cooper (Q629583) played by Jim Parsons (Q190972)

## Developing routes using software[edit | edit source]

This section is about creating paths using software. The software can be games or other special software used for the purpose. This can be done in an experimental way, so an editor can test various techniques that might work.

### Creating routes in Minetest[edit | edit source]

One idea to create routes is to start the version for the Minetest (Q89114416) game engine that a participant has installed locally on their or another machine. Then they could run Minetest (Q722334) or a custom game of their choice or just modify whatever they are using and adapt the game to their needs.

Here will be listed ideas for routes, this is a work in progress. The routes can be described by text, images or video.

### Creating routes using Mozilla Hubs[edit | edit source]

Mozilla Hubs (Q100518757) is a virtual 3D world web platform. The platform can be used either with the website that is available or one can look up the source code repository URL (P1324) to get the code and run a local version. For practical purposes if one is not well acquainted with the software or lacks motivation to run a local copy of it on one's own hardware then one can visit the official website.

Even if one only has access to the 1 room that is given if one has not registered with the site, it might still be enough to use it as a creative space to create nodes and later using those nodes to create combinations or paths to utilize Method of Loci to some extent.

#### Learning more about Mozilla Hubs through activity[edit | edit source]

This section is about doing various activities that will help to learn more about Mozilla Hubs:

* Interacting with the community Discord server of Mozilla Hubs to contact developers to ask if it is ok to make videos of the demo room when one is not registered and upload the video to the Wikimedia Commons (Q565) and under what licenses that are also ok on Wikimedia Commons (Q565).
* Find out using other means under what licenses the content and images that are being used in the demo room are licensed under to see if it is possible to make a video capture and then being able to publish the video under licenses that are acceptable for uploads to Wikimedia Commons (Q565).
* One way is to download a version or versions of the source code repository URL (P1324) and examining the content, then if knowledge and a spirit of experimentation is present maybe one could even run a local copy and then perform the video capture on the local copy.
* Interacting with the community Discord server of Mozilla Hubs to contact developers or other community members regarding awareness about the Wikidata item about Mozilla Hubs (Q100518757) and examining if the Wikidata item and other related items can be improved. The developer (P178) property could be used to add data about the developers.