A great article about memory on MSN. It's about the American memory championship but the article also contains lots of information about memory in general that I didn't know. Another interesting thing is that for once the Americans don't whip us Europeans. The Europeans are apparently superior to the americans. At this U.S. championship two Europeans participated unofficially. One from England and one from Austria.
"Though Amsuess and Cooke's scores weren't officially tabulated, it was clear that Cooke would have destroyed the American competition. In the random words event, he managed 150 words in five minutes, 50 more than the best American score."
The Austrian chap seemed to have suffered but it's understandable because of the language barrier. However, this amuses me:
"And in speed cards, his best event, he clocked an impressive 45 secondsalmost four times faster than the best Americanbut lost out on a heap of points because he reversed two out of the 52 cards. Not dejected all, he loosened his tie, left the building, and walked to a nearby pub, where he memorized a deck of cards for the waitress and got three free beers in return."
Apparently the World championships are going to be held here in London, England where I live in August. Got to find out where and how I can get tickets to at least come and look.
BTW, here's the official website
UPDATE Following a few links eventually made me end up on www.worldmemorychallenge.com where they have a lovely Flash memory challenge. It doesn't take long and it's fun. My score was 19205 but I'm sure I can improve on that if I try again.
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