Method of loci
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
Why bother? Because these techniques increase the capacity of "cache" that is closer (low latency) to human "computation". This can lead to faster traversal of the OODA loop, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop, which is relevant to lean startups, business competition, combat and more.
See the HN thread on AI as an enabler of IA, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10373180
In addition, spaced-repetition techniques can be used to increase your vocabulary, which is like gaining extra pixels for the expression of nuanced goals, helping any compass which guides execution to a goal. Words are proxies for dreams and dangers, especially in a software-constructed world. Greater word capacity becomes greater visibility over a software-based terrain.
It's part of a site for a closed-source client, but Anki[1] is a good open-source one.
I recall being surprised (the whole class) by a surprise test for some people who wanted to study us. We had 5 minutes to memorize 50 random words. I just read Moonwalking with Einstein so I learned how to use loci. The average that people could recall (N=25) was around 20 words. I was able to recall 49! 49! That's almost perfect! I was pretty fucking baffled. I still know most of them ...
A JAMAICAN person jumped off a RAMP on the TITANIC and then flew in to SPACE on the ISS where he saw a DOG which was playing the VIOLIN which then bit TESLA, GHANDI was playing CHESS and then the iss crashed down into MILAN which was covered in a huge OMELET, we flew over mount FUJI and ... etc
Bolded words are words that were on the list. It's pretty awesome for hardcore memorization!
http://web.mit.edu/puzzle/www/2014/puzzle/eggsam/
and then had to answer a face-to-face oral quiz where she was supplied with a definition and had to give the word, from memory, that corresponded to the definition. (What's worse, these definitions are definitions of other words: for example, "A parliamentary tactic in which a lawmaker speaks for an extended period of time in order to delay a vote" is really FILIBUSTER, but for purposes of the quiz she had to respond with NARWHAL!)
She learned them all in about 15 minutes and then got a nearly perfect score on the first try, which kind of astounded everybody. I think your feat was similarly impressive, though.
In your example, "the ISS crashed down into $city" requires remembering the city name, and that's just a few words in. By the time the novella gets to the 50th word, there are a ton of details one must remember, aside from the story itself that houses them (which in your case seems custom made for those words; I'd be surprised if that was your general purpose loci).
This problem is compounded by the system described on ArtOfMemory's wiki (http://mt.artofmemory.com/wiki/Method_of_Loci) where they use a fixed story but with interchangeable items in the rooms. I'm sure with enough reciting of that story, I could remember the corn and milk, but the second time I need that memory palace, only this time with different items, I'm screwed because the two stories will bleed together.
I recognize this comment might sound like I'm deriding the method, but I promise that's not the case. I just want to know if someone else has the same "stories don't work for me" and to know if there is a twist or alternate which makes them work for the kind of brain which isn't helped by loci.
There are more tips on the memory palace page (http://mt.artofmemory.com/wiki/Memory_Palace), and you can ask more questions in the forum.
I heard about the "Memory Palace" on BBC's Sherlock. Holmes says that you can theoretically remember everything (I think this was in the episode The Hounds of Baskerville). I then happened upon this book via gatesnotes[0], and picked it up.
The author is quite successful in learning and putting this technique to use. He reaches the finals of the USA Memory Championship. However, he says this at the end - "For all the memory stunts I could now perform, I was still stuck with the same old shoddy memory that misplaced car keys and cars. Even while I had greatly expanded my powers of recall for the kinds of structured information that could be crammed into a memory palace, most of the things I wanted to remember in my everyday life were not facts or figures or poems or playing cards or binary digits."
It seems this method can help in memorizing things you consciously put effort to remember. This becomes easier as you practice. But if you were thinking of using this to remember every point of your life, as in where you placed your car keys this morning, or where you left your phone, things get murky - like what the Author mentioned. Although I do wonder how many people would try doing that.
0: http://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Moonwalking-with-Einstein
The person you heard about might have been
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jill_Price
These cases remind me very strongly of the Borges story "Funes the Memorious" ("Funes el Memorioso").
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funes_the_Memorious
Edit: It was interesting to hear that Price rejected the interpretation of her condition that was given in the Wired story about her (which was how I'd heard about her).
I've even bought the game for my iPad so that I can traverse it time to time to refresh my Palace!
"Physically unable to write [because of ALS], but with a mind as sharp and active as ever, [Judt] plotted the twenty-five short essays that compose this book in his head, while he was alone at night, using a mnemonic device taken from accounts of the early modern “memory palace,” whereby elements of a narrative are associated with points in a visually remembered space; but instead of a palace, he used a small Swiss chalet that he had once stayed in on vacation as a boy, and that he could picture vividly and in detail. He was then able to dictate these feuilletons the next day from the resulting structure."
I highly recommend it for anyone who is interested in this topic.
I can say that it's extremely useful for remembering lists of things, but I haven't had a lot of success in using it to retain or organize abstract information.
I think the fact that these techniques have died out is some evidence that they are not actually very useful.
The methods seem to have been "lost" mostly when better options for external memory (e.g. writing and printing) became more universal. (iirc - i'm probably messing this up somewhat).
Somehow, I managed to get everything correct.
Some common techniques like following a predetermined path through a palace and imagining diffrent unique objects and scenes at fixed locations along that path could be really nicely visualized.
I would think you could benefit a lot from actually beeing able to explore and fully take in a memory palace while feeling like you're actually present with VR.
On the other hand, a palace in VR has the benefit of not getting demolished, and being accessible even if you move to another country.
I understand that fictional locales were used as palaces for this reason. For instance, Dante's circles of hell.
Edit: corrected an inexplicable typo (had 'and' for 'hands')
As you do so, how many specific objects could you identify, in the order you handle them? Quite many, I bet.
Try closing your eyes and walking around your own house/room. As you've seen it so many times it is far easier to do.
Ex. For wolf, orange, hail; I might picture: The wolf sitting on top of a house, and when he opens his mouth it violently rains an infinite stream of oranges, then when gravity kicks in the oranges start falling from the sky turning into huge balls of hail.
The imagery like hundreds of oranges pouring out of a wolves' mouth, and oranges falling from the sky like hail are what do it for me. I've used this technique for lists of 20-30 somewhat unrelated items effectively.