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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2881 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 18, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Does anyone have their own equivalent of a personal "antimeme", a concept you familiarize yourself with (potentially with difficulty) and then inevitably forget unless you make an intentional effort to look it up?

In no particular order:

  • I often have to look up whether I need an x86 or x64 executable when I need to download a program
  • ECGs. Fucking ECGs. I get good at understanding them when I absolutely have to (before exams), but guess what, by the time the next one rolls around, it's all out of my head.
  • Fourier transforms (how they actually work, and not the conceptual strokes)
  • And many more, all of which stubbornly refuse to come to mind, because of course they do.

How many days are in each month. I was once 'taught' how to do it using the knuckles on my hands, but it didn't make an ounce of sense to me at the time. I remember that December has 31 (due to NYE), and January also has 31 and February has 28 (unless it's a leap year). I'll struggle with the rest.

Mnemonic: thirty days have September, April, June, and November. And February is fucked. Have to really emphasize the rhyme, but it's the only way I've gotten it to stick.

Thirty days have September, April, May, and December. All the rest have thirty one, save February, which is "fun".

December has 31 days.

This does point out a slight problem with the mnemonic though, which is that every month mentioned has multiple other months that read the same way.

Thirty days have December, August, May, and September. All the rest have thirty-one, except for January, which has 26.

There's no way to correct from something wildly wrong like this to the correct rhyme (other than looking them up to check, which defeats the point of the exercise), because this rhymes and scans just as well. At the end of the day you're just memorizing the right months and numbers.

But the rest of the rhyme is correct.

No, because May also has 31 days lol. The rhyme goes "September, April, June, and November".

Thirty days hath September/April, June, and November/All the rest have thirty-one/Except Januarifebruary, which has seventy-eight.

I didn't bother to memorize the number of days in each month until I started playing Paradox games that encouraged me to constantly keep an eye on the calendar for the "new-month tick". So try spending a few hundred hours on playing Paradox games.

@sun_the_second

I still have to do the knuckles every time.

How it works is you count knuckles and valleys between them. Knuckle = 31, valley = not 31. Once you reach little finger knuckle, go straight back to index finger knuckle (July-August).

Aha! Thanks!

Whenever I read about the various generations that have followed after my own Boomer cohort, I have trouble remembering which one my children are in. I must have looked it up a dozen times and I still can't retain it.

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