Use a Perl script to formulate items that match the 10,000 room numbers of the Hotel Dominic. Then, print the list as an aid for memorization and review.
"Visit the Hotel Dominic" [Hack #7] mentions a Perl script that will make memorizing large chunks of information with the Hotel Dominic method much easier and will also help you refresh your memory periodically. This hack contains that script.
With this new script, dominate, you will be able to print out as large a swath of the Hotel Dominic as you wishâhundreds or thousands of roomsâand mark it up with a pen or pencil, assigning each item you want to remember to a room. Then you will be able to review your marked-up version of the hotel at leisure and commit the items to memory.
Place the following Perl script in a text file called dominate:
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
$in_file = $ARGV[0];
$domstart = $ARGV[1];
$domend = $ARGV[2];
if ($domstart > $domend)
{
die "Start number not less than or equal to end number\\n";
}
open (IN_FILE, "< ./$in_file")
or die "Couldn't open input file: $!\\n";
$index = 0;
while (defined ($line = <IN_FILE>))
{
$line =~ /([^;]*)\\:([^;\\n]*)/g;
$domarray[$index][0] = $1;
$domarray[$index][1] = $2;
$index++;
}
close IN_FILE;
for ($domnum = $domstart; $domnum < = $domend; $domnum++)
{
$domstring = sprintf "%0004.0d", $domnum;
print "$domstring: ";
$domstring =~ /(\\d\\d)(\\d\\d)/g;
print "$domarray[$1][0]\\,$domarray[$2][1]\\n\\n";
}You will need to create your own datafile that contains your
personal characters and actions that match the numbers in the Dominic
System [Hack #6]. It must
start with the character and action for 00 and continue through the character and
action for 99. Each line must
contain the character name, followed by a colon, then a space, and
then the character's typical action. Colons must be used only to
separate characters and actions; they cannot appear anywhere else in
the file. If your text editor has a line number feature, you can use
it to keep track of where you are in the file, such as line 1, which
should contain the mnemonic for 00, or line 100, which should contain
the mnemonic for 99.
Here are the last 29 lines of my dominate datafile, dominic.dat, corresponding to items 71â99:
$ tail -29 dominic.dat
Ray Charles: playing piano and singing ("GeorgiA")
George W. Bush: clearing brush in Crawford, TX
Graham Chapman: throwing open windows and exposing himself (scene from _The Life of
Brian_)
Gandhi: spinning on a wheel
General Electric (a robot in uniform): saluting
Smeagol-Gollum (_The Lord of the Rings_): falling into lava with the One Ring
Gandalf the Grey (_The Lord of the Rings_): barring the way with staff
George Harrison: tapping foot and playing guitar
Ignatius Loyola: flogging himself (iGNatius)
Santa Claus: laughing until belly shakes (HO HO HO!)
Julia Sweeney: dressing gender-ambiguously (_God Said HA!_)
Humphrey Bogart: pulling the brim of his hat low
Hagbard Celine (_Illuminatus!_): piloting golden submarine
Howard Dean: whooping
Isaac Newton (long white wig): releasing helium balloons (Newtonmas, HE HE HE!)
Homer Simpson (_The Simpsons_): gobbling donuts
Mercury (Greek god): flying with winged sandals (Hg = chemical symbol for mercury)
Hermann Hesse (author of _The Glass Bead Game_): telling beads
Han Solo (_Star Wars_): firing blaster
Dr. No: manipulating controls in his secret headquarters
Neil Armstrong: stepping onto Moon
Norman Bates: stabbing someone repeatedly
David Sedaris (author): chasing rolling coins down the street (North Carolina)
Nick Danger (Firesign Theatre, Phil Proctor): walking into a red sandstone building (oof!)
Neelix (_Star Trek_): cooking alien food
Hiro Protagonist (_Snow Crash_): cutting someone to bits with a katana (Neal Stephenson,
author)
Morpheus (_The Sandman_): strewing sand (Neil Gaiman, author)
Nathaniel Hawthorne: tearing open his shirt to reveal a scarlet letter
Nick Nolte: falling into pool (scene from _Down and Out in Beverly Hills_)In "Visit the Hotel Dominic" [Hack #7], I suggested memorizing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights1 by placing it after the periodic table of elements in the Hotel Dominic. That hack placed the periodic table of elements in the hotel running from 8001 to 8170, with the 30 articles of the declaration running from rooms 8171 to 8200.
However, since Santa (80
= HO!) is easier for most people to visualize
than Julia Sweeney (81 = HA!),
for purposes of illustration only, we'll place the 30 articles in
rooms 8071 to 8100. (Of course, you can place them anywhere you
wish.)
Tip
See the "How to Run the Programming Hacks" section of the Preface if you need general instructions on running Perl scripts.
If you have Perl installed on your system, to print out the
"inhabitants" of these 30 rooms, save the
dominate script and the
dominic.dat file in the same directory, and then
run dominate by typing the following command
within that directory. The first argument should be the name of the
datafile (in this case, dominic.dat), the second argument should be
the starting room (8071), and the
third argument should be the ending room (8100):
perl dominate dominic.dat 8071 8100
If you're on a Linux or Unix system, you might also be able to use the following shortcut:
./dominate dominic.dat 8071 8100
The following is a set of results from an actual dominate run:
$ ./dominate dominic.dat 8071 8100
8071: Santa Claus, playing piano and singing ("GeorgiA")
8072: Santa Claus, clearing brush in Crawford, TX
8073: Santa Claus, throwing open windows and exposing himself (scene from_The Life of Brian_)
8074: Santa Claus, spinning on a wheel
8075: Santa Claus, saluting
8076: Santa Claus, falling into lava with the One Ring
8077: Santa Claus, barring the way with staff
8078: Santa Claus, tapping foot and playing guitar
8079: Santa Claus, flogging himself (iGNatius)
8080: Santa Claus, laughing until belly shakes (HO HO HO!)
8081: Santa Claus, dressing gender-ambiguously (_God Said HA!_)
8082: Santa Claus, pulling the brim of his hat low
8083: Santa Claus, piloting golden submarine
8084: Santa Claus, whooping
8085: Santa Claus, releasing helium balloons (Newtonmas, HE HE HE!)
8086: Santa Claus, gobbling donuts
8087: Santa Claus, flying with winged sandals (Hg = chemical symbol for mercury)
8088: Santa Claus, telling beads
8089: Santa Claus, firing blaster
8090: Santa Claus, manipulating controls in his secret headquarters
8091: Santa Claus, stepping onto Moon
8092: Santa Claus, stabbing someone repeatedly
8093: Santa Claus, chasing rolling coins down the street (North Carolina)
8094: Santa Claus, walking into a red sandstone building (oof!)
8095: Santa Claus, cooking alien food
8096: Santa Claus, cutting someone to bits with a katana
(Neal Stephenson, author)
8097: Santa Claus, strewing sand (Neil Gaiman, author)
8098: Santa Claus, tearing open his shirt to reveal a scarlet letter
8099: Santa Claus, falling into pool (scene from _Down and Out in Beverly Hills_)
8100: Julia Sweeney, knocking something over ("Oh Oh!")Your dominate script will print a double-spaced list so that you have room to annotate it by hand.
To remember the first five articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, you might annotate them as follows, with a detailed visualization and a paraphrase of the relevant article:
- 8071: Santa Claus, playing piano and singing ("GeorgiA")
Two identical Santas sit side by side on a piano bench, each playing half the piano and singing in chorus. (Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal, and they should act in a spirit of brotherhood.)
- 8072: Santa Claus, clearing brush in Crawford, Texas
Santa is clearing brush in Crawford, knocking down old fences dividing people. (Article 2: Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms in the Declaration, without any kind of distinction.)
- 8073: Santa Claus, throwing open windows and exposing himself (scene from The Life of Brian)
Santa throws open his windows and exposes himself to a death squad. Rat-a-tat-tat! He slams the windows shut. Whew! The windows are armored. (Article 3: Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person.)
- 8074: Santa Claus, spinning on a wheel
Santa is chained to a spinning wheel and forced to spin, but he breaks his chains triumphantly. (Article 4: No one shall be held in slavery.)
- 8075: Santa Claus, saluting
Santa is being tortured on the rack; one of his elves frees him, and he salutes his liberator. (Article 5: No one shall be tortured or subjected to cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment.)
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html .
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