My Episode of Superhuman Airs Tomorrow Night!

Last year I was lucky enough to take part in the second episode of Superhuman, which will be airing tomorrow night at 8 pm central! I do a solo challenge alongside 4 other contestants doing their own unique challenges, and then the judges and audience pick a winner. It was pretty amazing. Cathy and I got to meet Mike Tyson and Christina Milian! I'll keep the challenge a surprise, but if you're interested, check it out tomorrow night 9/8c on Fox!

If you missed it, you can check out the memorization part of my challenge on YT already (see video below).

You can now watch the full episode (S01E02) at this link. My challenge starts around 30:46.

Episode #2 on 最强大脑 ("The Brain" TV Show)

I was lucky enough to go back to China for another appearance on 最强大脑 ("The Brain" TV Show). Pretty nuts, it's like the #1 show there! Thank you to the producers for having me back! This time I was up against... get this... an artificial intelligence robot nicknamed "Xiao Du." The "Du" comes from its makers, the folks at Bai Du search engine (the Chinese equivalent of Google).

My challenge had to be robot-friendly, and since Xiao Du would no doubt flatten me in any conceivable memory task, it had to be something outside my usual memory skill set. Here's what they settled on: Using a photo of one middle-aged couple, I had to pick their 20-year-old daughter out of a lineup of 40 random girls. All Chinese families, mind you. If it sounds impossible, that's because it was! Other than studying eyes and ears and face shape (and then choosing mostly on gut anyway), I had next to no idea what I was doing. But I did my best, and luckily it could've ended worse!

One of the great things about going back was that Cathy and my sister-in-law Dora both came with me, and we had much more time to explore Nanjing, which is an awesome city (photos at the bottom). Check out the full video here (my segment starts around 28:30; again, all in Chinese, except when I speak): Watch Here

(Unfortunately I've had to move the link away from Youtube as the channel removed the video). 

PRYMD Podcast

Here's a recent podcast I did for PRYMD, a podcast/blog/organization dedicated to optimizing mental performance. The cool thing is that both hosts are in the medical field as well (one's a physician and the other's a medical student like myself), so we dug extra deep into memory techniques as they relate to learning a subject like medicine. Regular followers will find some familiar material, but there's definitely some newer, nitty-gritty stuff--keeping track of palaces, reviewing with Anki, transitioning from palaces to long-term memory--in the mix too. Hope you enjoy!

Feature in The New Yorker

Sorry to be bombarding with articles, but this is one I'm really excited about: The New Yorker! Probably the most in-depth, personal piece I've done. Thanks to author Ian Frisch for writing a really cool article. He and photographer Jonno Rattman came over to my parents' apartment outside New York the day after the USA Memory Championship. It was a surreal experience, and I'm pretty sure my parents, Ian, Jonno, and I were just discussing random, non-memory related things most of the time. We even went out for Memphis-style barbecue toward the end. After they left, I was worried I hadn't given him enough to work with. But the man knows what he's doing. Check it out by clicking the photo below. Hope you enjoy!

Photo by Jonno Rattman for The New Yorker

Photo by Jonno Rattman for The New Yorker