It is slightly distressing to see so many on these forums thinking it desirable to be able to do the following party tricks. They bring me to the most useless and superficial of mental states. Not sure why anyone would want to be proficient in these quasi-skills short of impressing shallow-minded people at parties or in bars:
Sudoku
Rubiks Cube
Brain Age
Dual N Back
Simon
Chess
Number sequences
Pattern recognition
Anagrams
Toothpick counting
Tetris
Mental arithmetic with large numbers
Logic games
Aha! This will be a sublist within this thread: Semi-skills that are desired by people who probably have been too much influenced by modern depictions of 'genius' (using the term VERY loosely) on television and in film, such as Sheldon Cooper and others. Too many today want to impress others by counting matchsticks or adding in their heads without realizing how valueless such semi-skills are.
Replace each of the above wastes of time with a television program from this list, and sign up to Netflix, Hulu, Vudu or somewhere like that so you can watch the entire series of each in a few days:
True Blood
The Odd Couple
Friends
The Event
Misfits
The Vampire Diaries
Revenge
Once Upon a Time
Quincy, M.E.
American Dad
Home Movies
Terra Nova
Glee
Grey's Anatomy
The Tudors
Hot in Cleveland
Stick to fiction generally, but some non-fiction shows are also worth watching:
Ancient Aliens
Deadliest Warrior
Art 21
Monster Quest
And, finally, some mind games and puzzles are acceptable, provided they are nothing like those in the above list and do not impress anyone at bars or parties or require shallow mental exertion such as is required to solve a sudoku puzzle or rubiks cube. Then, you can be assured they are not false and a waste of your time. The key is that you have to be able to do them more with impulse and mindless forward motion than shallow mental exertion. Here are a few acceptable mental exercises:
Minesweeper
Peggle
Freecell
Zuma
Remember, in order for a game, puzzle or mental exercise to not be false, it must involve mindless forward motion and not shallow mental exertion. You improve far more mindlessly going through minesweeper games than by attempting to solve hard sudoku puzzles. It seems counterintuitive to those hung up on feeble mental skills like chess virtuosity, but it is very true.
Edited by Brafarality, 03 July 2012 - 05:26 PM.