Humans naturally have the power to remember almost two bits of information per second, or a few hundred megabytes over a lifetime. Compared with a DVD movie, which holds up to 17 gigabytes, that’s nothing. Worse, you might easily recall the 40-year-old dialogue from Hogan’s Heroes yet forget your mom’s birthday. Or memorize reams of sports stats while spacing out on work you completed just last week.

It’s a problem that’s been bothering Gordon Bell for almost as long as he can remember.