Thank you for sharing. I don't have any experience with predictive analytics. I found this article approachable and it sparked my interest in the subject.
Good luck with your changes in 2015! I've also found that focusing on small changes can help quite a bit too when trying to change your habits. Want to lose weight? Try to find an easy way to cut 200 calories, like not putting sugar in your coffee in the morning. Once you have that down, you can move on to another small action. The small successes add up over time and the small wins keep you motivated over time.
I am very impressed with how well written this article is. A brief description of the problem, links to relevant discusions for less informed readers to come up to speed, and clear examples of how key pieces of information were gathered. I learned more from this article about the topic at hand than I have from a Blog post in recent memory.
If you use a system integration framework like chef or puppet there are some really neat ways of configuring your known-hosts files during convergence. For example, the ssh_known_hosts cookbook from opscode will automatically populate the ssh_known_hosts file with the information for all nodes in a particular environment (https://github.com/cookbooks/ssh_known_hosts). Of course this is only relevant if you are using one of those tools ...
I struggle with this problem as well. I often feel like the people around e learn more with less effort - perhaps because their brain's RAM has more space. Oh well, I supplement my lack of a large memory with stubbornness.
I find going back and re-reading (often manny times) helps tremendously. The first time through you may only commit 30% of the concepts to long-term memory. The second time through you will pick up a bit more, and the next time even more. As the % of concepts in your long term memory grows, the easier it will be to pick up the ones that are giving you trouble, since your brain has a larger number of memories from the prior readings to make concrete relationships.
Being the son of a recruiter and a software developer myself I've had the pleasure of meeting many good recruiters and many bad ones. I've noticed that the key differentiator between the two is that good recruiters understand how to build solid relationships with people that are based on trust, honesty, and integrity with mutual financial gain being necessary but not the foundation of the relationship.
Bad recruiters build relationships based on mutual financial gain and little else.
In the short term the bad recruiters often come out on top since treating people as numbers leads to higher short-term throughput, but long term the solid relationships are what will make a recruiter a success. They are what lead to referrals both from managers and candidates, allow bad news to be communicated without hesitation or undue stress (as honesty is a basis of the relationship), and best of all move with the recruiter as they change firms and grow as a professional.
I very much look forward to seeing your post about how being a software developer gives you an edge over your peers in the recruiting industry.