This article reminds me of a sci-fi series I read a million years ago, The Golden Queen by Dave Wolverton. In the series, some characters had a "mantle," an external mind worn on the head that could either passively impart knowledge to the wearer or actively help them develop a skill.

After I read the series I started thinking about notes and books and references as being a sort of external brain that I shouldn't be ashamed of utilizing if I needed to. Or maybe more like the secondary storage to my brain's RAM (long-term memory) and CPU cache (short-term memory.)

That isn't to say that I would actually recommend reading the Golden Queen. It was cheesy and campy, but it had a couple of neat ideas and a talking bear.