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Keyboard lets people type so fast it’s banned from typing competitions

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Re: Keyboard lets people type so fast it’s banned from typing competitions

#371

Post by opan »

westopheles wrote: post #268
epolanski wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, I'm a touch typist and regularly train on various websites. The biggest blocker after you start reaching high speeds isn't even the keyboard but the brain. You need to read far far ahead to write at 130+ wpm you basically are typing a word while you read the following sentence. 200+ requires writing even more ahead. A normal person can barely "mentally process" that many words per second.

A bit OT, but can you recommend/do you know of any touch typing training websites which include training for the numeric keypad, or even for the numbers/symbols row above the alphabetic symbols?

Monkeytype works well for this if you tweak the defaults. Turn on capital letters, punctuation, numbers, and change the time to 60 seconds. I did this at the start of learning a new keyboard layout and got quite comfortable with the numrow and symbols.

Re: Keyboard lets people type so fast it’s banned from typing competitions

#372

Post by opan »

riidom wrote: post #261
half-kh-hacker wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like typing :) Here's 163 wpm on a macbook keyboard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ulK2VJdQpw Here's 175 wpm on a custom mechanical keyboard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO-A8rVJDOM

It's weird, how it looks more effortless, the faster someone types. Well done!

I think at high speeds you do actually end up optimizing force per press and time spent on a key out of necessity. It's like cycling, where they say "it never gets easier, you just get faster", or in other words, they can do a lot more with the same amount of effort.

Re: Keyboard lets people type so fast it’s banned from typing competitions

#373

Post by opan »

ummonk wrote: post #113
omegalulw wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, having to type unseen text makes a lot of difference. Here's what I personally use to test my keyboard setups: monkeytype.com. My best is ~95 WPM and 100% accuracy.

Tried that and got 109 WPM with 100% accuracy on my Macbook Pro (non-butterfly) keyboard. I usually score around the 80s with regular sentences and punctuation on other sites though, so subtract 30% from the WPM results on this side to estimate a regular WPM.

I also felt scores were inflated compared to 10fastfingers when I first tried it. Tweak the default settings and it can be a lot more comparable.

Re: Keyboard lets people type so fast it’s banned from typing competitions

#374

Post by opan »

pxeger1 wrote: post #107
umvi wrote: post #7

The "500 WPM" video is a little suspect. He types literally one memorized sentence and extrapolates a WPM from that one 10 word sentence. I'd like to see him actually type 500 meaningful words in under 60 seconds. Anyway, this is cool but basically just a modern stenography device. Steno has a learning curve problem that makes it so most people won't use it.

I can type the word "a" at 1000 WPM!

It's probably harder to type a bunch of the same letter than real words unless your whole keyboard types that letter.

Re: Keyboard lets people type so fast it’s banned from typing competitions

#375

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

linsomniac wrote: post #359
dmux wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm having difficulties finding the source right now, but I remember reading a story about a sysadmin that was berated for his typing speed and the story ended with him replying "I don't get paid to type code fast, I get paid to press enter very, very slowly."

Very true for sysadmin. I can type pretty quick, but I developed a habit that when doing risky things I do a "air enter" -- I tap above the enter key, stop and think "am I sure?", before actually pressing enter. It's served me well.

When I'm about to run certain commands - any dd, most database modifications, rm, etc... - I physically lift my hands up away from the keyboard while I reread the command 2-3 times before allowing myself to lower my hands and hit enter. I think the physical cue helps the mental side.

Re: Keyboard lets people type so fast it’s banned from typing competitions

#376

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

0kl wrote: post #211
usrbinbash wrote: post #89

>You may soon see that coworker with the weird monolith style trackball mouse rocking this strange peripheral and claiming he’s upped his efficiency in ways you can’t possibly imagine. Since coding is 20% sitting in meetings, 50% reading code, 10% drawing on whiteboards or sticky notes, 15% drinking coffee, 4.5% fighting impostor syndrome and 0.5% actual typing, I think I am quite safe with my good 'ol QWERTY.

I think things like this are not “everyone must use this new better way of typing,” but more “hey there may be a better way of doing this task.” I am always surprised, though at this point I shouldn’t be, that there is always pushback against any attempts at improving the status quo when it comes to typing speeds on HN - as though the creator is attacking all of us with lower typing speeds personally… From another pe…

> I am always surprised, though at this point I shouldn’t be, that there is always pushback against any attempts at improving the status quo when it comes to typing speeds on HN - as though the creator is attacking all of us with lower typing speeds personally…

I don't think it's a general attack because people are personally offended; most of the criticism right now seems to be that the headline claim is materially untrue. Rejecting snake oil is healthy and reasonable even if there's value to be found.

Edit: Perhaps more succinctly, people aren't pushing back against improvements, they're pushing back on deceptive claims.

Re: Keyboard lets people type so fast it’s banned from typing competitions

#377

Post by 0kl »

joe_the_user wrote: post #333
0kl wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think things like this are not “everyone must use this new better way of typing,” but more “hey there may be a better way of doing this task.” I am always surprised, though at this point I shouldn’t be, that there is always pushback against any attempts at improving the status quo when it comes to typing speeds on HN - as though the creator is attacking all of us with lower typing speeds personally… From another pe…

Medical transcriptionists once used a specialized keyboard to quickly describe spoken terminology. "Shorthand" has existed for a while and I imagine is a dying art at this point [1]. I think most cases where you needed actual really fast typing were covered long ago and the number of careers or situations where a person needed it have been declining for a long time. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shorthand

My point is more of it being not a bad thing to improve on.

Most of the cases where you needed actual really fast travel have been covered for a long time and the number of careers or situations where a person need to travel fast have been declining for a long time, but I think we can all agree faster travel times are better.

Side note: stenography and chorded words with something like Plover (similar to the above) is where really fast typing usually comes into play for. I have not looked into any of the above because the pain of changing my habits hasn’t been worth the benefits to me yet.

I’ve considered it when I had to do interview transcripts, but ultimately I didn’t want to make the investment. I hope future generations are able to learn on something more designed for contemporary use than QWERTY and classic keyboards - I know my wrists have thanked me for moving to a split keyboard for the ergonomics alone.

Re: Keyboard lets people type so fast it’s banned from typing competitions

#378

Post by 0kl »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #376
0kl wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think things like this are not “everyone must use this new better way of typing,” but more “hey there may be a better way of doing this task.” I am always surprised, though at this point I shouldn’t be, that there is always pushback against any attempts at improving the status quo when it comes to typing speeds on HN - as though the creator is attacking all of us with lower typing speeds personally… From another pe…

> I am always surprised, though at this point I shouldn’t be, that there is always pushback against any attempts at improving the status quo when it comes to typing speeds on HN - as though the creator is attacking all of us with lower typing speeds personally… I don't think it's a general attack because people are personally offended; most of the criticism right now seems to be that the headline claim is materially…

I agree with you here entirely. I don’t really see how this is transformative compared to any chorded typing system.

The specific op I was replying to was saying

> …and 0.5% actual typing, I think I am quite safe with my good 'ol QWERTY.

And there were a host of similar comments initially.

100% on fighting snake oil. 0% on pushing back against people trying new things that might improve the status quo

Re: Keyboard lets people type so fast it’s banned from typing competitions

#379

Post by AtlasBarfed »

Sidenote: Ghost in the Shell had people with cybernetic hands that would convert from ten fingers to dozens for super rapid typing.

Which was a bit weird in a show about cybernetics with tons of direct mind links: why not just thinktype?

Re: Keyboard lets people type so fast it’s banned from typing competitions

#380

Post by efitz »

Does anyone actually generate 500WPM of content? I sure don’t.

That’s almost 18 tweets or SMS per minute. And I’ll bet that due to limitations of the human brain that if you tried to come up with 500WPM of content that it would have about the same quality and information density as 18 average tweets.

I guess if you were a stenographer or audio transcriber then maybe this is interesting.

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