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Ask Slashdot: Typing Advice For a Guinness World Record Attempt?
An anonymous reader writes "In fifth grade, I amazed my fellow classmates when I demonstrated what 132 words per minute looked like. Recently, an acquaintance of mine saw me typing out a word document for graduate school and was impressed by my typing abilities. He suggested that I seriously contemplate attempting a Guinness World Record with such abilities. At the moment, I can manage an average of about 155-160 words per minute, with bursts around 180-185 words per minute (in the typing world, five characters defines a word, in case you were wondering). That aside, I have a few questions to pose to Slashdot readers (whom I am sure have been typing much longer than I have): What are some tips to fully maximize one's ability to type at the fastest possible rate? Do you have any specific keyboard recommendations that will improve my speed? Has anybody here ever competed in a typing event or thought about going for the world record? Is it worth learning Dvorak for the sole purpose of attempting such a record? How difficult would it be to improve my typing abilities from where they are now to where they need to be to acquire such a record?"
Most /.ers are far from good typists. You can tell by the typos.
Don't listen to the people who are invested and have learned to type on Dvoraks: scientific evidence shows that Dvorak is no better than a regular keyboard layout. So you will just be re-training yourself to be unable to type on QWERTY's and type slower on Dvorak's.
In the editing world, editors edit documents in the editing world in case you were wondering.
Cotnact me if your gonig for teh recrod. I am a nexpret in tiipyng and can gvie you ltos of usfeul tips .
My first program:
Hell Segmentation fault
PS2 VS USB?
what one can handle faster input?
I learnt it during a summer internship in about a week, and never looked back to qwerty. This is purely a preference, and I heard both positives (speed) and negatives (fingers don't move as much so causes more rep strain injuries). It def improved my overall typing speed, but caused some grief when using CTRL+ZXCV and also in various games with one hand on keyboard (usually switch back to qwerty for them). You won't have as much problem switching because you already got the motorics skills down, just need to have the new layout in your head. Btw, switching back and forth between layouts takes about a few seconds for my head.
I'm a speedtypist as well (130-150WPM average, 160+ bursts) the issue that you will run into is that it gets incredibly hard to add the extra WPM, and last I checked your goal is above 200.
Good luck but you generally peak out eventually.
Try a keyboard with mechanical switches. They're a bit noisier than the cheap ones, but I find them much faster and I make fewer typos. My fingers also get less tired. You might be able to scrape out another percent or so.
I've never had a Slashdot account, though I've been posting here for years. Your sort of bigotry is not nearly incentive enough.
I've had several dozen +5 first posts over the years, and have made a positive contribution to many discussions.
What does it matter what silly pseudonym is displayed above a good comment, or how many digits are in the number next to it?
Even if the submission is completely made up, the discussion will still be meaningful.
Now on topic: if the submitter's been typing QWERTY mad-fast since fifth grade or before, I find it hard to believe he can do any better with Dvorak.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_curve
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_curve_effects
Gaining a little bit if typing speed is easy, it's the ever increasing difficultly of getting faster and faster that can stretch training out for years.
According to Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_per_minute
The fastest typing speed ever, 216 words in one minute, was achieved by Stella Pajunas in 1946 on an IBM electric.[6][7][8][9] As of 2005, writer Barbara Blackburn was the fastest English language typist in the world, according to The Guinness Book of World Records. Using the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard, she has maintained 150 wpm for 50 minutes, and 170 wpm for shorter periods. She has been clocked at a peak speed of 212 wpm.
One of the most notable online records considered genuine is 256 wpm (a record caught on video) on TypeRacer by American Sean Wrona, the inaugural Ultimate Typing Championship winner, which is considered the highest legitimate score ever set on the site.
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
- Practice, Practice, Practice- --10,000,000 anonymous piano teachers
- See the ball, be the ball- --Chevy Chase in "Caddyshack"
- Use the force, Luke- --Obiwan Kenobi in , you know, that one show...
- Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be- --Johnny Cash-- "Cocaine Blues"
What can I say, go for the record.
I had a friend, of simple mind and scheming disposition, who in his drifting sought donations to fund his time and sojourn to Ireland to demonstrate for Guinness his ability to bicycle backwards continually. For months he drifted around the country putting on exhibitions and demonstrations of his talent amassing quite a warchest. He traveled to Ireland, pretty much free of charge and being free of responsibility for months in pursuit of his dream. He did then bicycle around the Guinness buildings for 24 hours and change , setting the record. The next week a local Irish held the record. There are no losers in this story. Cheers and Happy Holidays!
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
"Dear god why?"
Because, for the next few years, when somebody comments on his typing speed, he can say: "The book on the shelf to your right, page 165 says I'm the fastest in the world."
That's about it I guess.
Unless he can write a book about the process, like people climbing a mountain other other such fruitless endeavors.
I understand why you asked for advice, but I think your reasoning is flawed (ie. your assumption that Slashdotters would know technical stuff about typing). As an IT worker who can type at a good (for an IT guy) rate, my observation is that I am lots faster than most IT people and I am not even close to being fast enough to do secretarial work. Most IT people are terrible at typing. It's not that uncommon to find 2 finger typists in IT. Since a lot of Slashdotters are IT geeks, you're asking the wrong folks to begin with. I'm sure we'll get a few people to post who are the exception to the rule, but again, they are the exceptions.
Dvorak has its detractors and fans. You'll likely get some who swear that only by using it can you achieve your goal and they will possibly cite some studies to back this up. Then others will cite their own studies that show that QWERTY is even faster than Dvorak. I've seen QWERTY vs. Dvorak religious wars here and I doubt that you'll come away convinced of anything.
Find someone who plays the clarinet and ask them how they mastered Flight of the Bumblebee?
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Also, the high score is clearly stored in a single byte so you'll just roll over if you break 256.
If you want speed, the Cherry Blue keyboard switch is ideal. It requires only 55 grams of force to depress (compared to 70-90 grams for a buckling spring) and has a loud click and tactile feedback for when the keypress is detected. You don't need to bottom out the keys, though you can do so if you are used to it. The Blues are a bit loud if you are working near other people, but they are the perfect high-speed typing switch.
You have a high speed in QWERTY I presume, not DVORAK. I therefore recommend that you practice QWERTY for the record. You may have an innate ability to type fast, but you will be throwing away years of practice if you start with a new layout. Also, you will find yourself prone to errors on uncommon words when your muscle memory defaults to QWERTY on slightly-confusing words.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
People have an inherent need to be first at "something". They are competitive, and that goes back in history to... the very beginning, I'd say.
There's a small hill near Sibiu in my country. On top of that hill there's a small church, built of stones and boulders. The hill itself is mostly made of earth, so the boulders had to be lifted there somehow. Now people wouldn't do that voluntarily so the Church somehow convinced them that in order to show how great their love is for their brides-to-be, they should pick a boulder as big as possible and carry it upwards to the top of the hill. For decades, men of all ages would do that, both to prove their love at first and then to reaffirm it as often as possible.
A brief reference is to be found here: http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biserica_Sf%C3%A2ntul_Mihail_din_Cisn%C4%83dioara. "Exist i o legend a locului care spune c fiecare fecior înainte de nunt trebuia s duc un astfel de bolovan în cetate pentru a-i demonstra puterea." Translation: "There's a local legend saying that each bachelor should carry such a boulder, before the wedding, to the stronghold, to prove his strength". Our tour guide, however, told us more, which is what I mentioned above.
Anyway, point is that people need to compare themselves to others and perfect a skill so that they rise above the mass. Nothing wrong with that, although some "skills" barely fit the definition. Like fastest 100m run on four limbs... seriously?
Fast typing, however, is an useful skill. I wish I could do that, because it would greatly help channel my literary ideas faster. I sometimes write a couple pages than give up because my train of thought goes too far ahead and I get bored of putting all that in writing.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Regardless of the relative merits of Dvorak vs. Qwerty, there's absolutely no benefit in this situation in throwing out however-many years of muscle memory on one layout (which is absolutely critical to speed-typing), to start over learning a different layout.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Can cause errors like this:
It might be redundant but he/she typed the sentence really fast.
Yes, but if you read it really fast you don' t notice the redundancy. Think of it as ECC or parity.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
In what world does 5 characters define a word?
When I took a typing class back in the mid-70's on an Underwood 5 manual typewriter, I do believe that a word was 5-characters -- and that does not include the space between the words. The standard is surely older than you are, whipper snapper.
--Richard
Our first response is usually obscenity laden and we realize before hitting send that if we send it, we're going to be paid a visit from HR. Again. So we have to clear out the line and start over. Then we realize that saying someone doesn't actually know how to do their job will still cause that visit from HR. You're lucky if it's just two minutes, sometimes it takes half an hour to craft a diplomatic response with just the right level of passive aggression. "Oh look, SOMEONE killed the database server. Again."
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Around the end of January I made the leap into Dvorak, rewriting some 15 years of muscle memory. I still feel I'm in the process of learning it, despite having gotten back some 95% keyboard typing effectiveness. Some notes:
:) This best illustrates what I mean:
1. Your right pinkie is underdeveloped. With qwerty, your right pinkie doesn't do nearly as much typing as the rest of the fingers. Under Dvorak, it's new responsibilities will include 'S', one of the most used letters in the alphabet. In addition, 'L', question marks, 'Z', hyphens, and others. You will notice that your right pinkie being a bit of a bottleneck at first.
2. You'll be somewhat "dyslexic" when typing, as you learn Dvorak. I think this because each half of the brain have gotten used to always being in charge of a letter. The right side always handled 'S' for example, but now the left side will handle it. That's just one example, but you'll find yourself making weird typos until your brain gets used to the new layout.
3. Keyboard shortcuts will require some work. Things like Ctrl C, Ctrl V, etc are now undoable with your right hand. This was unacceptable to me, so I downloaded a custom keyboard layout called "US - Dvorak - QWERTY" that basically makes it so that when you hold down Ctrl, the keyboard is mapped as QWERTY again. This works pretty good 99% of the time. But keep in mind Windows doesn't have this built in.
4. The social aspect. One of the biggest 'challenges' to the new layout is the social aspect. People won't be able to just jump on your machine and start typing, and you won't be able to get anyone else's computer and type without looking at the keyboard, making typos, etc. If they don't know about your alternate keyboard, they may make the assumption that you don't know how to type, which can be a bit embarrassing. In addition, I hear growls from my wife when she starts typing on my computer, and realizes she needed to switch back to qwerty (which, thankfully, can easily be done from the taskbar with the language toolbar)
So, was the switch worth it? Yes. I'm still learning, but when I see others type, it almost looks ridiculous how their fingers are going crazy on the keyboard, smacking almost randomly. Whereas when I type, 70% of everything I write is done without my fingers ever leaving the home row
"It has been estimated that in an average eight-hour day, a typist's hands travel 16 miles on a QWERTY keyboard, but only 1 mile on a Dvorak keyboard."
The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
"In a world where all words are five letters... one man can make the difference between brilliance and darkness..."
"Slow down, Cowboy! It has been 3 years, 7 months and 26 days since you last successfully posted a comment."
Then learn how to speed talk and use voice to text. You'll never type as fast as that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_per_minute#Speech_and_listening
Simple: In a discussion, I like to know if discussing with the same person, a different person, or with several people.
I also prefer some level of surety that the person I'm replying to might actually read it.
I do realize that logging in on /. offers no guarantee of either of these things, but it's a start.
Meanwhile, I killfile all reply notifications that come from Anonymous Cowards because doing so makes discussing things on /. feel more like conversing with humans instead of talking at a wall.
If I wanted an anonymous place to randomly comment on the world with no sense of personification, I'd just go over to pastebin and be ignored there instead.
Kid-proof tablet..
<movietrailervoice>"In a world where all words are five letters... one man can make the difference between brilliance and darkness..."</movietrailervoice>
"Innna world where allll words arrre fiive lttrs... onnne mannn cannn maake theee dfrnc betwn brlnc annnd drkns..."
There's a neat web-based type racing site at www.typrx.com, which allows a person to measure their word-per-minute score either by themselves or against strangers or (in the case of "private" races) friends. The current top score on that site is a bit over 200 words per minute.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
I've never had a Slashdot account, though I've been posting here for years. Your sort of bigotry is not nearly incentive enough.
I've had several dozen +5 first posts over the years, and have made a positive contribution to many discussions.
What does it matter what silly pseudonym is displayed above a good comment, or how many digits are in the number next to it?
Even if the submission is completely made up, the discussion will still be meaningful.
Hooray for your +5 posts, but i've also seen you say some really really stupid things over the years.
And all those nigger comments are _not_ appreciated.
I recommend playing Z-Type all the time... :P But maybe I'm not a good one to take advice from:
(Of course, you can't really judge your WPM from that (spend time waiting for new "targets"), but it's an interesting concept.)