Stenography
Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2020 10:10 pm
Computers annoy me. They always have done. Always will.
One of the things that has always annoyed me is how you interact with them.
How I get information from me into the bloody computer.
Typing is a pain in the arse. The Qwerty keyboard layout is stupid - for computer input.
Typing is stupid. And by typing I mean putting the words into a computer one letter at a time. In exactly the right order.
Voice recognition will eventually provide an answer. But for now, it's not there.
There is an alternative. Stenography. As used before 2012 in the UK by court reporters. And as still used today to provide real time subtitles of live (non scripted) feeds.
Stenography traditionally had some major drawbacks.
1 the cost of a stenography machine. Both new and used. In the region of £1000 for a used student machine to £4000 for a new professional machine.
2 the cost of the stenography software. Initial costs plus ongoing annual costs
3 The cost of the training. BTW stenograhy training courses are reputed to have something like a 90% drop out rate. Learning stenography is like learning a new language. A new language that you speak with your fingers.
4 The time to get good at it. It generally takes a few months to overtake Qwerty typing speeds. And a couple of years to get up to court reporter speeds (225 words per minute).
Today, in 2020, there are ways of getting into Stenography on the cheap.
1 hobbyist type Steno keyboards like the Georgi at £110 brand new.
2 Plover. It's open source steno software.
3 Online free resources with stenography training books and websites. Plus semi fun training games like Typeracer.
That still leaves the time required for finger training.
The benefit of stenography is that you stroke chords instead of typing individual letters. And it is therefore a quicker and less frantic way to interact with computer - once you've got sufficient mastery of it.
For short words it takes 1 chord, which is one hand movement to type a word.
For commonly used longer words, a single chord can input these as well.
Spaces are autiomatic.
Longer rarer words require 2 or more chords.
And for really rare words there's the fallback option of typing them in 1 letter at a time.
There's also the option of inputing common phrases with one chord.
My participation on hi-fi forums, for example, would be speeded up somewhat if I were able to input "it's not my cup of tea" with one stroke.
Steno keyboards look really weird. There are fewer keys than there are letters in the alphabet.
This makes ergonomic sense because we only have 8 fingers and 2 thumbs.
And with stenography, both thumbs are kept busy, unlike Qwerty keyboards.
I've already downloaded Plover.
I've placed an order for a Georgi keyboard.
I will have a new hobby. That of learning stenography.
It might be that I give it a go and get bored of it.
Or it might be that I enjoy it enough and make rapid enough progress for it to take over as my prefered method of interacting with my computers...
One of the things that has always annoyed me is how you interact with them.
How I get information from me into the bloody computer.
Typing is a pain in the arse. The Qwerty keyboard layout is stupid - for computer input.
Typing is stupid. And by typing I mean putting the words into a computer one letter at a time. In exactly the right order.
Voice recognition will eventually provide an answer. But for now, it's not there.
There is an alternative. Stenography. As used before 2012 in the UK by court reporters. And as still used today to provide real time subtitles of live (non scripted) feeds.
Stenography traditionally had some major drawbacks.
1 the cost of a stenography machine. Both new and used. In the region of £1000 for a used student machine to £4000 for a new professional machine.
2 the cost of the stenography software. Initial costs plus ongoing annual costs
3 The cost of the training. BTW stenograhy training courses are reputed to have something like a 90% drop out rate. Learning stenography is like learning a new language. A new language that you speak with your fingers.
4 The time to get good at it. It generally takes a few months to overtake Qwerty typing speeds. And a couple of years to get up to court reporter speeds (225 words per minute).
Today, in 2020, there are ways of getting into Stenography on the cheap.
1 hobbyist type Steno keyboards like the Georgi at £110 brand new.
2 Plover. It's open source steno software.
3 Online free resources with stenography training books and websites. Plus semi fun training games like Typeracer.
That still leaves the time required for finger training.
The benefit of stenography is that you stroke chords instead of typing individual letters. And it is therefore a quicker and less frantic way to interact with computer - once you've got sufficient mastery of it.
For short words it takes 1 chord, which is one hand movement to type a word.
For commonly used longer words, a single chord can input these as well.
Spaces are autiomatic.
Longer rarer words require 2 or more chords.
And for really rare words there's the fallback option of typing them in 1 letter at a time.
There's also the option of inputing common phrases with one chord.
My participation on hi-fi forums, for example, would be speeded up somewhat if I were able to input "it's not my cup of tea" with one stroke.
Steno keyboards look really weird. There are fewer keys than there are letters in the alphabet.
This makes ergonomic sense because we only have 8 fingers and 2 thumbs.
And with stenography, both thumbs are kept busy, unlike Qwerty keyboards.
I've already downloaded Plover.
I've placed an order for a Georgi keyboard.
I will have a new hobby. That of learning stenography.
It might be that I give it a go and get bored of it.
Or it might be that I enjoy it enough and make rapid enough progress for it to take over as my prefered method of interacting with my computers...