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DREW: You ready?

0:00:04.045,0:00:05.348
Okay.

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EMILE: So hi, everyone.

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I just wanted to know --

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has anyone used steno?

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Steno keyboarding?

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No one?

0:00:14.080,0:00:15.306
By show of hands?

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Except for Drew?

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No one?

0:00:17.380,0:00:18.979
Okay, well, that's awesome, because...

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Prepare to be amazed.

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Maybe the best thing that you never tried.

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Could be.

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So what is steno?

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It's a specialized,[br]non-alphanumeric,

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chorded keyboard layout.

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Non-alphanumeric[br]meaning that not all the letters of the alphabet

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can be found on the keyboard,

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and you actually get them[br]by pressing different chords.

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It also works with phonetics,

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so as opposed to[br]typing out individual letters,

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like you do with a typewriter-style keyboard,

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you do words.

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So you can see how this already benefits things.

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It's almost like object-oriented programming[br]to procedural programming,

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is one way you can think of it.

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It's typed using a stenotype,

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and back in the day,[br]they used to look like that thing,

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where you put your code[br]on a piece of paper,

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so not very good for us.

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This machine must be about...

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More than 100 years old.

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Nowadays, they look like that.

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So if you wanted to plug it into USB,

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you would need something like that.

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And then why should you care about this?

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Us all being developers,[br]and especially liking Vim,

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we do a lot of typing,

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and the thing about qwerty,[br]or even Colemak or Dvorak,

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is that you'll get RSI.

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If you work for eight hours straight,

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just constantly typing,

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you will get RSI.

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And this is one of the things

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that is solved.

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So that's a huge win,[br]and I'm sure we all always look out for that.

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Significantly faster than qwerty.

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So we speak at about 180 words per minute,

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and the top speed for qwerty[br]is about 160, without, you know,

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Guinness Book of World Record exceptions.

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So it's much faster.

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And I think the record for steno[br]is at about 360 right now.

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People reach 300 words per minute,

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and they say in six months,[br]you'll be on 160 words per minute.

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So it's way faster than qwerty.

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Fluency and efficiency of text entry,

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which is something we all know about,[br]using Vim.

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It's just that --[br]the rhythm that you have while working.

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And you'll get more of this[br]when you focus on words,

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and not just letters,[br]typing in individual letters.

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It's an emergent technology,[br]even though it's been around for hundreds of years.

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In the context of us using it,[br]us developers using it,

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it's quite an emergent technology,[br]so that's quite exciting.

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If you wanted to use this,[br]obviously you need a modern stenotype

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with a USB cable,[br]that would plug in, like we saw previously.

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So there are a few problems with that.

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They're really expensive.

0:03:09.094,0:03:11.126
Bloated proprietary software.

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And highly monopolized market.

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So that's the problem, right?

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But then, luckily for us,[br]along comes Plover.

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And they solve this problem[br]by producing

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free, Open Source stenographic software.

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So in your face, big companies!

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You know?

0:03:31.830,0:03:38.893
This means that the cost goes down[br]from about £3,000 to about £40.

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So that's what they give us.

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You can use a keyboard like that.

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That's the Microsoft SideWinder X4,[br]which is the cheapest keyboard

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that you can buy to use steno.

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You can get these laser-cut keys[br]to make it even more like a steno machine,

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which you actually put on your keyboard,[br]and it looks like that.

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You get the 22 keys.

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And as you can see,[br]it's not the weird qwerty matrix.

0:04:03.732,0:04:08.565
It actually has the keys above each other,[br]the way it should be.

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So which keyboards can you use?

0:04:12.295,0:04:15.067
You need n-key rollover,[br]which means you have to press

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at least 10 keys at the same time,[br]to produce these words.

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And there's a list of the keyboards that you can use,

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if you wanted to do steno.

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So you can look at this afterwards,[br]and even have prices.

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You can see it's pretty cheap.

0:04:31.960,0:04:36.362
So then I felt like I had to say[br]something about steno in Vim.

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These go together really well,[br]and anything you can do

0:04:39.865,0:04:42.299
on a qwerty keyboard,[br]you can do on a steno keyboard.

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That's really important to keep in mind[br]when you're learning it,

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so there's nothing you can't do with steno.

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It's a perfect match.

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And thanks.

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I'm Emile,[br]and that was it about steno.

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(applause)

0:05:03.047,0:05:03.969
>> Yeah?

0:05:03.969,0:05:07.373
>> Like, aren't chorded keys[br]worse for RSI?

0:05:07.373,0:05:09.068
>> Sorry?

0:05:09.068,0:05:12.707
>> Aren't chorded keys[br]worse for RSI?

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>> Well, yeah,[br]if we think about emacs,

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then I know that is a popular argument with emacs.

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But this is a non-typewriter-style keyboard,

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so it's more like a piano,[br]if you look at the keys.

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And the way it's been engineered is --

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mainly people with disabilities,[br]who really can't type that fast.

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So it's definitely with, like,[br]trying to prevent RSI.

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But I know that[br]that is a popular argument in emacs.

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And I'm not, like --[br]I haven't used steno that much,

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but I know that people say[br]that it's way less RSI

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than typewriter-style keyboards.

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>> Thank you.

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>> Can I ask another question?

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Do you switch between steno and qwerty?

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>> So this is quite a beautiful thing,

0:06:03.116,0:06:05.456
that I use Colemak,

0:06:05.456,0:06:09.816
and when I switched to Colemak from qwerty,[br]I lost qwerty,

0:06:09.816,0:06:13.494
and that really sucked,[br]because I couldn't use anyone else's keyboard.

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But steno is so different,[br]that it wouldn't interfere

0:06:18.391,0:06:21.118
with your Colemak or qwerty or whatever you use,

0:06:21.118,0:06:23.619
and you can still maintain both,

0:06:23.619,0:06:26.985
because they're just such different machines.

0:06:26.985,0:06:28.243
Yeah.

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DREW: I actually have a Filco Majestouch keyboard.

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So if anyone wants to try it out,[br]I've got it set up here.