Andrew Jesaitis ::

I read an interesting article in the Washington Post this weekend by Barry Rithholz who runs the exceptional blog, The Big Picture.

“I am struck by how many very wealthy people I know — especially tech entrepreneurs – have expressed being grateful for their good luck. Again and again, I have heard the phrase: ‘Being smart is good, but being lucky is better.’” -Barry Rithholz

It reminded me of what underpins my entire world view.

More outcomes in our life than we would prefer to believe depend on luck. And while skill is obviously an essential ingredient in success, it can never flourish without luck. But, luck cuts both ways. For every entrepreneurial superstar, there is the kid who got dealt shitty genes and is diagnosed with cancer.

Doesn’t it make sense to use some of that good luck to help mitigate the effects of bad luck?

I refuse to believe that somehow bumping taxes from 35% to 40% is really going to keep that inventor on his couch. But, I can guarantee that increasing government funding for science and allowing for universal access to heath care will change lives. And it might just reverse the fortune of that unlucky kid.

This is either going to be one massive waste of time and productivity or one of the best investments in time I’ve ever made. I’m not a horrible typist be any means. I can touch type at 50 WPM with about 95% accuracy. But, when I type at my maximum speed it feels really frantic and my arms and hands tire quickly.

Enter Colemak.

Colemak is a new keyboard layout designed in 2006. Like Dvorak, your fingers stay in the home row for a much greater percentage of time. Unlike Dvorak, Colemak doesn’t move as many keys around. As a result, it is faster to learn and preserves all your favorite Ctrl + shortcuts. My goal is 70wpm with 97% accuracy.

Day 1
This is hard. It was amazingly easy to set up though…

$sudo setxkbmap us -variant colemak

That one line is sending my mind into spasms. I have these terrible mental freezes, where I kind of know what finger to use, but can’t make it do anything. Speed is now at 6 wpm. Oh and work has basically come to a standstill. Definitely not logging in Pidgin and facing the threat of an incoming IM for at least a few weeks. Really proud of myself for typing this paragraph though.

Day 2
Still seemingly impossible. Really wish there was autocomplete on the desktop. I have a huge amount of motivation so my computer becomes usable again.

Day 3
Not hating my computer quite as much today. I finished the alphanumeric characters today, but am probably only 60% accurate. The lack of accuracy is actually more annoying than the lack of speed.

Day 4
I am quickly learning how much the computer sucks if you can’t type. It really helps me understand why accessibility is such an important issue. I catch myself asking, “Where’s my key?” That thought gets old quick.

Day 5
Okay it’s starting to get really annoying. The ‘s’ and ‘y’ keys will be the end of me. Another unforeseen productivity drag is that I no longer have any excess brainpower while typing–making composing original material VERY slow.

Day 6
Finally finished the pedantic, basic exercises in Klavaro. Boring doesn’t begin to describe them–especially the later ones that are just strings of symbols. But being able to touch-type every character would be great for programming.

Day 7
I’m finally starting to feel some fluidity again, but am still too slow for me too feel like learning this was a good idea. But I’m basically committed now since my QWERTY speed has plummeted to about the same speed as my Colemak speed.

Also, I finally got my Linux box to maintain the Colemak layout between boots!

First, you need to set your keymap in your rc.conf:

KEYMAP="colemak/en-latin9"

This gives you the Colemak layout at console prompts and in your desktop manager.

Then just set your keymap in your window manager (In Gnome 3 it’s System Settings->Region and Language->Layout and pick English (Colemark)). Don’t bother trying to set it though your xorg.conf, as you’ll run into issues with hotplugging among other things.

Day 8
Today was hard. I had alot of work and it’s still hard to compose while typing. It really feels like a 2 paragraph email is some kind of torture test.

Day 9
Speed is starting to pick up. I’ve noticed that I’m about 5 WPM faster on tests made up of random words than real sentences.

Day 12
Uggh. Don’t know why 30 WPM seems like such a brick wall. But looking at my error patterns, I think I’m going to have a big break soon. I’ve noticed that a lot of my errors come in strings of 3-5 letters. I think that somewhere around 30 WPM you start typing words instead of letters. That is you fire off a burst of typing and if you skip a letter or insert a space you miss all the letters of that burst.

I’ve learned a few things that should be incorporated into all typing software:

1. Don’t teach numbers or symbols until you can type at your target speed on only letters–otherwise you are encouraging peeking and destroying the flow
2. Count hitting the wrong shift key as an error
3. Analyze what letters are frequently missed and drill those
4. Drill common idoms and words to increase burst speed and accuracy
5. Look at inserted/skipped letters and don’t count the string of correct offset letters as an error–this is the way you actually correct and view typos

Day 13
I feel like the faster I try to go the more mistakes I make and the slower my speed. I think it is due to the fact that whenever I mistype something, it breaks my concentration. This momentary lapse is especially bad because you eye is a few characters ahead of your fingers and then it takes a few seconds for everything to reset and develop your rhythm again.

Day 14
All I have to say is that changing passwords with keys mislabeled is a real test of faith in your touch typing skill.

Day 23
I got busy and wasn’t able to do much concerted practice, but I was programming which seemed to account for something. I read recently that unless you are typing at least 60 wpm you are wasting a lot of time at your computer.

Day 37
Not too much to report. I haven’t been practicing as diligently as I should be because I’ve had a couple big projects the last couple weeks. Also, typing at 40 wpm is workable in day to day life. Obviously, it’s not as fast as I’d like, but I no longer feel like Colemak is preventing me from working. In any case, I’m still shooting for 70 wpm.

Day 46
Still stuck in the 40-45 WPM range, but in fairness I cut my left index finger a couple days ago and that is slowing me down. I want to break 50 wpm by the end of July.

Day 51
Broke 45 WPM the other day, but I really need to practice more. I downloaded Amphetype to give me some key specific stats to see where I am weakest. Let’s go 50!