# Stenography I'm learning Stenography! Or I have tried learning it in the past. Here is what I've found. It has been hard to practice every day. I keep a repository of useful scripts and dictionaries at [spilliams/steno](https://github.com/spilliams/steno). See also [[Keyboards]]. ## Hardware I first bought the [SOFT/HRUF board](https://softhruf.love/) in 2019. I found it to be very tall, so I had some misadventures in making it shorter (replacing the stock ethernet jacks with some ribbon cable jacks). I think I damaged the board though, because it stopped working. I then picked up a [Georgi](https://www.gboards.ca/product/georgi). That one was much thinner out of the box, but I had already gotten used to the Matias red linear switches on the SOFT/HRUF, so I replaced the Kailh choc switches on the Georgi. I was also a little worried about the Georgi being just a bare board with no enclosure, so I made a couple brass plates for it. I remember I had to fuss with Plover a bit to get it to recognize the Georgi. I also ended up flashing [my own firmware](https://github.com/spilliams/qmk_firmware/tree/spilliams/keyboards/georgi/keymaps/spilliams) to it to facilitate this. In early 2024 I picked the Georgi back up but had trouble connecting it to my laptop (through a USB hub, since I didn't have a micro-to-C cable). I bought a nolltronics [Multisteno](https://nolltronics.com/product/multisteno/) instead. ## Goals Overall: - [ ] have fun practicing new skills, doing research, and hacking - [ ] daily-drive steno for programming, comms (email/slack), and browsing. and to achieve those in smaller bites: - [x] get a hardware setup so I can type in steno - [x] get a software setup so computer can recognize hardware (Plover) - [ ] reach a baseline (50wpm?) for prose - [ ] fingerspelling, symbols, numbers - [ ] operating system commands (alt-tab, ctrl-w, ctrl-t, ctrl-p) (Should I try installing a keylogger to see what other shortcuts I use most often in daily work?) - [ ] learn how dictionaries work, and how to apply them in Plover (so I can do something like load a Golang dictionary and a VS Code dictionary and a Windows dictionary separately) - [ ] miscellaneous briefs(?) for things like snake_case, camelCase, cap/decap previous word, etc. emoji? Bonus goals (pipe dreams): - [ ] 70wpm with prose (be competitive against my ~80wpm on qwerty) - [ ] a steno version of the rpi 400 (the keyboard IS the computer) (See [[tenet|Tenet]]) - [ ] rehab a real lever-style steno machine (https://github.com/BunnySpectrum/retro-steno) ## Speed Log On the Multisteno, with Lapwing theory: | date | speed [wpm] | accuracy | notes | | ---------- | ----------- | -------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | 2024-03-27 | 14 | 81% | | | 2024-03-26 | 13 | 81% | ch 7 test prep | | 2024-03-09 | 15 | 87% | ch 7 test prep | | 2024-03-07 | 15 | 91% | ch 6 test | | 2024-03-06 | 12 | 90% | ch 6 test | | 2024-03-05 | 13 | 85% | | | 2024-03-03 | 15 | 90% | [ch 6: left hand fqm](https://lapwing.aerick.ca/Chapter-06.html#left-hand-f-q-and-m) | | 2024-03-01 | 12 | 93% | [ch 5 test!](https://lapwing.aerick.ca/Chapter-05.html#chapter-5-test) | | 2024-02-29 | 11 | 85%? | | On other machines, with Plover theory: | date | speed [wpm] | machine | | ---------- | ----------- | --------- | | 2020-02-20 | 13 | Georgi | | 2019-12-16 | 10 | Georgi | | 2019-10-06 | 13 | Georgi | | 2019-08-30 | 16 | SOFT/HRUF | | 2019-08-25 | 10 | SOFT/HRUF | | 2019-05-12 | 8 | SOFT/HRUF |