Hacker News: toomanyreps

New comment by toomanyreps in "Open Steno Project"

toomanyreps — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 01:49:57 +0000

I would say not really, but if someone got into split keyboards + layers and is still looking for more, steno could be worth exploring. It gave me a good excuse to learn more about phonetics, plenty of vocab for SRS apps, and much better ergonomics for spending large amounts of time on the computer daily. My right pinky shifts one key to the right and thats the furthest my hands have to move all day. Its hard to stress how little my hands have to move. Its much less work physically to enter text.

There are really good dictionaries for entering almost any keyboard shortcut you want with one hand, 100 and change symbols, basic cursor movement (moving/selecting forward/backward by char, word, line), most common emojis. Learning about the other dictionaries is a large part of what kept me digging into stenography. Its a very fun hobby that happens to combine many of my interests.

New comment by toomanyreps in "Typing 118 WPM broke my brain in the right ways"

toomanyreps — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 14:59:25 +0000

Another interesting demo is someone using plover to hit 100WPM with a controller: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3muXdSqD2M

New comment by toomanyreps in "Typing 118 WPM broke my brain in the right ways"

toomanyreps — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 01:29:07 +0000

Its really fun once you get into it if you have the time, are somewhat linguistically inclined, and like messing with emacs configs/keyboard layers. Its not necessary for programming, but my reasoning was that I was going to be spending 8+ hours a day on the computer for the foreseeable future so it was probably worth putting the time in learning given I was already interested. Its much less physical effort to type, but does require more mental effort at first.

New comment by toomanyreps in "Programming on 34 Keys (2022)"

toomanyreps — Sun, 25 May 2025 23:17:39 +0000

Its not as crazy as it looks in my opinion. This is about as far as it goes in terms of customization, maybe a few more layers if you have a specialized workload. Once you are used to changing part of a layout once or twice, you pick up new changes much faster. Every layout feels different to me mentally, its harder to confuse them than one might think.

New comment by toomanyreps in "Spaced repetition systems have gotten better"

toomanyreps — Sun, 18 May 2025 22:06:25 +0000

I have been using Supermemo daily (except for when I miss a day or two, vacations with no desktop, etc) since about 2010. I have found the newer algos to be pretty good. I have not had any bugs or a messed up collection. Its one of the pieces of software that is keeping me on Windows. There is still no foss replacement for incremental reading/writing [1]. Also, Supermemo has two modes that lets you skip a few days without being overloaded [2][3]. So you don't go from 20-30 cards to 200 if you skip a day.

That being said, its just another tool in the toolkit for learning stuff. I don't think I'm that much smarter or better at anything just because I have used Supermemo often for awhile. Honestly, I just like making cards and throwing articles I want to read later into Supermemo for processing. Most of what I use Supermemo for is incremental reading, which I have never been able to find a good replacement for. I like being reminded of cool stuff I have read and ideas that I have had. I would recommend also learning and practicing various mnemonic techniques alongside spaced repetition.

Most of the other algos/apps I have tried have been okay, I have not tried FSRS because I don't really use Anki anymore. I used Anki when I was in college for about 2-3 years because I would do flashcards using the mobile app. I was still using Supermemo daily during the same time period though.

I also use Clozemaster for language vocab with Supermemo. I put the sentences and some explanations into Supermemo after I do them in Clozemaster. I do not really consider myself to be a language learner or learning a language. I pick up new vocab very slowly and do not do anything else to practice the languages I am learning vocab from. I have also been using Math Academy almost daily for about seven months which is nice, but definitely not a full replacement for learning math. Using Math Academy actually made me start working with math textbooks and online resources again.

[1] https://www.help.supermemo.org/wiki/Incremental_reading [2] https://www.help.supermemo.org/wiki/Postpone [3] https://www.help.supermemo.org/wiki/Mercy