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Plover is a free, open-source stenography engine
- kozak 5y agoHow relevant is stenography today, now that we have ubiquitous voice recording and voice recognition? What are the use cases? I'm genuinely curious.
- kleiba 5y agoWherever the GDPR applies (and possibly similar regulations elsewhere), you cannot record someone's voice without prior consent. So, taking notes in meetings or courts is usually not possible/practical via voice recordings.
- another-dave 5y agoI'd imagine that accuracy is a key driver — e.g. for something like a courtroom setting, I think I'd more trust a professional stenographer to record proceedings accurately that a programme that's doing automated speech-to-text and then someone going through to correct errors afterwards while listening to a recording. As an aside, I'd consider a different name if you need to say "rhymes with" (especially as without that I'd naturally read it as rhyming with clover).
- jhloa2 5y agoI might be immature, but I originally pronounced it in my head as P-Lover...
- base2john 5y agoGood explanation on the value of human captioning, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKe1O7ppyqQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKe1O7ppyqQ
- detaro 5y agovoice recognition might be ubiquitious, but good voice recognition is not, and until that changes it's relevant. E.g. professional event live-capturing is going to be steno most of the time, for people doing subtitling on videos it's a useful skill for speed reasons, ...
- JBorrow 5y agoOne thing on the rhyming - you say on one page it rimes with 'lover' and on another that it rhymes with 'hover'. In many people's accents, these are spoken quite differently...
- cmckn 5y agoI know you’re correct, but I cannot for the life of me remember or imagine how people pronounce these differently, even after having it explained many times. Is “hover” done like “over” (long ‘o’)?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- have_faith 5y agoHo as in hot, lo sounds like lu from lush.
- Ballas 5y agoI think hov-er and huv-er.
- cromulent 5y agoLover (and plover, the bird) are pronounced with the "o" sounding the same as the "u" in "cut" or "gut" or "puck". Hover is pronounced with the "o" as in "hop" or "hot".
- jhgb 5y ago...and this is why IPA was invented.
- celticninja 5y agoIndian pale ale? Seems like this has upset some people. https://www.google.com/search?q=ipa&oq=ipa&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j0i273j0i433l3.1799j0j4&client=ms-android-xiaomi-rvo3&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=ipa&oq=ipa&aqs=chrome.0.69i5... First hit on Google is for India Pale Ales. I always heard the phonetic alphabet referred to as the NATO phonetic alphabet. It doesn't seem very international given that it is entirely in English. Also Russia has its own version https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_spelling_alphabet#:~:text=The%20Russian%20spelling%20alphabet%20is,army%2C%20navy%20and%20the%20police https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_spelling_alphabet#:~.... So IPA is a bit of a misnomer I feel.
- yewenjie 5y agoHow long does it usually take to learn stenography? If my regular typing speed is about 75 wpm, what kind of wpm can I expect to reach?
- verytrivial 5y agoThat's a very healthy qwerty pace. It would many months, perhaps years, of daily practice before you exceed that. I've been lurking in that community and unless you have A LOT of prose to produce which can justify the up-front learning investment, steno is IMHO best approached as neat hobby/game that also happens to get you fast text input ... eventually. Else you are in for a frustrating wait. Oh, and to your question, very good stenographers head off into the stratosphere at 200wpm+ (elite in 300wpm+) for extended periods, rates not really doable on qwerty except for short burst of predictable prose IMO.
- Ballas 5y agoFrom what I have read, you can go to over 150 in 6 months. Of course, it would depend on how much time you spend on it. My biggest concern is that there seems to be no standard for programming. I have seen some people develop their own cords, but that seems like quite a time investment to me. Another think that might be an issue is if you have to be able to type in different languages. I guess you could adapt easily enough as long as the language already has a chord-table, but it also means more time learning.
- zozbot234 5y ago> My biggest concern is that there seems to be no standard for programming. The standard would definitely have to vary by language, and you would probably define custom strokes for each defined symbol in the source, similar to the strokes for English words in ordinary steno. It could be workable if the stroke definitions could be stored with the original source code as custom comments, and then imported by your stenotype tool.
- dalmo3 5y agoIntellisense for Typescript gives you a sort of stenography with zero time investment. I barely type anything in full except definitions or strings.
- enriquto 5y agonice colossal cave adventure reference!
- Sholmesy 5y agoTried plover (with a Georgi) for a few months. It is fun, addictive almost to learn, but it would take a long time before i feel comfortable to write in it on the daily. I think learning it for ergonomic reasons is far more beneficial than any perceived speed increases, unless you're really willing to sit down and grind.
- s_dev 5y agoWhen I hear Plover I think Mark Jason Dominus.
- mjd 5y agoI offered the Open Steno folks a subdomain of plover.com, so they could set up a redirect or something, but Mirabai said they didn't need it.
- nxpnsv 5y agoMy keyboard is supported! Never tried stenography, so I hopped to http://qwertysteno.com http://qwertysteno.com and tried the tutorial - it makes sense, but has a steep learning curve - you certainly need a lot practice more than the 5 minutes I gave it. I wonder if something like this for programming rather than writing is feasible, and if one then could code at the speed of thought.
- fouronnes3 5y agoI mean, the speed of code is something like 10 lines per hour for good code... Sometimes less or even negative so I'm pretty sure the input method is not the bottleneck. That said I still use Vi mode in vs code so maybe there is something to it.
- bbojan 5y agoBut to do that, you often have to navigate through thousands of lines, and you use the keyboard for that, too.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- lmilcin 5y agoI am currently working on a keyboard with a plan to put plover on it, so that I can use it at work without installing any software on the work PC.
- intrepidhero 5y agoThat's a cool idea! Are you posting your progress anywhere? I'd love to follow along.
- lmilcin 5y agoI don't post my private projects because after work and kids I have barely any time for them. The keyboard is going to be mechanical with Bluetooth, trackpoint and maybe tiny OLED display. The whole point of this is that it runs my software and so I can put on it whatever layout, logic and other shenanigans I want. I already have it working as both mouse and keyboard and got two sets of Cherry MX silent red switches. While the trackpoint is working great, I don't yet know how I am exactly going to fit it between keys. An idea I have is to sacrifice one key completely and make it a trackpoint with a custom keycap (rubber red?) The way this works is that controller detects that trackpoint is in use and maps some other keys on home row of left hand side to function as mouse buttons. There is going to be microsd for software and configuration updates. I have not yet started with plover. I just looked at the code and I know this is probably going to cost major effort to get it to run on STM32. There is also this post from Plover developer on additional challenges to get it done: https://www.reddit.com/r/Plover/comments/6ucy15/stenography_in_firmware/dlt65rq https://www.reddit.com/r/Plover/comments/6ucy15/stenography_... I don't agree that this is necessarily a huge problem that can't be resolved.
- intrepidhero 5y agoSounds neat! Thanks for sharing. My only comment from research (no practical experience) is that I'd worry about the spring force of the MX making chording tiresome. I know the Georgi goes to some lengths to get switches with a lower force. > I don't post my private projects because after work and kids I have barely any time for them. I hear ya. I was excited because I've been mentally toying with the same project. But you know, first I need to finish my remodel, fix the truck, build a deck....
- BossingAround 5y agoPardon my grumpiness, but you know a name is sub-optimal when one references the pronunciation right in the title. Or maybe it's another cutesy pun, or an 'in-group' reference. Those always work out, right? :)
- taneq 5y agoThis is a great rule. It’s right up there with “if you have to spell out your new kid’s name every time, don’t call them that (or at least don’t spell it that way” and “when you write a comment, explain it to your duck, then delete the original and replace it with what you told the duck.”
- simcop2387 5y agoReminds me of the movie, That Thing You Do, with the original band name, The Oneders, or as the record producer asks them, "The Oh-need-ers?".
- aidenn0 5y agoI'm a bit annoyed because I have a daughter whose name was pronounced correctly by everyone when she was young (it was an alternate spelling of a popular name, there was a fairly well known actress with it spelled and pronounced that way). In the past decade though, there's a new name spelled the same way but with a different pronunciation and everyone now says her name wrong... she's taken to going by her middle name now because of how much it annoys her.
- taneq 5y agoUgh, that’s annoying. Not much you could have done about that one. :S
- deegles 5y agoBrings to mind a certain database frequently discussed on HN… ducks
- aidenn0 5y ago
- kqr 5y agoThe big drawback with Plover-type stenography is that it requires a massive base dictionary for the language it's going to be used with. That's a big up-front investment unless you're lucky and someone has already done the work. In Europe, stenography usually works on a slightly different orthographic principle, meaning you still chord words, but generally you're explicit about each character. That makes it much more flexible in terms of new languages. I'm still waiting for a solid, free QWERTY implementation of that. I started working on one[1] a while ago but I just can't find the time to get it done and maintain it. If anyone would pay me competitively to work on anything I wanted, this would be it. Hugely important for marginalised groups in society, seems like it could be very convenient for regular people too. [1]: https://github.com/kqr/qweyboard/ https://github.com/kqr/qweyboard/
- cjbprime 5y agoInteresting! Do you know how it deals with ambiguity? I saw the part about using key order to disambiguate which key was the first letter. But what about words with remaining ambiguity? Or words when there's an "s" in the word, but also a plural form ending "s" that you might want instead of the singular?
- kqr 5y agoThe honest (and unfortunately short) answer is: No. I don't know. Maybe it makes sense at least in some instances to repurpose the Z as a plural S, but I suspect it will be somewhat dependent on what comes before it.
- cjbprime 5y agoThanks for the answer! Perhaps someone could write a script calculating what percentage of common words can be expressed unambiguously using this keyboard? It seems like the percentage would be quite low to me (considering e.g. 80% to be "low" given how often you'd have to issue slow corrections), but I might be misunderstanding the rules and I expect it would improve in English with your Z-as-S idea.
- iLemming 5y agoHas anyone tried Plover with Kinesis Advantage? I love my keyboard, I am deeply habituated to use it and I tried many other (similar) boards, but I just don't feel as much comfort with anything else. I wanted to learn Plover for a long time, but I don't think my keyboard is a good option here. What do you guys think?
- Germanika 5y agoI haven't tried it, it looks to me like it doesn't support N-key rollover out of the box which would definitely be a problem. You can try it out but if you wanted to put more serious time into it, I'd highly recommend picking up something more dedicated like the "Georgi" listed here: https://github.com/openstenoproject/plover/wiki/Supported-Hardware#commercially-available-hobbyist-machines https://github.com/openstenoproject/plover/wiki/Supported-Ha...
- SudoAlex 5y agoAs someone learning stenography (but with a different keyboard) - try it and see, however your ability might be hindered without the right keyboard, key switches and keycaps. I bought an ortholinear keyboard with DSA keycaps to get started, which is absolutely fine when you're chording fairly simple words, however once I reached a point where words involved chording multiple keys from the top and bottom rows - it started to become a little bit painful. After switching to F10 keycaps [1], it made a huge difference in the enjoyment of chording more advanced words. [1] https://pimpmykeyboard.com/f10-flat-key-keyset/ https://pimpmykeyboard.com/f10-flat-key-keyset/
- wpietri 5y agoFor those who just want to see what doing stenography is like, there's a demo here that works with compatible keyboards: http://www.openstenoproject.org/demo/ http://www.openstenoproject.org/demo/
- thejosh 5y agoI got recommended this on my YouTube over the weekend and learnt about steno, something I don't know much about. https://youtu.be/nRp_1S7cj6A https://youtu.be/nRp_1S7cj6A Fascinating stuff!
- Tijdreiziger 5y agoHa, same. YouTube must have been recommending that video to more people.
- jarmitage 5y agoMirabai Knight's talk about this is one of my all time faves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpv-Qb-dB6g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpv-Qb-dB6g Inspired me to try to create a live coding musical instrument based on it: https://github.com/jarmitage/stenophone https://github.com/jarmitage/stenophone / https://iclc.toplap.org/2017/cameraReady/stenophone_camready.pdf https://iclc.toplap.org/2017/cameraReady/stenophone_camready...
- xkfm 5y agoThis project got me to buy a full NKRO keyboard. I dislike how every system/theory has their own dictionary for words and in addition to that, it's heavily encouraged to customize your dictionary for the work you're doing. The customization makes it much harder to learn. Think extensive emacs/vim shortcut customization but worse (in my opinion) and much, much more common. It is fun essentially typing syllables instead of individual letters. When I was learning, I found a lot of mismatches between how I thought a word sounded, and what the dictionary thought. It felt like relearning English. Other downsides (at the time), was that there's no real slowing down. You're either typing syllables quickly, or you're not writing anything. There's a way to type individual letters but it's pretty slow, and you have to stop plover (toggle it off), to type normally (which is slightly faster).
- chadlavi 5y agoWhy do people make products with names that they know they have to tell people how to pronounce? Why would you make marketing, stickiness, word of mouth etc an uphill problem for yourself? In my local accent "plover" has the same vowel as "over".
- DrOctagon 5y agoThink Danny Glover and that’s how most Australians would pronounce it.
- BitwiseFool 5y agoThey have these birds called Plovers in California and that's the pronunciation (puh-lover) I immediately went to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_golden_plover https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_golden_plover
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- turtlebits 5y agoThere is a bird called a plover with the same pronunciation. I’m guessing this product is named after it.
- jonathankoren 5y agoI need to launch a product with an ambiguous pronunciation, and then “helpfully” suggest a heteronym as a guide.
- MaysonL 5y agoI heard three pronunciations of "Wacom" yesterday and I'm still not sure if there's an official one and if so, which it is (if it's not a fourth).
- sombremesa 5y ago
- foolinaround 5y agowould stenography help in taking class notes, where the goal is not to reproduce the material verbatim? would there be additional cognitive load on the brain trying to find the right set of keys, even as one tries to ingest the materials being taught?
- arxanas 5y agoYou can get proficient to the level where it's the same additional mental overhead as regular typing, unless there's significant domain-specific jargon. It could be argued that the struggle in recording notes is what makes you learn, and typing them up is a hindrance in that sense.
- jwithington 5y ago"Check out this open-source project!" HN: "OK, but how do you feel about dipthongs?"