The air conditioning trap: how cold air is heating the world - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/29/the-air-conditioning-trap-how-cold-air-is-heating-the-world <comment><USER2> This is completely backwards. In the US air conditioning has facilitated people moving from colder to warmer areas, which decreases energy usage. Yes, you don't need AC in the Northeast but you need a lot of heat, so people moving to the Sunbelt reduces carbon emissions.

Outside the US, this ignores how much happier and more productive people are when they're not overheated. Traditionally cold areas have been much more productive than warm areas, but AC could change this.

<comment><USER3> Oh I was absolutely not happier or more productive while living in the US. Air conditioning there was driving me insane and it had bad effects on my health too.

It is unhealthy for sure: my flatmate coming back from jogging sweating and all... first thing he does, turn AC on.

It was also sad to see AC running day and night and reading news about climate change the same time.

<comment><USER4> Your final point misses the parent's point completely. Yes it uses energy, but cold areas use more. It might also be worth mentioning that the use of boilers may be dirtier than going through a centralised burner, as the economies of scale would favour efficiency improvements at large scale more than at small, building scale.

As for being unhealthy, that's an issue of dry, circulating air. This would be addressed better with radiative cooling and potentially humidity control. Some cleaning out of air filters may also be due.

edit: Oh and of course, building regulations (and enforcement thereof) and insulation shouldn't be forgotten, like I just did.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Contrast: [https://www.vox.com/2015/3/23/8278085/singapore-lee-kuan- yew...](https://www.vox.com/2015/3/23/8278085/singapore-lee-kuan-yew-air- conditioning)

According to Singapore's first prime minister:

> Air conditioning was a most important invention for us, perhaps one of the > signal inventions of history. It changed the nature of civilization by > making development possible in the tropics.

> Without air conditioning you can work only in the cool early-morning hours > or at dusk. The first thing I did upon becoming prime minister was to > install air conditioners in buildings where the civil service worked. This > was key to public efficiency.

<comment><USER6> AC also uses significantly less electricity and fossil fuels than Heating during the winter.

<comment><USER7> Sounds interesting - do you have a source for that? I guess that would be country /location specific? Here in the UK most people use zero energy for aircon, and loads fo heating - but I'm sure in most of the world this would be inverse.

<comment><USER6> Here's a breakdown from 2007: [https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=139417...](https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=13941744)

More in-depth analysis: [http://www.energysolutionscenter.org/assets/1/Page/GHP_Posit...](http://www.energysolutionscenter.org/assets/1/Page/GHP_Position_Paper_and_apndx_031710.pdf)

In general, it appears that it's slightly better for carbon emissions to live in a warmer area with regular AC than it is to live in a humid temperate area that requires both heat half the year and AC the other half, or a cold area that requires heat most of the year.

<comment><USER8> According to Figure 2 of the GHP paper that must be why Daytona would be preferable to Birmingham or Dallas if you wanted to minimize overall energy use by focusing on AC alone, using little or none during the warmer months.

A basic rule of thumb is that it takes enough natural gas to heat three homes in order to produce the electricity to heat only one home.

Also that it takes about 3kWh of electricity for an AC unit to cool off the heat produced by 1kWh of electrical appliances or other heat sources.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Always remember that the Persians in Iran have had air conditioning for over 1000 years now, in a really hot place, completely sustainable. It might not make rooms freezing cold as it is possible today, but it works. It is called a "badgir". [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windcatcher](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windcatcher)

I am sure we can learn from them and maybe develop that idea further.

<comment><USER10> "Completely sustainable" is a _technically_ true but only for a fairly low (<20%) percentage of locations. It's just evaporative cooling, so it relies on a large water supply. It also increases local humidity significantly so it can make the outside environment even more uncomfortable much more quickly than normal air conditioning. It's also more expensive anywhere water isn't essentially free.

That said it's great in places like India and southeast Asia, where huge numbers of people live.

<comment><USER11> Those are sometimes called swamp coolers in slang, and are pretty common in the US where it's dry enough to be effective. But that pretty much excludes the entire east coast and Gulf areas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> We may be able to minimize air conditioning in most of North America (and other temperate regions) with some modification of buildings and green approaches.

The architectural approach is not a solution in the tropics and desert areas. Just ask Lee, Kwan Yew. It's a necessity in a modern society in the tropics.

<comment><USER13> Yes, when it comes to the tradeoffs of global warming, the leadership of an oil economy that imports most of its goods is the best source of information.

<comment><USER5> I'd say that conservationist-environmentalists just want us south Asians to remain poor and backwards, denying as they do the importance of air conditioning, large-scale industrial agriculture, and GMOs. That might give them too much credit for having thought through things, however.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This article misses the important point of <i>moving</> air. We live in Washington, DC in a one hundred year old house, and our air conditioning doesn't get used much. What DOES get used a lot is the fan in our HVAC. We chose a very powerful system to MOVE that air around, and keep a constant breeze going through the house. This has kept it nice and comfortable without having to rely on the a/c. We also installed multiple, powerful fans in the attic that automatically turn on to exhaust air, pulling it up from the lower flowers so cooler air can sink. So all this to say, it's not just the a/c that keeps a home cooler.

</comment><comment><USER15> _13,400MW every second_ Clearly nobody checked this article.

<comment><USER12> But that's against the average of 10GW, so that's 3GW diff. Still a lot, but not what you're listing.

<comment><USER16> A megawatt is a million joules per second. It's a unit of power, not energy.

Mixing up watts and joules is like mixing up miles and miles per hour. It demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> AC is _still_ a status signal, even outside the American south- when was the last time you were at a movie theater or a bank that wasn't colder than it needed to be, even uncomfortably so? It's traditional of places that try to impress luxury.

Honestly, while the power use is a problem, I don't think it's the most important AC-related problem. It's relatively small compared to _all_ electricity, and is fixed with renewable power, unlike current heating solutions. Since AC just moves heat around, it causes significant localized heating in cities.

There is a neat idea to solve that, though. Beam that heat right into space[1]! The principle is similar to the radiators that keep the ISS cool- since thermal radiation happens at a different wavelength from sunlight, you can make a material that is "white" (reflective) to sunlight but also "black" (radiative) to infrared radiation. Unfortunately thermodynamics puts a strong limit on this; for a given area you need to make the radiator hotter[2] to give off more radiation, but that makes the refrigeration cycle much less efficient. Buildings need to become much greener than they are already becoming.

[1]: [https://phys.org/news/2018-10-energy-saving-radiative- coolin...](https://phys.org/news/2018-10-energy-saving-radiative-cooling- ready-real-world.html)

[2]: ie surround it in insulation that is transparent to infrared. That keeps the air from heating up but allows heat to escape to the sky. Trickier than it sounds, though- glass and some plastics are opaque to many kinds of infrared.

<comment><USER17> > when was the last time you were at a movie theater or a bank that wasn't > colder than it needed to be, even uncomfortably so?

This is a problem of thermal mass that changes suddenly.

Every human is roughly 100W of heat. You need roughly 10KW of dissipation per hundred people. If you suddenly add a couple hundred people to a temperature controlled room, you need a bunch of extra AC overcapacity, and people are going to start to complain if you don't have enough overcapacity to prevent that temperature from rising within a couple of minutes.

Then you have the flip side--a couple hundred people _leave_ the theatre. Your AC suddenly is overproducing cooling that it doesn't need, and your theatre may have a little bit of insulation to try to cut down on your AC costs. So, you undershoot the temperature and then the insulation keeps it there as you don't have 30-50KW of heat producing humans to bring it back up.

<comment><USER18> "Then you have the flip side--a couple hundred people leave the theatre."

But those people don't leave a vacuum. They are replaced with air from outside, which is hotter than the cooled air inside. Sure, you need to set the thermostat to a lower temperature than desired before the movie starts. But, once everyone is has taken their seats, you can set it to 25C or whatever. When the people leave and the hot air from outside replaces them, the AC will turn off and there won't be anything to force the temperature down below 25C. Am I wrong?

<comment><USER17> > They are replaced with air from outside, which is hotter than the cooled air > inside.

That would actually make the response _worse_ , not better.

Let's assume the AC is at steady state. It is pumping 30KW of heat energy out in order to maintain constant temperature. If everybody leaves and hot air comes in, the temperature _rises_ and the AC system thinks "Temperature went up, I need to pump _even more_ energy out."

The temperature needs to _fall_ before the AC system starts backing off. However, by the time the temperature actually falls, the "velocity" of the temperature movement will cause the system to undershoot the target temperature.

This is a control systems problem. You can avoid over/undershoot (which a few people will complain about), but then you give up response time (which _lots_ of people will complain about).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've resisted installing an AC in my apartment for the last few years, even though temperatures have been over 30° very often during the summer.

Sadly, I work from home, and using a computer makes the heat worse, and working with a scalding object in a very hot environment lowers productivity terribly, and it doesn't seem like computers are getting cooler.

<comment><USER3> Have you tried with a fan or some cold showers? I also work remotely and often in tropical climates.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I did the math once, it takes about 3 watts of energy to remove one watt of energy (heat) from an average house in Texas when it's over 95F (35C) outside using a typical air conditioner.

<comment><USER11> That would be a COP of 1/3, or a EER of about 1. I'm going to assert that you probably messed up your math somewhere, seeing as an EER of around 11 at 95°F is pretty common. (And also represents roughly the _minimum_ required efficiency of an A/C sold in Texas since 2006.)

<comment><USER10> Second- 1/3 is about what you'd expect for a Peltier module at a similar temperature difference.</comment></comment></comment>


A Keyboard with Blank Keycaps Made Me an Expert Typist - <AUTHOR> https://bojanvidanovic.com/posts/a-keyboard-with-blank-keycaps-made-me-an-expert-typist <comment><USER2> More accurately: "Learning to touch type made me an expert typist. Also I bought a keyboard with blank keycaps."

I get that you could cheat if you had a regular keyboard, but if you're learning to type, why would you do that? And even if you do cheat and look, you could still practice the hand movements.

With that said, I learned to touch type in 1-2 weeks with _The Typing of the Dead_ on a Sega Dreamcast and this keyboard: [http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/39589/Dreamcast- Keybo...](http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/39589/Dreamcast- Keyboard-\(UK\)/)

You can find the game on Steam today (updated with new crowd sourced text options)

w/r/t HHKB: I have the "Lite" version and I could never get into it. Fn-keys, other key placements were too unnatural. Anyone want it?

<comment><USER3> >but if you're learning to type, why would you do that

Sometimes people don't try hard if there is no fear of failure. Removing the key labels makes it harder to cheat and forces you to do it the right way. Some people will rationalize in their head ("oh it's just this one email I am typing, I am so far behind I can't afford to be slowed down"). I can see this method being effective by "forcing" people to learn to touch type.

<comment><USER4> > ... cheat ... rationalize ...

uh, I think you are putting the wrong slant on things, like people are cheating losers.

I have been touch typing for years, but I probably look at my keyboard from time to time and _do not know I do it_.

If you asked me where the B key is, I would have to look. If you asked me to type banana I would do it without looking.

I have caught myself looking, like a passenger in my own body, maybe to orient myself when crooked, I'm not sure. But typing is so automatic that my conscious brain is not even involved in the process.

<comment><USER5> I am not a touch typist, far from it, but I have been typing for so long that I too couldn't tell you how much I look at the keyboard. For awhile I almost convinced myself that I had somehow stopped looking down because I never seemed to notice it. But I definitely still look at every key I type.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I learned to touch-type at a young age and can comfortably type 90-110 WPM.

Personally I agree that people, especially people who are expected to use a computer for their job, probably should know how to type, and as a result it should be part of primary education.

I think having blank keycaps though is kind of silly, personally. Especially given the keyboard the author has gone with. If you sat me in front of that keyboard I wouldn't know where to begin due to its size and layout.

It's a fun novelty and if it works for them more power to them, but I only see more frustration than anything. I don't need to look at the keyboard to know what I'm typing, especially on my normal keyboard, but it's nice to have the option.

(I'm the odd-man out when it comes to keyboards though. I don't have a preference for mechanical keyboards and I truly don't understand the love/passion for ~60% keyboards. I really don't get why anyone would want _less_ keys.)

<comment><USER7> > I really don't get why anyone would want less keys.

For the same reason many people prefer keyboard shortcuts over moving the hand back and forth between mouse and keyboard.

My main keyboard has 42 keys; that's enough for all letters, most common symbols and modifiers. Everything else is quickly reachable by holding down one of two "FN" keys.

Why? Because this way I can input anything without even moving my hands or wrists. And as both FN keys are directly below my thumbs I don't suffer from any delay when typing any special symbols or numbers. In fact my typing speed has stayed exactly the same, possibly even with increased accuracy because my hands are always guaranteed to be in the correct position for every input(outside the period of getting used to the layout of course).

So for me personally it's a number of advantages without a single drawback, except maybe the fact I now find standard keyboards really cumbersome and awkward to use.

<comment><USER8> Well the problem arises if you use more than a few shortcuts.

If you start having keybinds like ALT + CMD + (F1..F6) you _really_ dont want to have to press an additional FN Keys. I found 4 key shortcuts not viable in the long run if you have to press them multiple times a minute.

With that said:

> So for me personally it's a number of advantages without a single drawback

The objective drawback is the expandability of your shortcuts because you are artificially limited in your options of key combinations. For me that would be a no go. Though I am close to 500 shortcuts in my 3 main applications alone, excluding i3 or KDE globals. I only use a mouse to browse the web.

<comment><USER7> If you have to regularly enter 4 key shortcuts you can just define a few macros in the firmware and be done with it. I haven't been in a situation where I absolutely couldn't input some combination. Some shortcuts are awkward, sure, but I rarely need those.

If I had to regularly use 4 key shortcuts I'd go insane no matter what keyboard.

Edit: Then again I don't (yet) have 500 shortcuts, but if software doesn't support rebinding those that's not a problem with the keyboard imho.

<comment><USER8> Those keybinds are mainly custom macros and scripts.

Some project specific some more general. The project specific keybinds range from do test deployment and run tests to grab the latest test results format a text variant as well as pdf, archive and send them out to everyone who needs them. The general ones range from tell my AC/heating that I'm heading home from office to open my local weather forcast on Screen #2.

IMO there's no good reason to omit possibilities for aesthetics. Though as often as I thought about it I am not going to use a stream deck since I know I couldn't live without one after a few weeks and don't want to be bothered to carry it with me while traveling.

<comment><USER7> > IMO there's no good reason to omit possibilities for aesthetics.

My point is that it's not for aesthetics but comfort. For aesthetics I wouldn't use vertical stagger or a split layout.

With a 40% keyboard you can enter everything without moving hands or wrists at all and more important keys are moved right below the thumbs so I can use Ctrl and Shift without twisting my hand.

All said and done I still think that the standard keyboard layout is actually not a bad choice either, and is sometimes underrated. I just think that some more experimental boards manage to be just as productive while removing some ergonomical weaknesses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As a developer, my process is ~70% thinking and debugging, and less than 30% actual typing.

I never understood the fascination with typing optimization, it is not like I'm a stenographer. But maybe I'm missing something.

<comment><USER10> Touch typing isn't only about speed. It's also about health and RSI, especially if you use an ergonomic layout like a Dvorak.

For me it made a difference, and I went from feeling pain after an hour of typing, to being able to type all day without the slightest issue.

<comment><USER11> It's also about accuracy and being able not to look at the damn keyboard when typing.

My thoughts "flow" from my mind to my computer without extra effort or mistakes. That seems to be the biggest win to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have a German layout keyboard atm (don't ask), and I barely even notice it.

~20 years ago I invested a lot of nerves into learning touch typing, so now I'm flawless with it.

But, let's talk about problems with touch typing - wrists for example. If you don't know touch typing, you move your hands more often, to do stuff. E.g. copy/paste, with touch typing, it's pinky + index finger all the time. Without touch typing, it's, for example, left index + right index. Or something else. Point is, you are not making the same moves all the time.

If you do, you develop RSI. For me, ALT + TAB was the problem. After ~15 years of touch typing, I started feeling first discomfort, and then pain in the wrist. Took some time to discover what's the problem, so now I'm aware and taking action, exercise, stretching, changing layout, switching to split keyboard, etc.

Touch typing is good, but be careful. Make breaks regularly, stretch your hands, invest in the ergo equipment. Think upfront, react before the problems occur. Better safe than sorry.

<comment><USER13> More people need to realise this and be cautious of such fads. I got caught up into the whole touch-typing hype and continued typing in that awkward posture for 3 months straight more than 12 hours a day and didn't stop even when my hands, shoulders and neck started hurting due to the awkward posture that's caused by touch-typing.

I am in the worst pain of my life right now. Absolutely regret it. Sure the error rate is slightly higher and you type slower. Atleast you won't be f*cked with RSI.

<comment><USER14> I'm really confused by this whole thread and just want to clarify. "Touch typing" just means typing "correctly" right? As in with your fingers on the home row and reaching to type fluently?

Honest question, how is it that there's debate about this and comments from people (on Hacker News in particular) about intentionally learning it recently? Maybe I just haven't noticed, but I feel like everyone I know below a certain (not even very young) age knows how to touch type, even if they're not particularly tech savvy.

Regarding this parent in particular, are you saying that hunting and pecking is better and typing from the home row is a fad?

<comment><USER15> > I'm really confused by this whole thread and just want to clarify. "Touch > typing" just means typing "correctly" right? As in with your fingers on the > home row and reaching to type fluently?

Yeah, "touch-typing" is incorrectly used to refer to home-row touch-typing by people who hadn't learned another style.

I use a totally different one, with my left hand resting on roughly shift-a- w-d and my right on j-i-o-; which requires little to no twisting to reach every key. I think I'm also more likely to lift my hands than home-row typists I've seen - those keys are just resting positions between typing bursts, not actually where I move my fingers back to while typing. The whole thing is based on the edges of the keyboard, rather than the nubs on the f and j keys.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm surprised that people who use the computer every day can't touch type, is this a post-iphone/touch generational thing? Back in my day one lucky classmate was rewarded with a session of Mavis Beacon teaches typing ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mavis_Beacon_Teaches_Typing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mavis_Beacon_Teaches_Typing)) if we behaved extra well in class.

<comment><USER17> I remember an old manager, who was probably born in the mid 1960s giving our team's intern (around 2008) a hard time because it was taking her time to get used to QWERTY again because she spent the previous 6 months in France on an AZERTY keyboard. I can't be the only one who noticed that he looked at his hands noticeably more than anyone else on the team while typing, even the intern he was giving a hard time. I think it just takes a lot of motivation to learn to touch-type if you didn't grow up with ubiquitous computers. My manager was so used to looking down at his hands that he didn't even notice he did it.

There's a golden window for touch-typing where most people in the U.S. grew up typing on computers constantly (especially IMing in multiple windows concurrently) and before smartphones arrived. It's nearly impossible to keep up with multiple IM windows without lots of typing and spelling errors unless you're at least close to touch-typing.

I grew up on a Mac, and it took me way too long to get used to using the delete key on a PC. (I think very few Mac users make much use of Fn-Delete to get PC-like delete functionality.) Typing habits die hard.

<comment><USER18> > There's a golden window for touch-typing where most people in the U.S. grew > up typing on computers constantly (especially IMing in multiple windows > concurrently) and before smartphones arrived. It's nearly impossible to keep > up with multiple IM windows without lots of typing and spelling errors > unless you're at least close to touch-typing.

This is what I was thinking when I read the article. I grew up on IRC, ICQ, and multiplayer games with text-only chat. That last one in particular, you learned to type fast or live with a horrible K/D ratio.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Do people take typing in high school anymore?

I'm old (50), and did, during my sophomore (10th grade) year. That year (85-86) was the last year my high school used actual typewriters for the class; the room had 35 IBM Selectrics, and the din of the motors was INSANE. When the teacher wanted to talk, she would literally wave a flag, and we'd turn them all off so we could hear her.

The next year, they switched to computers -- but, it being Mississippi, they were IBM PC jrs, primarily of note now for having a wireless keyboard. Unlike bluetooth keyboards of today (including the one I'm typing on), these did not work so well. But the room was quieter.

Anyway, we had no paper or covers or blank keycaps. I guess some folks could've been "cheating" or something, but in that class there was a real sense that doing so would be dumb. Unlike in, say, an required academic class, there was no undercurrent of "I don't really need to know this" \-- pretty much everyone, from honor roll kids to C- students, was in there to learn to type. By then, it was already SUPER clear how important this would be for any white-collar job, and so...

<comment><USER20> I took typing in high school, with IBM typewriters as well. For 50 minutes, we typed away, starting with fingers on the home rows. I learned to type business letters, notes, and even use proper spacing. By the way, we were taught to put 2 spaces after period. Typing class was one of my favorite, with no homework, and just 50 minutes of typing away every day.

<comment><USER21> I'll never be able to get used to just putting 1 space after a period, and it really bugs me when editing a sentence deletes one.

<comment><USER22> At a job I had, they gave people a book titled: Your Mac Is Not A Typewriter

One of the big things was the single space rule.

Interesting thing tho. Many years later I read on Steve Losh's blog that he uses two spaces after every period. Why? So he can just do a simple search to move through sentences.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I did not get any touch-typing lesson as a kid (the Amiga 500 keyboard felt so massive...), so I developed a pretty fast 6-finger technique that helped me into my early 30s - I was considered a very quick typists in chats and the likes, but writing code was still error-prone. At one point I saw a colleague touch-typing properly, and I felt so envious that I decided to do something about it. I started doing lessons but somehow always ended up peeking. Eventually, 5 years ago, I moved to COLEMAK, and that forced me to learn proper form. I can now push 60 to 80 wpm on regular text with no effort.

I still struggle somewhat with special characters, because of my short pinkies. I am currently experimenting with alternatives (see [http://blog.pythonaro.com/2020/06/better-access-to- special-c...](http://blog.pythonaro.com/2020/06/better-access-to-special- characters.html) ) but I've never been good at layer-switching and it makes me still pretty slow.

<comment><USER24> 60-80 is slow to average, though, no? I had the same issue as you with coding sigils, and "proper" touch typing didn't help at all, so I just remapped [] {} to Tab+hjkl and the parentheses to the shift keys, which helps more because I don't have to stretch.

<comment><USER25> It's off course hard to find the average typing speed of everybody who types, but Wikipedia says this:

> An average professional typist types usually in speeds of 50 to 80 wpm, > while some positions can require 80 to 95 (usually the minimum required for > dispatch positions and other time-sensitive typing jobs), and some advanced > typists work at speeds above 120 wpm.[4] Two-finger typists, sometimes also > referred to as "hunt and peck" typists, commonly reach sustained speeds of > about 37 wpm for memorized text and 27 wpm when copying text, but in bursts > may be able to reach much higher speeds.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_per_minute](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_per_minute)

<comment><USER24> Huh. I type at 100 wpm and am the slowest of a group of a few friends, the others can do 120-130 wpm. I guess that skewed my perception.

<comment><USER26> You and your friends are probably programmers (or similar) and have been touch typing for decades. It's always easy to forget the selection bias of self- organizing groups.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I switched to Dvorak on a keyboard without changing the key caps. That has about the same effect. It took me 2 days of staring on a colour coded map (each finger had a different colour) taped to the top of my screen before my brain just went "ok. I got this now" and I went from about 25wpm to 80 in 20 minutes. Such a weird experience. 4 days after switching I was back to 110wpm where I left qwerty, and now I am at 120 in one-minute bursts. About 90 sustained.

I switched mainly because I was a nerd poser in high school, but also because I had some warning signs of carpal tunnel syndrome. No issues since.

<comment><USER28> Oh man, I did a similar thing in grad school, but I made the mistake of trying to keep both layouts in my head. I'm not saying it can't be done, but I couldn't seem to do it. I finally committed to Dvorak and it has scored me some nerd cred over the years.

Interestingly, numbers and symbols continued to trip me up, and they are one of the few areas of overlap between QWERTY and Dvorak. I finally switched to a blank keyboard and that did seem to help.

<comment><USER27> I have moved several symbols to an extra layer under the right alt (or "alt gr" as it is called in the Swedish layout), and that helped a lot. I can type parens without leaving the home row, which helps my scheme programming by about a billion percent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Last month I set out to learn proper touch-typing (after 25+ years on computers).

And though I type more accurate now, which brings a certain kind of satisfaction, I'm also slower (I seem to plateau). According to Typing Trainer I was "Fast" (self-taught, many errors) and now "Average" (proper, less errors).

However nice this is for my backspace key I still would like to improve. Maybe I need to practice more, but I don't think a keyboard like this will help because I already never look at my keyboard.

I _have_ thought about becoming better by using a device that would attach wires to your fingers (or a glove) that correspond with keys, and the keys will only register when hit with the right finger (I find myself cheating now/falling back to old ways when I want to go fast). Something like this should exist, right?

<comment><USER30> I'm in the same boat as you! Just started working on proper touch-typing a few weeks ago, as I sometimes found myself being ashamed of my self-taught ~7-finger typing system.

Commenting primarily to see what others have to say about your idea, since I can notice that sometimes when I don't pay full attention I tend to use my "old" mental keymap and cheat a little bit.

<comment><USER31> Im in exactly the same boat. I was thinking something like this might be so radically different that it breaks my bad habits? [https://www.zsa.io/moonlander/](https://www.zsa.io/moonlander/) Not cheap but I would pay a lot to be able to forget how to type and start from scratch, properly...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> An interesting new take on this is that there are a bunch of productivity apps emerging which give you awesome giant monitors and workspaces in VR - but the catch is, your keyboard now is not visible any more. So you really _have_ to learn to touch type to use these effectively. I am a pretty good typist but being forced to type in VR and reach every single key without even having the option to look is really taking it to a new level. It's especially noticeable that even though I don't look at my fingers, what I do observe in my peripheral vision outside VR is quite important to my accuracy. So there is still a lot of learning to do.

<comment><USER33> What VR headset are you using? I've considered switching to a VR monitor setup but I feel that the quality of existing headsets is too low to compete against an actual monitor and having a screen with text that close to the eyes for several hours will accelerate the accumulation of eye damage most developers already receive.

<comment><USER32> I'm using an Oculus Quest. I can't say I would recommend it if you have that concern yet. It's usable but I only do so in specific contexts especially where either I really want to focus, or having an unnaturally giant screen is useful. So I wouldn't really do more than an hour or two at a time myself. But with another generation of improvements in the display tech I think it'll cross an important threshold. There are people who use them all day but I personally wouldn't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I think it's pretty generous of the writer to consider 70-90 wpm an expert typist.

I've never spent any actual effort of learning any techniques and I can easily get 120 wpm on almost any basic keyboard and up to 140 wpm on my main keyboard at home (which happens to be a regular gaming keyboard by logitech).

Blank key caps seems more like a gimmick than actually helpful and personally I couldn't drop the arrows either. I know Vim bindings are all fun if you IDE supports them, but you can't really navigate around the OS comfortably if you have to hit Fn + your faux arrows every time you want to move the focus around.

<comment><USER35> With layers as supported by [https://docs.qmk.fm/#/](https://docs.qmk.fm/#/) you won't need dedicated arrow keys (put them on the home row in a different layer), nor would you need to switch to vim necessarily. That is at least my experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I think being able to touch type for the sake of typing efficiently is only the beginning.

In a sense, it's a mark of a heightened brain-computer interface. It's a freeing feeling when you don't have to use your sight for direct motor control error correction.

This is why I'm such a fan of programs with extensively configurable hotkeys/macros, tiling window managers, and (when constrained to Windows) Autohotkey.

Much more than typing wpm improves if you're familiar with your keyboard. It gives you a much tighter loop between your executing your intentions and affecting the computer.

This can be used for seamlessly executing macros or hotkeys in programs, switching window focus with barely a thought in a tiling window manager. Force multipliers.

</comment><comment><USER37> I learned touch typing with the help of a cardboard box instead of a fancy mechanical keyboard with custom key caps. I think this is a more economical way to learn, unless you really like mechanical keyboards and want an excuse to buy one (or another).

Get a box that covers your keyboard and leaves room for your hands. Cut a hole for your hands. Place the box over your keyboard, insert your hands, and start typing without being able to see the keyboard.

Of course this is more difficult if you only have a laptop because the screen is also obstructed.

I type around 100 WPM today with the same touch typing technique I learned as a child. I still have labeled key caps, even on my own fancy mechanical boards.

<comment><USER38> For laptops, you could also just stick some paper squares on the keycaps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Blank keyboard user here (custom ones from WASD Keyboards). I felt no difference between this and a regular keyboard, mostly because I was touch typing anyway. Programming is surely more thinking than typing, but once you're in the flow, it helps to just write away and the keys simply vanish.

Unfortunately the new Macs have really borked the typing experience, which was the main reason why I purchased the blank keyboard.

There's something about reducing the friction between your mind and the problem that I find fascinating, even though the bandwith of the "fingers on keys" channel is still rather low (unless you go all out bionic fingers like that schene in Ghost in the Shell).

Another, maybe fictional, reasoning to get a blank keyboard was to be able to type properly even with a VR headset on.

There's only one major drawback in my experience: position in front of keyboard. Sitting on the sides or typing side-ways (like in some pair- programming situations) becomes difficult, even if you follow the home keys.

</comment><comment><USER40> I took a typing class back in high school in the 80's and it's probably the most useful class I ever took. I've been touch typing with the skills I learned on an IBM Selectric for over 30 years now with no RSI and a decent typing speed.

However, earlier this year I had an accident and lost about an inch off the middle finger on my right hand and that's really messed with my typing. That's the 'I', 'K', and ',' finger and that's made code and vim usage a bit tough. ;)

</comment><comment><USER41> I just use blank keycaps so people are less likely to suddenly decide to use my computer for something.

<comment><USER42> I live in France and I've found that having a QWERTY keyboard has pretty much the same effect, even for people who look at the keys when they type and even though my computer is set up to use the keyboard as QWERTY (so pressing any key does what the key says).

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I used a similar method when I wanted to improve my touch typing. I did learn typing in school, but I still found myself constantly looking at the keyboard. This was way back in the PS/2 keyboard days and I had one of the ubiquitous Model M keyboards. The caps were removable with a butter knife, but I didn't like typing on capless keys.

What I did was rearrange the letters. I left all the symbol and special keys alone, but moved the letters, leaving only the F/J index keys in place. Now looking at the keyboard became counterproductive. If I ended up forgetting where a letter was, I would have to watch the screen and try different finger movements till I found it.

<comment><USER44> My brother used a regular qwerty keyboard to learn dvorak, which comes with the added bonus of internalizing a sane layout.

<comment><USER45> Yeah I did the same thing to. Went into CS for university and found myself stuttering over typing when programming. Ended up learning dvorak over a semester and never looked back. [http://learn.dvorak.nl](http://learn.dvorak.nl) is golden.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I used a Das Keyboard Ultimate when I was younger. The best thing about it was that when people were over. They would always end up giving me control over the selection of music. Because very few people can actually type without seeing the letters.

<comment><USER47> Similar experience. In the dorms (single room assignment, bathroom shared with a suitemate), I was one in maybe a handful who threw down for private broadband service with legit throughput and was willing to share. Friends would bother me all the time to hop on for stupid shit. When the OG Das Keyboard launched, I picked one up (still have it today and still works, although caps lock light won't illuminate unless pressure is applied to the top-right corner where the light is positioned). The random visits stopped shortly thereafter, except for one girl who grew up on the same island as I did and was determined enough to bring her own keyboard for the privilege...and other fringe benefits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Surprised nobody else mentioned this, so I will show how old I am. :-)

I learned to touch type in the early 1980's in California. On manual typewriters with blank keys.

For the first month or so we were required to follow lessons that were on a wall in front of us, so looking at the keys and back was practically impossible. There was also a key chart on the wall for reference.

Once we had the basics of touch typing down, we would work from lesson books propped up next to the typewriters.

Correction was not an option: if you made a mistake you could start over or lose points. I would start over.

This didn't make me an especially _fast_ young typist but it did make me an accurate one. After learning this way I did a lot of writing on the glorious IBM Selectric and got fast.

Since the typewriters had no markings whatsoever on the keys, and I went to a small school with no money for special kit, I assume this is just the way typing was taught in America for some time, and around the 1980's they started teaching it less and/or differently.

Now, a million years later, I still love manual typewriters. All this computer work has made me a fast but somewhat sloppy typist. The "delete" key changed the incentives.

<comment><USER49> I took a similar course, in High School in the 1970s, where we learned how to type in a room full of manual typewriters with blank keys.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> When I switched to using Dvorak a decade ago, I did so using a keyboard that came with two skins; one printed, one blank.

I used the printed skin at first but then decided I wasn't learning the layout fast enough. So I switched to the blank skin "cold turkey".

It was impossible to type anything at first, because I didn't really know where any of the keys were. So for absolutely every character I'd press each and every button until I found the correct one. But it only took a couple of days of this before my muscle memory began to learn where the keys were. And then as I kept using it I got better and better at touch typing Dvorak and finally it became second nature.

My original keyboard that I did this with was the TypeMatrix 2030 USB. I've stuck with Dvorak ever since. In 2017 I switched to a programable mechanical keyboard and made my own TypeMatrix-inspired Dvorak keyboard layout for it. I bought the one with blank key caps, naturally ;)

Said custom layout for my programable ErgoDox EZ Shine can be found here: [https://github.com/ctsrc/ergodox-ez-shine- dvorak](https://github.com/ctsrc/ergodox-ez-shine-dvorak)

</comment><comment><USER51> Cheating made me the above average typist I am today.

You see, around 1995 our class had transitioned to 286 computers and the instructor wasn't that familar with the software. The student next to me and I figured out that if you hit the [ESC] key just before ending each days mandatory typing test, you could take the test again - something we did when we knew we had made a mistake. We worked harder than anyone else to get perfect scores each day because we found a way to hack the system. We typed and practiced more, but we felt we cracked the code. She ended the class around 80 WPM, and I finished 2nd place at ~75WPM.

Other students would possible get a light tap of the ruler on their hand if they were looking at their hands (yes, in 1995!) and for serious repeat offenders not committed to learning touch typing a cardboard box showed up and was placed over the keyboard, so you couldn't see you hands.

Typing (good enough) has been a serious life skill, easily in top 10 skills I developed in high school - possibly top 5.

</comment><comment> Digit-Al That's, basically, how I was taught to touch type. The teacher would put little blank white stickers over the letters on the typewriter (yes, I learned to type on a typewriter) so we couldn't cheat and look at the letters.

Too many years of not really typing "properly" mean I am no longer a great touch typist, but the muscle memory is still mostly there.

I learned to type over 30 years ago.

<comment><USER52> We had a little cardboard hood thing that went over the whole keyboard and covered our hands.

I started wanting to switch to a blank keyboard when I realised that I never look at my hands when I'm typing anyway. Finally got a Das Keyboard S as a present a few years ago and it's been awesome. These days I forget it's unusual until someone else sits down at my computer and looks bewildered. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I did this by accident in high school... a friend had metallic pearl paint and I thought it would be really cool to paint my keyboard with it. Only after I connected this hot looking keyboard to my PC did I think "how the hell am I going to type on this".

... and that's how years later I'm on an all-black Ergodox in Programmer Dvorak :upsidedown:

</comment><comment><USER54> I bought a blank das keyboard with this same idea years ago. It mostly collects dust. I used complex passwords because of work habits. Getting stuck on password entry and the fear of too many failures, account locked. Stressed me out. I don't recall ever trying two keyboards (one for pwrds etc), might give it a go again.

</comment><comment><USER55> I used a Das keyboard with blank keycaps for a long time. Surprisingly while typing I would rarely make a mistake and if I did I would correct it in the flow. But when it came to typing special characters out of the flow, I used to have difficulty for some reason.

</comment><comment><USER56> Went from 70 WPM to 150 WPM playing TypeRacer on a school keyboard. It was the only game I wouldn't get banned for playing.

IMHO, the biggest chunk of my time spent is knowing what to write, though. I think time could be better spent becoming a better writer than a better typist.

<comment><USER57> I didn't tried too hard, but, I couldn't get faster than 110-120 with standard QWERTY finger placement. I assume you had to use a few tricks to get faster than that which I never tried.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> After 20 years of QWERTY I could sort-of touch type but it's very hard to unlearn bad habits and position your hands properly.

The best decision I made was to switch to DVORAK. I was very unproductive for about a month.

Training involved blank key caps and a small print out of the layout above my monitor. The result is I type much faster, with fewer errors, and I never look down (usually pointless since your keyboard will be qwerty labelled anyway!)

EDIT: doesn't have to be Dvorak but the point is switching layouts forces you to learn from first principals: feeling out the keyboard notches (F and J keys on standard US) and going from there

<comment><USER59> Very similar to my story. But I'm curious, why would you need to use blank keycaps to learn Dvorak? I have always just typed on a regular QWERTY keyboard with software remapping to make it Dvorak. In that case, looking down at the keys while trying to learn is useless (except for the M and the A key!), so you learn not to do it just as you would with blank keycaps.

Overall I'm pretty happy that that I learned Dvorak and feel that my typing is much better than it ever was with Qwerty. However I'm always hesistant to recommend that other people follow the same path. There are numerous downsides to Dvorak (or any non-standard layout)

* I have kind of un-learned Qwerty. When I have to go to someone else's machine at work (game dev studio) to diagnose a crash, Qwerty feels very foreign and I look like an idiot when I go to type (looking up and down, making lots of mistakes, and generally typing like an old uncle who has never used a computer). This is a bit less of a problem now that Covid has hit and we are all working remote and screen-sharing instead of visiting each other's physical machines.

* Family members get annoyed when they come to a computer and it is on "Dvorak Mode", and they don't know how to get it "back to normal". Having separate accounts helps with this, though I have had some Dvorak software that sometimes annoyingly "leaked through" to other user accounts, switching the settings for my wife

* Shortcuts are a pain. Some software (particularly things like 3D modeling packages) have tons of shortcuts and they are all well thought out around the idea that you have a QWERTY keyboard (the important shortcuts will be in the left hand, like mode-changing keys on QWER so that you can use a mouse with your right hand). It sort of sucks when you go to use those softwares and the hotkeys are all over the place. This even applies to the normal Cut/Paste/Copy hotkeys. I have software-remapped those so they are in the same location as QWERTY (on Windows, using Autohotkey) but that causes secondary issues where Ctrl-K shortcuts are unavailable because the V key is K in the Dvorak layout and I'm using that for pasting. vi/vim is also weird on Dvorak, but I stay away from those anyhow.

* It is hard to know where keys are when not in the "touch typing position". This kind of goes along with the last point about shortcuts. Since my physical keyboard is QWERTY, I cannot look at it and know where are particular key is. And all of my training in Dvorak is muscle-memory so I only know where the letters are by feel and not by knowing which QWERTY key they are mapped to. Consequently, trying to press a specific letter hotkey when my hand is not in the standard "home row" position is a bit of a guessing game. This is a problem in situations like using a 3D software where you are mostly mousing and only poking at hotkeys here and there. Obviously getting a labelled keyboard would solve this issue, but there are other downsides to that as well. (confusing other family members with my strange keyboard, paying extra for a niche product and having more limited choices)

If you can get past all of those issues... Dvorak is fantastic!

<comment><USER58> Ok I admit, the blank keycaps are just to look cool.

> I have kind of un-learned Qwerty. When I have to go to someone else's > machine at work (game dev studio) to diagnose a crash, Qwerty feels very > foreign and I look like an idiot when I go to type (looking up and down, > making lots of mistakes, and generally typing like an old uncle who has > never used a computer).

This 100%. Was helping a colleague to debug, started typing... "you know what, I might ask someone else"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> I've been touch typing since high school, but I did switch to blank key caps and 60/80% mechanical formats about 15 years ago. The benefits I saw were:

I'd still occasionally glance at Function/Number keys, that was fixed within a week or two.

Switching keyboard languages/layouts was easier, no longer had incorrect labels to glance at (and generally annoy me that they were "wrong").

I remove as much clutter from my workspace as possible - blank key caps just look tidier to me.

60% keyboards reduce the distance my hand travels to use the mouse by a _lot_. I find that much more comfortable.

</comment><comment><USER61> When I learned to type back in the 1990s, I used Tipp-Ex (a correction fluid, an opaque fast-drying white liquid) to cover up the keycap letters on my keyboard, to force myself to move away from four-fingered typing with occasional keyboard glances.

It wasn't enough though. What pushed me over the edge though was switching to Dvorak. That forced me to learn. I can type Qwerty, just extremely slowly, but the only place I ever need to use a Qwerty keyboard these days is the touch keyboard on my phone.

<comment><USER62> > but the only place I ever need to use a Qwerty keyboard these days is the > touch keyboard on my phone.

Can't you just set your keyboard on your phone to Dvorak? If yours can't, I do know of a few third-party ones that can, at least on Android.

<comment><USER63> Not OP but I don't imagine that would be very useful. The input method is completely different, so the muscle memory is completely different. Switching from Qwerty to Dvorak on phone just means you have to re-learn touchscreen typing all over again as well.

Also while Dvorak is objectively better for physical keyboards, Qwerty is objectively better for swipe touchscreen keyboards, for similar reasons to why it was better for typewriters. The more space between common character pairs, the better swipe keyboards word prediction works.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> I feel like "proper" finger placement on the home row forces your wrist in an awkward position and aligns with everything I've been told gives you injuries from typing.

<comment><USER57> I've got RSA Type 2 and Trigger-finger four years ago and I was told if I continue like that I may not be able to use a keyboard for a very long time. It started with lots of pain and discomfort and then got worst with trigger- finger. What a nightmare!

I had many years without touch typing and when the pain started, I was already doing touch typing for more than 3 years. But, neither me nor the doctor couldn't blame touch typing for it. I was told any repetitive movement can cause it. Perhaps touch typing does kick in. But, the main cause was lack of any exercise with hands. I was only using my hands on my keyboard for a very long time.

I'm still doing touch typing. I actually stopped physiotherapy exercises for my hands shortly. Instead, I started to do sports and normal exercises to keep my muscles healthy. I've also switched to a split keyboard (Kinesis Advantage 2) with some customization on the layout to tweak it for coding. Seriously one of my best purchases ever. Since then I actually invest on my work equipment and office tools. Good monitor, proper desk and ergo chair. They last forever, and it's way cheaper than breaking your body.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> I also found that blank keycaps improved my typing ability when I built an Ergodox clone. I agree that the blank keycaps played a role in reducing my desire to look at the keyboard, but I think the columnar layout of the Ergodox played a much bigger role in encouraging proper form. When each finger's keys are in a proper column it becomes more important to use the right finger to press a given key, IMO.

<comment><USER7> I have also noticed this effect with the layout; I find the common staggered layout on keyboards encourages people to use the wrong finger for a couple keys, especially with fast typing speeds where you intuitively start optimising movements.

An ortholinear layout makes those keys only easily accessible with the correct fingers, and overcoming that part of the muscle memory was the hardest part of the switch for me.

And what's even better is vertical stagger according to finger lengths; this increases comfort when typing significantly in my experience, especially on very small keyboards.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> When I learned to touch type a few years ago, I found it really useful having the letters on the keys so that when I messed up I could look down and make sure my fingers were in the right places and get going again quickly. Eventually after a week or so practicing, I had the hang of it and no longer needed to look at the keys. So I'm not really sure what blank keycaps achieves.

<comment><USER67> I use a blank keycap keyboard. There are little raised dots on the F and J keys to find your placement without looking down.

Two reasons to use one: 1) security - slows down most people when "borrowing" your computer. 2) looking cool and being able to joke that it used to have keycaps but you type so much that they all wore off

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> I wanted to be typist who types fast without seeing the keyboard (remembering the layout was point. Also, feeling of keyboard as another part of body was joy).

So,back in March,i finally decided to start Touch typing. First thing was about layout. I read that QWERTY is not good layout (it was not made for computer era), so i searched alternatives. I finally settled with Dvorak.

First rule to learn touch typing is that you should never ever look at the keyboard. Gist of Article too says the same. One advantage for me was that even if i looked at my keyboard, keyboard layout was different, so it was not much use.

So,i started learning touch typing. I used gtypist and typingclub to practice. Some keys were tricky to remember. I used relative positioning to help me sometimes too. References were needed sometimes. So,i printed layout and kept it to refer if i felt it was necessary.

So,after typing for a month,i learned touch typing. I think that rather than taping your keyboard, make determination not to see keyboard. You could also choose better layout if it could matter with your typing.

<comment><USER69> I did the same my first winter break of college years ago. I think I'd preferred I had learned Colemak or Workman, but the benefit is much smaller so I never bothered (it's a great layout for thumbs though).

However, this is precisely why I buy and use QWERTY keyboards. When I'm first installing a machine or I'm dropped into ash because of a hard drive issue or that new shiny game has the layout set up for QWERTY instead of reading the current layout, I know I can always look down to get my bearings long enough to swap the layout/control or do that quick debug.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> I think a great way to learn something is to have a reason to learn it. I learned to touch type when I was 9 years old and playing StarCraft online. Plenty of motivation to type fast and without looking at the keyboard when playing a real time multiplayer game.

I don't think I'd fare well with black keycaps though. I still have trouble remembering which number key is which symbol.

<comment><USER71> Almost the same here I learned touch typing because I wanted to handle many chats on Facebook, when the web interface was all they had.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> I tried to increase my typing speed and accuracy numerous times but it remained a disaster nevertheless. The biggest improvement was when I switched to the Colemak keyboard layout. For anyone struggling with typing fast and accurately I suggest you give it a try. The first few weeks will be tough but once you get "it", you will never go back.

</comment><comment><USER73> This reminds me of a joke we've made with a colleague many years ago. We all made jokes with each of us. He was a two finger typist and we've made a joke to him and reordered some keys on his keyboard. He became crazy when typing his password wrong again and again and again.

In the end we've rolled laughing on the floor including him and it made a good memory.

</comment><comment><USER74> For many of the posters in this thread, did your schools try to teach you proper typing and you could just meet the requirements with your personal methods? I had a couple weeks of typing classes on decade old Apple 2's from ~3-6th grade, and I'm wondering if that wasn't common or I'm too old/young for this or what.

<comment><USER75> I had a 1 year course of typing in 1st grade secondary school (12y old). At the time (1994) we used mechanical typewriters and a cloth keyboard cover. We did pages of typing and if you got 1 char wrong you had to repeat the full page.

At that same time i was programming games in Basic and C, so i knew i was going to benefit from it (the majority of kids thought it was a girls' class... this being an all male school).

Fast forward 30 years i am a happy 100wpm typist. And when I see programmers struggling to find keys I just wonder how more productive they would be if they didn't have to think about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> The cheap way to do this is to take one of those $5 keyboards that pile up in every desktop-owning household and a can of car spraypaint. Or at least that's what a friend of mine did in the 90s. To match the spraypainted tower case.

(Do a test on the underside first; some paint solvents are bad for some plastics)

</comment><comment><USER77> Blank keys helped me to (touch) type more efficiently, I was already able but I did find myself often looking at the keyboard anyway so I fancied buying a Das Keyboard Ultimate (also partly for the geek factor).

I now use a variety of keyboards but often opt for 60% keyboards as I am more concerned with ergonomics than I am touch typing. I _would_ go for a true ergonomic keyboard like an Ergodox or Dactyl but they aren't very compatible with my mobile working and it would be a real pain everytime I hopped onto a colleagues keyboard or similar (or expected colleagues to use mine).

One thing I am keen to try out and that the OP might want to consider is Ortholinear keyboards. That diagram color coding the keys for fingers is a perfect demonstration of why non-linear keyboards are not best suited for our hands.

</comment><comment><USER78> Great if it worked but you don't need hundreds of dollars of special equipment to learn to touch-type.

</comment><comment><USER79> I suppose they don't teach typing anymore. When I was in high school, the typing class was a prerequisite before one could take any computer classes. I was very miserable in that class since I just wanted to play with computers, very grateful I got to take that class. If you can't type without looking at your fingers, it's really worth the investment of taking a few months to learn to type. As a benefit, I suppose good finger placements helps with a relaxed hand. I have been using the computer daily for 25yrs with the crappiest and cheapest keyboard one could find and don't have the problem of thumb and finger pains that seems to plague my peers.

</comment><comment><USER80> You can also cut small pieces from the sticky end of Post-It notes to cover the letters on your keyboard. You'll have to replace a few along the way, but you'll be touch-typing soon enough. You don't need a durable solution.

</comment><comment><USER81> I switched to the Dvorak keyboard layout sometime in the early 00s.

I've never owned a keyboard that was actually physically labelled for Dvorak, so I _cannot_ type if I can see my fingers. The lies printed on the keycaps throw me off every time. :)

</comment><comment><USER82> Buying an HHKB and typing 70-90 WPM does not make one an "Expert Typist"

</comment><comment><USER83> If you really care about entering large amounts of text into a computer quickly, dictation is the way to go. If you care more about quality rather than quantity (e.g. when coding), speed doesn't matter that much.

<comment><USER35> With regards to coding, yeah maybe speed of entering text doesn't matter that much, but IMHO speed of navigating around and changing text might still matter. Being able to "blindly" edit the text IMHO makes a difference. Also usually as a developer, in my experience writing non-code text (email, chat etc) is still taking a lot of time

</comment></comment><comment><USER84> I can touch typing but I only used 6 fingers and a lot more on 4 fingers. That puts a lotof load on my fingers and I'm in process of trying to type with 10 fingers. Will this help me?

For some background, I train myself to be left handed as in I started to use mouse by left hand, writing on left hand to help my right hand recover. But nows it's my fingers

</comment><comment><USER85> I also use an HHKB at work. At the beginning it was because I use Vim a lot, and the HHKB's ctrl key placement is so perfect for Vim (and Emacs) users, but I immediately found that it's just so comfortable typing on it.

Later I also got a customizable controller board from TMK [0], so that my HHKB now also functions as a mouse, moving mouse cursor with h/j/k/l keys, without any software assistance.

[0] [https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=12047.0](https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=12047.0)

</comment><comment><USER86> My keycaps are mostly blank (varies with frequency of key use) due to the shear amount of typing I've done on my KB, which has lasted me a surprisingly long time (10-15 yrs).

I would say I reached "expert" status long before that happened though. I attribute this to doing so much typing for the past few decades.

I think the reason so many people have trouble with keyboards is that they have no formal training (e.g. a typing class in school), and do not regularly use them because their phone/tablet is the primary computing device.

<comment><USER87> > _and do not regularly use them because their phone /tablet is the primary > computing device._

… maybe someday, but I think it's a bit premature? Phone keyboards were terrible, involving hacks like T9 to make them tolerable for the longest time. Smart phones haven't been around _that_ long; the iPhone wasn't introduced until mid-2007. That's only a little more than a decade, so unless you're close to 20, you're going to remember / have learned on something else.

And it takes very little practice on even a basic keyboard to outpace a mobile "keyboard"'s input rate.

<comment><USER52> A good T9 typist is probably faster than a regular phone keyboard even now (gesture typing is, I'd guess, a little faster though) and is tactile so you don't have to be able to see the screen / keyboard.

> And it takes very little practice on even a basic keyboard to outpace a > mobile "keyboard"'s input rate.

Yeah, but you have to care enough to do that. (And also have a physical keyboard available.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER88> The year was 2000, and the 14 year old DusteD had just watched Hackers (1995) for the sixth billionth time, and decided the only way forward was to paint his computer like they did in the movie! That included his keyboard, he learnt how to type after that.

Today I have a wasd keyboards model with blank white keys and red cherries, looks fantastic and always a fun conversation starter at LANs and in the office :)

Before that I had the Filco Majestouch Otaku with blue cherries, but unfortunately it broke.

</comment><comment><USER89> I did this but I learned with the Dvorak keyboard layout. One of the best decisions I've made. I did not do it bc i thought Dvorak would be faster or better, I just needed to type better and learning on a regular keyboard with Dvorak made me learn blind. Muscle memory for life!

I used this site: [https://learn.dvorak.nl/](https://learn.dvorak.nl/) tried to do it every day for 30 mins or so when i first started learning.

<comment><USER89> Also, good job and congrats on learning to type well!

</comment></comment><comment><USER90> I used a blank keyboard to learn Colemak. I wouldn't call marks an expert typist, but I'm definitely more fluent than ever before and typing is more comfortable than ever before.

<comment><USER90> Just to be clear: that typo (marks instead of myself) was made on an iphone onscreen keyboard, not touch typing in colemak ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER91> I'm not a touch typist because I never had the chance to learn it formally. But I did learn to type quite fast on my own, reaching at least 60+WPM on physical keyboards. I've been doing this for quite sometime and I have my own pattern for specific fingers for specific keys.

What resources would you recommend to learn proper touch typing (on a US English QWERTY keyboard) while getting rid of current habits (I saw the Typing Club recommendation in the article)?

</comment><comment><USER92> When I was in high school, one day I cleaned my disgusting keyboard by taking it apart and cleaning beneath the keys. When I reassembled the keyboard I intentionally mixed up all the letters, numbers, and punctuation. Like a blank keyboard it kept me from "cheating" and taught me touch typing. And it was hilarious whenever someone else tried to use my computer. They'd usually give up after a few seconds of staring at the keys.

</comment><comment><USER93> Just scramble keycaps on keyboard. No need for blank keycaps.

<comment><USER94> Normal OEM profile keycaps are not all equally shaped. The heights are meant to be staggered. You'd want something like DSA profile, blank or not, if you're planning to change stuff around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER95> I've owned a blank WASD board for years. Im no expert typist but i've had a similar experience to the author.

Anecdotally it serves as a layer of computer security i didn't expect. Friends of mine (IT pros, graduate students, programmers, etc) who make their livelihoods on computers throw tantrums completing simple tasks with it, such as typing "youtube" into an address bar. Entering their passwords is particularly impossible exercise in my experience.

<comment><USER96> At a company I worked for, there was a security policy that if you left your machine unlocked, someone could send an email on your behalf offering to buy the entire company donuts. You were expected to make good on the offer.

The only person immune to this was a Dvorak user (who I believe also had the additional security layer of using Emacs as a mail client).

<comment><USER9> A colleague of mine was the "victim" of this a couple of times. After that he had some sort of script that would lock the laptop if you type "croissant".

<comment><USER52> That is such a wrong yet effective solution to the problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I fully agree that blank keycaps are the way to go! I learned touch typing only very late in my (software engineering) career (almost 20 years into it). I decidedto directly start using COLEMAK using custom keyboards (Ergodox, Iris). Blank caps just make more sense on this setup, because you do not need custom COLEMAK keycaps and also because you are not looking all the time at the keyboard to find the right key.

</comment><comment><USER97> I recommend everyone who wants to type fast to at least give something like this a try. When I was in high school, I spray-painted all of my keycaps black. I took the keyboard outside, put down some newspaper, and sprayed.

One thing I didn't consider was that the keys would all become sticky, so a fair amount of action was required to get the keys to press down. I type pretty consistently at ~100wpm today.

</comment><comment><USER98> Back in first grade in the early 90s we had a computer lab class where the teacher taped a handkerchief over the keyboard and forced us to learn touch typing. At the time it seemed ridiculous (and sweaty!) But looking back I am glad I learned touch typing early! I currently type around 100 words per minute which is enough for me where it isn't a bottle neck any more.

</comment><comment><USER99> That's how I learned to touch type as well. Or actually, I learned to touch type before I got blank key caps but I still had a bad habit of looking down at my keyboard to _make sure_ that the letters were where I thought they were, and getting blank keycaps got rid of that bad habit in like a week. The only issue was learning all the symbol keys which took a little while.

</comment><comment><USER100> You can also just put a towel over your hands until you learn it.

The best thing I got out of typing club was an objective means of evaluating keyboards. I learned that my fancy keyboard wasn't really serving me like I thought. Objectively, the best (fastest) keyboard I have is the plain-seeming one built into my PixelBook Go. The worst one, by a mile, is my MacBook Pro "butterfly".

</comment><comment><USER101> There are actually devs that can't touch type these days? That's quite fascinating.

I can't imagine having to look at the keyboard while typing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here. If you start noticing, there are a lot of devs typing casually.

</comment></comment><comment><USER102> Wait, are there printed letters on my keyboard?

Jokes aside. I learned touch type in 5th grade, but knew on beforehand where all the letters was placed. I never thought about it, but I do use *parts of touch when I type. My fingers are always resting on asdf and jkl. I write ~70wps with this technique, I wonder if this is as fast as my mind is capable of coming up with sentences?

<comment><USER103> >I write ~70wps with this technique

70 words per _second_?

<comment><USER104> Yeah, where each word is a single letter. Also, a space is a word.

<comment><USER102> wpm thank you for pointing it out^^

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER105> I've noticed that when I type QWERTY-layout, my fingers don't necessarily maintain that suggested discipline with the columns. With words like 'really', my left hand will move over so that my index finger can type the 'y'.

If you've got the time to spare, though, I'd suggest learning the Dvorak layout for a more comfortable typing experience.

<comment><USER106> I do the same thing typing "really". I also do things like use my middle and ring finger on my right to type something like "pop".

How long did it take you to learn dvorak?

<comment><USER107> Learning colemak took me maybe a month for proficiency. I'd recommend it as more ergonomic and easier to learn compared to Dvorak; minimizing changes from qwerty was an explicit part of its design process.

<comment><USER108> You should check out neo2! It might be specific for the German language but it's six layers make it super efficient for programming.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER109> I can't even comprehend how people could program without touch typing. It's like doing handiwork without powered tools.

<comment><USER110> Right? I've also had multiple co-workers (programmers!!) who do not use any keyboard shortcuts. Drives me crazy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER111> So as much as I'd love to try the HHKB, my main issue is that I use IntelliJ in my dayjob. It looks like out of the Ctrl, Alt and Command/Win keys I'll have to pick 2.

Are there any HHKB users here willing to share their tips on how to get by?

Note: I already use a 60% mech keyboard and am more than happy to swap arrow keys for Caps Lock + hjkl.

</comment><comment><USER112> Something that helped me when learning, if you make even one character mistake at the end of a word while touch typing delete the whole word with CTRL+BACKSPACE and rewrite it as many times as it takes to get it correct. If you want to be more strict with yourself delete several words and start from there.

</comment><comment><USER113> I love keyboards. And debating the need to switch to colemak. And changing my IDE to use Input Mono, finding that latest colour scheme I saw in that blog, rotating my monitor vertically, oooo look, ergonomic mice -- wait, I'll look at those once I've finished switching to vim, and _then_ I'll do some work.

</comment><comment><USER114> I learned to type when I was young. My mom was a old school scretary for the CEO of a compnay, so she had the formal training.

She made me learn to type when I was young in one of those old ibm selectric.

So now I can type really fast, but I still look at the keyboard from time to time.

Fun fact: my mom finished Type of the Dead in her the first try.

</comment><comment><USER115> In school when learning to type we had keyboard covers that looking now seem to be called "speedskins", that went over the keyboard and kept you from peeking. It looks like they make them for Macbooks as well. They never quite fit right but were overall fairly effective.

</comment><comment><USER116> Years ago I bought a Unicomp Model M blank. It was neat in a 'it freaks everybody out who sees it' kind of way, but between the horrendous noise of those keyboards and not being one to look at my keyboard when typing anyway... it has found itself relegated to storage.

</comment><comment><USER117> I use a blank keyboard but not for the reasons of touch typing. I use it so when people sit at my desk and go to type they realize they don't know how to touch type so they just fuck off and leave my computer alone. It's a signaling kind of thing.

</comment><comment><USER118> I have a Filco Majestouch with blue switches and I love it. It took a while to get used to the key press which I expected was going to be somehow tighter, but now I'm used to it and it's great. I haven't gone as far as custom keycaps.

</comment><comment><USER119> Interestingly enough the HHKB has a bunch of keys exposed through using the function key that the blank keycap version doesn't appear to expose - home/delete/pgup/pgdown/scrlock/PrintScreen/Arrows

<comment><USER120> That's not true, my blank keycap HHKB has those keys as expected

<comment><USER119> I think I misspoke there; the keyboard is going to function the same regardless of which model is chosen, blank caps or not. I didn't mean to imply that the keyboard didn't have reduced functionality.

What I had meant to say was, that without the legends on the face of the keys it would be less discoverable for a new user who has purchased the keyboard to discover the arrow keys, pgup etc.

I mention this because the author of the article mentions that the keyboard doesn't have arrow keys. However I see in hindsight that this was in reference to the keyboard not coming with a dedicated set of keys, as opposed to the functionality not being present at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER121> Nail polish works the best. I like to paint over all the keys not just the letters.

</comment><comment><USER122> I never learned to properly touch type, but over the years I have developed muscle memory regarding where each key is located. So while I may never be as fast as a proper touch typist, I believe I get pretty close.

</comment><comment><USER123> Side question: What's your favorite battleship class keyboard?

[https://deskthority.net/wiki/Battleship](https://deskthority.net/wiki/Battleship)

</comment><comment><USER124> I had a friend who told me dont look down at the keys. That worked to, no special keyboard required :). You could also temporary cover keys up with post it notes until you have memorized them.

</comment><comment><USER125> I type without looking at the keyboard, but I think I kind of naturally "learned" from wanting to express myself quickly on MSN Messenger as a tween. Did anyone else have the same experience?

<comment><USER126> yeah, i do the same, i don't look at the keyboard, but i definitely don't properly touch type.

I do ~80 wpm with my system, and around ~30wpm when properly touch typing. So I'm always annoyed by my slow typing when touch typing and usually give up trying to learn it. And yes I know, learning it properly would probably make me faster than my ~80 wpm because I'd actually utilize all my fingers, but going down again first feels so bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER127> The way I became a touch-typist was with a time limit. Specifically, the time limit on dial-in BBSes. When given 20 minutes before being forced off the line, I quickly learned how to type faster.

</comment><comment><USER128> I learned to type playing a MUD. I forced myself to not look at the keyboard and run all the commands with proper type technique.

It worked quite well, I never measured my speed but it is quite faster than before.

</comment><comment><USER129> I used stickers to cover the keys of my little sister's keyboard and pointed her to the BBC's typing website when she was in 3rd grade. She learned to touch type in a week or so.

</comment><comment><USER130> I learned 35 years ago with a book from my father (using a typewriter of course). At the time, it was considered a good practice to cover the keycaps with black tape.

</comment><comment><USER131> Blank keyboards also look better, especially these:

[https://www.modelfkeyboards.com/](https://www.modelfkeyboards.com/)

</comment><comment><USER132> I learnt Dvorak on regular Qwerty keyboards many years ago. Very effective for not looking! Highly recommended if you want to learn another layout.

</comment><comment><USER133> I recommend blank keycaps to beginners r/dvorak. The learning curve is very steep but also is rewarding after enough sustained effort.

</comment><comment><USER134> Any suggestions for typing practice programs / web sites, that include the special characters needed by programmers?

</comment><comment><USER135> I had exactly the same blank cap HHKB, which only makes me angry (when I couldn't found the punctuations I wanted)

<comment><USER136> I have black keycaps with very faint grey letters on the front (not top). It gives the same aesthetic but if I ever forget a punctuation I can tilt my gaze a bit lower and find it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER137> Does anyone know where's the best place to buy the HHKB in Canada? Amazon's price is a bit expensive! Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER138> How soon does everyone think we'll have a better/faster input mechanism than typing? What will it be?

</comment><comment><USER139> At Lefferts Junior High School, in Brooklyn, a keyboard with blank keycaps did NOT make me an expert typist.

</comment><comment><USER140> I'm getting there gradually as the painted letters wear off my keyboard :-/

<comment><USER94> PBT keycaps don't have this problem, although if you don't already have a mechanical keyboard, it'd be a bit of an investment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER141> I learned touch typing on a typewriter in high school, but I never used it. After 25 years in the industry, I know that a typing speed over 30-40 wpm just isn't important for software development. Typing occupies maybe 10-15% of my total software development time.

<comment><USER142> The sysadmin at my company is notoriously terrible at written communication, especially his code. He uses unintelligible variable names; sometimes it's so bad you would think you're looking at minified code. When I was lamenting about reading his code to the senior dev he told me, "Oh yeah, sysadmin is a two finger typist". Ever since then I've correlated his code issues with his typing styles. One time over some after work beers he was criticizing the touch typing classes he was forced to take in college, saying it did not improve his wpm and he quickly resumed his own style. Now that we're in quarantine and most of our communication is written, I think about him facing head down toward his keyboard rapidly two-finger-striking away while I stare at the "now typing" bubble next to his name in chat.

<comment><USER141> Sure, if someone is typing < 30wpm it gets tedious to chat, but bad code readability comes from not caring about others rather than typing speed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER143> It seems like typing "beginning" is still quite hard.

</comment><comment><USER138> The old MBP with removable keycaps made me learn Dvorak

</comment><comment><USER144> this was an old trick when learning touch typing on typewriters. At the classroom there were machines with blank keycaps, or only the ASDF row.

</comment><comment><USER145> Fascinating!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Review Our (StackExchange Based) FOSS Community Site - <AUTHOR>

I can't speak for any of you, but I'm kind of tired of answering some of the same basic questions about Free and Open Source software over and over again. Newcomers are asking and certainly deserve answers to their questions both basic and profound, but too little is currently being done - in our view - to help us all out in answering these questions and preserving the answers. Unless you're happy w/ the current siloed maze of mailing lists and community forums.
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