Sunday, May 30, 2010

Magic fingers

A half century of practice pays off

Check it out. Jealous? Yeah, well, maybe you had a life, but I can type fast!

(If you take the speed test yourself, let me know in the comments how well you did.)

86 words

Okay, I just had to try again. Last time I misspelled three words while clocking 86 wpm. This time it was 96 wpm with only two misspellings! I could have also recorded a pathetic 79 wpm with six errors, but let's not brag. (Time to rest my fingers.)

96 words

18 comments:

Patrick said...

87 wpm, using a modified Dvorak keyboard. I normally copy out long blog posts (Orac's ideal) for speed practise—it's a lot harder to type words in the absence of grammar.

Anonymous said...

70 wpm standing up, 81 sitting down. Much easier to copy sentences at speed than random words.

Jens Knudsen (Sili) said...

I sucked at this when I took typing back in school. And I doubt I'm any better today (even if a tad more practised). I still use the backspace more than any other key, I think.

I keep thinking about getting a typewriter to train, but like everything else, I never get around to it.

34 wpm

Phillip Moon said...

I took typing in summer school in the late 60's. My mother insisted. My speed was 16 words per minute. When computers came along, I continued to use the typing skills I learned so long ago. My average speed is 40 wpm.

Not bad for a dyslexic.

DM said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Fraser said...

Man, I thought I was fast, but I only got 66. Your powers are strong, old man.

Did you notice that 'give' was followed by 'head'?

Larry Davidson said...

94. (I'm sure it helps that I've been typing since age 12; that's 51 years.)

Erika said...

107, no errors :)

But then, I'm using dvorak on a Model M, which is arguably cheating.

Erika said...

Awww, Smith didn't tell us what he got. How fast can you type, Smith?

Zeno said...

Smith doesn't type. Smith does cut and paste. It's sad. (It's also gone.)

Troublesome Frog said...

I'm a little sleepy, but I hit 79. I don't remember ever taking a typing test that generates words in a random stream of nonsense. Most unsettling.

It's actually kind of interesting how much extra time you spend reading words and figuring out what they are when you don't have hints from context. I couldn't read more than one word ahead without totally crashing and burning. Maybe it will be less frustrating after some coffee.

plam said...

"You reached 453 points, so you achieved position 4455 of 1166267 on the ranking list."

That's 109 words. Now, if only I could generate content that quickly. Typing speed is never the limiting factor in my publication rate.

Also, I think I lost about 2 seconds every time the words scrolled.

Gene said...

I did 64 the first time through, with 22 wrong words. The second time, I hit 79 with 2 wrong words. Obviously, being familiar with the test helped, but I also backed off just a touch on the speed and worked on the accuracy. There's a life lesson in there somewhere.

I've been typing since 1964, when I took a typing class in high school. For some strange reason, I took it for an entire year, both semesters. I was probably the only boy in the class during the second semester, which was otherwise filled with "young ladies" who were going on into their chosen professions, which, back then for women, often had a lot of typing involved.

Okay, okay, some might've been going on to college, but it was a different world for women back then (and people of color, and gays, and just about everyone else).

Also, we were still using manual typewriters; they changed to electric a couple years later.

Funny how the one class I took that actually taught me a skill turned out to be the one I've applied the most since computers became personal.

jen said...

85, but I think I'd do much better if there were a logical flow to the words...

Ray said...

I'm so proud: "You reached 7 points, so you achieved position 2524 of 2592 on the ranking list"

There are others worse than I! :-)

Miki Z. said...

Interesting. 101, 45, and 6 wpm in English, German, and Japanese respectively. The 6 was enough to get the #1 (of 1) spot for Japanese.

Anonymous said...

51, with one wrong word. I found the random words disconcerting, but that's an observation, not an excuse. I was slowed only by my own lack of ability.

Jonathan

Anonymous said...

ha sili does suck
i got 35 right with 2 wrong
but i have never taken typing either