So one of the things you do, when you build mechanical keyboards is test for typing performance. For ergonomic keyboards in particular, custom key layouts push for a steeper learning curve, and it takes some practice reps to get used to where the keys are and develop that finger muscle memory. There are plenty of free and high-quality web apps now that help typists practice and improve—Monkeytype is a recent community favorite with its minimalist interface and in-depth options1.
At the same time, with my newfound free time sans work, I’ve been doing more reading, partially aided by my new phone-sized e-reader. Go through my book writeups here; you can get a sense of my favorite genres: business and strategy, technology and software development, sci-fi and fantasy, finance and investing. It’s—well, it’s similar to what a lot of engineers and self-described nerds read as well, and recognizing that it’s a bit cliché to stick with known quantities, I’ve been looking to branch out into other genres and force myself to appreciate different styles writing.
Along comes a new app that combines these two disparate interests.
Are You Not Entertained (AYNE) is a typing web app in the style of MonkeyType, but uses public domain books as its source materials. I like practicing typing with prose as opposed to word lists—it feels less artificial and better encapsulates how you’d use a keyboard in reality, instead of looking to maximize WPM stats2. In this case, since the rules for public domain inclusion mostly result from publisher copyright expirations, the list of available practice material ends up being mostly classic American novels: books that many of us read for our English classes in school, or have bookmarked to read in various e-book apps and sites.
Admittedly, this manner of reading is substantially slower than reading these books regularly; I timed by way through a very short version of Sun Tzu’s Art of War at 20 pages and it took about 4–5× as long to tap through the text one word at a time. But the extra time spent also allowed for more thoughts and in-line mental digressions; the drag on speed created by your fingers gives a bit more breathing room to think about each sentence, each paragraph, each chapter.
To be honest, though, I’m not sure that many books hold up to this kind of in-close reading, even books that normally merit multiple read-throughs. I typed through H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine—considered a sci-fi classic and the progenitor of the time travel genre—spending on average 30 minutes to go through each chapter. It turns out that having to steadily read every word in a book emphasizes its flaws: the repetition of prose, story, and inconsistencies are accentuated in slow motion. Whereas in regular reading these passages can be glazed over or skimmed to get to the better bits, the slower cadence in typing is more unforgiving to writing3.
That said, I still think this is a great use case for public domain works. AYNE is a clever implementation that has kept me interested in getting through a couple of classic novels and novellas that I haven’t had as much motivation to read before, though at a substantially slower pace. Maybe stenography is the answer…
Better yet, it’s an actively maintained open-source project.↩
With Monkeytype, the most common flex is people sharing out their 15-second sprints.↩
AYNE does have a Reading Mode that turns off the need to type out every paragraph, but I’ve resisted switching over, even to briefly skip a few lines.↩
