Steno Community Virtual Meetup?

If you're potentially interested in such a thing, join the Discord. They might be making one happen at some point!

Join the Plover Discord!

Stuff is rough right now, as I don't need to tell anyone. So if you're looking for a kind and friendly community, please consider joining The Plover Discord. They talk about all sorts of stuff on there, but it's always with a mind to make people feel welcome and included, no matter their experience or interests. Please join us! I promise it helps a lot to find kindred spirits from all over the world to talk about cool nerdy stuff with. We'd love to have you.

GergoPlex Heavy: A Beautiful Chonk of a Hybrid Split Keyboard

The new GergoPlex Heavy from the man who brought us the Georgi can be used with steno (using NKRO) or qwerty or any other layout, since it runs QMK firmware. It's not as affordable as a stock Georgi, but it sure is beautiful, and I bet it's a fantastic feeling to heft it in your hand.

Germ says:

We're living up to our name with the GergoPlex: Heavy, a industrial styled ergo made from lasered steel. No flex, this is a heavy and rigid case that will make a great addition to any desk or shop. It's not perfect either, there's slight texturing to the surface, exposed remnants of the cutting process. But that's half the charm, topped off with acorn nuts and clocking in at 800grams this is one weighty solid ergo.

Check out the Gergoplex Heavy on Germ's site if you're interested in getting one for yourself!

Corrected Survey Responses Link

Hey, somehow I managed to accidentally link to the results of last year's survey instead of the one for this year in the preliminary results post! I've fixed the link in the original post, but here are the actual most recent results (good catch, Ty!), with all my apologies. Also it looks like we're only around half the number of responses that we got last year, so I'd love to see more people take the survey. It's still open! Sorry for the mixup.

Steno Proverbs

On the Discord recently, Jladd (who has been compiling some fantastic steno Anki decks lately) proposed some proverbs, inspired by Go Proverbs and Programming Pearls.
Here was his list:

• Treat steno as a hobby (try not to pin expectations on steno becoming a certain thing by a certain time)
• Regardless of which theory you pick, you'll likely need to put in a fair amount of practice to become proficient
• Don't go it alone! Plover has a rich community of creative tinkers, makers, and hobbyists (along with pros!) that can offer encouragement, guidance along the way.
• Steno generally takes ~3 mo. to become comfortable with basics, 3-6 months to start gaining speed and ~2 years to really get comfortable. But it definitely varies from person to person.
• Don't forget fingerspelling! Fingerspelling is your fallback, so be sure to practice this as well!
• Dictionaries are flexible; tailor them to fit the way your brain works. Everyone has their own spin on steno theory.
• When optimizing speed, it can be helpful to think about your average number of strokes per word.

Then Sooty (a self-taught stenographer who has been working professionally for quite some time now) chipped in with these:

• Always add to your dictionary, at every opportunity
• Brief on frequency, not difficulty
• There's no point moving quickly if you don't move correctly
• Practice with a metronome
• Walk, don't sprint.
• Find patterns in your dictionary, make new patterns
• There is no such thing as "verbatim"

What do you think? Do these ring true to you? I really like this idea and would love to hear more from other people! Please feel free to submit them in the comments or on the Discord or Google Group.

Georgi Songvid and Preliminary Survey Results

Check out Jladd demonstrating some cool steno skills on his Georgi (and beautiful custom tripod mount) along to a soothing Cat Power song!

ETA: Link fixed! Also, the initial results of the Open Steno Project Community Survey are live, but it's still open, so if you want to contribute your own response, please feel free!

Homebrew Firmware for StenoMod

Hey, if you've ever wanted multichord repeat for your StenoMod, check out Paper Steno, Josh's custom firmware, now up on GitHub. I haven't used it myself, but I know several people who find it helpful (especially when using the steno machine to send arrow keystrokes and other often repeated actions), so if you think it'd come in handy, flash it to your StenoMod and give it a try!