Ultimate Typing Championship

fairyofwind · Post by **fairyofwind** » 09 Jan 2010 02:54

My job is so busy I have no time to practice typing

Good luck and have fun tomorrow. I am aiming for 2nd place.

arenasnow · Post by **arenasnow** » 09 Jan 2010 03:18

Hey. This is Sean Wrona checking in. I've visited this place quite a bit in the last month or so, but only just signed up. I invited Noah to this game (along with several other people here like Joshua Yanovski, David Pritts, and Alan McCreary...Jelani invited ME so I figured it was only fair...)

The six semifinalists were:

Sean Wrona
Noah Horn
Felice Kuan
Dan Chen
Nate Bowen
Jack Aviado

It appears a lot of people were ineligible or chose not to participate.

The 20 fastest top speeds on TyprX were:

1. arenasnow - 195.7 wpm
2. LaughDonor - 187.2 wpm
3. benjamindickman - 176.0 wpm
4. Itypefast - 174.5 wpm
5. noah - 174.5 wpm
6. JosGritter - 174.4 wpm
7. Kukkain - 172.8 wpm
8. Felice - 172.4 wpm
9. donvu4u - 171.3 wpm
10. danchen88 - 169.7 wpm
11. KevinT - 168.6 wpm
12. Jweb_Guru - 166.0 wpm
13. lollercopter - 164.2 wpm
14. bubchi89 - 162.6 wpm
15. JCoimbra - 159.7 wpm
16. nbowen - 158.6 wpm
17. Jack - 154.9 wpm
18. david - 149.9 wpm
19. jkealey - 149.3 wpm
20. xuancongwen - 148.7 wpm

so the six selected appear to be #1, #5, #8, #10, #16, and #17. Itypefast, JosGritter, and Kukkain were already removed, the last two due to not being Americans. It appears several others including Joshua were eligible but chose not to participate...

Looks like it should be between Noah, Dan, and I for the two final spots. Dan seems unusually slow here, but I'm going to guess he didn't run very many races on this site compared to me (I think I played hundreds of times on this site when I was already a lock for the semifinals, sad to say.)

"The first race will be a short race and last 1-2 minutes; the second race will last 4-6 minutes; and the third and longest race will last approximately 10-12 minutes."

So one is more or less a sprint, while the last two are extended. The TypingZone English test is more of an extended one, and Dan and I both did a lot better than Noah there, so I would guess that it will be Dan and I in the finals. But anything can happen, especially with typos.

Dan and I have both done the five-minute test here, and I beat him, but that doesn't mean anything, since each application is different.

http://hi-games.net/typing-test,300/

I hope if I make the finals I meet either Noah or Dan there.

fairyofwind · Post by **fairyofwind** » 09 Jan 2010 04:13

Well, I certainly wouldn't count out Noah or Felice for 2nd. They both seem like solid typists. As for typos I doubt they will make much of a difference over a 4-6 minute period or a 10-12 minute period. You're probably a solid 50 cpm average faster than me, with a peak of maybe 100 cpm faster than my peak.

I'll be fortunate to maintain 720 through 2-6 minutes and roughly 670-680 through a 10 minute period.

Motsak · Post by **Motsak** » 09 Jan 2010 16:27

Good luck guys!
Why doesn't Jelani do the semi-final?

Sean Wrona, why don't you participate to Intersteno competitions?
Chen > it would be interesting that all American excellent typists (like Sean Wrona) participate to those competitions...

fairyofwind · Post by **fairyofwind** » 09 Jan 2010 16:31

jelani elected not to participate because he didn't agree with the competition's terms of service... (basically all participants have to relinquish all their publicity rights to das keyboard)

noah · Post by **noah** » 09 Jan 2010 17:03

Very interesting! I didn't expect that it would get all the way down to 17th place, and was sure Joshua, at least, would accept. They did seem to eliminate certain people from the get-go, as the "official" list on ultimatetypingchampionship.com omits people like Itypefast. This is good, though -- I know all of these people except nbowen, and all are legit. I was a bit concerned we'd have a cheater ruining everything

I asked Daniel (Guermeur) about the last text. He says "The text won't be that long and should fit on a monitor 800 (width) x1024 (height)". I think their estimate of time to type is going to be high, and it won't really be 10 minutes. We can type a LOT of text in 10 minutes.

Dan is certainly faster than me, and now that I know it's in fact him, I do expect it to be #1 Sean, #2 Dan. Most importantly, Dan has won Intersteno before, which is a test on a text one has never seen before -- highly relevant here. I've been practicing things like TyperA to brush up my "typing a new text" skills, but I'm still not reaching really good levels. I am faster than Felice -- beat him most of the time while doing UTC -- so he's not as much of a threat.

My TypingZone scores are not something to go by, as I use a Mac laptop that can't run the program, so I've only done the permanent text a little bit. I'm also at a disadvantage for this afternoon's contest, since I'm going to have to go use a public computer lab in order to meet the 1024px height limit (my laptop just isn't anywhere near that). That's the way it rolls. I wish they'd chosen some other way of doing the text, maybe scrolling or paging.

Good luck!

fairyofwind · Post by **fairyofwind** » 09 Jan 2010 17:54

You know that Felice is female right?

arenasnow · Post by **arenasnow** » 09 Jan 2010 18:11

Motsak wrote:Good luck guys!
Why doesn't Jelani do the semi-final?

Sean Wrona, why don't you participate to Intersteno competitions?
Chen > it would be interesting that all American excellent typists (like Sean Wrona) participate to those competitions...

The first was answered.

The second? Frankly, because until reading these posts, I'd never heard of it. I am basically everywhere else (that I've heard of.) The thing about that particular contest is that it seems you have to be approved by a teacher. I'm not sure what kind of hocus-pocus Dan and Jelani used to get in there, and how they managed to list "TypingZone" as their school and get in... I can't seem to find a signup anywhere on that site, and the site itself seems needlessly complex. I did take a one-minute practice English test on my laptop (which is slower than my regular computer) and beat 800 cpm, for what that's worth.

My concern about taking tests in foreign languages frankly is accent marks. I took TyperA tests on Facebook in several other languages and was quite slow, primarily because they would not accept for instance an e for é. I happen to actually have some of the accent marks memorized because I am hopelessly nerdy. That one is Alt+130 on the numeric keypad, for instance, but I don't have them all memorized and it seems many foreign tests expect you to have the accent exactly correct...and on an English keyboard that is a pain (perhaps foreign keyboards have keys for accents? I don't know this.) I managed fourth on the French test here because they ignored accents, but I would have been much, much lower actually typing the accents in (well, so would everybody, I would expect, except probably the native French speakers, who may have more amenable keyboards.) I also know how to print accent marks on the web via my ridiculously obsessive website that I run. That particular character é would be printed as é, but I highly doubt that would be acceptable for a character like that either. If Intersteno ignores things like accent marks, I definitely want to take every test there, although I fail to see how Dan and Jelani sneaked in in the first place.

Also interesting is that the top four all come from different Ivy League schools. Sean: Cornell, Noah: Yale, Dan: Harvard, Felice: Princeton. Nate Bown seems to have come out of nowhere and none of us knows anything about him, while I'm not sure if Jack went to college or not (and I couldn't figure that out looking at every page on his site.)

Yes, I'm that obsessive, that I look up each and every competitor...

fairyofwind · Post by **fairyofwind** » 09 Jan 2010 18:12

Don't forget that Jelani is from MIT... and Eric Cheung on typera is from Stanford... as for the multilingual contest, look up Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator...

arenasnow · Post by **arenasnow** » 09 Jan 2010 18:16

fairyofwind wrote:Don't forget that Jelani is from MIT... and Eric Cheung on typera is from Stanford... as for the multilingual contest, look up Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator...

I'm well familiar with them. Typing Speed on Facebook is where I started, and they were the only two people who ever really beat me there at times. Jordan sometimes came close.

I was just talking about the six people in today's semifinals. And I'm well aware Cornell is one of the worst Ivies, and inferior to MIT and Stanford.

arenasnow · Post by **arenasnow** » 09 Jan 2010 18:21

That reminds me. I can't believe that I forgot Eric when I was inviting people all over the place. Oh well, I'll tell him next year...

fairyofwind · Post by **fairyofwind** » 09 Jan 2010 18:23

Yeah, indeed. It's a shame because you, Eric, and Jelani are all faster than me by a good # of cpm.

I still think your 895 on typera English sentences is one of the most amazing typing achievements I have ever seen.

arenasnow · Post by **arenasnow** » 09 Jan 2010 18:26

That 895 deserves an asterisk. It was like Noah's 213 on TypeRacer. The game freezed for four seconds at the start of it, so I actually got 64 seconds to type. The average was actually 835 or something...it was still faster than Jelani, but not that earth-shattering.

Motsak · Post by **Motsak** » 09 Jan 2010 18:55

Pfouah :/

Eric Cheung || Sean Wrona || Jelani Nelson || Daniel Chen
(and Noah ;p with an inferior level?)

Wow, monsters of typing.
American guys could hugely impress other Intersteno competitors (Czechs, Turkishs, etc.).
You are numerous able to get 650+ cpm on ten minutes...

Why there are no French guys like you? :[

For Intersteno, Sean, the contest will be in April/May. Tell Eric (Cheung) to do it. I will e-mail Georgette Sante with a list of excellent typists (approximately 10 typists)... who maybe will participate free, because they will be sponsorized, like last years. It's an international contest.. so if you want to be ranked internationally, it's the occasion! Dan Chen can talk to you about the contest (two distinct contests: multilingual -whose Chen is the master- and mother language).

When will you complete the semi-final?
There is a test of 10 minutes typing? Ok, like on Intersteno.

And, last question, for Sean: have you ever tried 10 minutes of Intersteno? How did you get?

Last thing: you're not obliged to type all the languages.. for Intersteno contest. Jelani had only typed his mother language.

Minilek · Post by **Minilek** » 09 Jan 2010 20:03

arenasnow wrote:That reminds me. I can't believe that I forgot Eric when I was inviting people all over the place. Oh well, I'll tell him next year...

I told Eric. I guess he just didn't want to do it.