Wolfire Games Forums

So I just watched the latest alpha video (a159), and something that really jumped out at me, is that when he was entering text on screen, it was amazingly fast. Was that part sped up in editing to make the video flow better, or does he really type that fast? Because if it was: God. Damn.

Well, it's what he does all day long, so I'd bet he's pretty good at it by now.

I assumed that the video had been sped up, but I realize now that the background content is running at normal speed

See the video at 0:55.

Jesus Christ he types faster than I can think! I bet that's why overgrowth is developing so nicely with basically 2 people.

That's like the speed my grandma used to type, she could do like 120 wpm

Samusaaron3 wrote:I assumed that the video had been sped up, but I realize now that the background content is running at normal speed

See the video at 0:55.

Alright, that is crazy.

That's an amazing speed! I'm going to have to ask him about that when I get the chance to talk to him sometime in the future.

He also reads at the speed of light.

See Random Fact #2, at the bottom of http://blog.wolfire.com/2008/09/team-in ... ion-david/

I bet that's how he does bug fixes so fast too. Maybe I should learn to speed read instead of lucid dreaming...

Funny, I noticed the same thing about his typing speed; it really looks like he's typing that fast. I discovered a way to speed type a few weeks ago, which is actually fairly similar to speed reading, and it be interesting to see if anyone else has the same results. Perhaps David's quick reading speed and typing speed are more of a similar skill than a different one. The idea with speed reading and what I'm calling speed typing is that they both require you to think in a way where you're almost ignoring the text (that's my theory, anyway). In speed reading, the thing that slows you down the most is sounding out the words in your head, and the way around it is to train yourself to pace your reading quickly enough so you can't actually sound out words quick enough—your brain can actually think a lot faster than the average reading speed. Speed typing, I discovered, is similar. For me, speed reading is kind of difficult and I have to sort of slip into the mode. So I tried the same thing while typing and was actually able to type way faster. (Granted, I can already type probably 80+ words per minute.) I only mention this because I think it's entertaining, and I'm curious if anyone else will find out they have similar results; there aren't many forum posts about speed typing. Anyway, I wonder if David has any other super powers. I'd be curious to find out from David what his work flow is. I do some programming for work, and I find that even if I know what to type, I spend half my time just thinking about what I type. It'd be interesting see a more programming-specific blogs from David, given his obvious talent.

I read extremely fast, though I don't type very fast at all. I can agree with above post that the trick is to not think the sounds of the words, which will slow you down to a spoken pace. I also have a special talent for remembering text, which is great when studying, I can usually just read through the books once and remember most of it, while many classmates at my university makes notes and rereads everything several times. When I wan't to write something I usually write the entire text in my head first, and then type it out. Wish I could learn to speedtype as well, but for some reason I seem to be stuck at mediocre type speed.

I have also seen that alpha video. I think it was editing to speed up.

Briancox2 wrote:I have also seen that alpha video. I think it was editing to speed up.

So you completely missed the part where everyone pointed out that the background wasn't sped up?

m3nace wrote:

Briancox2 wrote:I have also seen that alpha video. I think it was editing to speed up.

So you completely missed the part where everyone pointed out that the background wasn't sped up?

Yeah, check out the idle animation on the rabbit while he types. Awesomeness.