Only one mention of a doctor, once in the whole page, and he says to give it a rest and she'll be ok. Then she says she spends 50% of the time using her hands normally? No mention of further deterioration, or further attempts to figure out the problem? It seems like it's more important to her to say "look I am clever" than actually solve the problem here.
I have a hard time believing someone would just stop using their hands if they had the ability to do otherwise.
I do agree it would have been nice to know more of the details of what went wrong, though, and why she seemed to experience severe RSI when some other people don't. (Like me - I probably don't use the mouse/trackpad as much as a designer, but I've been clacking away at the keyboard for 25+ years with no significant issues so far.)
I would have loved to hear a bit more about the RSI and the issues that it caused her. The writing left it very unclear to me what the extent of her injury was, and made it seem like her hands were virtually useless.
The article is about the amazing things she's doing, how she's doing them, and, more broadly, all the fun she's having with design. It will benefit many people. She's under no obligation to report the details of her medical investigations.
I'll admit that bothered me too. RSI is real and it is crippling, although it is also almost completely curable with surgery and some physical therapy [1]. However, I found her story of working on tasks that typically need arms and hands, without them, pretty awesome. So on balance the story worked for me.
The author wrote: "... ended up working roughly 10-15 hours per day. I felt very proud of myself for working so hard and I remember joking about my arms the day I started noticing a slight tingling sensation in my fingers. if I had only known..."
She called it RSI and described classic carpal tunnel. Without the additional detail provided by the author, carpal tunnel is consistent with here description.
I think you've missed the point entirely.
This article sheds light on alternative ways of human input for computing devices. It also presents an innovative, if not slightly impractical solution to a problem the author faced. This could potentially open up new ways of interacting with computing devices.
Stopped reading after I knew this wasn't going to be addressed. I get that the author might not want to divulge specific medical information but the whole point of this idea is dependent on not being able to use your hands. I think it is a very important part of the story if you want me to listen to the rest.
I wonder if her neck started getting tired from all that movement.
It seems that it's mostly people who grip their mouse really tightly/type with tense fingers that experience the most problems - I remember when I first started typing, my fingers tired too easily because the keys were heavy, and I was exerting a lot of force trying to get the fingers to exactly where I wanted them to go. Later, when I got a "looser" keyboard and discovered that I didn't really need to hit the keys exactly in the middle but whatever could actuate them worked, my speed more than doubled and I could type for hours without feeling tired at all. The relaxation really helps. Same with mousing - if you find that you have to grip your mouse tightly to make precise movements, turn down the DPI and try lubricating it so it requires as little effort as possible to move. Personally, I don't really like using trackpads because of that friction.
People's mouse grip varies immensely. But the one thing that should be easily controlled, in any reasonable case, is the surface.
A mouse mat will often reduce friction greatly, and you can augment your mouse with custom teflon "feet". Gamer peripherals, basically.
I see a lot of people who just run their mice across their desk, which no doubt works, but is sub-optimal in that it's not a particularly durable surface in most cases. This will lead to scratches, and thus increased friction on top of the noise and now ruined surface.
Another thing I've seen is a really nasty build-up of gunk (for lack of a better term) underneath the mouse. All of this adds up to increased friction and a "sticky" feel at times, which results in erratic movement and possibly a need for tighter grip.
Then, of course, there's always the option to switch the mice out. A wired option will obviously forgo the batteries, lowering the weight of the unit, at a negligible convenience price.
Great example of adaptability and resilience. I understand a little bit about her pain as I had to move to my left hand after experience pains in my right. Though I did nothing as extreme as the OP.
I remember CMU (or a site that was linked from a links page in CMU vision site) had a project called Nouse where you can operate the computer with a video camera using your nose. The nose doesn't touch anything.
The elasticity of the brain is incredibly impressive. Very neat solution. My parents are surgeons, and I know they worry at least a little bit about the safety of their hands. While my hands are definitely very important to my being able to work I know I don't worry as much as they do. That's funny, because for the most part I think about Carpal Tunnel Syndrome as a career-ending condition.
I recently suffered some amount of tendonitis in my wrist and it prompted me to make quite a few changes:
* Better posture
* Better seat adjustment
* A nicer (mechanical) keyboard
* Practising touch typing more (i.e. correcting myself any time I use the wrong finger)
* Resting my wrists evenly
I made all these changes simultaneously so I don't know what changed it or if it was a one-time thing and resting fixed it. An interesting thing is that I found that I overuse my right hand.
`vim` binds simple movements to hjkl and that's fine because they're on the home row, but it also means that a lot of the time I'm holding down one key while reading code. I've switched to moving around code better now, using larger jumps, and when scrolling a lot I use my left hand. I've also rebound some other things so that they're easier with home row keys. Anyway, learning to be faster at all this took very little time. I am very impressed with how fast we learn new acts if they keep repeating them.
I found that a standing desk forced me into better ergonomics. While I don't think that most of the purported health benefits are well substantiated, just simply having to stand straight meant better ergonomics for me. Things like keyboard height for wrist alignment and monitor height for eye alignment become static variables. Slouching, crossing legs, adjusting seat height, adjusting seat recline resistance, etc all become non-issues.
To me the most important factor is how relaxed your muscles are when working. That is, even while frantically typing on my keyboard my fingers spend most of their time resting. It's very easy to keep your muscle contracted the entire time and that's where the danger is.
This is something I learned from my music teachers. I would get nervous while playing and my muscles would get all stiff leading to missed notes and sounding dry and whatnot. Most importantly, I was thinking about how to position my muscles to get the sound I wanted rather than thinking about the sound I wanted and letting the muscles do their thing. They made me realize your muscles needs to breathe and to use the window between impulses to relax them.
I could have the best posture, best keyboard layout and everything else but if my muscles stay contracted the entire time I'm working I'll definitely feel it at the end of the day. Be it on the guitar or computer.
RSI can be caused by many things, and it can originate far from the pain. There doesn't seem to be one magical fix. I've been keeping Emacs org notes on RSI and I publish them here: http://thespanishsite.com/public_html/org/ergo/rsi.html
I haven't read through all of your notes, but did click on a few links. I've studied a bit of nutritional medicine along the way. Have you looked at any research or anecdotes on anti-inflammatory supplements for RSI?
Any irritated condition is characterised by inflammation. The most common medicines prescribed for RSI are anti-inflammatories. So it stands to reason that RSI is tissue-damage, caused by repetitive strain, and anywhere tissue damage is occurring immune mediated inflammation takes place.
Tenosynovitis is inflammation of the fluid-filled sheath that surrounds a tendon.[1]
So, the treatment we were taught was to address the physical injury by removing, retraining, or engineering the problem away, then give nutritional supplements that support tissue repair and help down-modulate the inflammatory response: Omega 3 EPA / DHA (fish oils), Quercetin, Rutin, Vitamin C, Bromelain, B12 & Folate, Magnesium (as citrate or diglycinate, or both), plus Turmeric and Ginger. And also give supplements that target musculoskeletal / connective tissues: Silica, proline, lysine, cysteine, glutamine, Manganese, B5, B6, Iron (as iron amino acid chelate), copper, zinc (as amino acid chelate). Where the condition has progressed to considerable over-all wear and tear of a join the also throw in Glucosamine and Chondroitin.
The theory goes: remove the mechanical cause of the condition (repetitive strain causing tissue damage) and the condition will resolve itself. Put in the nutrients the body needs to repair the damage and the condition will improve faster. Sometimes the damage is so far progressed it will respond much better if the nutrients are taken too.
Once the condition is under control we then direct the patient to look in to seeking advice to strengthen the affected joint.
I don't know about the state of nutritional medicine outside of Australia, but here we have some really good formulations available off the shelf and others as practitioner only formulas - so you need a consult.
I'll pre-empt the "supplements don't work" argument and say: yes, taking iron oxide or magnesium oxide doesn't do anything. There are formulations that are poorly absorb and poorly utilised by the body. Have a look in to, for example, magnesium diglycinate and magnesium citrate vs. magnesium oxide. Look in to mixed ascorbates with citrus bioflavanoids (Quercetin and Rutin) vs. pure Ascorbic Acid. High does Turmeric and Ginger work so well as anti-inflammatories and blood thinners they are contra-indicated if a person is taking blood thinners / blood pressure medication, eg Warfarin.
Anyway, getting carried away. Thought you might be interested.
This does not constitute medical advice. Please consult your physician / nutritionist / pharmacist before taking any nutritional or herbal supplements.
If you have any good blogs that discuss this, I'll add it to my notes. I'm always skeptical of supplements but I want to aggregate all thoughts on RSI.
I haven't experienced the RSI pains I used to get in my hands since switching back to a mechanical keyboard a few years ago... I use buckling spring model m style boards at home and work, and I like it a lot... some don't like the noise though.
That said, keyboard and monitor height properly adjusted probably help for many too... I don't bottom out with a mechanical keyboard.
I used to have lots of issues in the neck and shoulders. I started going to a gym and focused mainly on training neck, back and arms carefully. It has completely removed all my symptoms in the last 6 years.
I also started using a wacom tablet as a mouse replacement. The absolute positioning of the pen removes all these small-dragging-motions.
I don't use a tablet regularly as a mouse replacement, but from my experience of using it for image manipulation:
1) Small sizes scale up surprisingly well, but one model bigger might be preferable.
2) One should test the feel of the pad -> there are different surface types (some are very glas-like, others offer more resistance), and different styles of pens, which all feel different.
3) I feel like many of the pens are quite uncomfortable to hold. If I had to use them for longer I'd probably look into finding 3rd party alternatives or a small pen I can embed into a custom grip. Different styles to exchange regularly (every 30 min or so) would also be nice.
In my experience, all of these are great except the last one. I used to rest my wrists and now I can't because my RSI progressed. I wish someone had told me 10 years ago to keep my wrists straight when I type.
I use an angled keyboard and a vertical mouse to reduce twisting.
This is awesome. Fun to see someone trying something new and pushing the boundaries of how computer interaction is done, considering how stressful on the body it can be to use a mouse.
Multiple columns would be fine if the page scrolled horizontally, or if all the content fit nicely on one screen and didn't need to be scrolled vertically, but having columns with vertical scrolling just breaks how I typically read websites.
Typically when reading something on the web I scroll as I go which means that when I get to the end of column one it's in about the middle of the screen. Now I need to scroll back in the opposite direction because the top of column 2 is now off the screen and then read back down again.
Sincerely... all I can think about is not that she found a good solution to her problem, but the fact that she "achieved the same level of accuracy" (and I suppose speed).
This is not something about her capabilities, but about the limitation of current input devices regarding our hands.
This is the proof that using a touch pad with your nose is not worse that using it with your hand. There is something wrong in this: try using any real-world interface with your hand, how the shapes, the stiffness, the flexibility of any handle, pen, button, spring you interact with give you some kind of information and let you operate with a superior kind of consciousness.
Or you can look at it from an optimistic-almost-narcissistic point of view and say that the interfaces that we have are so well-deaigned either by accident or on purpose that the same level of accuracy can be achieved with whatever appendage.
Personally, I think we stumbled onto a design that works well after years of trials. When you look at children using tablets, for example, you quickly realize that they don't have the same dexterity as adults, yet they are able to use the device with almost the same capability as adults. With tablets in particular, I don't think this was an accident...
We could make input devices/interaction paradigms that are highly specific to one domain usable by only certain people because of learning curves or physical limitations, or input devices that can be used by anyone with sacrifice in speed and productivity.
That's a false dichotomy, saying that it's one or the other.
We could have much higher precision, and add highly sensitive pressure sensitivity. For most tasks touch sensitive surfaces would be identical and equally easy to get into, except that they would allow for much higher ceilings of mastery and skill than they do now.
>This is not something about her capabilities, but about the limitation of current input devices regarding our hands.
I think it's more a story about our adaptability in general.
Many years ago, I worked with a developer who happened to be blind. While coding, he used an audio screen reader. If you've ever heard one, you know that they can be set to read incredibly fast, such that it sounds like absolute gibberish to the untrained ear.
So, whereas I couldn't even discern the words/characters being read, it made absolute sense to him. Much as I was amazed by it, I also know that he didn't start there. Years of practice, finding shortcuts, etc. made it as much second nature to him as reading code on the monitor was for me.
Of course, it also didn't hurt that he was brilliant.
A few years ago I took a tech support call from a guy who was visually impaired and had voice over turned on. It read incredibly fast, he had no problems following instructions, and was familiar enough with what we were doing to make the call easy for both of us.
I also used to work as a personal assistant for a guy in a wheelchair who used Dragon Speakeasy, I think that was back in 2005 - '06ish, and was surprised how well he was able to use his PC. He also had a book turning machine that reliably turned one page at a time.
This also reminds me of people who ride bikes using echo location.[1]
I wonder if it's possible to generate a sound stream from video, and what sort of resolution and colour depth could be encoded in to the sound.
I also have hand problems. I use speech recognition to type everything, including code, and a game controller to move around the mouse. The controller I'm currently using, a PS4 controller, has a trackpad in the middle, so I was able to mash that against my face and give her technique a shot.
It works better than you'd think. The PS4 trackpad isn't exactly brilliant, but I can move around the mouse and click on what I want to with some accuracy. Of course, the trackpad on the controller is very small and not very accurate, so it's not really practical for artwork or anything. But, with a better, larger trackpad, I can imagine this technique actually working. I might give it a shot at some point.
I am a bit worried about the inevitable neck and nose pain, though. I wish she had gone into a little more detail about how she avoids that. Maybe she just has a neck of steel?
For the curious, these are some other resources I've found about people working around RSI. Most of these are about using Dragon NaturallySpeaking to code by voice, since that's what I'm most interested in, but I think it's still interesting.
There really needs to be a list somewhere for open-source workarounds to disabilities. To the best of my knowledge, there really isn't one.
It seems a post about this kind of thing pops up about every other month or so. I'm thinking of showing off my system here when I polish it up a bit. It's not nearly as complicated as some of these other ones, but I'm beginning to get pretty close to normal typing speed coding by voice.
I'm not completely sure it's his code. In his comments, he says it is for "those who are interested in trying something like this," and the readmes of most of the repos thank Tavis Rudd for inspiration, which would be a little strange if he wrote them. It might be based on his system, though, since he said he had privately sent some people his code. I haven't looked into it too much, though.
You can find my setup on GitHub fairly easily right now (my screenname's the same), but at the moment a good portion of the code is embarrassingly terrible. Making voice commands to code while using those voice commands to code is predictably awkward. Besides, I want to write some documentation on how to get it working and stuff.
This is really amazing and inspiring to see. Every now and then, I get scared when thinking about what would happen if my eyes or my hands started to lose functionality.
I sometimes feel pain in my pinky fingers when typing, forcing me to adapt to using only my other fingers.
If it's your right pinky, remap your backspace key immediately. Caps lock is my choice, and I make backspace into a proper (forward) delete key. This has eliminated all typing pain for me.
Speaking as someone who has done quite a few of these Carpal tunnel surgeries, the story do not fit very well with it. The symptoms are worse at night and tremors are unusual. Common complaints are pain, pin and needle sensation, weakness
Carpal tunnel symptoms present in many different ways. For instance, I have no pain at night, only "buzzing" and numbness in my fingers with decreased grip strength.
I stopped using mice, knobs (IBM/Lenovo) and touchpads (built-in or external) probably twenty years ago. A few months into an intense design project I started to feel burning pain on my wrists. I was working 18 hour days, 7 days a week. Yes, if I was awake I was in front of the computer.
This was a hardware and software project and I was doing it all. This meant lots of precise motion at times. Running Solidworks or Altium Designer often meant very accurate tiny movement while pressing down on a button. Horrible stuff for your wrist.
I had been exposed to just how bad this could get. I was friends with several people who did visual effects for motion pictures. Same kind of work. They ran 3D workstations for a dozen or more hours per day, every day. One fellow had to have surgery on both wrists due to the damage he caused. His was always in pain after that.
I decided I had to deal with the situation. I didn't want to end-up like that.
First decision was that mice and touch pads where horrible input devices. I tested everything and concluded that low friction thumb-operated trackballs were the best.
Beyond that, the relative angle of the hand to the forearm seemed to have a HUGE effect on causing inflammation, pain and injury. The flatter and more relaxed,the better. In fact, the most relaxed position had my hands drooping over the keyboard and trackball with virtually no tension on the upper tendons. This meant my standard desk had to go.
What I needed was a desk with a cavity into which my hands would droop and meet the keyboard or trackball. My forearms had to be fully supported in order to remove pressure from shoulders and posture.
I welded together a few iterations of the idea and ended-up with a desk that was just fantastic. I could work on this thing for 16 to 18 hours a day and have no wrist burn whatsoever. Of course, I also implemented regimented breaks and exercises, but the desk, as well as switching to a trackball, made the most difference.
I can't help but think this girl did herself huge damage by using the touch-pad for long hours. I particularly dislike touch-pads on laptops (of any make and model) the are in the wrong place and add tension to your tendons precisely where you don't want it.
As for Michelle, wow, what an amazing person she must be.
That's what a garage hardware startup looks like! A bit of a mess but some of my most productive time was spent in that room designing hardware, writing FPGA, embedded and workstation code. Oh, yes, doing our website too. Crazy times.
It was a year and a half of 14 to 18 hour days, 7 days a week from inception to launch. Behind the camera there's the rest of the garage (two cars wide) full of manufacturing equipment. No cars have ever entered my garages in my life. No room for them.
Yes. The key in many ways is the piece of wood used to suppport your forearm at the correct height. As I said before, you want your hands to droop onto the keybaord and trackball. Also, note that the trackball is positioned to be able to hit the "Enter" key on the numeric keypad with minimal motion.
The arm support is sanded down with 800 grit sandpaper and then treated with Tung oil. The edges are generously rounded. This makes it very smooth and comfortable.
I should also note that the underlying structure is welded steel. I tried drop-down trays on conventional desks. They are flimsy and have enough give to make them uncomfortable. The cavity on my desk is strong enough to stand on so it feels very solid during normal use.
Just reading the responses here - am I the only person who has zero problem using a trackpad and keyboard with my hands for >=8 hours a day? Maybe it's that I'm not a designer and so the precision of my motions isn't such that I'd experience problems like this. I think the only problem I've ever had was back when I tried using a Microsoft Natural keyboard, and my hands were sore after an hour.
Also, good for her, finding a solution that works well for her, strange though it seems at first blush. I like her work, too.
I use my hands and wrists a whole lot, and regularly type upward of 140 WPM, but I've never experienced any RSI. I imagine genetics plays a fairly big role.
Same, using computers every waking moment, no wrist issue. Personally I attribute it to the way I type. I never learned to type 'properly', instead I use two fingers and my hands move all over the place. I still type very fast. No issue, tho.
No problem here either, and I've been at a computer at least an hour - usually more - a day since I was 8 (I'm now 37).
I did have some keyboards that cause more "tired hands" than others in the past. I also prefer trackpads to mice. Lately I'm using Apple keyboard/trackpads.
Most people tend to get RSI when they first he very active in computer work,and after a year or so they find a healthy posture and their hands strengthen and it isn't an issue.
This article seems like a gimmick by someone who wants to be special instead of using perfectly effective solutions. Or it is a joke.
I think it's pretty presumptuous to claim that this person is suffering from RSI and should just "find a healthy posture".
There are very many causes for wrist pain, ranging from carpal tunnel syndrome to osteoarthritis. A bad posture might contribute to wrist pain, but even the best posture won't cure someone suffering from gout.
The author hasn't shared the reason for her wrist pain, most likely because she doesn't know the reason herself. She knows that her wrists hurt when she uses them too much.
Please don't belittle other people's ways of coping with imperfections.
The way I understood the story was that she didn't know what the problem with her hands was, but she called it RSI for lack of a better word. I didn't read that line as stating she was actually diagnosed with RSI.
But even if she had meant it that way, it's still presumptuous to claim a better posture would cure her.
She mentions being excited about the Leap Motion. That's not very accurate so she probably had to give up. There is better hand tracking software under development. This company's Kickstarter project got canceled when Oculus bought them: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nimblevr/nimble-sense-b...
And Control VR uses gloves but might prove to be very accurate: http://controlvr.com
The VR headsets are driving the development of this technology.
Great story, and great reminder not to let minor pains progress to the point where they cripple you. I say this as someone whose right thumb is in a brace due to deQuervain's tendosynovitis, brought on by banging too hard on spacebars.
147 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 211 ms ] threadI do agree it would have been nice to know more of the details of what went wrong, though, and why she seemed to experience severe RSI when some other people don't. (Like me - I probably don't use the mouse/trackpad as much as a designer, but I've been clacking away at the keyboard for 25+ years with no significant issues so far.)
[1] http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/carpal-tunnel-... -- If you feel tingling in your fingers when you type STOP TYPING seriously.
She called it RSI and described classic carpal tunnel. Without the additional detail provided by the author, carpal tunnel is consistent with here description.
http://www.amazon.com/Its-Carpal-Tunnel-Syndrome-Professiona...
It seems that it's mostly people who grip their mouse really tightly/type with tense fingers that experience the most problems - I remember when I first started typing, my fingers tired too easily because the keys were heavy, and I was exerting a lot of force trying to get the fingers to exactly where I wanted them to go. Later, when I got a "looser" keyboard and discovered that I didn't really need to hit the keys exactly in the middle but whatever could actuate them worked, my speed more than doubled and I could type for hours without feeling tired at all. The relaxation really helps. Same with mousing - if you find that you have to grip your mouse tightly to make precise movements, turn down the DPI and try lubricating it so it requires as little effort as possible to move. Personally, I don't really like using trackpads because of that friction.
A mouse mat will often reduce friction greatly, and you can augment your mouse with custom teflon "feet". Gamer peripherals, basically.
I see a lot of people who just run their mice across their desk, which no doubt works, but is sub-optimal in that it's not a particularly durable surface in most cases. This will lead to scratches, and thus increased friction on top of the noise and now ruined surface.
Another thing I've seen is a really nasty build-up of gunk (for lack of a better term) underneath the mouse. All of this adds up to increased friction and a "sticky" feel at times, which results in erratic movement and possibly a need for tighter grip.
Then, of course, there's always the option to switch the mice out. A wired option will obviously forgo the batteries, lowering the weight of the unit, at a negligible convenience price.
Thanks for the inspiration Michelle
Related:
http://www.mfpa.uk/
I recently suffered some amount of tendonitis in my wrist and it prompted me to make quite a few changes:
* Better posture
* Better seat adjustment
* A nicer (mechanical) keyboard
* Practising touch typing more (i.e. correcting myself any time I use the wrong finger)
* Resting my wrists evenly
I made all these changes simultaneously so I don't know what changed it or if it was a one-time thing and resting fixed it. An interesting thing is that I found that I overuse my right hand.
`vim` binds simple movements to hjkl and that's fine because they're on the home row, but it also means that a lot of the time I'm holding down one key while reading code. I've switched to moving around code better now, using larger jumps, and when scrolling a lot I use my left hand. I've also rebound some other things so that they're easier with home row keys. Anyway, learning to be faster at all this took very little time. I am very impressed with how fast we learn new acts if they keep repeating them.
This is something I learned from my music teachers. I would get nervous while playing and my muscles would get all stiff leading to missed notes and sounding dry and whatnot. Most importantly, I was thinking about how to position my muscles to get the sound I wanted rather than thinking about the sound I wanted and letting the muscles do their thing. They made me realize your muscles needs to breathe and to use the window between impulses to relax them.
I could have the best posture, best keyboard layout and everything else but if my muscles stay contracted the entire time I'm working I'll definitely feel it at the end of the day. Be it on the guitar or computer.
Any irritated condition is characterised by inflammation. The most common medicines prescribed for RSI are anti-inflammatories. So it stands to reason that RSI is tissue-damage, caused by repetitive strain, and anywhere tissue damage is occurring immune mediated inflammation takes place.
Tenosynovitis is inflammation of the fluid-filled sheath that surrounds a tendon.[1]
So, the treatment we were taught was to address the physical injury by removing, retraining, or engineering the problem away, then give nutritional supplements that support tissue repair and help down-modulate the inflammatory response: Omega 3 EPA / DHA (fish oils), Quercetin, Rutin, Vitamin C, Bromelain, B12 & Folate, Magnesium (as citrate or diglycinate, or both), plus Turmeric and Ginger. And also give supplements that target musculoskeletal / connective tissues: Silica, proline, lysine, cysteine, glutamine, Manganese, B5, B6, Iron (as iron amino acid chelate), copper, zinc (as amino acid chelate). Where the condition has progressed to considerable over-all wear and tear of a join the also throw in Glucosamine and Chondroitin.
The theory goes: remove the mechanical cause of the condition (repetitive strain causing tissue damage) and the condition will resolve itself. Put in the nutrients the body needs to repair the damage and the condition will improve faster. Sometimes the damage is so far progressed it will respond much better if the nutrients are taken too.
Once the condition is under control we then direct the patient to look in to seeking advice to strengthen the affected joint.
I don't know about the state of nutritional medicine outside of Australia, but here we have some really good formulations available off the shelf and others as practitioner only formulas - so you need a consult.
I'll pre-empt the "supplements don't work" argument and say: yes, taking iron oxide or magnesium oxide doesn't do anything. There are formulations that are poorly absorb and poorly utilised by the body. Have a look in to, for example, magnesium diglycinate and magnesium citrate vs. magnesium oxide. Look in to mixed ascorbates with citrus bioflavanoids (Quercetin and Rutin) vs. pure Ascorbic Acid. High does Turmeric and Ginger work so well as anti-inflammatories and blood thinners they are contra-indicated if a person is taking blood thinners / blood pressure medication, eg Warfarin.
Anyway, getting carried away. Thought you might be interested.
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenosynovitis
This does not constitute medical advice. Please consult your physician / nutritionist / pharmacist before taking any nutritional or herbal supplements.
Edit: formatting
That said, keyboard and monitor height properly adjusted probably help for many too... I don't bottom out with a mechanical keyboard.
For just paging through code, I've also mapped the space bar to be page down in command mode, which I find quite convenient.
I also started using a wacom tablet as a mouse replacement. The absolute positioning of the pen removes all these small-dragging-motions.
https://store.wacom.com/us/en/product/CTL480/
Which tablet is most effective as a mouse replacement?
1) Small sizes scale up surprisingly well, but one model bigger might be preferable.
2) One should test the feel of the pad -> there are different surface types (some are very glas-like, others offer more resistance), and different styles of pens, which all feel different.
3) I feel like many of the pens are quite uncomfortable to hold. If I had to use them for longer I'd probably look into finding 3rd party alternatives or a small pen I can embed into a custom grip. Different styles to exchange regularly (every 30 min or so) would also be nice.
I use an angled keyboard and a vertical mouse to reduce twisting.
I've seen this starting to popup in a few websites recently and it always annoys me.
Typically when reading something on the web I scroll as I go which means that when I get to the end of column one it's in about the middle of the screen. Now I need to scroll back in the opposite direction because the top of column 2 is now off the screen and then read back down again.
It really breaks the flow of reading.
This is not something about her capabilities, but about the limitation of current input devices regarding our hands.
This is the proof that using a touch pad with your nose is not worse that using it with your hand. There is something wrong in this: try using any real-world interface with your hand, how the shapes, the stiffness, the flexibility of any handle, pen, button, spring you interact with give you some kind of information and let you operate with a superior kind of consciousness.
Personally, I think we stumbled onto a design that works well after years of trials. When you look at children using tablets, for example, you quickly realize that they don't have the same dexterity as adults, yet they are able to use the device with almost the same capability as adults. With tablets in particular, I don't think this was an accident...
We could make input devices/interaction paradigms that are highly specific to one domain usable by only certain people because of learning curves or physical limitations, or input devices that can be used by anyone with sacrifice in speed and productivity.
We could have much higher precision, and add highly sensitive pressure sensitivity. For most tasks touch sensitive surfaces would be identical and equally easy to get into, except that they would allow for much higher ceilings of mastery and skill than they do now.
I think it's more a story about our adaptability in general.
Many years ago, I worked with a developer who happened to be blind. While coding, he used an audio screen reader. If you've ever heard one, you know that they can be set to read incredibly fast, such that it sounds like absolute gibberish to the untrained ear.
So, whereas I couldn't even discern the words/characters being read, it made absolute sense to him. Much as I was amazed by it, I also know that he didn't start there. Years of practice, finding shortcuts, etc. made it as much second nature to him as reading code on the monitor was for me.
Of course, it also didn't hurt that he was brilliant.
I also used to work as a personal assistant for a guy in a wheelchair who used Dragon Speakeasy, I think that was back in 2005 - '06ish, and was surprised how well he was able to use his PC. He also had a book turning machine that reliably turned one page at a time.
This also reminds me of people who ride bikes using echo location.[1]
I wonder if it's possible to generate a sound stream from video, and what sort of resolution and colour depth could be encoded in to the sound.
This TED talk by Daniel Kish is good too.[2]
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_E3zxx2l9g 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRA-asTuP_Y
There was some work done on this. I don't remember how well it worked. I think this is it: http://www.seeingwithsound.com/sonar.htm
[0]: http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesi...
It works better than you'd think. The PS4 trackpad isn't exactly brilliant, but I can move around the mouse and click on what I want to with some accuracy. Of course, the trackpad on the controller is very small and not very accurate, so it's not really practical for artwork or anything. But, with a better, larger trackpad, I can imagine this technique actually working. I might give it a shot at some point.
I am a bit worried about the inevitable neck and nose pain, though. I wish she had gone into a little more detail about how she avoids that. Maybe she just has a neck of steel?
For the curious, these are some other resources I've found about people working around RSI. Most of these are about using Dragon NaturallySpeaking to code by voice, since that's what I'm most interested in, but I think it's still interesting.
There really needs to be a list somewhere for open-source workarounds to disabilities. To the best of my knowledge, there really isn't one.
Natlink + Dragon NaturallySpeaking:
(NatLink, which lets you make custom speech commands for Dragon in Python, is currently being developed at http://qh.antenna.nl/unimacro/index.html, but that site's pretty incomprehensible. The original author's site is at http://www.synapseadaptive.com/joel/welcomeapage.htm. It's pretty out of date, but explains the fundamentals of the system better, I think.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SkdfdXWYaI (don't bother looking around, the source code of this was never released)
https://github.com/simianhacker/code-by-voice
https://github.com/tgrosinger/aenea-grammars
Libraries for using Dragon NaturallySpeaking on Linux with VMs:
https://github.com/dictation-toolbox/aenea
https://github.com/russell/damselfly
It seems a post about this kind of thing pops up about every other month or so. I'm thinking of showing off my system here when I polish it up a bit. It's not nearly as complicated as some of these other ones, but I'm beginning to get pretty close to normal typing speed coding by voice.
But the video like has a comment(1 week old) from Tavis Rudd linking github repository of his code : https://github.com/dictation-toolbox.
And about your setup, please do post it! :)
You can find my setup on GitHub fairly easily right now (my screenname's the same), but at the moment a good portion of the code is embarrassingly terrible. Making voice commands to code while using those voice commands to code is predictably awkward. Besides, I want to write some documentation on how to get it working and stuff.
I sometimes feel pain in my pinky fingers when typing, forcing me to adapt to using only my other fingers.
This was a hardware and software project and I was doing it all. This meant lots of precise motion at times. Running Solidworks or Altium Designer often meant very accurate tiny movement while pressing down on a button. Horrible stuff for your wrist.
I had been exposed to just how bad this could get. I was friends with several people who did visual effects for motion pictures. Same kind of work. They ran 3D workstations for a dozen or more hours per day, every day. One fellow had to have surgery on both wrists due to the damage he caused. His was always in pain after that.
I decided I had to deal with the situation. I didn't want to end-up like that.
First decision was that mice and touch pads where horrible input devices. I tested everything and concluded that low friction thumb-operated trackballs were the best.
Beyond that, the relative angle of the hand to the forearm seemed to have a HUGE effect on causing inflammation, pain and injury. The flatter and more relaxed,the better. In fact, the most relaxed position had my hands drooping over the keyboard and trackball with virtually no tension on the upper tendons. This meant my standard desk had to go.
What I needed was a desk with a cavity into which my hands would droop and meet the keyboard or trackball. My forearms had to be fully supported in order to remove pressure from shoulders and posture.
I welded together a few iterations of the idea and ended-up with a desk that was just fantastic. I could work on this thing for 16 to 18 hours a day and have no wrist burn whatsoever. Of course, I also implemented regimented breaks and exercises, but the desk, as well as switching to a trackball, made the most difference.
I can't help but think this girl did herself huge damage by using the touch-pad for long hours. I particularly dislike touch-pads on laptops (of any make and model) the are in the wrong place and add tension to your tendons precisely where you don't want it.
As for Michelle, wow, what an amazing person she must be.
http://i.imgur.com/tFVcegp.jpg
That's what a garage hardware startup looks like! A bit of a mess but some of my most productive time was spent in that room designing hardware, writing FPGA, embedded and workstation code. Oh, yes, doing our website too. Crazy times.
It was a year and a half of 14 to 18 hour days, 7 days a week from inception to launch. Behind the camera there's the rest of the garage (two cars wide) full of manufacturing equipment. No cars have ever entered my garages in my life. No room for them.
The arm support is sanded down with 800 grit sandpaper and then treated with Tung oil. The edges are generously rounded. This makes it very smooth and comfortable.
I should also note that the underlying structure is welded steel. I tried drop-down trays on conventional desks. They are flimsy and have enough give to make them uncomfortable. The cavity on my desk is strong enough to stand on so it feels very solid during normal use.
Just kidding. Glad to see such resourcefulness.
Also, good for her, finding a solution that works well for her, strange though it seems at first blush. I like her work, too.
Of course not, it's just selection bias. People without similar problems don't feel the need to provide contrasting (and unavoidably boring) stories.
I did have some keyboards that cause more "tired hands" than others in the past. I also prefer trackpads to mice. Lately I'm using Apple keyboard/trackpads.
This article seems like a gimmick by someone who wants to be special instead of using perfectly effective solutions. Or it is a joke.
There are very many causes for wrist pain, ranging from carpal tunnel syndrome to osteoarthritis. A bad posture might contribute to wrist pain, but even the best posture won't cure someone suffering from gout.
The author hasn't shared the reason for her wrist pain, most likely because she doesn't know the reason herself. She knows that her wrists hurt when she uses them too much.
Please don't belittle other people's ways of coping with imperfections.
But even if she had meant it that way, it's still presumptuous to claim a better posture would cure her.
To see a proper implementation, which allows someone to work at a high level, is awesome.
And Control VR uses gloves but might prove to be very accurate: http://controlvr.com
The VR headsets are driving the development of this technology.