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Evolving my ergonomic setup (or, my laptop with extra steps)

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Re: Evolving my ergonomic setup (or, my laptop with extra steps)

#71

Post by swiftcoder »

therealdrag0 wrote: post #64
toasterlovin wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just jumping on this to say: I had chronic lower back and wrist pain for a long time. Had the whole ergonomic setup. Adjustable desk, Kinesis keyboard, vertical mice, etc. What fixed me was starting to squat. Took like 3 weeks of squatting and I haven't had back or wrist pain since (it's been 10+ years). Now I just use the standard (and very nonergonomic) Apple keyboard and mouse.

Any theory to why squatting would help wrists, isn’t the weight born by shoulders?

Even though the weight is carried by the shoulders, you are still stabilising with the wrists, and working on some arm flexibility that isn't much exercised in other contexts

Re: Evolving my ergonomic setup (or, my laptop with extra steps)

#72

Post by aitchnyu »

jbverschoor wrote: post #52
Cumpiler69 wrote: post #3

Same reason for me I only buy laptops who's displays can open nearly 180 degrees (so no MacBooks): it allows for a wider choice of more ergonomic postures looking straight ahead instead of down on the desk.

Any trackpad other than macbook gives me instant pain lol

Did you control for off-center trackpads for laptops which have number pads and small trackpads?

Re: Evolving my ergonomic setup (or, my laptop with extra steps)

#74

Post by pnut »

__mharrison__ wrote: post #60
rhcom2 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still surprised by the price of some of these split keyboards. I guess it's just small batch size but $400 is steep.

That is pretty cheap in the long run.

But when I can buy a "good enough" Dell keyboard for $30, over 10x the cost for splitting the PCB in half sure smells like a rip off.

Re: Evolving my ergonomic setup (or, my laptop with extra steps)

#75

Post by elric »

pnut wrote: post #74
__mharrison__ wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is pretty cheap in the long run.

But when I can buy a "good enough" Dell keyboard for $30, over 10x the cost for splitting the PCB in half sure smells like a rip off.

Does it? The "good enough" Dell keyboard is made by a multi-billion dollar corporation in extremely large quantities. Economies of scale bring the price all the way down, and they skimp on parts (e.g. no real mechanical keys).

The cost isn't in "splitting the PCB in half", it's in designing and connecting two halves. In sourcing (usually) high quality mechanical keys. Due to the small batch sizes there's also a good chance these are installed by hand, which is pretty labour intensive. Labour ain't cheap.

Re: Evolving my ergonomic setup (or, my laptop with extra steps)

#76

Post by elric »

gigaflop wrote: post #34
elric wrote: post #7

I imagine we'll be seeing more personalized setups as time progresses. Custom keyboards have been pretty feasible and affordable for a good while now, with things like QMK and even custom PCB designers. It can still be a bit fiddly, so it's mostly keyboard nutters such as myself who go down that rabbit hole. Custom trackpads/mice/trackballs haven't gained as much traction, they're not quite as simple as keyboards, an…

>> I think I might like an upright ergonomic mouse that's shaped to my hand I use a Logitech MX Vertical mouse for work, and actually love it for pretty much all non-gaming/pixel-perfect tasks. It feels like it naturally fits my hand in terms of shape and size, which adds up over 40h weeks.

I've tried them, but something about the button placement feels off for the shape of my hand. I recommend them to people quite often, and they're usually well received.

Re: Evolving my ergonomic setup (or, my laptop with extra steps)

#77

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

lawn wrote: post #67
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #2

A Ploopy trackball - they're the best although I do kind of want a wireless one as well.

I don't want a trackball for my thumb but for my fingers.

Most of the Ploopy trackballs are designed for fingering(!). The one shown in the article looks to me like the Adept model which I have too and is not a thumb-designed one.

(My Elecom left-handed wireless trackball on the other hand is a thumb-oriented one. They take more getting used to as thumbs aren't quite as dextrous)

Re: Evolving my ergonomic setup (or, my laptop with extra steps)

#78

Post by supersrdjan »

jdreaver wrote: post #32
toasterlovin wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just jumping on this to say: I had chronic lower back and wrist pain for a long time. Had the whole ergonomic setup. Adjustable desk, Kinesis keyboard, vertical mice, etc. What fixed me was starting to squat. Took like 3 weeks of squatting and I haven't had back or wrist pain since (it's been 10+ years). Now I just use the standard (and very nonergonomic) Apple keyboard and mouse.

Huge +1 to this, but I would also add walking _at least_ 8000 steps per day. I still had some minor, nagging pain until I started walking more. Turns out humans are not meant to sit all day! I can highly recommend a book called _Built to Move_ [0]. It tells you to do a lot of things that many people consider common sense, like walk every day, eat vegetables, sleep 8 hours, etc. However, it also explains _why_ to do t…

It appears that the problem is not in sitting too much, but rather in sitting in chairs specifically. Apparently, hunter-gatherer people also spend about 10 hours a day sitting. But they sit on the ground. Or kneel or squat. And they don't have the issues we get from sitting too much:

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1911868117

So... the end-game of ergonomic chairs might be no chair at all.

Re: Evolving my ergonomic setup (or, my laptop with extra steps)

#79

Post by lawn »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #77
lawn wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want a trackball for my thumb but for my fingers.

Most of the Ploopy trackballs are designed for fingering(!). The one shown in the article looks to me like the Adept model which I have too and is not a thumb-designed one. (My Elecom left-handed wireless trackball on the other hand is a thumb-oriented one. They take more getting used to as thumbs aren't quite as dextrous)

Oh, that's neat! For some reason I thought they only had a thumb variant...
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