One of the points our ergonomic consultant made was to prefer keyboard to mouse use. Apparently, our hands and wrists are worse off with gliding motions than with stationary typing, and in most setups the device sits on a flat surface we have to reach for. The combination makes for quick carpal tunnel; laptop trackpads aren’t much better from their cramped positions, and they’re a pain to use.
Then there’s the obvious advantage of efficiency with keyboard shortcuts - they’re faster to input, and they keep your hands in the same position for additional typing. Mousing requires precious seconds of hand-eye coordination to hunt down the right pixels to click, and commits the entire hand to its usage. No wonder high-end mice are evolving to include more and more buttons to access common functions with simple tactile buttons.
We had a ergonomic consultant come into our offices today.
He was there to evaluate our computer setups and let us know how likely we were to cripple ourselves within three years. He looked at people’s postures, measured various body lengths and limb angles, and came up with a list of recommendations for improving - there’s that magic word again - our ergonomic statures.
Interestingly, his most-cited phenomenon, from what I could overhear, was that of the computer user contorting his body to match whatever angle the items on his desk laid. That is, it was easier for most people to shift to uncomfortable positions for the sake of using their monitors, keyboard, or mice than it was to physically adjust those items.
In my case, it was moving my wireless keyboard six inches forward.
It’s been exactly a week since I received my new LCD TV (as of the first revision of this post).
I will say that I’ve learned from my last experience with buying overly large electronic appliances and transporting them up to the living room. Despite the feather-like 70 lbs. of modern flat screens (the rear projection TV was a beefier 140 lbs.), I went with Amazon, who featured free shipping and white-glove delivery for all its big TV’s; that is, they carry the set up to your room, unpack the contents, let you turn it on to verify the picture looks satisfactory, and remove any unwanted boxes. They also ship fast, offer pretty good prices even among online retailers, allow for to up 30 days of price matching (i.e., they refund the difference if the price drops on their own site within 30 days of purchase), and laugh at the prospect of charging sales tax. So yea, I’d recommend Amazon for your TV shopping needs.
Until I install a plugin that automatically does this, I suppose I have to manually write these “Hey look, new pictures!” posts. The events are in question are few snapshots of the Rock Band party we threw two weeks ago - partially in celebration of Jeff’s Taiwanese vacation and Pan-chan’s departure - and candids of her (the TV, not Jeff) replacement, the slim but sharp Sam-san.
Follow the image links to the respective albums. Enjoy!
Oh hm, I haven’t updated in a while. Work’s been keeping me busy, and when I get off - usually late - I’m prone to lying around, watching an episode or two of Scrubs, and general vegging in front of the TV.
‘cept nowadays, Pan is no longer with me (yea, I posthumusly named her).
The story’s not that interesting; I posted once or twice, half-heartedly, on Craigslist just to see whether anybody was interested in the older, slightly scratched up girl and gauging the price buyers were willing to pay. Craigslist, of course, is full of cheapskates, and I did get a good amount of insultingly low offers, but ultimately someone with genuine interest in the set and had the means of transporting it (giant pickup will do the trick) took her away.
So now I’m really just staring at a wall.
It’s been awhile since I impulsively bought an iPod touch and subsequently exchanged it for an iPhone. After carrying it around in my pocket for two months, I feel like I can finally give an honest assessment on its usefulness and value. ()
