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Lying down on the job.
May. 23rd, 2011 03:34 pmSo, I've had some people voice their concerns over my eyesight after an apparent increase in atypical typos in the latest chapters of Tales of MU, and especially after I made a comment about needing to move the screen closer.
Never fear, gentle readers. The glasses I'm wearing are pretty current... a bit over a year old. The problem is exactly as I described: the monitor was too far away way. If you're picturing me moving from an upright position to one where I'm practically pressing my nose up against the screen, your first mistake is imagining me upright.
I'll spare you all a long rambling post about how divorced our modern idea of "good posture" and the standard seating position is from anything that's actually healthy or good for a typical human body (at least for the moment) and instead just tell you how wonderful it is has been to figure out that I can type in a recumbent position... leaning back with my back supported and my legs up. To do this at a desktop computer requires a good footstool, a good chair that reclines, a large sized lap desk (the kind ordinarily used for laptop computers) that can accommodate both a keyboard and a mouse, and either a very large display or a table or other surface I can put the monitor on so that my legs extend underneath it (like I now have), because otherwise your screen's going to be five or six feet away from your eyes.
Well, you could do without the recliner and footstool if you had a proper chaise longue, or one of the varieties of floor loungers that offers both knee and back support.
Anyway, the advantages of this posture are non-trivial. It saves wear and tear on my back and knees. It lower the minimum energy level I can have and still write. It lowers the energy drain I experience writing. It allows me to more easily achieve the state of relaxation I need to zone out on the real world and just let the words flow.
(Editorial Aside: There is at least one person reading this who, as they are reading it, is formulating a comment that begins with words to the effect of, "Have you ever considered an ergonomic chair?" Please don't bother. The purpose of an ergonomic office chair is to mitigate the damage done by sitting in an unnatural and unhealthy position for eight hours a day. The purpose of my arrangement is to not sit in that position.
Also, if you're thinking to yourself, "How much energy does it take to sit in front of a computer screen and write, the answer is evidently "Not so much that you would notice, apparently. Isn't it nice to be able-bodied?")
I came to this point incrementally, which is why I didn't have a solution for the fact that the monitor was at my feet and my feet had nearly the whole length of my body between them and my eyes until now. I was kind of resistant of it at first, because it seems so... non-standard. Not done. Like sleeping on the floor. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the physical arrangement of a typical computering station owes more to the way we always sat to write with pens and papers and then with big, heavy, clunky all-in-one typing devices than what posture is most natural or easiest or most comfortable when using a modern keyboard.
Anyway, I'm curious if anyone else ever writes (or otherwise computers) in a recumbent or semi-recumbent position and what their experiences with it are.
Never fear, gentle readers. The glasses I'm wearing are pretty current... a bit over a year old. The problem is exactly as I described: the monitor was too far away way. If you're picturing me moving from an upright position to one where I'm practically pressing my nose up against the screen, your first mistake is imagining me upright.
I'll spare you all a long rambling post about how divorced our modern idea of "good posture" and the standard seating position is from anything that's actually healthy or good for a typical human body (at least for the moment) and instead just tell you how wonderful it is has been to figure out that I can type in a recumbent position... leaning back with my back supported and my legs up. To do this at a desktop computer requires a good footstool, a good chair that reclines, a large sized lap desk (the kind ordinarily used for laptop computers) that can accommodate both a keyboard and a mouse, and either a very large display or a table or other surface I can put the monitor on so that my legs extend underneath it (like I now have), because otherwise your screen's going to be five or six feet away from your eyes.
Well, you could do without the recliner and footstool if you had a proper chaise longue, or one of the varieties of floor loungers that offers both knee and back support.
Anyway, the advantages of this posture are non-trivial. It saves wear and tear on my back and knees. It lower the minimum energy level I can have and still write. It lowers the energy drain I experience writing. It allows me to more easily achieve the state of relaxation I need to zone out on the real world and just let the words flow.
(Editorial Aside: There is at least one person reading this who, as they are reading it, is formulating a comment that begins with words to the effect of, "Have you ever considered an ergonomic chair?" Please don't bother. The purpose of an ergonomic office chair is to mitigate the damage done by sitting in an unnatural and unhealthy position for eight hours a day. The purpose of my arrangement is to not sit in that position.
Also, if you're thinking to yourself, "How much energy does it take to sit in front of a computer screen and write, the answer is evidently "Not so much that you would notice, apparently. Isn't it nice to be able-bodied?")
I came to this point incrementally, which is why I didn't have a solution for the fact that the monitor was at my feet and my feet had nearly the whole length of my body between them and my eyes until now. I was kind of resistant of it at first, because it seems so... non-standard. Not done. Like sleeping on the floor. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the physical arrangement of a typical computering station owes more to the way we always sat to write with pens and papers and then with big, heavy, clunky all-in-one typing devices than what posture is most natural or easiest or most comfortable when using a modern keyboard.
Anyway, I'm curious if anyone else ever writes (or otherwise computers) in a recumbent or semi-recumbent position and what their experiences with it are.