[HN Gopher] Supine Computing (2019)
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Supine Computing (2019)
Author : andymatuschak
Score : 74 points
Date : 2021-08-09 15:49 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (mgsloan.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (mgsloan.com)
| derefr wrote:
| Anyone doing this with a VR headset, to avoid the need for
| mounting a screen in a funny location?
| dougmwne wrote:
| I have and it worked well enough. Last time I pulled my back I
| worked a day in VR and spent a day watching shows and playing
| xbox before I could stand again. I find that immobilization is
| the best way to let muscle pulls heal so my method is to just
| stay flat on my back for a day or two. Before I had the headset
| I stared at the ceiling for 2 days.
| amackera wrote:
| Classic meme in the Clojure world is "hammock driven development"
| popularized by Rich Hickey himself:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc
|
| Love this!
| sooheon wrote:
| Although the intention there is to leave the computing behind
| ;)
| johnnyApplePRNG wrote:
| LOL! That hammock setup is impressive! I've never owned a laptop
| that can get bright enough for me to comfortably see the screen
| outside though :(
|
| Am I the only one here who lays around on their bed in various
| positions while typing on my laptop?
|
| I switch from laying on my back/front/side every 15 minutes or
| so, to prevent my body from getting to kinked up. I also practice
| Ashtanga every morning before I start work.
|
| Sometimes I prop it up on my bent legs when laying down with no
| pillow, sometimes I prop my head up with a few pillows and leave
| the laptop on my flat legs.
|
| Been doing this for years now and I absolutely love it.
|
| Doesn't seem to bother my sleep either. I know when I'm done work
| for the day (usually after a few hours of programming), put the
| laptop away, and get on with my day.
| [deleted]
| bsza wrote:
| "To sit is better than to stand, to lie is better than to sit,
| and death is best of all." - Proverb
| pjs_ wrote:
| This was all pretty mundane until he pulled out the belay glasses
| - this guy is living
| kamakaya wrote:
| If it looks stupid but it works, it's not stupid
| block_dagger wrote:
| I also had to use a supine workstation for a few years:
| https://medium.com/@jcraigk/healthy-hacking-diy-supine-works...
| code_duck wrote:
| When I spent a lot of time laying in bed using a laptop, my
| typical position was to put my knees up and open the computer at
| an obtuse angle on my stomach. The only problem I've had with
| this was one time when I shifted positions and my MacBook fell
| forward, striking the bridge of my nose with the edge of the lid.
| We all know how sharp the edges are on MBPs, right? It left a 1
| cm scar on my nose.
| swagasaurus-rex wrote:
| I've struggled to find split keyboards that work for laying down.
| Most split keyboards have a cord that runs between the split even
| if they're advertised as bluetooth.
| boomskats wrote:
| Some notes from someone who has experimented with this for years
| - with zero gravity chairs, beds, floors...
|
| - having your hands elevated above chest height sucks after a few
| minutes. The Altwork and Ergoquest workstations suck for that
| reason, and you _need_ a split keyboard if you don't want numb
| fingers.
|
| - not moving sucks. I think I've hurt my neck and back (and
| throat) more by doing this than I'd like to admit
|
| - for short periods of time, and when you can _actually_ relax
| (side projects etc.), working in this way is divine.
|
| YMMV.
|
| Side note - I discovered OP Andy Matuschak around 3 hours ago
| while pimping my Obsidian config, and have been the biggest fan
| of @msgsloan's vim Todoist plugin for years.
| [deleted]
| jacksonkmarley wrote:
| I tried a few things at the start of the local lockdown, and soon
| found that laying flat on my back was a bit impractical (this guy
| seems to have found some solutions which I consider too much
| hassle like the suspended laptop). Also I find that laying flat
| on my back puts pressure on my lower back, perhaps due to tight
| abductor muscles or something.
|
| What I found was that with a couple of pillows on my couch, I
| could elevate my upper body in a gentle curve which resulted in
| my eyes being almost level but with no stress on neck or back
| (compare this to the guy in the article elevating just his head,
| which is too acute an angle and stresses the neck). At that point
| I just moved my monitor to various positions and elevations in my
| sightline until it seemed right. I had my mouse on a coffee table
| so that my arm was not elevated, and my keyboard on my lap (this
| part required touch-typing, otherwise I would have to keep
| lifting my head).
|
| Once I found the sweet spot where i was relaxed but supported (
| it wasn't that hard), I could pretty much work indefinitely. At
| that point the issue was no longer stress on any body parts, but
| the potential overall fitness degradation of lying down all day,
| which could theoretically be solved with regular breaks for
| getting up and moving around, but I was probably a bit lazy with
| that.
| bee_rider wrote:
| The best I managed was with a proper sleeping hammock (not one
| with the evil spreader bars like he has here), and a bunch of
| blankets curled up into long 'snakes' that I could wrap around
| my body where necessary. I had an armature with a monitor over
| the hammock, although a laptop propped up with pillows could
| probably be done as well.
|
| It was actually a really comfortable setup, which is not what
| these experiments usually result in for me, but it did take up
| a ton of space (indoor hammock stands are pretty huge). My
| favorite bit part is that a sleeping hammock is a pretty nice
| and dynamic thing to lay in. You can fidget and change
| positions every few minutes and it will usually reconfigure
| itself into a somewhat reasonable position. Plus, pop a VR
| headset on and you have a pretty good spaceship.
| jacksonkmarley wrote:
| I never managed to get properly comfortable in hammocks,
| always felt like my feet were up too high and the edges were
| too restricting.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Of course the diagonal orientation is important, but I
| guess that's probably the first advice you found when
| trying it out, so I won't repeat it. So, yeah, they aren't
| necessarily for everyone.
| bee_rider wrote:
| It is weird to me that somebody could be so enthusiastic about
| finding different ways to lay on things, but could have a hammock
| with a spreader bar. Sleeping hammocks are generally known to be
| much better, right?
| jtlienwis wrote:
| Have you tried the simple solution of putting an ice pack on your
| back? Also, stop driving in your car with your wallet in your
| back pocket. Also, avoid hot tub as this will make it worse.
| Don't sit for long periods. Get up and walk. You look young and
| healthy and these are the solutions I had when I was younger when
| I had back pain.
| popctrl wrote:
| I have chronic back pain due to a disease which went
| undiagnosed for most of my life.
|
| I understand that this comment is made in good faith and with
| the best of intents, but I loathe getting this kind of advice.
| I'm not trying to be a dick, I just want to let you know that
| this advice is extremely frustrating for a lot of people
| suffering from back pain. ESPECIALLY "you look young and
| healthy"...Yea thanks, I'll probably still look young when I'm
| in a wheelchair.
|
| PS If your back hurts and your doctor doesn't seem to believe
| you or care, get a new doctor.
| telesilla wrote:
| Anyone here with back pain please see a doctor if it persists,
| please. It could be a serious indicator of other issues.
|
| Personally I find a standing position healthiest: for women in
| particular, it avoids particular long-term hip flexor problems.
| dougmwne wrote:
| After pulling my back a while ago, I did this with a VR headset.
| It worked well and was about the only way I could look at a
| screen. I mainly used the built in browser in the Oculus Quest,
| but you could do remote desktop with mouse and keyboard instead.
| I had a several foot virtual screen projected a few feet above my
| head. I would never want to do this if I didn't have an acute
| injury since laying in bed all day sounds like a sure path to
| muscle weakness.
| derefr wrote:
| IIRC, the lowest-back-muscle-tension recline angle isn't actually
| 180deg (laying completely flat) but actually 135deg (legs
| forward, back and neck against a wedge. Or probably--in the
| ancestral environment--against the base of a tree.)
|
| Anyone got a good ergonomic setup for achieving 135deg recline,
| no-neck-flexion computing? (Besides buying that one ridiculous
| $5000 chair, I mean.)
| frereubu wrote:
| This reminds me of when I did something nasty to my back and
| could only lie down - instead of mounting my laptop I hooked it
| up to a projector I already had for films and pointed it at the
| ceiling. It required low light, but it was what I had available
| at the time and worked for the length of time it took for my back
| to get better.
|
| However, I have to quibble with the "Healthy Hacking: DIY Supine
| Workstation" article linked to. That's a guaranteed way to make
| sure your muscles waste away, particularly if your aim is to
| "improve [the] ability to work for long hours." The human body is
| designed for movement, and static working is having a terrible
| impact, particularly on people who work on computers:
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csz4bf
|
| My back was a mess until I got a standing desk and started
| pilates. What I found interesting is that the standing desk made
| me move around quite a bit more - I end up doing lower-body yoga
| poses sometimes and I feel much better for it. I deliberately
| choose not to work long hours (I recognise I'm lucky in that
| respect, although I run my own company, so it's partially earned
| luck) but when I do need to, I can always bring my desk down and
| use a chair.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I've never been a dancer, just not my thing, but with a
| standing desk and headphones I find myself code-dancing
| constantly.
| belter wrote:
| Of course you have to dance:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28036487
| megameter wrote:
| Supine posture isn't really all that static if you're awake and
| on a surface at least as hard as tatami - you can shift around
| on the floor much more than in a chair, especially if the
| monitor can adjust a bit with you. Add a pillow anywhere and
| your entire force distribution changes. I would be a little
| more suspicious of the hammock idea, or soft beds. If you're
| sinking into it, it's obviously immobilizing.
|
| Floor desking is my go-to for maximum variability though. It
| just needs "enough" monitor height/size that you don't hunch
| over to peer at the text. The rest happens naturally.
|
| In both cases I use only a wireless keyboard/trackpad combo
| now. When I started out doing this I quickly realized it was
| the peripherals that were the problem.
| frereubu wrote:
| I see what you mean in terms of movement, but lying down is
| also not a natural position for a human body except for the
| duration of sleep. I mean, you might be able to avoid bed
| sores, but you're not using your core muscles in the way that
| the body is evolved for and your joints aren't being used in
| a way that will keep them in tune. It's a bit like astronauts
| losing a lot of general body tone and having to go through
| quite a bit of conditioning when they return to earth.
| elliottkember wrote:
| I recently read the phrase "the most ergonomic position is the
| next one" somewhere, and thought it was very memorable.
| least wrote:
| Changing it up is really important for certain. In fact
| ergonomic advice for dealing with carpal tunnel syndrome is
| going to contradict advice for dealing with ulnar tunnel
| syndrome.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| > the most ergonomic position is the next one
|
| I currently have 3 mice (all different shapes), a trackpad,
| and a trackball hooked up to my workstation, with some on the
| left of my keyboard and some on the right. I switch between
| them depending on what currently hurts most. Seems to work
| better for my tendonitis than when I only used one device
| with my right hand. It's basically all the devices I went
| through, one at a time, trying to figure out which worked the
| best. They all do!
| christophergs wrote:
| Yep, the projector approach is what I've used before. Here are
| some pics/write up: https://coursemaker.org/blog/create-
| affordable-lay-down-desk...
| pattisapu wrote:
| A worse but simpler solution:
|
| Cram the keyboard end of a laptop between the headboard of a bed
| and the wall, rotate the display 180o in the OS settings, and
| plug in an external keyboard and mouse. Lie down in bed and
| compute.
|
| Works okay except that strain is then offloaded either to your
| wrists if you have a regular keyboard (not like the OP has), or
| legs if you arch them underneath the keyboard.
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