8 ms·

Look, no hands

698 points by jamesisaac 12y ago

IanDrake 12y ago
Neat, but something tells me this won't be catching on.
- sfeng 12y ago
  If you think this is about that specific accommodation, I think you're missing the point a bit.
djloche 12y ago
This is an excellent modern example of the tenacity of humanity.
bbarn 12y ago
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.
- cryptophreak 12y ago
  I too thought that was odd, but I think the point is the method and its potential accessibility benefits, not a specific medical case.
- nchelluri 12y ago
  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.)
  - mcescalante 12y ago
    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.
- michael_nielsen 12y ago
  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.
  - nailer 12y ago
    Adding medical information would benefit those people more.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- ChuckMcM 12y ago
  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. [1] http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/carpal-tunnel-syndrome/basics/treatment/con-20030332 http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/carpal-tunnel-... -- If you feel tingling in your fingers when you type STOP TYPING seriously.
  - melling 12y ago
    You are confusing RSI and carpel tunnel. You don't treat RSI with surgery.
    - ChuckMcM 12y ago
      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.
      - melling 12y ago
        Slight tingling in the fingers could mean RSI too. Most people get RSI and not carpel tunnel. http://www.amazon.com/Its-Carpal-Tunnel-Syndrome-Professionals/dp/0965510999 http://www.amazon.com/Its-Carpal-Tunnel-Syndrome-Professiona...
- yarou 12y ago
  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.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- PhoenixWright 12y ago
  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.
userbinator 12y ago
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.
- grimman 12y ago
  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.
  - eru 12y ago
    I switched to a thumb-operated trackball. My fingers like it.
fillskills 12y ago
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. Thanks for the inspiration Michelle
jacquesm 12y ago
That's got to be tough on the skin at the tip of the nose, that's not exactly the most rugged spot to be rubbing on something all day long. Related: http://www.mfpa.uk/ http://www.mfpa.uk/
- learc83 12y ago
  The surface is very smooth glass, so it's probably not that bad.
bob917 12y ago
I once met the guy with no legs from the subway scene in the movie Kids. "I have no legs...I have no legs".
auvi 12y ago
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.
- melling 12y ago
  This product? http://www.nouse.ca http://www.nouse.ca
  - auvi 12y ago
    yes this one! it didn't show up in the first 10 in my google search for "Nouse".
malkia 12y ago
Reminds of this TED with Phil Hansen: Embrace the shake - http://www.ted.com/talks/phil_hansen_embrace_the_shake?language=en http://www.ted.com/talks/phil_hansen_embrace_the_shake?langu...
bhaumik 12y ago
This, my friends, is a good ole fashioned "hack."
arjie 12y ago
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.
- philip1209 12y ago
  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.
- jeremiep 12y ago
  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.
owenwil 12y ago
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.
colordrops 12y ago
I know that this is off topic, but what a beautifully designed website!
- imron 12y ago
  Beautiful maybe, but in my opinion, multiple columns for continuous text makes for a bad UX. I've seen this starting to popup in a few websites recently and it always annoys me.
  - sebie 12y ago
    On my tablet it does look good-ish, with two columns, but still, two columns..
    - imron 12y ago
      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. It really breaks the flow of reading.
_ZeD_ 12y ago
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.
- mirkules 12y ago
  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.
  - vanderZwan 12y ago
    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.
- unclebucknasty 12y ago
  >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.
m48 12y ago
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. 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 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 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 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/simianhacker/code-by-voice https://github.com/tgrosinger/aenea-grammars https://github.com/tgrosinger/aenea-grammars Libraries for using Dragon NaturallySpeaking on Linux with VMs: https://github.com/dictation-toolbox/aenea https://github.com/dictation-toolbox/aenea https://github.com/russell/damselfly 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.
- iamcreasy 12y ago
  > don't bother looking around, the source code of this was never released But the video like has a comment(1 week old) from Tavis Rudd linking github repository of his code : https://github.com/dictation-toolbox https://github.com/dictation-toolbox. And about your setup, please do post it! :)
bilalq 12y ago
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.
- samatman 12y ago
  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.
  - bilalq 12y ago
    It's impacting both of them, but mostly my left. I only ever hit the Shift key with that one, and usually use my right middle finger to hit backspace.
zameerb 12y ago
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
- berdon 12y ago
  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.
rebootthesystem 12y ago
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.
- bsimpson 12y ago
  I'd love to see a photo of that!
  - rebootthesystem 12y ago
unclesaamm 12y ago
Or: how I developed carpal tunnel in my neck Just kidding. Glad to see such resourcefulness.
enigami 12y ago
A need or problem encourages creative efforts to meet the need or solve the problem - Necessity is the mother of Invention. Kudos!!
meepmorp 12y ago
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.
- meowface 12y ago
  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.
- dendory 12y ago
  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.
- stefantalpalaru 12y ago
  > am I the only person who has zero problem using a trackpad and keyboard with my hands for >=8 hours a day? Of course not, it's just selection bias. People without similar problems don't feel the need to provide contrasting (and unavoidably boring) stories.
- parasubvert 12y ago
  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.
sukilot 12y ago
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.
- melling 12y ago
  Do you have any references to back up this statement? From everything that I've read, it'e incorrect. Take these well-known programmers: http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/emacs_hand_pain_celebrity.html http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/emacs_hand_pain_celebrity.html
- jakobegger 12y ago
  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.
  - andyfleming 12y ago
    Not defending the original commenter, but to be fair, she did mention RSI specifically in the article. I'd somehow managed to complete my first project course without making my RSI worse
    - jakobegger 12y ago
      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.
johnny99 12y ago
Dominic Wilcox created something similar to this in 2011, I think as a satiric art project. It looks like a plague doctor's mask: http://dominicwilcox.com/portfolio/finger-nose-stylus/ http://dominicwilcox.com/portfolio/finger-nose-stylus/ To see a proper implementation, which allows someone to work at a high level, is awesome.
melling 12y ago
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-bring-your-hands-into-virtual-reality?ref=discovery https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nimblevr/nimble-sense-b... And Control VR uses gloves but might prove to be very accurate: http://controlvr.com http://controlvr.com The VR headsets are driving the development of this technology.
Kluny 12y ago
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.
Morphling 12y ago
I just wonder if she could've easily fixed all the issues by changing her mouse or how she hold it instead of opting for this nose-touch-pad. If she is still doing thous 11-15 hour work days and her neck doesn't get tiered, I really think she might have had too hard of a grip on her mouse or just a bad mouse in general.
plicense 12y ago
I just went "Holy shit" when I read this article and realized what a lazy dumba*s I am.
brianbarker 12y ago
Integrate a tissue on the nose pad and you're ready for any season!
caser 12y ago
This is amazing.
Tombone5 12y ago
tl;dr. Young ambitious person gets first chance at job she is trained for, feels pressure to work long hours without complaint. Because of too much work, now she can't use her arms half of the time, instead draws with nose and made portfolio site with nose-drawing as central focus.
- stefantalpalaru 12y ago
  There's also the part where she moved to a country with very expensive health care.
EsotericSoft 12y ago
I've tried head tracking devices and found my neck and shoulders get stressed. I imagine the same thing would happen hunched over a trackpad with the nose. The small neck movements are similar to head tracking. Check out the Imak SmartGlove with Thumb, I can't use a computer without it. Well, of course I can but it is much less comfortable. The glove plus a Kensington Expert Mouse (which is actually a trackball with a scroll ring) plus a good chair (eg Steelcase Leap) will help a LOT.
noonespecial 12y ago
File in the "for what its worth" file: When I started to get some pain in my wrists, I noticed it most when I was using photoshop and clicking a great deal. I tore apart an old USB mouse and wired a pair of foot switches in so I could click with my feet as well. It helped quite a bit. Now I rather prefer it, especially the right click action.
- tomblomfield 12y ago
  That's a really fun idea. I wonder how you could control programs differently with 2 or even 4 input devices? Ie, twin cursors on the screen, each controlled by a separate mouse? Tablets introduced a number of interesting new interface mechanisms - double tap, pinch, stretch etc. Could we bring these to non touch-screens?
  - roma1n 12y ago
    Sure, have a look at ICon (for instance) if you want to add custom input devices to your setup : http://inputconf.sourceforge.net/ http://inputconf.sourceforge.net/
- joshschreuder 12y ago
  Do you play the piano? I wonder if doing something like this would affect or improve your ability to play piano. I always found one of the hardest things to learn was the pedal rhythm while playing.
mvandy 12y ago
I'm Michelle (the girl in the video). This thread is really fascinating to me. I'll add some more details to the discussion below. I was diagnosed with epicodylitis (tennis albow) and I tried a range of different treatments: electrical therapy, accipunture, anti-inflammatory tablets and some kind of light therapy(?) But without any results (probably why I can't remember the last treatment). Also notised there were some questions about neck pains, If I adjust the nose-pad to the right level and angle it right it forces me to sit up straight. However, in the video my back is arched quite a lot because I was sitting at a table that was too low (but it was only a temporary setup).
- 2muchcoffeeman 12y ago
  Is tennis elbow the only problem? Do you do anything else to help with the pain? Are there any other tools that you use?
- rmchugh 12y ago
  Have your arms recovered?
- Htsthbjig 12y ago
  Amazing story. Necessity is the mother of invention. I use crazy input devices on crazy ways too. Magic trackpad and a 3d connection 3d mouse on a TV arm screwed to the wall along the computer screen so I can work standing up or with a stool. A a lap-along wearable stenotype device instead of keyboard. Speech recognition for other things. I can work much better, more comfortable and faster than anybody else after years of training.
  - rndn 12y ago
    It seems to me the more different input devices, the better, because one can quickly switch the input device when it becomes too repetitive. I’m currently experimenting with a vertical mouse (Anchor), a handheld trackball (IMAGE), a handheld touchpad (Perixx), a vertical keyboard (Kinesis Freestyle2), an ergonomic keyboard (Kinesis Advantage), a sitting/standing desk (IKEA) and a sitting ball. The most effective changes seem to be the vertical keyboard, the remote trackball, the new desk and a couple of streching exercises I started doing. While the Advantage does relieve the pinkies in Emacs, it still feels inferior to the vertical Freestyle2 because the forearms are still in a twisted pose. I think I tend to overly cramp my hands and fingers so that I’m experiencing RSI even without overly long working hours.
ballpoint 12y ago
You obviously have a nose for good design. Seriously though, that is awesome.
acqq 12y ago
Also worth taking a look: "The Association of Mouth and Foot Painting Artists of the World" http://www.vdmfk.com/worldwide/en.html http://www.vdmfk.com/worldwide/en.html "VDMFK supports and promotes artists who, due to disability or disease, cannot create their works of art with their hands, but have to use their mouths or their feet."
IkmoIkmo 12y ago
Beyond the obviously admirable content of the story, just wanted to say: beautiful website, the pacing of the story was really well done. Loved the animations, the optional extra reading, breaking up the story with pictures. Very simplistic but well done.
quantgenius 12y ago
Hi Michelle, I was wondering if you had tried the Tyler Twist or the reverse Tyler Twist. I had tennis elbow and golfer's elbow and nothing worked until I tried those exercises.
qwerta 12y ago
My cousin was born without hands. He is using his feets for most things. Today he is 22, he drives a car, handles computer and tablets... His typing is ok, so he could be programmer if he chooses to. And he wants (and probably will) to move to his own place. He does not use special devices, just big mouse and large AT/IBM keyboard.
PL1 12y ago
Have you checked Dr. Sarno's approach for RSI and related problems. If you have tried all those options and they didn't work you should definitely give a try. You can check a story very similar to mine: http://www.pgbovine.net/back-pain-guest-article.htm http://www.pgbovine.net/back-pain-guest-article.htm Disclaimer: I am CS PhD student in a top tier US school. Suffered from RSI, tried everything. Was cured by Dr. Sarno's technique.
- westoncb 12y ago
  I can second this: I spent years looking in utterly the wrong direction with things, even making this: http://tiledtext.com http://tiledtext.com so that I could program with motion sensors instead—then someone recommended to me (for a second time, since I ignored it the first time) Dr. Sarno's work. BTW: that you're left hand started in so soon after is probably a good indication that this isn't entirely physical! Sarno's stuff works (as you'll find plenty evidence of on the internet (e.g. http://www.satori.org/rist/) http://www.satori.org/rist/)), but the theory it's framed in is pretty bad, so be prepared for that... An alternative talking about the same stuff without annoyingly trying to theorize so much is (check out the reviews, you'll see the title is quite misleading): http://www.amazon.com/Rapid-Recovery-Back-Neck-Pain/dp/0966982614 http://www.amazon.com/Rapid-Recovery-Back-Neck-Pain/dp/09669...
- snowmaker 12y ago
  I was also cured from RSI by Dr Sarno's approach. I highly recommend you give this serious consideration.
roseperrone 12y ago
RSI is curable almost always! Read "Pain Free at Your PC" or "Pain Free" by Pete Egoscue. Message me and I'll gift either to you.
felixg 12y ago
SmartNav by NaturalPoint (http://www.naturalpoint.com/smartnav/ http://www.naturalpoint.com/smartnav/). I'm using it for over 8 years for moving the cursor. Clicking is via a regular mouse, though voice and switches are supported. All typing is done through an on-screen virtual keyboard (Hot Virtual Keyboard). After short self-training the speed and accuracy are above of a regular mouse. Neck fatigue is a rare issue even after 8-10 hours of daily usage, the "trick" is calibrating the settings for minimal movement. I'm using this setup for everything from programming to some light gaming (RTS). Adjusting and configuring the environment can bring substantial improvement. For example, using ReSharper for Visual Studio vastly reduces typing.
yourad_io 12y ago
Just FYI - if you're interested, make sure to read the full story in No.2. "Read more" shows the rest of it.
arafalov 12y ago
I had RSI 3 times. The first time I did not know what it was and ended-up not being able to hold a pen. Took many months of recovery and I was lucky my doctor knew what it was. I had heat treatment, some sort of laser and vibration therapies and a couple of other things. Don't know which of them helped, but they sure did. The second time, I was in a different country and was sent to a surgeon. He had no clue what RSI was and said that I should not worry until it gets worse and ready for Carpal Tunnel surgery. I said "no thanks" and found a sports therapist instead who was ready to help. The main lesson here is that "see a doctor" does not always work. I am sure if I saw surgeon the first time, I'd be having some stitches on my wrists right now. Back then, RSI was not well known thing at all. Hopefully, it is more easily recognized now.
- melling 12y ago
  Is this Cold Laser Therapy? http://www.rsitips.com/cold-laser-therapy/ http://www.rsitips.com/cold-laser-therapy/ http://www.brooklinephysicaltherapy.com/page4/page18/ http://www.brooklinephysicaltherapy.com/page4/page18/ I've never heard it mentioned before.
  - arafalov 12y ago
    It may well have been, though I don't remember any glasses.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
known 12y ago
I salute your perseverance.
owenversteeg 12y ago
Am I the only one that can't load the site? There are just blank spots everywhere. Chrome 39.0.2171.95 (64-bit), Arch Linux.
deleted 12y ago
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thisjepisje 12y ago
Don't we all use our nose for a keypress or swipe every now and then? :P
arihant 12y ago
This is something that might sound tangential, but using nose as an input medium is not the worst idea, even with perfectly capable hands. I've been using my nose awkwardly a lot on Android Wear, and honestly, this article makes me much better about it. We have so many screens, so many interfaces, yet only two hands. Anytime I'm typing, driving, running, my nose does the job on the smartwatch. I'm sure a lot of people have been doing it. I wish there was more studies regarding these, most that I find keep talking about gestures, which I think is overdoing things, which humans tend to do at first with every problem we try to solve.
kirk21 12y ago
Wow, impressive! Had pain in my arm as well in the past (it was not very severe but annoying). Using a mouse with a trackball solved the issue for me.
sdfjkl 12y ago
Upon watching the video, my first thought was: I should try this! Not because I have RSI (used to though), but because it seems an excellent solution for keeping my hands on the keyboard whilst having a third "hand" for the pointer, thereby increasing overall speed and efficiency. If it is possible to achieve the same accuracy, this should be great. I even happen to have one of those touchpads.
JosieRC 12y ago
Hi, your article was really inspirational, very well written and indicative of your amazing motivation and passion for your career. Dystonias are neurological disorders that can cause muscle spasms and cramping and do not go away with rest, anti-inflammatories, trigger point therapy, etc. Unfortunately dystonias are often misdiagnosed and untreated, even sometimes by well-trained specialists. The main treatment for dystonia-related conditions is Botox. I have cervical dystonia and have had wonderful success with Botox. To correctly diagnose a dystonia you need to see a neurologist that specializes in movement disorders.
deepGem 12y ago
And here I am complaining about the weather. You are a true inspiration. Great going Michelle and I hope that one day your epicondilytis gets cured.
brandonhsiao 12y ago
Wow, I bet The Setup would love to interview you: http://usesthis.com/ http://usesthis.com/

Look, no hands

698 points by jamesisaac 12y ago

IanDrake 12y ago

Neat, but something tells me this won't be catching on.

sfeng 12y ago
If you think this is about that specific accommodation, I think you're missing the point a bit.

djloche 12y ago

This is an excellent modern example of the tenacity of humanity.

bbarn 12y ago

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.

cryptophreak 12y ago
I too thought that was odd, but I think the point is the method and its potential accessibility benefits, not a specific medical case.
nchelluri 12y ago
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.)
- mcescalante 12y ago
  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.
michael_nielsen 12y ago
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.
- nailer 12y ago
  Adding medical information would benefit those people more.
deleted 12y ago
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ChuckMcM 12y ago
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. [1] http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/carpal-tunnel-syndrome/basics/treatment/con-20030332 http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/carpal-tunnel-... -- If you feel tingling in your fingers when you type STOP TYPING seriously.
- melling 12y ago
  You are confusing RSI and carpel tunnel. You don't treat RSI with surgery.
  - ChuckMcM 12y ago
    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.
    - melling 12y ago
      Slight tingling in the fingers could mean RSI too. Most people get RSI and not carpel tunnel. http://www.amazon.com/Its-Carpal-Tunnel-Syndrome-Professionals/dp/0965510999 http://www.amazon.com/Its-Carpal-Tunnel-Syndrome-Professiona...
yarou 12y ago
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.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
PhoenixWright 12y ago
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.

userbinator 12y ago

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.

grimman 12y ago
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.
- eru 12y ago
  I switched to a thumb-operated trackball. My fingers like it.

fillskills 12y ago

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. Thanks for the inspiration Michelle

jacquesm 12y ago

That's got to be tough on the skin at the tip of the nose, that's not exactly the most rugged spot to be rubbing on something all day long. Related: http://www.mfpa.uk/ http://www.mfpa.uk/

learc83 12y ago
The surface is very smooth glass, so it's probably not that bad.

bob917 12y ago

I once met the guy with no legs from the subway scene in the movie Kids. "I have no legs...I have no legs".

auvi 12y ago

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.

melling 12y ago
This product? http://www.nouse.ca http://www.nouse.ca
- auvi 12y ago
  yes this one! it didn't show up in the first 10 in my google search for "Nouse".

malkia 12y ago

Reminds of this TED with Phil Hansen: Embrace the shake - http://www.ted.com/talks/phil_hansen_embrace_the_shake?language=en http://www.ted.com/talks/phil_hansen_embrace_the_shake?langu...

bhaumik 12y ago

This, my friends, is a good ole fashioned "hack."

arjie 12y ago

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.

philip1209 12y ago
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.
jeremiep 12y ago
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.

owenwil 12y ago

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.

colordrops 12y ago

I know that this is off topic, but what a beautifully designed website!

imron 12y ago
Beautiful maybe, but in my opinion, multiple columns for continuous text makes for a bad UX. I've seen this starting to popup in a few websites recently and it always annoys me.
- sebie 12y ago
  On my tablet it does look good-ish, with two columns, but still, two columns..
  - imron 12y ago
    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. It really breaks the flow of reading.

_ZeD_ 12y ago

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.

mirkules 12y ago
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.
- vanderZwan 12y ago
  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.
unclebucknasty 12y ago
>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.

m48 12y ago

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. 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 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 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 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/simianhacker/code-by-voice https://github.com/tgrosinger/aenea-grammars https://github.com/tgrosinger/aenea-grammars Libraries for using Dragon NaturallySpeaking on Linux with VMs: https://github.com/dictation-toolbox/aenea https://github.com/dictation-toolbox/aenea https://github.com/russell/damselfly 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.

iamcreasy 12y ago
> don't bother looking around, the source code of this was never released But the video like has a comment(1 week old) from Tavis Rudd linking github repository of his code : https://github.com/dictation-toolbox https://github.com/dictation-toolbox. And about your setup, please do post it! :)

bilalq 12y ago

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.

samatman 12y ago
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.
- bilalq 12y ago
  It's impacting both of them, but mostly my left. I only ever hit the Shift key with that one, and usually use my right middle finger to hit backspace.

zameerb 12y ago

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

berdon 12y ago
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.

rebootthesystem 12y ago

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.

bsimpson 12y ago
I'd love to see a photo of that!
- rebootthesystem 12y ago

unclesaamm 12y ago

Or: how I developed carpal tunnel in my neck Just kidding. Glad to see such resourcefulness.

enigami 12y ago

A need or problem encourages creative efforts to meet the need or solve the problem - Necessity is the mother of Invention. Kudos!!

meepmorp 12y ago

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.

meowface 12y ago
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.
dendory 12y ago
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.
stefantalpalaru 12y ago
> am I the only person who has zero problem using a trackpad and keyboard with my hands for >=8 hours a day? Of course not, it's just selection bias. People without similar problems don't feel the need to provide contrasting (and unavoidably boring) stories.
parasubvert 12y ago
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.

sukilot 12y ago

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.

melling 12y ago
Do you have any references to back up this statement? From everything that I've read, it'e incorrect. Take these well-known programmers: http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/emacs_hand_pain_celebrity.html http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/emacs_hand_pain_celebrity.html
jakobegger 12y ago
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.
- andyfleming 12y ago
  Not defending the original commenter, but to be fair, she did mention RSI specifically in the article. I'd somehow managed to complete my first project course without making my RSI worse
  - jakobegger 12y ago
    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.

johnny99 12y ago

Dominic Wilcox created something similar to this in 2011, I think as a satiric art project. It looks like a plague doctor's mask: http://dominicwilcox.com/portfolio/finger-nose-stylus/ http://dominicwilcox.com/portfolio/finger-nose-stylus/ To see a proper implementation, which allows someone to work at a high level, is awesome.

melling 12y ago

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-bring-your-hands-into-virtual-reality?ref=discovery https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nimblevr/nimble-sense-b... And Control VR uses gloves but might prove to be very accurate: http://controlvr.com http://controlvr.com The VR headsets are driving the development of this technology.

Kluny 12y ago

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.

Morphling 12y ago

I just wonder if she could've easily fixed all the issues by changing her mouse or how she hold it instead of opting for this nose-touch-pad. If she is still doing thous 11-15 hour work days and her neck doesn't get tiered, I really think she might have had too hard of a grip on her mouse or just a bad mouse in general.

plicense 12y ago

I just went "Holy shit" when I read this article and realized what a lazy dumba*s I am.

brianbarker 12y ago

Integrate a tissue on the nose pad and you're ready for any season!

caser 12y ago

This is amazing.

Tombone5 12y ago

tl;dr. Young ambitious person gets first chance at job she is trained for, feels pressure to work long hours without complaint. Because of too much work, now she can't use her arms half of the time, instead draws with nose and made portfolio site with nose-drawing as central focus.

stefantalpalaru 12y ago
There's also the part where she moved to a country with very expensive health care.

EsotericSoft 12y ago

I've tried head tracking devices and found my neck and shoulders get stressed. I imagine the same thing would happen hunched over a trackpad with the nose. The small neck movements are similar to head tracking. Check out the Imak SmartGlove with Thumb, I can't use a computer without it. Well, of course I can but it is much less comfortable. The glove plus a Kensington Expert Mouse (which is actually a trackball with a scroll ring) plus a good chair (eg Steelcase Leap) will help a LOT.

noonespecial 12y ago

File in the "for what its worth" file: When I started to get some pain in my wrists, I noticed it most when I was using photoshop and clicking a great deal. I tore apart an old USB mouse and wired a pair of foot switches in so I could click with my feet as well. It helped quite a bit. Now I rather prefer it, especially the right click action.

tomblomfield 12y ago
That's a really fun idea. I wonder how you could control programs differently with 2 or even 4 input devices? Ie, twin cursors on the screen, each controlled by a separate mouse? Tablets introduced a number of interesting new interface mechanisms - double tap, pinch, stretch etc. Could we bring these to non touch-screens?
- roma1n 12y ago
  Sure, have a look at ICon (for instance) if you want to add custom input devices to your setup : http://inputconf.sourceforge.net/ http://inputconf.sourceforge.net/
joshschreuder 12y ago
Do you play the piano? I wonder if doing something like this would affect or improve your ability to play piano. I always found one of the hardest things to learn was the pedal rhythm while playing.

mvandy 12y ago

I'm Michelle (the girl in the video). This thread is really fascinating to me. I'll add some more details to the discussion below. I was diagnosed with epicodylitis (tennis albow) and I tried a range of different treatments: electrical therapy, accipunture, anti-inflammatory tablets and some kind of light therapy(?) But without any results (probably why I can't remember the last treatment). Also notised there were some questions about neck pains, If I adjust the nose-pad to the right level and angle it right it forces me to sit up straight. However, in the video my back is arched quite a lot because I was sitting at a table that was too low (but it was only a temporary setup).

2muchcoffeeman 12y ago
Is tennis elbow the only problem? Do you do anything else to help with the pain? Are there any other tools that you use?
rmchugh 12y ago
Have your arms recovered?
Htsthbjig 12y ago
Amazing story. Necessity is the mother of invention. I use crazy input devices on crazy ways too. Magic trackpad and a 3d connection 3d mouse on a TV arm screwed to the wall along the computer screen so I can work standing up or with a stool. A a lap-along wearable stenotype device instead of keyboard. Speech recognition for other things. I can work much better, more comfortable and faster than anybody else after years of training.
- rndn 12y ago
  It seems to me the more different input devices, the better, because one can quickly switch the input device when it becomes too repetitive. I’m currently experimenting with a vertical mouse (Anchor), a handheld trackball (IMAGE), a handheld touchpad (Perixx), a vertical keyboard (Kinesis Freestyle2), an ergonomic keyboard (Kinesis Advantage), a sitting/standing desk (IKEA) and a sitting ball. The most effective changes seem to be the vertical keyboard, the remote trackball, the new desk and a couple of streching exercises I started doing. While the Advantage does relieve the pinkies in Emacs, it still feels inferior to the vertical Freestyle2 because the forearms are still in a twisted pose. I think I tend to overly cramp my hands and fingers so that I’m experiencing RSI even without overly long working hours.

ballpoint 12y ago

You obviously have a nose for good design. Seriously though, that is awesome.

acqq 12y ago

Also worth taking a look: "The Association of Mouth and Foot Painting Artists of the World" http://www.vdmfk.com/worldwide/en.html http://www.vdmfk.com/worldwide/en.html "VDMFK supports and promotes artists who, due to disability or disease, cannot create their works of art with their hands, but have to use their mouths or their feet."

IkmoIkmo 12y ago

Beyond the obviously admirable content of the story, just wanted to say: beautiful website, the pacing of the story was really well done. Loved the animations, the optional extra reading, breaking up the story with pictures. Very simplistic but well done.

quantgenius 12y ago

Hi Michelle, I was wondering if you had tried the Tyler Twist or the reverse Tyler Twist. I had tennis elbow and golfer's elbow and nothing worked until I tried those exercises.

qwerta 12y ago

My cousin was born without hands. He is using his feets for most things. Today he is 22, he drives a car, handles computer and tablets... His typing is ok, so he could be programmer if he chooses to. And he wants (and probably will) to move to his own place. He does not use special devices, just big mouse and large AT/IBM keyboard.

PL1 12y ago

Have you checked Dr. Sarno's approach for RSI and related problems. If you have tried all those options and they didn't work you should definitely give a try. You can check a story very similar to mine: http://www.pgbovine.net/back-pain-guest-article.htm http://www.pgbovine.net/back-pain-guest-article.htm Disclaimer: I am CS PhD student in a top tier US school. Suffered from RSI, tried everything. Was cured by Dr. Sarno's technique.

westoncb 12y ago
I can second this: I spent years looking in utterly the wrong direction with things, even making this: http://tiledtext.com http://tiledtext.com so that I could program with motion sensors instead—then someone recommended to me (for a second time, since I ignored it the first time) Dr. Sarno's work. BTW: that you're left hand started in so soon after is probably a good indication that this isn't entirely physical! Sarno's stuff works (as you'll find plenty evidence of on the internet (e.g. http://www.satori.org/rist/) http://www.satori.org/rist/)), but the theory it's framed in is pretty bad, so be prepared for that... An alternative talking about the same stuff without annoyingly trying to theorize so much is (check out the reviews, you'll see the title is quite misleading): http://www.amazon.com/Rapid-Recovery-Back-Neck-Pain/dp/0966982614 http://www.amazon.com/Rapid-Recovery-Back-Neck-Pain/dp/09669...
snowmaker 12y ago
I was also cured from RSI by Dr Sarno's approach. I highly recommend you give this serious consideration.

roseperrone 12y ago

RSI is curable almost always! Read "Pain Free at Your PC" or "Pain Free" by Pete Egoscue. Message me and I'll gift either to you.

felixg 12y ago

SmartNav by NaturalPoint (http://www.naturalpoint.com/smartnav/ http://www.naturalpoint.com/smartnav/). I'm using it for over 8 years for moving the cursor. Clicking is via a regular mouse, though voice and switches are supported. All typing is done through an on-screen virtual keyboard (Hot Virtual Keyboard). After short self-training the speed and accuracy are above of a regular mouse. Neck fatigue is a rare issue even after 8-10 hours of daily usage, the "trick" is calibrating the settings for minimal movement. I'm using this setup for everything from programming to some light gaming (RTS). Adjusting and configuring the environment can bring substantial improvement. For example, using ReSharper for Visual Studio vastly reduces typing.

yourad_io 12y ago

Just FYI - if you're interested, make sure to read the full story in No.2. "Read more" shows the rest of it.

arafalov 12y ago

I had RSI 3 times. The first time I did not know what it was and ended-up not being able to hold a pen. Took many months of recovery and I was lucky my doctor knew what it was. I had heat treatment, some sort of laser and vibration therapies and a couple of other things. Don't know which of them helped, but they sure did. The second time, I was in a different country and was sent to a surgeon. He had no clue what RSI was and said that I should not worry until it gets worse and ready for Carpal Tunnel surgery. I said "no thanks" and found a sports therapist instead who was ready to help. The main lesson here is that "see a doctor" does not always work. I am sure if I saw surgeon the first time, I'd be having some stitches on my wrists right now. Back then, RSI was not well known thing at all. Hopefully, it is more easily recognized now.

melling 12y ago
Is this Cold Laser Therapy? http://www.rsitips.com/cold-laser-therapy/ http://www.rsitips.com/cold-laser-therapy/ http://www.brooklinephysicaltherapy.com/page4/page18/ http://www.brooklinephysicaltherapy.com/page4/page18/ I've never heard it mentioned before.
- arafalov 12y ago
  It may well have been, though I don't remember any glasses.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

known 12y ago

I salute your perseverance.

owenversteeg 12y ago

Am I the only one that can't load the site? There are just blank spots everywhere. Chrome 39.0.2171.95 (64-bit), Arch Linux.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

thisjepisje 12y ago

Don't we all use our nose for a keypress or swipe every now and then? :P

arihant 12y ago

This is something that might sound tangential, but using nose as an input medium is not the worst idea, even with perfectly capable hands. I've been using my nose awkwardly a lot on Android Wear, and honestly, this article makes me much better about it. We have so many screens, so many interfaces, yet only two hands. Anytime I'm typing, driving, running, my nose does the job on the smartwatch. I'm sure a lot of people have been doing it. I wish there was more studies regarding these, most that I find keep talking about gestures, which I think is overdoing things, which humans tend to do at first with every problem we try to solve.

kirk21 12y ago

Wow, impressive! Had pain in my arm as well in the past (it was not very severe but annoying). Using a mouse with a trackball solved the issue for me.

sdfjkl 12y ago

Upon watching the video, my first thought was: I should try this! Not because I have RSI (used to though), but because it seems an excellent solution for keeping my hands on the keyboard whilst having a third "hand" for the pointer, thereby increasing overall speed and efficiency. If it is possible to achieve the same accuracy, this should be great. I even happen to have one of those touchpads.

JosieRC 12y ago

Hi, your article was really inspirational, very well written and indicative of your amazing motivation and passion for your career. Dystonias are neurological disorders that can cause muscle spasms and cramping and do not go away with rest, anti-inflammatories, trigger point therapy, etc. Unfortunately dystonias are often misdiagnosed and untreated, even sometimes by well-trained specialists. The main treatment for dystonia-related conditions is Botox. I have cervical dystonia and have had wonderful success with Botox. To correctly diagnose a dystonia you need to see a neurologist that specializes in movement disorders.

deepGem 12y ago

And here I am complaining about the weather. You are a true inspiration. Great going Michelle and I hope that one day your epicondilytis gets cured.

brandonhsiao 12y ago

Wow, I bet The Setup would love to interview you: http://usesthis.com/ http://usesthis.com/