used herman miller embody. partner has a used sayl which is about 80% as comfortable. previously had an aeron that I strongly feel is overrated for ergonomics.
The embody is ridiculously over-engineered with a seat of POM mattress coils and the silicone back suspension but the “spine” is unparalleled by e.g. the steelcase leap or gesture for me (ankylosing spondylitis trying to avoid kyphosis/fusing). I took the arms off because they suck, though.
If you buy herman miller chairs used from liquidators you can usually get warranty service as long as you have the confidence to elide over the secondhand sale.
I’m guessing from text here so grain of salt but this sounds like your chair is too high. Try lowering it to where your thighs aren’t engaged. The seat pan should also be a few inches behind your knee if adjustable.
I have two kind of broad general tips about ergonomics that I’ve found more useful than any particular tweak after internalizing them:
If you try some fancy ergo equipment and it feels uncomfortable, send it back for a refund. Like maybe there might be a period where you just need to get used to it, but if after a week it’s still uncomfortable, then ergonomics is not some “eat-your-vegetables” kind of thing where it’s unpleasant but good for you. An actually ergonomic setup and posture feels comfortable.
No posture is ergonomic if you hold it perfectly still for 5 hours, except maybe lying in bed in perfect relaxation and even that’s borderline (you instinctively change your position at night for good reason). Conversely, constantly rotating between different postures (which includes things like taking a coffee break) makes all of them more ergonomic even if they were slightly questionable to start with.
i am going to get these things but uh how do i get work to pay lol
sculpt, anker vertical, i want the trackpad but it’s like $120 so i’ll wait there
or maybe i wait until you come visit on the sculpt?
also the only way i can type right now is by standing upright and resting the keyboard against my groin so it’s more or less vertical and my fingers rest against the keys. maybe i need a standing desk fuck
I actually don’t have a spare sculpt but I do have a spare Kinesis Advantage and trackpad I will send you.
I have definitely seen people mount keyboards vertically on their hips or at their sides if it’s split but I haven’t done it personally. If I had to rig it up in a jiff I’d try 3M command hooks and rope?
For an inexpensive convertible desk I like these Husky tables. I gave my fancier motorized convertible desk to my mom and got more surface area.
is there, like, really fast speech-to-text shorthand-control where a person can like arrow+tab-input navigate around a computer with like little verbal clicks and stuff?
I think @captainlove was using dictation software of some kind. I use Siri and Otter on my phone but rarely at my computer
Both Win10 and Mac OS have voice control modes but they just use verbal syntax e.g. “open Finder,” “click ‘next’”
For someone with permanently impaired motor control (dystonia, cerebral palsy, etc) it’s more common to use eye tracking or a low force joystick + big buttons for tabbing around
I highly recommend Dragon although it is expensive. I managed to get work to pay for it after showing them how shit my workflow was trying to dictate into Word (inaccurate at the best of times) and then copy paste it to everything else.
Dragon comes with a bit of a learning curve and even now it still bugs out occasionally but it’s pretty solid for the contexts you’ll probably gravitate towards. Email, word docs, most webpages, Selectbutton etc. Has some really strange bugs on certain programs like Microsoft Teams whhere lettters gget duuppliccated and a few sites will not really listen to Dragon. Haven’t tried it with web browsers other than Chrome.
Dragon supports calling out named button switches (e.g. click ‘watch later’, click ‘< name of hyperlink text >’) are very useful but you will probably still need to use a combination of buttons and at least a vertical mouse which I found to be much better for my wrist. You can select words to edit them (select ‘necessary’, and then choose from a numbered list which of the words you actually intended to type). You can also scroll down with your voice but this will probably just get tiring. I found that my hand pain started to gravitate towards my vocal cords as I built up having to talk all day to type but now I don’t feel it so much. Having page down in my left hand and mouse in my right pretty much takes care of most of the annoyances but you have to bear in mind the commands require relatively pregnant pauses between them otherwise they are read as text to be typed full stop next line
Removing any compression on your arm such as chair armrests or resting on the desk is also important for keeping blood flow into the forearm tendons.
OTOH looks like Dragon/Nuance are getting bought out by Microsoft so here’s hoping the core software just gets folded into Windows separate from the legal/medical/enterprise license
Trying out the MX Master 3 mouse and sad to say it’s oddly uncomfortable for a few reasons
pro
the automatic electromagnetic clutch on the main/vertical scroll works just like you’d want - feels like real tactile notches until past a force/speed threshold it releases for free scroll (option for manually locking into each mode still exists)
the scroll wheel is quiet and almost completely free from rattles unlike other logitech mice with the feature I’ve tried (MX Master, Master 2S, G903, G502, G604)
mouse 4/5 (forward/back) are easy to hit from a neutral position and distinct unlike the 2S
cons
too short to rest entire palm/hand on - pinky runs out of space on right side so I have to curl it backwards
the thumb/gesture button requires too much force to press comfortably because it’s parallel to the desk. I can feel the tendons all through my hand/wrist/forearm tense when I press it. I think it’s a membrane button molded into or under the silicone and impossible to modify if so. I’m not sure if they intend for you to rest your palm behind the mouse and align the button with your knuckle for more force but I strongly prefer a hump that fills my palm. I would prefer a third button on the side of the mouse instead.
I think I prefer tilt click on the main scroll wheel to the second lateral scroll wheel - double as buttons and can map to e.g. left and right on keyboard
most of the surface except for the buttons is cast in soft-touch silicone which shines over time and may gunk up if exposed to solvents/acids
It’s a shame that the dual action scroll wheel seems to be IP-protected because it really does elevate about half of Logitech’s mice and the electromagnetic version on this mouse is killer. Razer has adjustable wheel tension on (some versions of) the Basilisk but you have to flip the mouse over to get at it and it’s too fussy.
there’s an esports guy who has made it his raison d’etre to bring this shape back in lightweight wireless form through his logitech marketing deals and this was found on the inside of a prototype
Let me give terrible advice: the only thing I’m comfortable sitting on for hours when playing games is an exercise ball. Actually had to get a new one cause the old one lost air. It was many years old though. I like to just bounce on it and I roll my back and stretch every hour or so. I mostly alternate between this and lying on the couch.
