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Louie comments on Spend Money on Ergonomics - Less Wrong
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While we're trading good ergonomics secrets, I'll point out that Mac BreakZ is pretty exceptional as these things go. If you're banging away on a MacBook every day like me, you should start using this before you get a repetitive stress injury (RSI).
Also if you already have wrist-strain issues, try typing in Dvorak. Seriously. Due to my past computer usage, I used to have to wear uncomfortable wrist braces every night to prevent my fingers from constantly going numb. After several years of suffering with this and assuming I would one day need carpal tunnel surgery, I switched to Dvorak. A month later, all my symptoms disappeared. I was able to stop wearing the wrist guards. 7 years later and still no problems.
As far as "the world is mad" and "people don't even try to optimize stuff", the fact that anyone still uses Qwerty keyboards when, free, strictly superior layouts have existed since before computers were invented is definitely a canary in the coal mine of rationality.
This. This might get me to switch to Dvorak. I'm quite worried about needing carpal tunnel surgery.
Note that the comment thread here correctly points to Colemak as both better and easier to learn than Dvorak. http://colemak.com/
Think I agree. Colemak looks superior. I'll recommend people learn that in the future.
Or QFMLWY?
I don't know... I think my preference for Colemak is something like that rather than eke out the last little bit of optimization out of my keyboard, I'd rather be able to tell people that I use Colemak than Quifimelewey. That I'll take the memetic social coherency of being able to signal something not too overwhelmingly weird and requiring of lots of explanation everytime you say it. I suppose you'd have to say "I used something designed in CarpalX".
Probably I will end up procrastinating about how to decide how to actually make this decision that will forever alter the course of the rest of my life rather than actually just picking one layout and immediately noticing improvements.
My big problem with learning Dvorak is that once I was accustomed to it I suspect I would find it very difficult to use qwerty keyboards, and given that they are standard and hence I have to use them fairly frequently on machines other than my own it would impose excessive costs. (Though if theres a way round this, other than carrying a keyboard everywhere, I'd be interested to hear.)
As for the general lack of optimisation, I suspect every individual user/manufacturer has no particular attachment to qwerty but there is a general benefit from having a standardised keyboard however good its design is.
[Dvorak user anecdote:] If I need to touch-type on others’ computers, it’s annoying. I personally touch-type only when I write prose longer than a few sentences. For everyday stuff it doesn’t bother me at all, I just need to look at the keys often enough, otherwise my brain resets to Dvorak; if I see the keys, I can almost touch-type normally on QWERTY.
(If I need to write more than a couple of sentences, I usually switch the layout and remove it before leaving the computer.)
I don't have any experience with ergonomic keyboards or alternative keyboard layouts, but I can recommend one slightly less drastic option: a small wireless keyboard that sits in your lap. I have one of the small Apple keyboards and for normal computing I use it on the desk (or even use my laptop's keyboard). When I'm in paper-writing mode I put the wireless keyboard in my lap, and it helps a lot. I used to get occasional wrist pain and now I don't.
For Windows and Linux users, Workrave is the equivalent program to remind you to take breaks. I use and recommend it.
I've been using the built-in break enforcer in Ubuntu, but 1) it doesn't warn me of upcoming breaks except by changing the colour of its icon in the notification bar, and 2) is way too easy for me to circumvent.
I didn't know there was one built-in!
Workrave gets in your way; you can make it go away or disable it, but it's harder to pretend to yourself that you're not.
You can activate it on System > Preferences > Keyboard, the last tab of the window.
But since it doesn't warn me beforehand except through the icon, I sometimes end up rot13:
qvfnoyvat vg naq er-ranoyvat vg (juvpu erfrgf gur gvzre)if I'm doing something “important” when the icon is red, and even tofjvgpu gb n iveghny pbafbyr jvgu Pgey-Nyg-S1, naq xvyy gur tabzr-glcvat-zbavgbe cebprff sebz gur pbzznaq yvarto end a break. If a break enforcer wouldn'terfrg gur gvzre jura vg'f qvfnoyrqand wouldoybpx gur Pgey-Nyg-S_v_ pbzovangvbaf nf jryy, I would find it much more useful. (I sometimes even make a deal with myself whereby I decide to donate €50 to charity unless I never cheat on the typing break enforcer during the next week.)Sounds like you need something to electrically disable the keyboard for ten minutes an hour ...
Or just set up something elsewhere that needs to be dealt with. An alarm clock in the next room, or whatnot?