I'm not going to disagree with you, but I would like to comment that those ladies were only typing for eight hours a day. Maybe the comparison would be more fair if they got out of bed, hit the keyboard and mouse to check mail and news, went to work, typed all day, came home, got a page, typed more, then started working on their own projects at the keyboard, and rolled into bed a few hours before they did it again. 8 hours on a keyboard a day? Isn't that called vacation? dh On Fri, 2001-12-14 at 16:30, Phil Mendelsohn wrote: > On Fri, Dec 14, 2001 at 12:34:50PM -0600, Matt Wagner wrote: > > Timothy Wilson writes: > > > Hi everyone, > > > > > > Over the last week or so I've been experiencing some very mild numbness and > > > tingling in my left index finger. Also, it occasionally twitches > > > very slightly. Is this an early sign of RSI? Is it time to shell out 300 > > > clams on that Kinesis keyboard? (http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/) > > > > Tim, > > > > I started to get this a while back also. > > > > My wife -- who is an architect and spends a lot of time in front of > > the computer with Autocad -- gave me a set of her strap-on wrist > > guards. They have worked perfectly. > > Here's a curmudgeonly point of view, not inconsistent with your report. > > RSI / Carpal Tunnel / whatever, is just the name given to a symptom > that is a result of the development of a population of undisciplined/unskilled > typists large enough to need to name their symptoms. > > No, I'm not picking on anyone or calling anyone unskilled. > > But, the fact remains that I had a great-aunt who was a member of a > typing pool for decades, back around the middle of the last century. > She typed something around 120 w.p.m., as did anyone else who worked > there, and they did it for eight hours a day, every day. For years. > Not one of them ever had to quit or even complained of these > symptoms. And there were many thousands of professional typists > employed all through not just our country, but the world, and it took > the invention of the computer to bring to the forefront of the public > consciousness the malady known as RSI or Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. > > The difference is that the trained professionals were all told one > important thing when learning to type: > > "Sit up straight and KEEP YOUR WRISTS UP." > > Whenever I find myself getting sloppy, or slouching, or resting my > hands on the keyboard -- and I use a laptop a lot -- I lift my wrists > up and continue, and they get better. And that's the same thing your > wife's wrist things force to happen. So, whatever works for you. :) > > Next time: "Health Food Makes Me Sick." > > -- > "Trying to do something with your life is like > sitting down to eat a moose." --Douglas Wood > _______________________________________________ > Twin Cities Linux Users Group Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > http://www.mn-linux.org > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > https://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list