This is interesting but the author considers only one degree of freedom, "roll".
Equally important are "pitch" and "yaw".
"pitch" is necessary to accommodate another kind of rotation, known in HCI as "slouch".
"yaw" is important because sometimes your code is so elegant and impressive, that you need people walking by to see it more than you need to see it yourself. You use yaw to rotate your monitor away, toward the hallway or window.
When I was younger, I'd write code and print it out to share with friends and family with the most disappointing looks returned. Honestly, I have no idea why and how I have persisted in this field for so long given how isolating it can be.
Even now, I am writing my own programming language (for board games), and I've run into the sales/marketing problem head-on.
I can see a space for something that's largely a DSL with restricted syntax for defining objects, but offers hooks and escapes into code, itself with syntax and abstractions designed to be as graspable as possible, for defining behavior. You could give it to designers and let them focus mostly on building games, not on learning a general-purpose language - think something like Inform 7, but with a different UX target.
A part of my problem is relying on "programming language" when I should really focus on "real-time collaborative database" with "multi-user workflow transactions"
On the other hand, the jawns from our co-workers clearly are stress responses from seeing our obviously superiorly elegant code, and the feeling of inferiority it leads to.
Yeah that's like Louis and the rest of the family pretending to eat and enjoy Stewie's sand cake (complete with plastic toys for decoration): "Mmmh yummie, Stewie is a great cook"
I know that you are writing in jest, but the very concept that any amount of slouching is tolerable to someone in this profession should be outrageous. We spend decades deforming our backs to sit in chairs. The least we can do is to promote the idea of an international "Insufficiently Ergonomic Office Chair Bonfire Day".
You don't want to burn all that plastic, not without a gas mask at least. But hey, recreational axe throwing by the hour is apparently a thing and so also are places where you literally go and pay to break stuff, I think there's a niche in the intersection of those where angle grinders and shitty chairs both fit. Just want to make sure your PI and liability cover is good.
I've got plenty of split wood in the shed, but Beat Saber in VR has been great for this same purpose lately. The problem, I find, is stopping when I need to - it's engrossing enough that I have to set a phone alarm, and not only when I need to be back at my desk by a given time.
edit having just finished a session: And as rhythm games go, I've never played anything else quite like it. The sheer sense of immersion makes it a unique experience, and that's before you realize each map is designed to teach you to dance your way through it. As you practice a song, you learn the dance, and the process of improving your execution on every runthrough feels amazing, especially once you know the song well enough to start attaining a full-body flow state that I honestly can't find words to describe. Like programming can be, sure, but where that's purely cerebral, this has a kind of sensual physicality that programming flow just doesn't match in my experience.
It's a little like back when I was young and used to dance in clubs, and a little like playing a musical instrument really well, but mainly it's its own thing that I can't really describe but can unreservedly recommend to anyone who can afford a Quest 2 and find 10x10 feet or so of clear floor space.
There's a lot of other things you can do in VR too I guess? I haven't really bothered with them yet, though. :D
Sit with your butt on the edge of your chair (don't use the back rest at all) ... Your back will be naturally straight and your core muscles will gain endurance. I learned this by using an exercise ball as a chair for six months.
Op must have an iron rod for a spine. I naturally slouch lying down. Cats are less fluid than my posture at 4pm-second-wind, two-screens-of-code-and-one-of-data full-crunch-engaged mode.
Get a standing desk and put on something with a beat. Same style, but it's better for your spine and you don't need fidget toys for when you're pegging your CPU.
the only solution appear to be a reverse standing desk. you get one of those reclinable planks to hang yourself upside down at an incline and have gravity fix your posture
> but the very concept that any amount of slouching is tolerable to someone in this profession should be outrageous. We spend decades deforming our backs to sit in chairs.
Would you be interested in a tool which reminds you to take a walk at regular intervals without any action from you when you're seated and immersed with work?
I'm trying to validate the need to refine and make my 'Butt Pomodoro'[1] more accessible.
I was literally just thinking about something like this yesterday evening. Normally I let my empty tea/coffee/water/"need to go to the bathroom" remind me to get up, but that is super unreliable, of course. I was contemplating some bracelet/rfid reader that didn't let me stay in my desk chair for too long before alerting me.
I'm surprised that the button-switch under butt pillow worked as well as it did in my setup, I've been using it for over a year but I've made the software-setup unnecessarily complicated and so I'm rewriting it to be a single module with some bells and whistles.
RFID bracelet would work too, But I wanted my setup completely unattended. Please send me an email if you'd like to be updated about rebuild of Butt Pomodoro.
How do you tackle the problem of “alarm blindness”?
The moment I think about a ‘Butt Pomodoro’ I picture myself being 90% disciplined and 10% saying “ok yes but not right now: I’m (doing something with a critical deadline/in the zone/especially lazy)”
And after a few of those, the reminder becomes background noise.
That's why I integrated pomodoro framework and didn't make a plain butt triggered alarm and so Butt Pomodoro is a time-management + health application not just a activity alarm.
I was already using Pomodoro schedule for time-management/productivity albeit triggering it manually now Butt Pomodoro helps me to trigger it automatically and pomodoro breaks are now for walks.
An unmodified desk could have up to 3 inches of difference in height end to end, but to be fair the warped floors contributed to this more than the building structure.
> I can't imagine any change of tilt would be in any way useful.
I can confirm. Currently dealing with a lot of post WFH era back issues which commenced shortly after working all day from my 1890 construction brownstone apartment. The floor warping is real.
"Pitch" is actually a useful rotation. Displays should be placed as far away as practical, with their top edge roughly at eye level, and tilted so that the bottom of the display is closer to the body than the top. Eyes have an easier time both focusing and converging closer in the bottom part of the field of view.
Viewers should sit up, with their backs and necks straight and plumb, and look around at different parts of the display by moving the eyes rather than tilting the head.
The top edge should only be at eye level of the screen is small enough. With a large 4k you want your eyes around the center because everything above that is the "upper monitor"
For comfort you do not want to be looking substantially upward or tilting your head back. It’s much better for your eyes to put the display lower and look down (by swiveling your eyes, not your whole head) for the bottom part instead.
For typing it works well with a large display to put the bottom of the display barely above the desk, push it back as far as you can (constrained by your workspace) and tilt it backwards near the top, and position the desk/chair so that the desktop is at roughly waist height (let your upper arms dangle loosely at your sides with your elbows close to the body and bent about 90°, keep your wrists straight, and position your fingertips at the tops of the keys of a keyboard resting on the desk).
I have a 27" display ("5K") and the top ends up just slightly below eye level. If you have a 40" display or something the top will probably end up a bit above eye level.
Your eyes need to focus and converge on the display surface irrespective of the distance or orientation of the display and irrespective of the font size.
But as a general rule, the further the display surface the less your eye muscles need to work. So if you can put your display 3m away from your eyes that is better than putting it 30cm away.
On my desk, about 90cm from my face is the furthest I can manage, but if you have more space in your work room, by all means put the display significantly further than that.
There is a ton of terrible advice out there, including from official standards organizations. Office ergonomics is a mess, with widespread normalization of injury-causing practices, and a lot of poorly designed/implemented research uninformed by any understanding of human anatomy.
If you find some particular screen placement personally comfortable though, go for it. Keyboard design and use is generally a much bigger problem.
Equally important are "pitch" and "yaw".
"pitch" is necessary to accommodate another kind of rotation, known in HCI as "slouch".
"yaw" is important because sometimes your code is so elegant and impressive, that you need people walking by to see it more than you need to see it yourself. You use yaw to rotate your monitor away, toward the hallway or window.