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Coders Working Without the Use of Their Hands?
Hagmonk asks: "Recently I crashed my motorbike at the racetrack and severely broke my left arm (sorry, nobody caught it on camera). I had a week in hospital, which was a problem since I'm contracting and you don't get paid for sick leave. Furthermore, I have my arm in a cast for 6 weeks (possibly another 6 again after that), which severely cramps my hacking style - no fast switches to other windows to make quick changes, and you should try operating emacs without two hands! Luckily, my employer was generous enough to purchase a hinged keyboard that allows me to type two handed. So I'm interested to hear from other hackers: how have you coped with injuries that stop you doing what you were born to do? Could you find a work around? Did you experience prejudice in the work place as a result, or were you supported?"
vi
True warriors use the Klingon Google
Sorry about your wreck and being laid up.
Even though I have two fairly functional hands, I've often thought how nice it would be to use one of these devices, particularly at meetings, where it would gauche to layout a laptop and using a PDA pen is less than satisfactory. I'll have to admit that furiuosly chording one of these devices in your lap under the table could look kind of suspicious.
Using chorded input on the one handed device seems to allow something like 4K possible input "characters", so even if you needed to map every emacs major mode's lisp function to a key you'd have an easier time than with a typical QWERTY board.
The advertisement suggests you can learn to use one of these in about a weekend. If you do, let me know if you like it or not.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
I broke my wrist in a motorcycle accident a year ago. I had an external fixator on my arm for about 8 weeks.
I actually found that I could type (albeit quite slowly) with my bad hand. And the more I typed, the more flexibility I got back in my hand. Rotating my arm so that my palm was flat on the keyboard was an excellent (and painful) stretching exercise.
So I suggest (with your doctor's approval) that you try and use your broken arm as much as possible. It maintained some of the manual dexterity in my hand and helped me recover more quickly. I have recovered about 99%. I occasionaly still get some stiffness in my wrist, but just reqires a break and some stretching which is a good habit regardless.
Steve
Is there any insurance that we can get on this cases (like accident insurance or similar) that would save our asses on this kind of misfortune
I think this is what that damn duck sells.
I've got one of those insurances - it's called a "Loss of Work Ability" insurance where I come from, and covers up to 6 months in hospital/retraining at full pay, and a price-index regulated income compensation ad infinitum if it turns out I'm no longer able to work at all does to my injuries. This pretty much boils down to me forever getting a pay similar to my current not-so-bad pay. After retirement I'm not sure what happens, but you'd better have that taken care of anyway. :-(
It's looks expensive at ~USD70/month, but it's all tax deductable(sp?), so it boils down to ~USD30/month, which is not all that much actually. And yes, I *AM* actually taxed that heavily
Black holes are where God divided by zero
www.naturalpoint.com -- this is a hands-free mouse that you aim by head motion, and click with an add-on footpad. I've been using it for about a year because of rms (the medical syndrome, not the guy). I also have an ergonomic keyboard-cum-chair from ErgoKinesis, and they might have some adaptive keyboard products you'd find useful.
BTW, the comments on the order of "just whack off with the other hand" are pretty damn insensitive, if you ask me.
There is a one handed mouse/keyboard combo, more of a hocky puck with buttons on it that you hold called Twiddler from Handy Key . I've not trieded it, but I've always been meaning to.