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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?"
I think you have to use your mouse a lot and develop RSI in your other arm...
-- Cheers!
There are two alternate Dvorak keymaps, in addition to the one that most people refer to (and I'm typing with now) when they say 'dvorak'. Dvorak developed a right and a left keymaping, which were designed for the physically handicapped.
These keymaps are set up to be minimal for english text with one hand. Give it a look-see, you might have them on your platform.
-- Crutcher --
#include <disclaimer.h>
I think about this some times: what if I can't type for some time and loose a great deal of money because of that? :-) ) 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?
In your case, what if you've broken both of your arms? (hope this never happens
Utinam logica falsa tuam philosophiam totam suffodiant!
vi
True warriors use the Klingon Google
This is why God invented short-term disability insurance. Also, try not to engage in activities that would cramp your work style. :)
--Mike
A former colleague was paralized from the neck down in an accident. He had some movement of his arms, but his hands where quite useless. At least he could manouvre the joystick of his electric wheelchair. He had some tools that could be strapped to his hands, i.a. to hold cups, cutlery and the telephone receiver. Also 2 metallic "fingers" with rubber tips that allowed him to type and mouse. Not as fast as 10 fingers, but he got through his workload.
Talk about an expensive lifestyle, what with all the adaptations to house, vehicle etc., medical costs,...!
Anyhow, back to topic: At some stage I moved the mouse to left of keyboard so that I could use my strong (right) hand for typing and still keeping the mouse ready. Saved a lot of time when switching between mouse-input and keyboard-input (which I did a lot at the time). Since I have fairly big hands, one-handed input was not too hard.
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."
Left it's ok, only wank with the other. But its a bugger if you can't use Alt-F4 to close those damn pop-ups ....
That is a nice bike. I've always wanted a little lightweight 250. My 600 feels like a cow sometimes weighing in at 438#. i'm glad you had pictures of your gear. its obvious that it saved you 10-15# of flesh, some broken bones, and probably your life. what kind of pants are those? they look like they did a good job.
THERE IS NO DATA. THERE IS O
Step 1: Work neekid.
Step 2: Always have Pr0n going in the corner of the screen.
Step 3: Viola, a 3rd finger to hold the ctrl keys with.
Sorry, only works if your male.
Ok, now lets see if the moderators are smart enough to tell the difference between humor and a troll.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Several consulting firms hire non-salaried people to contract out to sites. In these situations, you get paid by the hour, but don't get benefits, or vacation, or sick time. You generally get a higher hourly wage than a salaried person gets if you average out their salary. (To account for vacation, and the risk inherint in the situation). You do not get as much as if you independantly consulted.
In this case, he is employed by the company, and the company is already paying FICA etc. but he doesn't get his sick leave or anything.
He is a contractor, just not an independant contractor.
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
You can't type with your feet, but you should be able to rig up some foot pedals for the meta keys (meta, alt, control, shift, and perhaps others) that will help in emacs.
I've met coders who prefer a trackball on the floor with foot pedals instead of a mouse, that might help too.
Prejudice is when you judge someone before knowing the facts. It sounds like your employer knows all the facts in this case.
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.
I broke both hands in a bicycle accident three years ago. Bi-lateral, almost mirror image fractures, a inch and quarter hollow, titanium drywall screw in each thumb. At the time my wife was five months pregnant and until the harness came off (3rd degree shoulder separation) she was doing everything, I mean everything, for me.
A word of advice: use the hands. I worked straight through, only missing two days for surgery and the day of the accident; typing with just the middle fingers of each hand. It will make your shoulder stronger and shorten your rehab. Your rehab will go much faster if you are using your hand before you get the cast off. Avoid the mouse when possible. You might consider some voice interface software, as well. And stretch!
illegitimii non ingravare
A previous employer told me that Shanghai was written by a disabled programmer, using Blow. I can't find anything on the web to confirm this. Anyone got data?
Says the RIAA: When you EQ, you're stealing bass!
This is not illegal anywhere. You are just a non-exempt worker. This is actually in the employees favor, because you get paid overtime and whatnot.
Simmilarly, I can work by the hour for a maid service, and they rent(contract) my services our to people who want their house cleaned.
Or I can work for a roofing company, by the hour.
In both these cases, I wouldn't get benefits, or sick time or anything (well, you might, but its not mandatory). Just because a large percentage of people out there DO get benefits for the same job, doesnt mean you have to.
On a simmilar not, if you are salaried, and they dock your pay by the hour if you are late or whatever, they are legally required to give you overtime in addition to your salary, because they are treating you as non-exempt.
Acting as the front end you will need to stump up $40 for IBms IBM ViaVoice Dictation for Linux.
troodon.net
Since the relevant law in this case is mostly federal, I doubt you are correct, but Id be interested if you could point to some documentation.
Mr Hawking seems to have gotten the handsfree thing down pretty well over the past few years. He probably has the best system ever. I want to get a simalar system for my grandmother, because she had a stoke and can't talk really now, but I can't afford such a thing, unless he made it open source and someone game me the hardware.
Tibbon
tibbon.com
I'll second the notion that the half-qwerty concept is very useful. It has a much more shallow learning curve than nearly any other "nonstandard" (meaning different from whatever you're already used to) keyboard layout, because it exploits your innate ability to think of your hands as mirror images of one another.
In addition to the hardware implementation for Palm and commercial software implementations for Windows and Mac (all available from the site which the parent poster mentioned), there is also a free implementation for Linux in the form of a kernel patch.
But my grandest creation, as history will tell,
Was Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell.