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In my early career I was a car seat engineer which gave me a life long interest in seats. If you look at historical chairs it is amazing how recently the comfor

In my early career I was a car seat engineer which gave me a life long interest in seats. If you look at historical chairs it is amazing how recently the comfortable chair was introduced. I peg it at around 1920, about 30 years after the Morris chair, which was the beginning. Think of the colonial era Windsor chairs. You can imagine great thinkers sitting in them pulled up to their desks creating and thinking. But no way could you sit for the 10-12 hours a day most HN readers do. Go back further to images of classic times. Sitting devices were definitely not capable of being used for extended periods. So yes, it is worth thinking about the impact of comfortable furniture on how much we sit. But later. I am getting up to get a cup of coffee.

w_t_payne 9y ago
What can we do to support healthy physical posture and movement whilst also maximising productivity when working with with electronic representations of textual and numeric data? There are some obvious avenues to explore -- but it is not clear if anything is going to be available to consumers in the near future.
- jgoodhcg 9y ago
  I'm really hoping VR headsets can provide a workspace where people can lay down or stand. The keyboard replacement in those positions might be hard to figure out.
  - ianai 9y ago
    That’s one of the easier problems. I just bought a split wireless keyboard. It actually feels alright just laying it in my thighs to typ.
- arca_vorago 9y ago
  There are quite a few things that can be done. 1. Get management in on the importance of ergonomics in modern work-life. Like needs to be a large portion of budget and discussed with the board important. 2. Culturally teach the importance of ergonomics in computing. Make it a part of prereq college basic IT courses. 3. Interface types will change this equation. VR, wireless-VR, AR, advances in motion capture, and in brain-computer interfaces will offer alternatives that will have to be adapted and evolved into (I'm rooting for a foss future myself, as it will be more agile in the evolutionary process which is ony one of many reasons foss software is superior to proprietary.) 4. Change the outlook on the desk space and it's function. I was in really good shape in the Marine Corps but I still found time to play pc games, which all know can suck hours away, so I designed a workout program for at the desk in my barracks room. I turned what was a sedentary area into an active area just by changing my approach. For example, during CS matches, the rule was every death is max set of dips (using chair arms) squats (by pushing chair back out of the way) pushups, curls, or pullups, etc. Then rotate every time. I've also used balance balls as chairs in order to force me to focus on my core and ab static strength. There are many examples and each person is different, but the desk doesn't have to be a lazy place. (If you are interested in this I would start with horse stances to work with leg strength first and get the bloodflow to the gluteus maximus which is what excessive sitting restricts.) Ultimately, I've been saying for a while that VR with room sensing seems really promising to me because I envision a future of VR workout sessions, which could be really fun by gamification and get people in shape! It wouldn't be that hard to ship a kettlebell with a motion tracker in it. I have a game project (planned GPLclient/CC?contentbysub model) with a long goal of getting into that territory, but had to narrow scope away from recently. I'm mostly waiting for VR on gnu/linux to get better, hoping the Vive Pro has made progress in that area.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
brownbat 9y ago
Reminded me of this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chairs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chairs I love that that's an article, and the ridiculous geekiness it takes to appreciate it. I think we're overdue for someone to write a brief history of chairs, like has been done for salt, longitude, and light sources.
- lostlogin 9y ago
  I was certain this would already exist but had no source. Now that I’ve finished with that rabbit hole I liked the look of this one most - chair history is surprisingly interesting. https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/497657/ https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/artic...
onion2k 9y ago
Sitting devices were definitely not capable of being used for extended periods. If only someone had invented the cushion.

w_t_payne 9y ago

What can we do to support healthy physical posture and movement whilst also maximising productivity when working with with electronic representations of textual and numeric data? There are some obvious avenues to explore -- but it is not clear if anything is going to be available to consumers in the near future.

jgoodhcg 9y ago
I'm really hoping VR headsets can provide a workspace where people can lay down or stand. The keyboard replacement in those positions might be hard to figure out.
- ianai 9y ago
  That’s one of the easier problems. I just bought a split wireless keyboard. It actually feels alright just laying it in my thighs to typ.
arca_vorago 9y ago
There are quite a few things that can be done. 1. Get management in on the importance of ergonomics in modern work-life. Like needs to be a large portion of budget and discussed with the board important. 2. Culturally teach the importance of ergonomics in computing. Make it a part of prereq college basic IT courses. 3. Interface types will change this equation. VR, wireless-VR, AR, advances in motion capture, and in brain-computer interfaces will offer alternatives that will have to be adapted and evolved into (I'm rooting for a foss future myself, as it will be more agile in the evolutionary process which is ony one of many reasons foss software is superior to proprietary.) 4. Change the outlook on the desk space and it's function. I was in really good shape in the Marine Corps but I still found time to play pc games, which all know can suck hours away, so I designed a workout program for at the desk in my barracks room. I turned what was a sedentary area into an active area just by changing my approach. For example, during CS matches, the rule was every death is max set of dips (using chair arms) squats (by pushing chair back out of the way) pushups, curls, or pullups, etc. Then rotate every time. I've also used balance balls as chairs in order to force me to focus on my core and ab static strength. There are many examples and each person is different, but the desk doesn't have to be a lazy place. (If you are interested in this I would start with horse stances to work with leg strength first and get the bloodflow to the gluteus maximus which is what excessive sitting restricts.) Ultimately, I've been saying for a while that VR with room sensing seems really promising to me because I envision a future of VR workout sessions, which could be really fun by gamification and get people in shape! It wouldn't be that hard to ship a kettlebell with a motion tracker in it. I have a game project (planned GPLclient/CC?contentbysub model) with a long goal of getting into that territory, but had to narrow scope away from recently. I'm mostly waiting for VR on gnu/linux to get better, hoping the Vive Pro has made progress in that area.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

brownbat 9y ago

Reminded me of this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chairs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chairs I love that that's an article, and the ridiculous geekiness it takes to appreciate it. I think we're overdue for someone to write a brief history of chairs, like has been done for salt, longitude, and light sources.

lostlogin 9y ago
I was certain this would already exist but had no source. Now that I’ve finished with that rabbit hole I liked the look of this one most - chair history is surprisingly interesting. https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/497657/ https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/artic...

onion2k 9y ago

Sitting devices were definitely not capable of being used for extended periods. If only someone had invented the cushion.