27 ms·

We’re all just temporarily abled

• sublinear 3y ago
  > I injured my knee. Now imagine if your job wasn't sitting at a desk all day! Actually let's be honest, a sedentary lifestyle makes injuries like this more likely.
  • rob74 3y ago
    I thought about that when I read this in the blog post: > ...and tried something that, looking back now, maybe I’m too old for I don't know how old he is (not that old judging by the photo, but maybe it's an old photo?), and I don't know what he tried to do, but thinking like that is a slippery slope. Regular exercise is more important when growing older, not less - otherwise, you might become disabled because of your sedentary lifestyle rather than because of an injury.
    • ehnto 3y ago
      Exactly my thoughts, people slow themselves down as they age and it's surely a combination of reasons, and you can do what you want. But use it or lose it rings true. When you break your collarbone, the majority of your recovery is actually healing the joints and muscles that atrophied while you were in a sling (exceptions for surgery etc.) The bone takes care of itself, but your shoulder and arms freeze up and wither away alarmingly fast. If you have a bad joint and the pain causes you to reduce movement, it's very worthwhile to see a physio and keep the joints moving while it heals, to avoid further damage.
    • kaba0 3y ago
      I think you assume way too much out of this: The way I usually hear this expression is like "I have tried to do a backflip, failed and broke my arm", or so. So the blog writer likely did something way out of his league, like a fancy trick, and it is not a fair assumption to think that he lives such a sedentary lifestyle that any kind of movement would cause him harm, or even thinks that way. One can be very sporty, yet do some stupid one-off movement that will cause harm.
  • ycombinete 3y ago
    Absolutely, being sedentary is actively harmful. And it's amazing how long these things can take to recover once you're in your 30s. I got patella tendinitis in both my knees, after a decade of sedentary indolence, followed by an extreme reentry into exercise. It took nearly a whole year to get my knees right.
  • deleted 3y ago
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• zomglings 3y ago
  This article really struck a chord in me. At the end of May, I started suffering from Achilles tendonitis in one of my feet. Because I was exercising too vigorously too early in the morning while my body was not properly warmed up. Never a problem when I was younger. It has been a long, slow recovery. With a few relapses into tightness because I tried to walk too fast or carry too much weight. Even now, almost 3 months later, I can just glimpse the light at the end of the tunnel. I definitely took my health and my able-ness for granted when I was younger. Don't know how to teach my kids not to do the same.
  • justinpombrio 3y ago
    Holy shit, that's what I have! Thank you for naming the thing, now I can figure out what to do about it. (For me, it was biking strenuously without stretching, apparently.) zomglings: what have you done to help your ankle(s) recover?
    • zomglings 3y ago
      Two things help a lot: 1. This stretch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBafLfMXeis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBafLfMXeis 2. Ice packs - avoid heat for sure. And try to stay off your feet. Last Monday, I think tightened a tendon on the front part of my right foot because I had tried to walk too fast the previous evening. Thankfully, understanding the principles of stretching and icing helped me recover from that in 2 days (it wasn't as serious as the Achilles tendon tightening). Just take it slow and give yourself time to heal. The good news is that this isn't chronic (what the physiotherapist told me). After you heal, just take care to be stretched and warmed up before putting repetitive stress on your tendons. Edit: When you are injured, the rest of your body has to put itself under extra stress when you move to offset the lack of mobility that the tendonitis causes. So you increase the probability of other injuries (in my case, the tightening of other tendons). Try to be super careful and super patient.
  • deleted 3y ago
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  • anizan 3y ago
• apsurd 3y ago
  Same. at twenty something i sprained my ankle playing basketball. it's unbelievable how hard concrete sidewalks feel to a tender recovering bag of flesh. i sought out dirt and grass for relief. And getting up and down stairs hugging the rail, the world in slow motion as the youth rushed by. i'm grateful that such a small experience helped me see so much.
• seanthemon 3y ago
  My dad went from someone I can chat with every day about something or build something together to partially disabled due to first stroke and now unable to communicate fully or easily due to the second stroke at 65. He lost his job and sadly there are few things to help with those who are unable to communicate. This all happened over a single weekend.
  • sgtnoodle 3y ago
    That sucks. If it happened recently, though, don't completely lose hope. My mother-in-law had a stroke with a poor prognosis, and years later she's fully recovered and teaches piano!
    • seanthemon 3y ago
      Thank you, i'm so glad your MIL made such a wonderful recovery! We're about a year in and he's gotten to the "I can do this myself, I'm not depressed" phase, haha!
  • suction 3y ago
    [dead]
  • gfarah 3y ago
    Happened to my brother as well. Extremely fit and sharp guy. Had one stroke at his 31 years of age and another 6 months later. I make sure to enjoy every day as much as possible now.
• tastysandwich 3y ago
  One of the best things I ever did was get strong through a basic barbell training program called Starting Strength. Squat, deadlift, overhead press, bench press, chinups, eat, sleep. It really is that easy. Highly recommend it for anyone interested. 1. Any back pain I had disappeared completely. 2. When I have to lift something awkward (eg, furniture), I don't injure myself. If you can deadlift 200KG, awkwardly leaning over your lawn mower to grab a 20KG bag of concrete is pretty easy. 3. It is really really handy being able to move heavy things. 4. Basically everything else improves. Going for a tough hike uphill? Your legs will be a lot less sore if you can squat 150KG. Need to hold your screaming baby for 40 minutes? Easy!
  • 5d41402abc4b 3y ago
    My knee pain gets worse when i squat. How old are you?
    • hollerith 3y ago
      I'm 63 and have to stay completely away from cheese or the arthritis in my left knee gets so bad I cannot operate the clutch in an manual-transmission car without doing what feels like permanent damage to the knee. I used Starting Strength to learn how to squat roughly 12 years ago, do squats regularly and have never injured myself even temporarily doing squats although I use much less weight than grandparent does.
    • lookboil 3y ago
      What sort of range of motion are you using? Obviously consulting a physio/exercise physiologist may be helpful, but you may have less pain if you squat to just below parallel. Or other squat variants may be better for you, e.g. front squats (or zombie squats), box squats. Slant board squats are also very good. You could also look at pin squats as it deloads the weight from your body at a very precise depth so no risk of going too deep with the weight and causing pain Check out "knees over toes guy", he has a wealth of good free information on knee recovery. I'm 30 and I squat pain free twice per week despite 3 knee dislocations. Good luck friend
    • 3y ago
• padolsey 3y ago
  Indeed. And we are all born disabled (in that we are unable to sustain our own independence and wellbeing without assistance), and will likely all be disabled at the door of death. For such a universal experience, you’d think healthcare was more central a tenet of civilisation… As available and freely usable as the roads we drive on. Not just that, but our very way of work. 40+ hours a week is plainly ableist yet it persists as an almost unshakable norm. If my brain can only handle a couple hours a day, finding regular employment is nigh impossible.
  • monero-xmr 3y ago
    The problem is you can’t go into a “healing tube” like from sci-fi movies and get fixed. Medical workers are real people with their own wants and opinions on their compensation, just as we are as technologists. It’s so funny that everyone on HN expects to make tons of money for little effort, but when doctors and nurses want to be paid huge bucks society balks. America’s model is where the UK, Canada, and other subsidized healthcare systems are going. Our doctors make way more, but there is recognition that every doctor is not a replaceable cog - the good ones build up names and reputations for themselves. We have quietly built a large system of cheaper options including tele health, urgent care, and primary care (like CVS Minute Clinic) while enabling nurse practitioners to handle ever more procedures and tests. This is how the system will have to scale given the increasing safety net and huge immigration inflows. Medical care costs money. I’d rather have choice and options than pretend it’s free, which it isn’t.
    • the_gipsy 3y ago
      Private and well-compensated medical workers still don't offer a sci-fi "healing tubes". Private healthcare is maybe marginally better for 1% of the population, but far more expensive.
      • monero-xmr 3y ago
        Medical tourism into the US is extremely common. I own a rental unit near a major hospital and rent to many foreigners who travel in for treatment, particularly Canadians. Everything has trade offs.
• sideproject 3y ago
  I once sat on a zoom call with a vision impaired user to do some accessibility testing on our site. First, it was enlightening for me to see how she navigated through our site using her screen reader. Second when she landed on our booking page we got so embarrassed because she couldn’t use our date picker. A basic HTML version would have done the job. But a few weeks back we had debated over which fancy jquery date picker plugin we should use without considering the impact. It was fancy alright, yet it wasn’t usable at all for this user. I learned and felt many things that day as an engineer. Thinking in depth, across many different personas is a difficult thing to do, let alone building a tool that works well.
  • Yodel0914 3y ago
    There's nothing like working on screen reader compatibility to build a bit of empathy.
  • aaron695 3y ago
    [dead]
  • lopis 3y ago
    At my job we worked with an accessibility agency to train our devs and designers on web accessibility. It's really enlightening to see someone navigating smoothly with just sound or with 800% zoom. And very embarrassing when your menus just repeat the same "list item" label 5 times because of poor use of semantic HTML.
  • dgellow 3y ago
    That makes me think, how does one learn to use a screen reader? (Or alternatives for other handicaps) It seems fairly technical and challenging to learn, but I feel it would make sense for abled engineers to practice using those. I personally wouldn’t even know where to start, I only enabled the screen reader a few times by mistakes and have no idea how I could learn to be effective with it if I need to at some point in my life.
    • justsomehnguy 3y ago
• croes 3y ago
  >100% of people will have some form of disability in their lifetime. Wrong. You could die suddenly in peak condition without ever having a disability.
  • kaba0 3y ago
    If we are nitpicking, then we might as well define death as the ultimate disability.
    • croes 3y ago
      But not in your lifetime
  • LambdaComplex 3y ago
    You aren't born in peak condition.
    • trompetenaccoun 3y ago
      Youth isn't a disability.
    • croes 3y ago
      First, if you die at birth, it's your peak Second, I wrote could, to clarify that not everybody gets a disability before they die. Third, you could also die past your peak but still without disability.
  • deleted 3y ago
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  • maxbond 3y ago
    I addressed this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=37212689 https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=37212689 > "100%" doesn't mean "there are no nitpicky edge cases," it means, "this includes you, yes you, this is relevant to you." > It is completely normal to use language that is not entirely precise. It isn't a criticism to point this out.
• waihtis 3y ago
  We're all just temporarily alive also. What's the point of this article?
  • maxbond 3y ago
    It's about something which happened to limit this person's mobility and how it give them more empathy for people with impaired mobility and other disabilities. The point is that accessibility is important for each and every one of us.
    • waihtis 3y ago
      and why is this banality interesting to a hacker?
      • maxbond 3y ago
        Accessibility is an important part of software design. I also found it compelling rather than banal (and clearly I'm not the only one, given the 200+ upvotes and deeply personal comments people have shared). The audience for a given Hacker News article is the people who show up and find it interesting, rather than some platonic ideal of a Hacker News user. Participating in a system based on voting (such as HN) means accepting you won't always get your way. There are stories on the front page that aren't inappropriate/flaggable but which I would rather weren't there every day.
      • barelyauser 3y ago
        Try to move with wheels in a world built for people with legs. You have to hack your way. Or you thought hacking was a computer thing only?
        • waihtis 3y ago
          It should be completely apparent im not criticizing accessibility issues but instead the blog post, which resembles a revelation a 10-year old has when having had a bit too much cough medicine
• DoreenMichele 3y ago
  His privilege is showing more than he knows. Some people are born with disabilities. If you are lucky, you get to be temporarily abled. And oblivious to how fortunate you are until it leaves you. And then you get to gripe about "getting old" or whatever and kvetch about what you lost. Some people never had it. And never will.
  • padolsey 3y ago
    It’s true. But also perhaps more nuanced. Many people see disability as a purely negative experience, something to avoid at all costs, synonymous with illness. But it is a slightly different axis: Both medical and societal in nature. Thus we have the idea that it is not the person who is disabled, but society that disables the person. And separately many people have it as a central part of their identity, something to be proud of. Hence identity first language: “disabled person” vs “person with disability”. I am a person who holds it both as a burden of sorts, but also an identity, and a constantly fluctuating commentary on the ableism in the way we’ve built society. Disability is a complex framework.
    • DoreenMichele 3y ago
      I hate labels. But they are sometimes a necessary evil to communicate at all.
    • Mezzie 3y ago
      It should be noted that not all disabled people or communities like the social model. I despise it, for example. I have MS + visual impairments and society isn't why I'm disabled. I find the social model is adopted more by people for whom accommodations/cures exist and who don't have physical difficulties/pain.
  • maxbond 3y ago
    Mea culpa as well. To the extent I've successfully developed empathy for disabled and marginalized people and some degree of understanding, it's mostly been because my privileged life was interrupted by injury, or something else happened to impact myself personally. I read this article on HN recently about trying to cultivate these experiences deliberately, I'd be curious what you thought of it. It seems like an interesting idea but I have mixed feelings about cosplaying as a person with a disability I don't actually have. https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2019/07/i-feel-hopeless-rejected-and-a-burden-on-society-one-week-of-empathy-training/ https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2019/07/i-feel-hopeless-rejected-an...
• tap-snap-or-nap 3y ago
  [flagged]
  • looping8 3y ago
    Not reading the article or engaging with the points it makes also makes things weird. Each of us has a fragile body and at any moment, you might become broken in a way you can't fix. When you can't walk up a hill, hold a job - the world becomes hostile. Even going down a road that isn't asphalt but stones is a challenge for some people. That is a consequence of young and healthy people designing our world and the things in it, while others have to adapt. It is not about privilege, it's about smart design and understanding that the problem can very easily apply to us all. One fall down the stairs, one stroke, one bad day at the gym - you have injury for months or for life. It's a real danger.
    • tap-snap-or-nap 3y ago
      I did read the article. We are all incredibly fragile and also strong creatures. I am quite regularly injured due to sport, and broken for months so I understand fragility and also that strength comes with hard work and focusing on what one can do with what we have instead of what we cannot do.
• k__ 3y ago
  Before my 30s all my injuries took a week or two to heal. Now, I'm running around months with a pulled muscle. I don't even get them from lifting too heavy in the gym, I usually get them when I rotate in the dumbest possible way, grabbing some paper in the office.
  • flangola7 3y ago
    Why are/were you regularly being injured!?
    • JeremyNT 3y ago
      I'm not OP but I'm in my 40s and their tale is very familiar to me. If you live an active lifestyle in your 20s and 30s and try to keep up with the same pace as you age, over time you will just find yourself "tweaking" things. This could be small injuries, like a pulled muscle, or tendonitis, or joint pain. You are still physically capable of many of the same things, but if you deviate from the "happy path" injury is much more likely and takes way longer to heal.
    • k__ 3y ago
      Don't know, just happens. Especially since I'm over 30. I lift something in the worst possible position, because I'm distracted, and suddenly I pulled my back, or whatever. Grabbing something, turning around, remembering I need something else, just rotating my upper body and grabbing it, done. Lifting a big mirror, without bracing myself. Etc.
  • bradley13 3y ago
    Welcome to aging... As you get older, silly little injuries take a lot longer to heal. See the earlier thread about weight lifting. It's not about becoming Arnold, and it really does help prevent silly injuries.
• zealotsm 3y ago
  This reminded me of 5 daily remembrances from Buddhist cannon. 1. I am sure to become old; I cannot avoid ageing. 2. I am sure to become ill; I cannot avoid illness. 3. I am sure to die; I cannot avoid death. 4. I must be separated and parted from all that is dear and beloved to me. 5. I am the owner of my actions, heir of my actions, actions are the womb (from which I have sprung), actions are my relations, actions are my protection. Whatever actions I do, good or bad, of these I shall become the heir. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upajjhatthana_Sutta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upajjhatthana_Sutta
  • swyx 3y ago
    how depressing. what do they have to say about what joy to derive from life?
    • reedf1 3y ago
      If truth is depressing to you - looking inward and handling your feelings towards the inevitable will probably be beneficial.
    • quickthrower2 3y ago
      That is just a start. Now read the selfish gene. But seriously it can be the opposite of depressing. Instead of hating getting old, you realise it is like hating that the sky is blue and then you can enjoy it.
    • deleted 3y ago
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    • 63 3y ago
      I think this is a valid critique. One of the primary reasons I dislike stoicism is that reminding myself at every passing moment that I'm going to lose everything I love is awfully depressing. Certainly there is a place for it, particularly around forming and working toward long term goals, but I believe there's also a place for hedonism and escapism and good humor. I don't think that pursuit of rational truth is the goal of being alive.
• makeitdouble 3y ago
  > it’s easy to misunderstand ability as a binary thing. Yes. And also the notion of ability/disability has too many connotations, it makes it really hard to discuss the subject. One could posit that having less than perfect vision is a disability (for whatever value of "perfect"). But people will fight tooth and nail to not fall into that category, they'll explain how much they still can do without correction, or straight refuse the definition because glasses compensate their vision. I think at the very basis, accepting that there isn't a "norm" in the first place could help a lot. If there's no normal people, we can start discussion how we're all different and will be good or bad at different things. Another funny lens: people entering a foreign culture where they can't read nor speak should also fall into the (temporary?) disabled bucket. And same for so many other mindane situations.
  • Paul-Craft 3y ago
    You make a really good point here. Some years ago, I probably never would have thought of myself as "disabled" in any way. But, like you mention, I wear glasses, and, depending what the activity is, I can either continue on with little issue, or end up completely useless. I've also learned that I have ADHD and a learning disability. A "disability" is generally defined as a condition that limits one or more "major life activities," which is a term that has its own definition, but it's pretty common sense. One of my disabilities is myopia, which limits the activity of "seeing." My learning disability limits my ability to process visual-spatial information. Without accommodation in certain tasks, I absolutely am disabled. Ask me to navigate an unfamiliar neighborhood alone without my phone, and I'll end up lost, frustrated, and probably not find where I'm supposed to go. Ask me to do it without my phone and my glasses, and it's just a pointless exercise in futility then. But, let me have those tools which I know can help me do the tasks, and I'll be just fine. I am still a person who has some disabilities even with my tools, but they're what lets me manage. It says something about American culture, I think, that being seen using something as a "crutch" is a sign of weakness, when, in fact, a crutch is nothing more than a tool that can let someone who would be otherwise unable to do an activity be able to do so, no more or less than my glasses or my phone.
• block_dagger 3y ago
  P90X
• tayo42 3y ago
  Knees are such an interestingly fragile joint. You'd think evolution woukd have selected for something that at least heals on its own. Wish the article went into more detail about what happened.
  • Ekaros 3y ago
    How long they last in use by hunter-gatherers? At least 40 years? That really is good enough.
  • wycy 3y ago
    So long as the parts last long enough for you to reproduce, the trait won't get selected for/against and evolved away.
• nologic01 3y ago
  We are born totally helpless and die in various states of disrepair but the bulk of our moral disposition as expressed during our temporary window of "ability" does not at all reflect this fundamental truth. This contradiction is at the heart of social and political frictions. How much does an individual at their peak owe to the collective that "abled" them. Why should anyone take care of them during decline? Its not a trivial problem. The feeling of invincibility in our youth, ignoring - if not despising - the weak and adulating the strong and capable is probably an evolutionary adaptation. Yet our predicament as an intelligent and moral species is to understand this core reality and find the right balance. Use the various forms of invented technology to push the limits of ability (augment) without forgeting how it is all bootstraped and held together.
• mise_en_place 3y ago
  It's more accurate to say: we're disabled in various ways because big medicine and pharma gatekeeps useful treatments. Regenokine and anabolic agents like Deca-Durabolin can completely reverse joint damage. But your doctor will not allow you to take them, even if you insist upon it. In fact they will often report you to insurance and classify you as a drug abuser.
• bryanrasmussen 3y ago
  In terms of web UX, one disability that hardly anyone considers is intellectual disability - but really many people who work in development (design, project management, programming) are outliers in terms of intellectual ability (albeit probably not as much as they think they are) But we're all just temporarily smart as well, many people are not that bright before that first cup of coffee or if they are going through lots of stress (hence crunch time often decreasing productivity) One of the problems I have is encountering design decisions that I think that must be a bug, only to have it turn out to be a real thing. This quirk in my character cost me a lot of money with the Danish department of business registration, - long story short when I said I filled out what they wanted filled out and speculated maybe their site was broken they said oh you probably made this specific mistake, everybody does that - but in the end I still had to pay thousands of dollars in fines and close down the company (it was when Denmark decided you had to specify the legal owner of an LLC or face forced closure with fines, about a year later they closed down all LLCs anyway) on edit: of course a lot of devs have specific intellectual differences in ability - like ADHD.
  • Paul-Craft 3y ago
    Don't forget specific learning disabilities, either. I, personally, have a deficiency in visual-spatial processing. I can't say that it's come up in a web UX context before, but I can certainly imagine it doing so if a site decides to implement some kind of fancy spatial UI.
    • bryanrasmussen 3y ago
      when I was in high school they gave me some sort of advanced IQ test, I scored in the top 1% of the population for reading comprehension and logic, and in the lowest 5% for visual spatial processing - I have however improved quite a bit since that time in the latter area.
    • tristor 3y ago
      One of the things I gained an appreciation of was the editorial rule most newspapers had, but have now abandoned on the web, to write at or below an 8th grade level. I know someone who has a 134 IQ (well above average) but also has a comprehension disorder. They work in tech, but often need to send articles/instructions to a peer for summary/interpretation. They have an extensive vocabulary but if there is an unnecessarily complex paragraph they just get lost between the beginning and end. It’s greatly made me appreciate simple straightforward technical documentation beyond my existing appreciation because simplicity doesn’t waste my own time.
• EarthLaunch 3y ago
  > Through all of it, I’ve found myself noticing “accessibility” helpers more than ever before: that railing on the stairs, that ramp off to the side of the building, that elevator tucked away in the back. The title got me because I was fortunate to have this revelation too. I'd sprained a foot joint jumping off a small staircase. A day later I could barely limp into a med supply place to buy crutches. My "outdoors" vacation changed completely. Suddenly I'm worried about people judging me, and I'm intensely grateful for ramps, I care about parking spots, and it dawned on me that I'd ignored all this infrastructure that I now needed. Thanks.
• gnicholas 3y ago
  > 1 in 5 people currently have a disability. Considering that 15-20% of people have dyslexia, this is undoubtedly an underestimate.
  • barbs 3y ago
    I don't think that's quite right. According to wikipedia: > It affects 3–7% of the population;[2][5] however, up to 20% of the general population may have some degree of symptoms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyslexia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyslexia
• psychoslave 3y ago
  > 1 in 5 people currently have a disability. 100% of people will have some form of disability in their lifetime. That would mean no one will ever die in their best abilities. I think that is a claim that can easily proven wrong, for any reasonable definition of best abilities.
  • crdrost 3y ago
    I think if you went even more pedantic you would come back again to the idea that it's right, the idea being that someone dies an untimely death, fine, but it takes like 5 minutes for them to die and several of those minutes they are technically disabled. So then you get ultra pedantic about, maybe that doesn't make sense if you are vaporized over a timescale less than a human reaction time, 100ms or so, and probably that has happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or suicide bombers, or when the twin towers fell, or when a submarine catastrophically collapses, or certain falling deaths perhaps... But likely less than 0.5% of the people who have been alive, so when rounding to the nearest percent you would indeed say 100%. All of that is for lols, probably the original quote attached some sort of caveat that was lost in the note-taking, but even without it it's reasonable for the reader to be expected to add the necessary caveat, “ignoring people who happen to very suddenly die in the prime of their lives,...”
    • psychoslave 3y ago
      Sure in some sense, and we can always be over pedantic in any topic. Maybe I felt in the trap here, though I still feel that the sentence is over selling the author point, which is not the end is the world either. What I mean is, from what I get, the author point is that we shouldn't disregard people with permanent disabilities, as it's a faith we will all eventually reach. While I agree with the ethical goal of not disregarding people with some disabilities, I wouldn't take the path of founding that on average human faith. All the more the point is not how long will we agonize in an obviously near death situation, but how comfortably and socially integrated we can live once we have some disability, taking for granted that yes we will all necessary have the luxe of such a situation.
  • deleted 3y ago
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• ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
  I'm really big on accessibility support. The demographic that I Serve tends to have a statistically higher level of challenges than your average audience. One trick that I'm doing, in the app that I'm working on now, is that I have a "long-press help" feature. I have a long-press gesture recognizer attached to the main view, and, when a long-press event is received, I find the shallowest view under that press, and examine it for the accessibility label and hint support. If it does not have any, I back up to its parent, etc. If I find a label and hint, I use them to populate a popover, pointing at the target, and trigger a haptic. This popover has whatever is in the label (the popover title), and hint (detailed popover body). This encourages me to make sure that as many items as possible, have accessibility support. It also is a lot easier to test, than running voiceover (which I need to do anyway, as sometimes, text does not speak the way we think). I also localize my accessibility[0]. [0] https://github.com/RiftValleySoftware/RVS_Generic_Swift_Toolbox/blob/92e773b4ea8dfde00e3da564162df3f98c58f801/Sources/RVS_Generic_Swift_Toolbox/RVS_Generic_Swift_Toolbox_Extensions/RVS_Foundation_Extensions.swift#L192 https://github.com/RiftValleySoftware/RVS_Generic_Swift_Tool...
• gambiting 3y ago
  So this is how I live my life - knowing that your good health and ability can always just end at no fault of your own. It still haunts me that my father had plans we always talked about, he was very active and loved going outdoors and travelling, mountain biking, hiking etc, he spent a crazy amount of time getting a Land Rover done up as a Camel Trophy replica for a big adventure we were meant to go on, and then basically got cancer and died couple months after his 50th birthday. That's not to be gloomy and depressing - just that if you: 1) want to do something 2) have the physical health to do it 3) doing so won't put your family in a difficult situation financially or otherwise Just do it. When my friends say "oh I'll do that when I'm retired" or even just "oh I'll start activity X maybe in a couple of years" I'm like.........why. You don't even know if you'll be fit and healthy next year, making plans for your retirement in 20 years or even postponing simple outdoor activities like mountain biking or camping for a couple years "when the time is better" is.....unreasonable to me. Like the article says - we're all just temporarily abled. Maybe some of us if very lucky will remain abled for a long time. A lot of people will not. If you have the good fortune of being abled now, use it now.
  • joquarky 3y ago
    This is good advice, as I assume most here are fairly young. Be mindful to take chronic pain into consideration for any plans later in life, especially if you've not been the most disciplined with your health. Also get up and stretch more. Please.
    • mensetmanusman 3y ago
      Stand more than you sit every day!
  • Aaronstotle 3y ago
    Good advice, one of my dear family friends father passed away during Christmas in 2021. I think the saddest thing was that they had been planning a trip to Spain and were putting it off to do other things instead, he was nearing retirement as well. Since that day I've been more willing to do things instead of putting them off.
  • 3y ago
• kaivi 3y ago
  Peter Attia explores the same notion in his recent book called "Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity". I haven't finished the book yet, but the key point so far is that our modern medicine, as he calls it "Medicine v2", is in need of an upgrade to v3. Most people expect to become frail or senile in their late years, but it doesn't need to be that way. This new type medicine will focus on preventing injuries like that of Jim Nielsen's knee, as well as illnesses. For example, blood sugar levels considered normal have increased over the years as the general population got fatter. If your levels are measured 125 mg/dL, maybe you'll get a suggestion to change your diet. But if they're 126 mg/dL, suddenly this is viewed as serious and you're prescribed medications. Attia argues that there's too much focus on putting out fires like treating a stroke, but not nearly enough prevention and almost no individual long-term course correction for patients. He also argues that we have all the tools to collect the data and to make it possible. The book also delves into the science of "the 4 horsemen of death" as he calls them: atherosclerotic disease, cancer, neurodegenerative disease and the type 2 diabetes with the related metabolic dysfunction.
• dairylee 3y ago
  Her name is Sara[1] not Sarah. 1: https://www.sarasoueidan.com/ https://www.sarasoueidan.com/
• mcny 3y ago
  I had a less traumatic experience at the beach. I lost my glasses to the waves. Working on a laptop for the few weeks while my new glasses that I ordered online arrived was painful. At least something good came off of it. I'm all for building more accessible websites now.
  • giraffe_lady 3y ago
    Good example of social model of disability too, which I find the most useful way to think about it. You have an impairment, but because of access to an accommodation it doesn't normally prevent you from doing the things you need and want to do eg is not disabling. But in other circumstances, like not having financial access to vision correction, it would be. Whether a specific limitation is a disability or not isn't a feature of your body, but a function of your society's relationship to you.
• bigfryo 3y ago
  We are all also temporarily alive
• 98Windows 3y ago
  I became disabled after a music festival last year. The music was too loud and something broke in my ear. Now every sound hurts me, my voice is far too painful, going for a walk outside is too painful. Basically I can't do anything but sit in a silent room and browse the internet. Pain hyperacusis sucks. I wish I'd been more careful with my hearing.
  • chadcmulligan 3y ago
    I was standing near a speaker at a concert, and all of a sudden my ear just sounded like an amp that was overdriven, all distortion, fortunately I recovered, but I don't go near speakers at concerts any more.
    • bowsamic 3y ago
      I've been to concerts where the entire thing sounded like that.
  • laputan_machine 3y ago
    These things can happen suddenly and without warning. When I was 18 I was in a nightclub, my mate shouted a bit too loud into my ear (because the music was loud) and permanently damaged my hearing in my right ear, it hurts to hear certain frequencies in that ear now, and sounds like water stuck in there when it happens. I'm sorry to hear you have it (or something worse) in both Take care of your ears, folks.
  • itsmartapuntocm 3y ago
    Standing too close to a speaker at a house party gave me permanent tinnitus. Took me a long time to accept it mentally and emotionally. Now I’m a lot more careful with my hearing.
    • k__ 3y ago
      Same. Somehow it never bothered me.
• penjelly 3y ago
  i had a similar realization when i shattered my humerus, one arm completely out of commission for a month then a year of recovery. The only things i could do were TV/video games with a controller, ive always been a gamer but struggled with the idea: is gaming net positive on peoples lives or society? Lots of people "waste" tons of time gaming when they could be improving their situations. Having no ability to work/cook/exercise i noticed that gaming is a MASSIVE boon to disabled people. Im not sure how well id have managed without to be honest.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• Justsignedup 3y ago
  How many people I know got hit by a car and had their life ruined horribly. Or a bad surgery. Things totally out of their control. We need to see disability as a cost to society we must pay, not a failure of individuals which is more or less what were treating it. The American disability system is basically proving (very painfully) that life is barely livable to get scraps of help. Like below poverty levels. I really wish that we moved away from pain oriented policy - - how much pain are you willing to tolerate so we can get you basic assistance and into some sort of way to guarantee that people live an okay life as a default. My dream is to see this sometime in my lifetime.
  • justinator 3y ago
    I do share your dream - perhaps it's just empathy? Maybe a good start is to believe people who tell us they're suffering, even if what they're suffering from isn't obvious and physical.
    • Justsignedup 3y ago
      My fiance had intercranial hypertension. Which is a complex way of saying "we don't know the root cause of why your spinal fluid is causing so much pressure in your head that you want to take a ice pick and poke a hole in it!" which also decreases EVERYTHING due to brain pressure, so more tired, less ability to think, less sensitive to all senses, less emotional control (especially because you're in constant pain / fear of sudden motions causing a lot of pain). Hard to explain to people that she's not just lazy. Thankfully a relatively easy procedure helped and now she's on the road to a slow recovery. Edit: Maybe it is just empathy. It is hard to see my tax money going towards turning brown kids into skeletons, and not making people who's life already sucks suck a lot less.
      • folkrav 3y ago
        > Which is a complex way of saying "we don't know the root cause of why [...]" A thing a lot of people don't seem to be aware about modern medicine. We can treat many things, we know a whole lot more than we used to, but a lot of this knowledge is often incomplete. Many of the body's systems are very badly understood. Treatment for most of those issues is symptom management more than anything else.
• tycho-newman 3y ago
  More people should read Disability Visibility.
  • tuanx5 3y ago
    I just started it and also recommend it!
• ubermonkey 3y ago
  This is enormously true. You know it's true, intellectually. So did I, before it happened to me. But after November 2014, I knew it MUCH MORE INTIMATELY. I broke my hip cycling, at 44. This is not an easy thing to do at 44, apparently, short of car crashes or explosions, but we were going (too) fast in the rain, and the person in front of me lost their line and went down, and I swerved to avoid running over them, and lost control and went down hard without being able to shed any speed first. I say "broken hip" but they were pretty consistent about noting that what I had was a "high energy fracture of the femoral neck." Apparently, a "broken hip" is what happens if you're 75 and slip in the shower, but it's the same bone either way. A plate and several pins put me back together, but I couldn't put any weight on the leg for THREE MONTHS, using a walker. Even after PT, I used a cane well into the following summer -- ironically, because of atrophy, not the actual injury. It was a life-changing period of time for me. I was already pretty aware of accessibility needs -- my mom was a physical therapist in her working life -- but you don't notice the little things until it's YOUR skin in the game. The two best weeks of my recovery period were actually weeks we were out of town. See, we live in a three-story townhouse in an urban area. It's not big; it's just tall. That's no bueno if you can't really walk. However, at Christmas we spent a week with my mother and stepfather in the home they had modified years before intending to live there until they died. The main hallway was wide enough to maneuver with my walker. The master bath was 100% accessible. And it was all on one level. Then, towards the end, we took a cruise. We'd thought we were going to have to bail on it, but my surgeon pointing out "you know, you can rent wheelchairs on cruise ships, and it's really cheap." He was right; it cost me like $120 for the week, and I could GO ANYWHERE AND DO ANYTHING all on my own for the first time since before the accident. Think about it; what's more accessible than a vacation mode traditionally popular with older people?
• raygelogic 3y ago
  I think about this a lot as I get older. what I've realized is that being young (like under 30) is a pretty big deviation as far as physiology goes. the rest of life is a long slow decline, so you gotta set yourself up to manage it.
  • nathanfig 3y ago
    I think about this a lot with regard to software accessibility. We easily fall into this trap of thinking that it's only needed for a small minority of people- but all of us will age and lose the dexterity and senses we rely on to use computers and phones, not to mention that capacity to learn quickly. Not that a selfish motive should be required, but prioritizing accessibility features today is very likely to serve you tomorrow.
• f0x3 3y ago
  Story time? I worked very hard to get into a very physical job and I made it. It was the beginning of my professional career, I wanted to do this since I was a kid. I was 22. A few weeks went by, still couldn't believe they were paying me to do something I loved so much :) Of course, one regular day going to work on my motorcycle a distracted pedestrian crossed illegally and without looking. It jumped from behind a big truck, impossible to avoid. Due to the collision I fell right on the corner of the curb. I was driving slowly, the height of the seat to the curb was high enough to break a vertebra and bruise my spinal cord. I became a paraplegic at that instant, for life. He got a small crack in his arm. My professional career and all my dreams vanished. I watched my colleagues and friends move on enjoying life and the fruits of that effort. I was very envious, but nobody could do anything about it. I felt robbed. Obviously I can't walk but it's so much more than that. Surveys among fellow paralyzed tend to show "walking" as the last "feature" we'd all like to have back. I can't feel anything from the belly button down either. Simple things like going to the bathroom are no longer simple. I enjoyed sex a lot, goodbye to any of that. I get regular annoying spasms. I hava to take a bunch of pills every 8h I have severe chronic pain for which I have to take morphine regularly, which does not come without major side effects. I have to have surgery from time to time for adjustments and other stuff secondary to the injury. Fortunately, I am happy. I was already a person who didn't grate at things out of my control, but learning stoicism cemented it. Just for the fact that I was born and have been able to look at the stars in our galaxy and others, I feel it has been worth it. I feel privileged. I live with my amazing girldfriend, I enjoy stimulating hobbies and a day-to-day life that I don't take for granted.
  • neop1x 3y ago
    It's heartbreaking to read! :( But thanks for sharing it. It's also a terrific reminder to those of us who are still "able" yet are dissatisfied with our lives for a variety of foolish reasons. And a good reminder that our lives may be turned upside down in an instant. I respect how you dealt with it while still enjoying life. Also good to hear that your girlfriend still loves and supports you. I wish you all the best!
• TZubiri 3y ago
  I find the verified blue mark referring to the 10$/yr for the domain to be both hilarious and legit.
• S_Bear 3y ago
  I have a genetic degenerative joint condition. Ever since I had COVID, I've been on a speedrun to decrepitude. I have my leg braces and a cane, and I can still do my job. BUT IT'S EXHAUSTING. And Frustrating. 80% is my new 100%, and it's been a real struggle to adjust my current reality to my former expectations. I keep having to temper my ambitions for what I can reasonably accomplish. My geneticist says that as long as I keep doing my exercises, I should avoid a wheelchair, so that's nice.
• artisanspam 3y ago
  This is very timely for this post to appear on the front page because I just suffered a pretty bad injury. I broke my clavicle in a cycling race. I can hardly move, my sleep is constantly disturbed by pain, and I am only able to type this with two keyboards – one resting on my right shoulder so I can use my left hand in the sling, and one for my right hand on the desk. I'm only able to function because my partner is taking such great care of me. I would otherwise be toast. I can't drive like this. I can hardly walk due to road rash on my legs. Take your health seriously. You can only truly realize how lucky you are once it is gone.
• bikenaga 3y ago
  The article hit home for me, since I injured my left knee in June. I was rehabbing pretty good, to the point where I could do exercise bike and leg work, including light squats. I was set to try a fast walk or slow run in a week, and I could still do yard work. Then last week I reinjured the knee mowing the lawn (if the mower sticks on turf, don't try to force it), and tweaked it again over the weekend (just reaching down to pull a damn weed!). It feels like the meniscus tear I had years ago in the other knee, or it might be an MCL sprain. No instability, just discomfort walking. I've concluded that yard work is more dangerous than strength training or running, particularly if you're stupid. I saw a lot of comments about squats. I gave up power lifting after college, and just do higher reps/lower resistance stuff, and a lot of variety. But when I had a meniscus tear in my other knee, the orthopedist told me I didn't need to go all the way down to parallel to get the strength benefits for the quads - just 45 degrees was enough. Since I'm in my late 60s, I probably should be a little careful anyway. Suggestions are welcome. The point of the original article about disability hitting everyone was the big takeaway. Suddenly I have to think about hiring someone to mow the lawn and do yard work for a while. I can still get to the grocery store, but what if the injury had been worse and I couldn't? For me this will probably resolve itself in a while, but for some people disabilities are permanent. Injuries are humbling, and an opportunity for us to gain empathy for others. Sometimes when you can't do some things it helps you appreciate the things you can do. So the time I would have spent running or working in the yard gets spent reading or doing math, or doing different kinds of strength work. Doors close, doors open - do what you can.
  • coyotespike 3y ago
    You may have already heard about KneesOverToes guy - his programs scale down for his mother and up to NFL/NBA athletes. Can definitely recommend, he's helped many people.
• keeptrying 3y ago
  So true. If you can watch a blind person use a iphone to call an uber, it'll etch in your mind how hard we make it.
• neycoda 3y ago
  Any solutions to this will be demonized as socialism, communism, Marxism, or disruptive to the economy by elected Republicans, their top corporate/rich donors,and a good chunk of Corporate Democrats. Popular news sources will largely nod along and keep being a carrier of a dishonest narrative.
• dtjohnnymonkey 3y ago
  Everything should be designed with accessibility in mind, not only because one day we might be permanently disabled, but also because everyday we might be temporarily disabled. For example, you might be carrying something in one hand, and only have 1 hand free. Or your wrist might be sore from a tough sportsball game and you can’t squeeze a grip at all. Or you don’t want to turn on the light and wake up baby so you are trying to read in the dark. Or you don’t have your reading glasses at the moment.
• cratermoon 3y ago
  I had major surgery a bit over six months ago. Here's a fun trick: try using a mobile phone. The high-grade opioids keeping the pain in check blunt your thinking. Post-op anesthesia cognitive disfunction on top of that makes things even more confusing. Oh yeah, there's also loss of fine motor control. Don't even try going without your reading glasses if you use them. It takes days to weeks to return to function well enough to begin rehab. After that it can be weeks to months for full function to return. Yeah, accessibility matters all the time, it's not just a special thing to slap on after your MVP. It is your MVP for many people.
• wsostt 3y ago
  My first introduction to this concept was Tobin Sieber's book Disability Theory[0]. He referred to able-bodied people as TABs, Temporarily Able-Bodied. You are born a helpless infant and, if lucky, die a helpless elder. > The cycle of life runs in actuality from disability to temporary ability back to disability, and that only if you are among the most fortunate. [0] https://press.umich.edu/Books/D/Disability-Theory2 https://press.umich.edu/Books/D/Disability-Theory2
• omeze 3y ago
  Theres a great guide from Microsoft on this (mentioned in the reply to this HN comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30062178 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30062178) We’ve all had to open a door with our hands full and thanked the wheelchair button by the door, or tried to watch a movie with the flu and a stuffed head so we snapped on CC.
• MSFT_Edging 3y ago
  I had a bout of gout recently for the first time in my life. The pain in my foot was beyond anything I've experienced. I couldn't drive, I bought a cane and hobbled with the side of my foot. I was miserable every hour I was awake, and was even woken up by it a few times. Thankfully it only lasted 10 days but it was incredibly eye opening.