Outdoor Computing with a Deck Desk | Hacker News Reader

Outdoor Computing with a Deck Desk

mgsloan.com

151 pointslelf61 comments

I share the author’s preference to being outside. I have comfortable chairs outside on both the eastern and western sides of our house so that I can sit in the shade and work or read most of the day. I use a flat E&M shield to put my laptop on, with a small flat pillow under the E&M shield. Low ceremony and works well for me. Even though I have a great home office, sitting outside, or at our kitchen table, or at the library adds variety when I am working or consulting.

I am fortunate to live in Sedona in the mountains of Central Arizona with a trail head 100 meters from my front door. I spend a lot of time reading and very often I will do a 20 minute “mini hike” to one of two places where I have shade, comfortable red rock formations to sit on, and pine trees. This does add 40 minutes of “wasted time” walking when I want to site down and read for an hour, but that is OK.

I have always liked to vary my work environment. I had my office in La Jolla California for about 12 years over looking the ocean and La Jolla Cove. I put pressure on co-workers to hold business discussions while walking around town or on the cliffs by the ocean. A small time overhead, but conducive to good conversations. For every company that I have worked at, I always went (when weather allowed) for two 20 minute walks a day, which is good thinking time.

Those wasted 40 minutes are doing wonders for your body. Absolutely not a waste by all meaningful measurements.

jealous

Cool, sounds like we're very likeminded about this stuff! (I'm the author)

By E&M shield, is that for electromagnetic stuff? Interesting, hadn't considered that. While I suspect that the effect of EMF is negligible, it also makes sense to me to limit it where possible - who knows what might be discovered in the future.

I also live in walkable distance of a trailhead and have hiked to spots to spots to work. More on this in some upcoming posts, I have some unconventional approaches to this that have been highly effective so far. The hiking time isn't wasted at all, I think! Very mentally clearing.

Great idea about the walking time and encouraging walking meetings, will consider how to encourage that at work.

I used an identical zero gravity chair and a lap keyboard. After about 8 months, I developed serious issues with my wrists (pain all the time)

I went back to a traditional setup with an ergonomic split keyboard so my wrists were completely straight, and my wrists only slowly recovered.

I'm now on 6 months of not using a computer at all and finally feeling close to 100%

My advice is leave ergonomics up to people who know what they are doing

I wonder how much of the wrist pain has to do with diet and exercise. In my teens and early twenties I had chronic wrist pain. Now in my mid twenties I've been doing weight training that includes wrist/grip strength exercises (wrist curls, dead hangs, plate pinches) and making sure I get enough protein. The wrist pain is gone and hasn't come back for years.

The reason I'm mentioning protein is that apparently joints are the first place the body looks when we don't get enough protein. I didn't really watch what I ate when I was younger and realize now that I definitely wasn't eating enough protein.

I'm not advocating for some extreme weight training regimen, but maybe it's worth seeing a physical therapist and telling them about the wrist problems you were having and asking them for exercises to help strengthen your wrists.

Well, like I said, after being AFK for 6 months I've made a recovery that felt unimaginable when I was at a computer every day. So i'd guess it was 10 hours a day on a computer still.

But since you speculated, I was on 120-150g protein per day, and I am now on 80-100g with 10 hours of hiking (very little wrist exercise, all in one direction) per day.

I have some anecdata in support of your comment.

Both of my wrists were broken in my youth on separate occasions. Since then my wrists would ache when the weather changed, or when I spent too much time typing at the computer, or did certain physical activities like pushups.

The computing pain I mostly ignored, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't interfere with my life as I became increasingly immersed in programming and computers in general. It worried me that as I aged this career path would be a dead end, or one requiring chronic pain medication, because of my wrists.

But in my late 20s-early 30s I became interested in nutrition as my weight had been slowly climbing over the years and it was starting to noticably affect my overall quality of life. After my weight corrected itself with just an improved diet, I had a renewed interest in physical activities because being physical was so fun again becoming the same weight I was at ~17 years old, having lost ~26% of my weight in just a few months. Simple things like standing up had become entertainingly easy, running, jumping, everything was so easy and pleasant that I wanted to go for a run just to experience the ease of it.

The interest in physical activities escalated into a daily exercise routine, becoming curious about improving my performance beyond that of my ~17 year old self. Not wanting to acquire a bunch of heavy and expensive gear I'd have to store and move, I ended up doing just calisthenics and pushups became a major component of my morning ritual. For a year my wrists were the limiting factor in how many pushups I could do. I'd have sharp pains and aches well before any muscles were fatigued in that exercise. But I just kept doing them every day, with the reps slowly increasing as the months went by, adding multiple sets to morning and evening.

At some point, the wrist pain was no longer the limiting factor in my daily pushups and I was limited entirely by muscle fatigue and cardio instead. A nice side effect of this was that my wrists stopped hurting at the computer too.

I'm over 40 now, still doing hundreds of pushups daily, and my wrists have never resumed hurting. It's been really nice! Still ~165lbs too. Pushups have become the core of my daily routine, it's like brushing my teeth at this point. This experience has led me to suspect most sedentary people could achieve a relatively fit existence by just controlling their diet and spending as little as a few minutes every day doing pushups before they shower.

I don't think it has much to do with it. I've been working out and am in pretty good shape and I have chronic wrist pain due to many years of repetitive manual labor involving my wrist. And recently I've also started to feel pain in my right hand from using the trackpad so much... will go back to a mouse soon.

Try a wacom tablet. The only thing that worked for my wrist pain

Do you do any wrist/grip work? It took me several months just to do small increases in grip strength. I could only do 5lb wrist curls and 20 seconds pinching a 10lb plate. Dead hangs didn't come until later and that was also very slow to progress.

I had sore wrists from overuse for about 3 years. It cleared up when I started cross country skiing and jogging. It took about a year to clear up. This was 20 years ago and it hasn't bothered me since. I do make a point to take breaks, exercise including weightlifting. I also eat more protein now relative to when I had the issue.

Besides bad wrist angle, if the backside of your elbows rested on a pad, you could have aggravated the ulnar nerve. Same with a handful of other locations in upper neck and the other nerves in the arm. Nerve impingement/inflammation can show up as referred pain in the wrists.

It was wise to take the time off.

Hey, author here. Sorry that happened to you, glad you're on the mend. What kind of keyboard did you use? A normal keyboard is indeed going to be really hard on the wrists in this posture, since the hands need to come together. Normal form factor keyboards are just ergonomically awful imho. With a Kinesis advantage keyboard it seems quite comfortable to me, as the key wells are spaced quite wide.

That is very good to know, though, I've updated the post to emphasize that standard keyboards won't work well with this posture.

I respectfully disagree with leaving ergonomics up to the people who "know what they are doing". That said, I just realized my footnote clarifying that I am an ergonomics hobbyist wasn't properly referenced - fixed inhttps://github.com/mgsloan/mgsloan-site/commit/4a3cb2442eaed...

Stephen Wolfram “ties/hangs” a laptop from his body so he can work while on the move.

https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2019/02/seeking-the-prod...

Personally, I'd like a better mobile solution so I can walk to, or around, a park, etc and work for an hour.

What’s really missing is a better way to input into a device while not sitting.

Add a little voice input, eye tracking, and gesture input:

https://atap.google.com/soli/

Is that Soli sensor available for custom hardware? RPi?

Just sharing for inspiration, this is the setups the google glass researchers have used (2015): https://youtu.be/sk7cjmYrKck?t=473

- mentions the twiddler: https://twiddler.tekgear.com/

- ..and emacs speak: http://emacspeak.sourceforge.net/

- not mentioned, but there's also been more recent startups like tap: https://www.tapwithus.com/

Look at your blog. Looks like you’re working on some sort of input device?

https://www.vivekgani.com/

Did you finish?

So, I worked on https://thimblemac.com (which was a plugin, not an input device) between 2013-2017, and had some beta releases. Didn't quite get the traction I wanted, so put it on hiatus.

Been meaning to find a place to revamp it in some fashion but been busy with other projects/work since.

I moved my desk outside in the last couple of years when the British weather obliged. A few notes:

- temperature. if the temperature is right for you, chances are that it's a bit too warm for your electronics. Chips get hotter, which can result in all sorts of problems (particularly with big screens and graphics-intensive apps, but modern storage as well is often at risk by poor cooling).

- cables. Even if you are in a mostly-covered space, chances are that your cables would get wet when raining, so you are constantly taking them in and out of the house every day.

- insects. Yes yes, nature is good and we need bees and everything, but... they are really distracting.

- environmental noise. Compared to a home office, even a quiet residential street can sound like hell on earth when you are trying to concentrate.

So uhm, yeah, fun for a couple of days, but not long-term.

> temperature. if the temperature is right for you, chances are that it's a bit too warm for your electronics. Chips get hotter, which can result in all sorts of problems (particularly with big screens and graphics-intensive apps, but modern storage as well is often at risk by poor cooling).

This is a very AC-centric mindset. I make it a game to hold off on the AC in the summer. I have experienced graphics card overheating, but only when gaming.

A sun reflector, an extra 120mm fan, and maybe a better case should combat any temperature differences.

> This is a very AC-centric mindset

This is probably a very US-based mindset. Parent mentioned British weather - Over here it's almost unheard of to have AC at home, most homes just don't get warm enough for it to be worth the cost vs shading, regular fans, other management techniques.

FWIW I've found that my electronics tend to get overly warm also when sitting outside in nice weather.

Nobody has A/C in their home in Britain. It’s not hot enough.

> This is a very AC-centric mindset.

That’s extremely doubtful since they’re British.

> Chips get hotter, which can result in all sorts of problems (particularly with big screens and graphics-intensive apps, but modern storage as well is often at risk by poor cooling).

Why would you want to run non-trivial compute and storage in a non-temp-controlled environment anyway? That's an obvious use case for a thin-client setup. I'd surmise that some products intended for industrial, rugged etc. use can be a bit more resilient to extreme environments than your average laptop, and performance would be a non-issue.

Our office (NZ) has no aircon and in summer (ie now) my passively cooled 2015 MacBook is constantly throwing up thermal warnings imploring me to quit apps to maintain performance.

Between dogs barking, new construction, and lawn mowers I would need noise cancelling headphones.

> if the temperature is right for you, chances are that it's a bit too warm for your electronics

I don't understand: we normally keep our houses at our preferred temperatures, and our electronics do fine.

Hey, that's rad that you gave this a try!

Temperature hasn't been a problem for me. My computer works fine in 35C.

There's a section in my post about dealing with rain. I used tarps. Power was provided via a weather proof extension cable.

Insects can be troublesome, I had a lot of wasps die in my coffee. Only two stings in the whole summer of working out side! As long as you don't swat them they are pretty benign. I think this is really a regional thing, there are not many bugs where I am in Colorado, nor in Eastern Washington.

I haven't had a problem with environmental noise, but I also often listen to music while I work.

The first few days I experimented with outdoor computing I was a bit distracted by the novelty of it. Takes a while to ease into it, but that starting overhead is well worth it imho

One prerequisite thing the author is leaving out... you have a beautiful deck with beautiful scenery around. Yes, if I had those views, I would put my computer outside.

Some questions if there are outdoor hackers around:

What are some laptops that work well with Linux and have max screen brightness suitable for outdoor use?

A web site comparison said one Dell XPS 15 model[1] could do 626 nits - what kind of outdoor conditions would this be suitable for?

It seems advertising displays advertise an order of magnitude more nits[2] so I assume the laptops would at best be suitable for overcast weather without shade.

[1] https://www.laptopmag.com/benchmarks/display-brightness [2] https://www.dynascandisplay.com/products/ultra-high-brightne...

A good way to work it out is to compare phone brightness.

In the UK, I've found 450 nits as fine for outdoor use, provided I'm not directly reflecting the sun into my eyes.

It also helps with higher contrast and larger text

Absolutely. Black white is also lot more usable in this case than the 'dev edition' white on black.

I have an xps13 9360 (1 generation ago I believe) and I use it outside regularly. The matte screen helps a lot

I found some laptop LCD screens turn reflective in bright sunlight, and are actually quite readable. They look like silver (mirrored) and black pixels.

Can't remember which ones unfortunately, but I've used a few out in the sun.

It's not just nits. Matte screens (think Thinkpad, boring business) tend to do better than glossy screens (Apple, anything consumerish and "pretty").

I'm still waiting for eInk... whatever happened to the display tech from OLPC?

i use:

- wrist band to hold a smartphone; - use VNC client on it to connect to rpi4 in a running vest; - twiddler keyboard and joystick paired to rpi as input device.

This hybrid approach with smartphone as a display works better for me than head-mounted display.

This is an interesting setup. Do you have pictures or video?

Not yet, sorry. Have plans to publish this in coming months.

One of my major issues when working outside are mosquitoes and various insects.

Working outside is great and the author has put considerable amount of effort into making it work for him. Hopefully with computing becoming more ubiquitous, hardware will become more tolerant to the outdoors. For me, our screened in porch works best but still there are only a couple of months per year where doing computer based work outside is viable. The big annoyance here is in the spring when the temperature and humidity are nearly perfect but the pollen count is off the charts. I don't have allergies but also don't want my electronics covered inside and out with a yellowish green blanket of ultra fine particles. Sealed devices that are easily cleaned off would help here but the need for ventilation means most devices can't be sealed.

Our four to six weeks of autumn though... that's spectacular, though I'd much rather hike that time of year than tap away on a keyboard.

I’m fortunate to have a great screened in porch to work from in summer. (I live in the northern US so much to cold from late fall to late spring to work out there).

My favorite thing is when I’m on a call and someone asks if they are hearing birds! It’s just wonderful being in the fresh air.

gotta admire the hack. I’m still waiting on e-paper screen laptops...

Outdoors = air quality, lighting

With advancements in high NITs lighting and decreases in outdoor air quality, it might be easier to recreate the solar spectrum indoors (with a very high nits monitor) than to work outdoors during wildfire season.

Outdoors = breeze, birds, scents, wildlife, variety

Our minds arent so easily fooled by a truck lighting setup

looks at her outdoors setup: Mac laptop, Wacom tablet, sunshade made of black illustration board with magnets to attach to the ones hidden in the Mac’s lid, a few different bags big enough for all of that and not too much more, and a variety of cafes and parks nearby

This setup feels so... maximalist.

Whatever works I suppose but you can go work under a tree or whatever for a LOT less investment in time and equipment.

Hey, author here. Yes the treadmill deck desk is rather maximalist!

I also enjoy very portable setups, particularly for forests / mountains, but I also sometimes computer in or outside cafes. My portable setup for being out in nature is really weird looking though, so I'm slowly ramping up the weirdness levels of my posts about these topics rather than diving right in. While the location and hardware isn't exactly mundane, the deck desk idea is fairly close to our daily experience and so approachable. The next increment away from the mundane is hammock computing - https://mgsloan.com/posts/supine-computing/ . I have two more posts that are work-in-progress that are more in the unconventional and minimalist direction. So yeah, I think those might appeal to you more!

I wonder how feasible it would be to make a color e ink laptop screen with a decent refresh rate. That would solve glare problems.

Not color, but this is the cheapest eink (thing that can be used as a) monitor that I've seen. [1] I don't own one, so I can't speak to quality, but I am interested in getting one to try it. I'd love a non-illuminated screen.

1. https://onyxboox.com/boox_max3

This would be nice, however I’d likely be dead before midday. Mid-30 to 40C every day here in Queensland at the moment.

The rain is the one I am concerned about the most. And it is covered very lightly.

A minor issue is that most furniture made of "wood" is a thin veneer on particle board, which can't survive rain. The water gets between the gaps in the veneer, and the particle board swells up.

I'd think in many climates, a screen porch would be a viable option.

there is water proof hardware available, and explosion proof as well if you worry about errant bbq propane

tequar enclosures, for example

To deal with heat when working outside I use a plant spritzer to cool down. As others say here however, stay out of the sun!

This might be fun for a while, but in the long term you're asking for an increased skin cancer risk. Sorry to be a downer.

Unless you quantify this further, it doesn't mean a it's a net negative for wellbeing, longevity or anything. By getting out of bed you're at increased risk of falling down, etc.

Wellbeing is one thing (I know I would enjoy this a lot more than an office) but long term UV exposure is not forgiving for longevity. I could find sources, but it’s not my area; my partner is a dermatologist and I take her advice on this. It’s worth wearing sunscreen every day (even in the winter), though I believe you have to be careful about choosing products in some places like the US, where sunscreens can be zinc-based.

It’s basically something easy you can do in your morning routine every day that will lower your risk of developing skin cancer and some other problems.

For what it’s worth it also depends on the skin color of the person involved. If you’re on the more brownish side of things (like my mother and brother are) then you will not be as affected as the people who are more light-skinned (like the guy from the submitted post). There’s also the fact that our grandparents managed just fine to work all day long in broad sunlight without developing skin diseases, but it’s also true that they would almost never wear short-sleeved stuff and they would always keep their head covered under intense sunlight. Nowadays it’s almost a matter of pride among some people (think Nordic or British tourists) to show off how red-skinned they have become after just a couple of days spent in Greece or Southern Spain, it’s nuts.

Later edit: I’m talking about something like this [1], you can see how no person in that photo wears anything short-sleeved and you can also see that almost everyone has their head covered, with the exception of those two guys who probably took their hats off in order to enjoy the tzuica or palinka.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Harvest_time_in_Romania...

I think it depends on tropical location more than anything else. The sun is much more potent. My grandfather in northern Australia had many cancers removed from his face, ears, neck, shoulders, arms and legs. Today skin cancer occurs in roughly 2 out of 3 people in Australia.

Sorry but I think this does not really sound convincing regarding longevity, since there is no consideration of the net effect in light of the well-known positive health benefits of being outdoors. At risk of stretching my bed analogy, there are probably things you could do to mitigate risk of falling over in your home if you do get out of bed, such as wearing a helmet...

See eg this article:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26992108 "Avoidance of sun exposure as a risk factor for major causes of death: a competing risk analysis of the Melanoma in Southern Sweden cohort"

"CONCLUSION:

The longer life expectancy amongst women with active sun exposure habits was related to a decrease in CVD and noncancer/non-CVD mortality, causing the relative contribution of death due to cancer to increase."

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