Cursorless is alien magic from the future
xeiaso.net
xeiaso.net
I'm glad you wrote it up, and that it got to the front page here strikes me as HN working as intended.
I didn't actually write this up per se :P Technically, I dictated it and there's probably some gnarly typos with homophones in there that I haven't totally eliminated because it was a bit of a fire and forget piece, where I was just dumping my thoughts on a topic.
And yeah, even notwithstanding the massive accessibility benefit, I can see use in learning it just for the sake of a new lens on how to navigate code. Sort of the same reason I'm looking forward to the big Emacs 29 update on all my machines around the end of the year - among other things, I get to find out firsthand whether I'm as excited as I should be for first class tree-sitter, or not excited enough.
But for VS Code folks, this is already right there and I can't imagine not wanting to play around at least a bit with it and see what it can do.
Farmer walks are amazing and I encourage people to do them more. Deadlifts are awesome for all kinds of reasons too; walks are definitely not a replacement, just a great alternative as far as hands go.
I started strength training this year, for other reasons. Using a rowing machine irritated my fingers, so I thought I'd have to avoid things like deadlifts and pullups. But I started using heavy clubs, which really work the grip but with the force pulling in a different direction. I've at least doubled my grip strength with those, and my fingers are a lot better now in general. (Now I'm doing deadlifts and rows too.)
Other things that helped before this:
- Switching to mech keyboards, and training myself to type without bottoming out the keys. When the problem first developed it was so bad I worried my career was ending. Mech keyboards fixed that.
- Holding my hands in ice water for ten minutes each, once a day. First two minutes are super painful, then the rest isn't bad. After a while you get used to it and the first part is all right too. That was more for acute relief when it was getting bad, and it made a huge difference. I've seen at least one study saying it works, too.
After trying many things, the thing that helped me the most was switching to a super low pressure rubber dome keyboard and typing softly. I use a Sun Type 7 but really any keyboard with super low pressure keys would probably do.
I had no idea such tools existed and even though I don't have RSI (yet), it's going to change the way I work.
I assume I'll just get used to it over time.
Were they bad, or did the VS code solution just seem much better?
Here are some of my most useful remaps:
- Swap enter and semicolon. Enter is one of my most used keys. It should be "directly accessible"
- Make right command backspace. Backspace is another key I very commonly use, but it's far away and causes a lot of pain. Now, it's right under my thumb! (Regular backspace key is now forward delete).
- Make caps lock and enter control. (When pressed with other keys). This is useful for Emacs commands.
- Caps lock is escape when not pressed with other keys.
- Enter is semicolon when not pressed with other keys.
I use Karabiner for Mac to do my remappings.
Even though, as I wrote above, Emacs does not require finger contortions, I do do finger contortions. I doubt I'll ever stop using Emacs but I have always been a little concerned about my little fingers ("pinkies"). So the options seem to be either evil mode, or a new keyboard, both of which require busting a decade's worth of muscle memory...
Quite a while ago I remember talk about making the LSP server work for other editors by avoiding importing vscode.
I know for me I to see these kinds of setups (like every eMacs setup) and realize that my neuro divergence is very different than others
I freeze in awe at how much context and abstractions you have to keep in your head to just navigate and grok what’s happening. It’s like three layers of abstraction and having decades of fluency in a language and IDE/CLI.
“ After a while, they just become second nature like Vim commands do. I have been forcing myself to use this over and over again for the past few days and it's starting to become second nature.”
Ha yeah that does seem like what it would take to learn to use this.
I’ve been making computers go brrrr for 30 years and this level of coding fluency will never not confuse and impress me.
Kudos!!
I want to see a study teaching people to code using their voice versus with typing and then also by hand.
I'm not too interested in Cursorless I don't use VSCode and vim/evil mode text objects are equally powerful (and less visually noisy). Very excited by this whole concept.
- Tenting split keyboard (Goldtouch V2)
- Vertical mouse (Evoluent)
- Strength training (Les Mills Body Pump class)
- Desk & chair at the proper height for me
- Keeping my body and arms warm throughout the day, especially at night while asleep
- Switching from Emacs to JetBrains editors
I hope you can solve your RSI issues. Thanks for the article. Good luck!
I can see a lot of promise in this. Particularly if this integrates a sort of "record and perform" feature. Say I'm doing action X with my keyboard, and I know I need to do Y after, and 1) I can see all the required text on the screen, 2) it's a simple operation. I could then speak the command for Y while executing X, and then press the button to execute the voice command after I finish X. Much better than having to alternate between typing and speaking.
Alternately typing and speaking would lead to using different parts of our cognition, and writing software isn't very verbal once you've grokked the syntax. Instead, if one can type and speak at the same time, it'll work everything and make achieving a flow state much easier. Sort of like rubber ducking on steroids.
One could take notes, too...
I see an Emacs package coming lol.
There is one that drives vscode or jetbrains with cursorless plugin, but a native emacs one would be nice.
Emacs is pretty good in the other direction (can type, can't see) thanks to Emacspeak.
But it's going to be a while before Emacs can catch up in this domain. The display engine can't handle cursorless-style notation, and the tree-sitter integration is not mature yet.
Source: I've tried.
Then for the overlays to always be visible.
I got stuck somewhere though.
If you do 6-8 hours voice coding like I have in the past, you'll appreciate every micro optimization.
Some detail about it here:
https://whalequench.club/blog/2019/09/03/learning-to-speak-c...
> With one exception, all the NATO words have more than one syllable (e.g., November has three) and are not efficient for commands like the alphabet that you will use frequently
Why not jam, jaw, jail, junk, join, jerk, jest, jazz, jade, etc.
I need extremely responsive and accurate eye tracking with device that can detect at least 3-5 buttons
- click
- click down
- click up
- move right
- move left
Anyway, I’m 52 and have been typing daily at tech jobs since 1995. I had a run-in with RSI around 2000, and tried ergonomic aids like a squishy pad in front of my keyboard to rest my wrists on, this sliding thing that I rested my elbows on. None of it made a lick of difference.
I changed the way I typed. I made sure to keep my hands and wrists relaxed, and swapped out stretching my fingers for keys with sliding my arms around… and it worked.
I still type a lot every day, and I’ve been pain free for 20 years. YMMV, obviously, but changing how you use your arms and hands might be a huge boon.
I changed many habits and it's been gone since then ... It's obviously different for everyone but I found that using a trackball helped a lot. For awhile I had a mouse on the left and trackball on the right, switching back and forth. But I don't need that anymore.
Taking breaks and minding posture is important. Wrist posture in particular -- I don't rest my wrists or arms on anything -- only my fingers make contact with the keyboard.
Much later, I started weight training with kettle bells, and I noticed a pretty nice improvement in strength / circulation.
That's one of the biggest takeaways I had from playing bass guitar in high school, actually. If you can delegate the movement to a bigger muscle group, it's generally a good idea do so. Shoulder/back instead of arm, arm instead of hand, hand instead of finger...
This. I had problems with back pain, neck pain and RSI about 10 years ago. I learned to sit up straight, corrected my desk height and rearranged stuff on my desk so I'm not typing like a shrimp. I also realized I really don't need to type as much as I did.
No pain ever since.
Glad to see its being actively developed. Would use if hands became incapable
That being said, I think the biggest limiter is the fact that you can only really use this if you work from home alone, can't imagine using this anywhere outside or at the office.
Edit: apparently so!
Right now, I am grappling with RSI and I haven't been able to program for more than a few days in the past month. I am not even typing this, but using the Voice Access feature of Windows 11 in order to input this. I ordered an ergonomic keyboard (Glove80) and I am waiting for it. I also have an ergonomic mouse and even got an ergonomic chair. But I know that regardless of the case, I won't be able to program. for at least a few months. Until my hand recovers. If it does at all.
I am definitely going to check out this extension. Quick question: does it work on any language or just something like Javascript?
Realistically half of the way to program with voice is syntax. One of the really cool parts with the voice bindings is that the voice binding for making a function is the same in every language. I am honestly quite terrible with Python. However, when I know that the default command to make a function is funky, I can just step right in there and make it work.
You must crawl before you can walk. You must walk before you can run. You must run before you can fly. Welcome to the Crawling Phase.
Because they talk over noisy, distorted channels that have about 3 kHz bandwidth, in environments that are noisy to begin with?
You can talk to your PC in 16 bit (or more) audio sampled at 48 kHz, with a decent microphone, in a relatively quiet environment. Moreover, it could be tailored to understand your voice specifically, not just anyone saying "U".
In either case, you're using the same number of syllables, so there isn't any speed lost. You just have to spend a day learning the alphabet.
In 2023, if whatever you're using doesn't listen for stops, here is a dime, get yourself a better speech recognizer?
I'm not learning any phonetic alphabet other than the ICAO standard one.
If I ever have to use that one, I will look like a fool if that nonstandard one starts slipping in by mistake.
When one hand gets sore, just switch to the other.
I get bad RSI the minute I’m not using this configuration.
At times I've even seen better collaboration between random open source maintainers working together than some of the companies where everyone was in an open office floorplan.
If you like working in an open office, that's great for you. I don't.
I guess my South African English accent isn't helping.
- Get a TKL keyboard, those extra 5 inches to stretch to your mouse are important
- Or try using your mouse IN FRONT of your keyboard, like, I usually have mine turned 90' counter-clockwise and resting somewhere under my left "Alt" key. If you never used it that way it may feel weird for like 5 minutes. Then it's natural for eternity
- And get a mechanical keyboard ("red" switches should be okay for most people)
You're gonna have to walk me through that one.
> And get a mechanical keyboard
I'm not convinced that mechanical keyboards help with reducing RSI, since they usually require more actuation force and key travel. I've found slim keyboards with low key travel, whether mechanical or membrane, to be the most comfortable to type on for extended periods of time.
A mouse is a proxy for the pointer, you move the mouse and that moves the pointer a scaled amount, precisely, distance-for-distance predictable movement. A trackpoint is a joystick, you lean it in a direction and the pointer goes in that direction and you have to work with the timing and guess when to let go for the pointer to stop in the place you want. It's like controlling a pointer by poking it with a bouncy spring, there could hardly be a worse mismatch.
The opposite version of the mismatch is trying to control a driving game with a mouse, where the car only steers left as long as the mouse is actively moving left, so you have to continually swipe the mouse and pick it up and reswipe over and over to go round a corner.
Joysticks are not a good fit to control a mouse pointer.
Have you ever used a Trackpoint? It's more than a joystick. It's pressure sensitive, which means that you can quickly cross large distances, or be precise across smaller ones, by adjusting the exerted pressure. There's no guessing where the pointer will stop, since there's no deceleration, and you're almost[1] always in full control.
I agree that it's less precise than a mouse, but not by much once you're used to it. I'd trade the comfort of always keeping my hands on the keyboard for a slight decrease in precision any day. And this is even less of a problem if you optimize your workflow to use keyboard-driven UIs as much as possible.
[1]: The only issue I have with it is that it ocasionally gets "stuck" in one direction, which fixes itself after a second of letting go of it. It's possibly related to dirt or dust, because of its high sensitivity, but I haven't found that cleaning helps much. Though this might be only an issue on ThinkPad laptops, which Lenovo hasn't cared to fix for many years now.
You know when moving a mouse to resize a column in some data view, only the developers made it so the hit target is a single pixel and it's excruciating to try and hit it? A trackpoint is like that all the time, for every use case.
I had no idea that mine was too high. And then I sat at a colleague’s desk and it was low. Like lowrider-car low. Crazy low. And wow did it feel comfortable.
So then I fixed my own desk. Not to be crazy low, to be the right height. Because if it’s too high, you’re hunched all day. Your shoulders are up, you’re tense.
I also changed my chair. I had a classic office chair, but again too high (I’m average height, not a millimetre more), and with wheels. The wheels were killing me — all day your legs are trying to keep you stable, which sounds like cool exercise but isn’t. Turns out just being stable is better.
So I bought a chair. A wooden chair with four legs. About AU$80 from IKEA.
These two things alone transformed my RSI. I know, because I didn’t change my keyboard (Microsoft Ergo Sculpt) or my mouse (Logi MX Anywhere 3? whatever, just a mouse), or anything else. I didn’t exercise.
I fixed my desk height and my chair and my crippling RSI went away.
1. Remembering what I learned from piano lessons at music school: keyboard should be approximately under your fingers if you relax your arms and bend your elbows 90 degrees. Where playing, you you have to engage your arms, not only fingers.
2. Putting screen at approximately eye level, give or take.
Yes, the above means a laptop is by default unsuitable for serious work. An external keyboard and/or display is a must.
3. Realizing that what we (at least in my generation) were taught at school about “orderly” position at a desk is a pile of something between wrongness and abuse. Relaxed, laid-back sitting position is best for you, and any boss or instructor who tries to tell you otherwise is engaging in status games.
https://octopup.org/img/computer/datahand/m/20021103-0000-P4...
https://octopup.org/img/computer/datahand/m/20021121-0000-P4...
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F...
Split keyboards are definitely a rabbit hole one might want to explore, but it’s just logistically difficult to find a good unit that Just Works(tm), is configured or easily configurable as one would expect, doesn’t incur extra latency, is compact enough if you want to work from somewhere else, has key caps you want, is in stock, etc. Meanwhile, external mechanical wireless keyboards with good Cherry switches are available from the usual retailers these days and they take you 90% of the way if you’re currently working with a laptop as is (where your screen cannot be anywhere other than at the level of your hands and vice-versa). Thus, to me the returns of split keyboards are diminishing—to anyone who has wrist or other working posture-related issues and works on a laptop without a dedicated keyboard, I’d say fix that ASAP before starting to geek out on splits.
PS. To be honest, based on my experience, on some of those photos people’s positions look very uncomfortable for every other reason besides the split.
The reason is that in this position the bones in the arms are in a twist and that puts pressure on the tissues - most notably the nerves.
Interestingly holding a gamepad or a phone in both hands is much closer to the ideal position.
Personally I avoided most problems due to the fact that I've been playing the guitar since I was a teenager and this community is particularly interested in wrist and arm health, so I learned to watch out for early signs of strain and how to not overdo it early on.
I had surgery done in one hand a year ago. It has restored my ability to do most things (like cycling or using a gamepad), but regular keyboard and mouse use is still a problem.
For me, the biggest impact has been switching to a vertical mouse. That, along with a tented split keyboard allows me to work most days without aggravating my CTS.
Honestly want to know how many people here use Emacs like this? I thought Emacs users live their lives in Emacs. I know people who move more and more of their workflows into Emacs with packages like vterm, EAT, lsp-mode, pdf-tools, etc.
Are there seriously Emacs users who only a "bit of an emacs user". What is your workflow like? How do you decide when to use Emacs and when to use other tools? VSCode and Emacs have a lot of overlap in their purpose. How does this switching in and out of tools that overlap in their purpose feel?
I suspect a lot of this is selection bias: the Emacs discussion you see online is often coming from fanatics rather than people who use Emacs without blogging about it.
2 emacs users and they do everything in emacs.
> I suspect a lot of this is selection bias
Exactly and that's why I want to know more from those who don't do everything in Emacs and how they decide when to use Emacs and when to use another editor and how mixing both editors in your life works out for you.
I find the emacs works best when it does everything, but there’s stuff it just doesn’t do, so I do that stuff elsewhere. I look outside of emacs if I think the task is going to be done mobile, and even then, I generally choose a solution that produces plain text so I can do it inside emacs if required - but sometimes that just doesn’t work out.
- I got the logitech MX vertical mouse. This removed the pain in the back of my hand
- After being skeptical for a while, I got myself the logitech k860 ergonomic keyboard. It helped.
This is of course not a long term solution, but it might help you relieve pain almost immediately. Thought I'd leave this here in case someone was one the fence about buying an ergonomic mouse/keyboard.
By the way, have you seen the Firefox extension "Let's Get Color Blind"? It can simulate colorblindness, but perhaps more importantly, it can Daltonize web pages on the fly to make them usable by the colorblind -- even including real-time stuff like video. It blew a protanopic coworker's mind. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/let-s-get-col...
I used to have debilitating RSI when typing. I tried everything and it just got worse over time. Stretches. Typing a certain way. Taking breaks etc. My wrist would become locked after 10 minutes of typing and stay that way for the rest of the day.
I then read a book claiming that all pain is just based on expectation, so if you think it'll be painful it'll be painful, and get worse overtime as the expectation reinforces.
Quite literally within the space of 5 minutes, it all went away. All gone. That was around 8 years ago and I've not had it since. Doesn't matter how long I type, in what position etc. Doesn't affect me at all.
As per Acceptance and Commitment therapy (not the book, something I discovered much later) this can be defined as "the solution is the problem". When you focus on the solution, it defines itself as the problem and it simply becomes worse (think for example, someone who's overweight so eats to make themselves feel better, thereby becoming more overweight and the cycle repeating itself etc.)
Interestingly, the only time my wrist gets sore is when I get really stressed. So I think there's some merit to it being a response from the brain.
I think a large part of it has to do with the eastern idea of letting go. The basic idea is that suffering is a result of holding on too tightly, as opposed to observing intently. Once you observe, the suffering goes away.
Interestingly, I got the idea from a coder on his blog detailing how he literally tried everything for his RSI, and wasn't until he tried this approach that it all went away.
Some people (like myself) must fail every single way before finding the solution (because we're stubborn) but this also keenly describes the idea of "the solution is the problem". It's not until we give up, do we actually find what we're looking for.
I think this is what RSI represents for a lot of people. It's such a shitty experience that they literally pour all their effort to try and resolve it, not realising that it's actually making it worse and only until they let go, will it be resolved.
I eventually found out that the problems were psychosomatic. The key observation was that when I started reading John Sarno's "The Mindbody Prescription", my symptoms suddenly started shifting from wrists to ankles. "Hey wait a minute…" was my thought — and it turned out that my mind was the cause. I don't buy all of Sarno's stuff, but even thinking about this and considering it carefully caused major effects for me.
Fast forward many years, and taking care of my mind helped my overall health tremendously. Many problems I had are simply gone. And I have a finely tuned radar now whenever something new appears — if it isn't easily diagnosable and attributable to a medical problem, it's likely psychosomatic.
For those unaware: psychosomatic issues are not "hallucinated" nor are they hypochondria. These are real issues, just caused by your mind, for example causing muscle tension or restricted blood flow.
Looking around me, I can see many people whose issues are likely psychosomatic. Unfortunately, it's very difficult to help them, because "no one can be told what the Matrix is, you have to see it for yourself" — you have to be ready to accept this explanation and deal with the mental problems.
Obviously not all RSI problems are psychosomatic, but at least some are, so it's worth looking at.
Funnily enough, I'm facing an issue at the moment, which I assume is related, but I haven't quite figured out how to resolve.
Basically my body gets really hot when I try to fall asleep and it really sucks, but I get the sense it's related. Like I can't let it go, so it becomes this whole thing, except I'm not quite sure how to approach it in this context.
Another trick is to take a hot shower before bed. Does that work?
https://www.sleepfoundation.org/sleep-faqs/why-do-i-get-so-h...
But trust me when I say I have more-or-less tried everything as far as I'm aware. Cold showers. Hot showers. Magnesium etc.
1. Have you tried a weighted blanket? I bought one this summer as I don't have a/c but find it hard to fall asleep without the feeling of a big blanket covering me. I found this one[0] from Bearaby which is wonderful. It's weaved together so doesn't provide much/any warmth. Just a lot of soothing weight.
2. This article - "How to Fall Asleep in 2 Minutes or Less" - helped me fall asleep quickly: https://www.artofmanliness.com/health-fitness/health/fall-as....
Weeds, the show, immortalized it as "nature's Ambien"
Having a small fan blowing air over me also helps quite a bit (the Vornado 5303DC has a remote and can adjust in 1% increments which is very nice for adjusting temp a bit during the night).
I would advise against cold showers/baths/immersion as the will shock you into wakefullness and vigilance. Can't see how there's any evidence for that actually working. Its like saying "Ya, I turned my phone as bright and blue as it goes up to and I STILL couldn't sleep" :/
Passed the book to my dad, who had similar issues, and he’s had only a few such incidents in the intervening years - a huge improvement.
Then I did a little research and found a YouTube video that recommended muscle exercise instead of rest, using torsion bars. I bought those and did the exercises for a few weeks. Pain went away and hasn't returned.
Chronic pain is culturally dependent, some countries have a lot of RSI, some don’t. Chronic neck pain from whiplash is a bigger deal in some places or in some decades than others.
If you give an X-ray to some one with chronic back pain a certain percentage of them will show bulging disks. If you give X-rays to a random group of people of the same demographics a similar percentage of them will show bulging disks, with no correlation to back pain.
The Tyler method you used for golfers elbow is a different example of a a rethink in treating other types of pain. It does have a plausible mechanism that runs counter to the traditional treatment, and it probably works as explained, encouraging healing and tissue remodelling through increased exercise-induced inflammation from eccentric reps. But… it’s also plausible that the quality of the paper describing it and the thrill of counter-knowledge helps make it work even better.
Obviously people should watch out for the signs of common chronic diseases, but in my experience I get far more aches and pains when being less active. Going to the gym once or twice a week and doing some compound exercises will help vastly, even after just a few weeks of regular exercise.
Oh, and get a good chair if you are sitting a lot, it's definitely worth it.
So it's only fair I share my knowledge and pass it on so others can hopefully get the relief they need.
I mean when should you bet on the pain being a mental issue? My worry is that if I bet wrongly it could have dire outcomes later.
Say, spending 3 hours to save $10 is usually a bad deal, that time can be invested much better. But if one keeps doing that, they end up in a situation where spending 3 hours for $10 is what they have to do, because they don't have a spare $10, and there are pressing needs.
It's a trap. But it ensnares you through a mindset, not through a want of $10 initially.
To add to this: if one keeps doing that, or they're unlucky: Being born into the wrong family, or socioeconomic class. Being the victim of a crime. Having your transportation stolen or break down. Etc.
There is a mindset to some degree with feelings of poverty. Though, yes, real poverty is a reality.
Your idea that RSI is in your head has the same issue: "It doesn't work that way." SOME pain is in the mind. Some pain in the body can be mitigated with mental techniques. Some.
> all pain is just based on expectation
This statement is wildly false.
Now, I studied pain control, and when I fell into a hole and was injured in Bali, I was able to function and even continue to speak Indonesian until I got to medical help and could pass out, simply with breath control. I almost never take painkillers. The technical of detaching from pain has significant value, and I have taught it to others.
But some things are wildly painful and can't be dismissed that way...
You know, I'm not even going to type about some miserable things I have briefly experienced, and some horrible things I saw happen to other people, other stoic people even, or about objectively provable imaging (X-rays, etc) of damage caused to people by RSI.
Life is too short for such downers. We both know they exist.
Your ideas do not agree with the consensus of medicine, or the experience of humans. You should re-examine your beliefs.
I do hope you never get first-hand experience of how very wrong you are.
While my understanding/explanation might be wrong the result was undeniable: I had terrible RSI and now I don't.
I personally could care less why it happened. All I know is that it happened, and this is what I did to make it happen. Ultimately if it works, it works. And you can't deny in this particular case, that it worked.
If expressing my experience can help at least 1 person, in the same way that someone else had expressed the very same experience to me, then I'll take my chances.
It's still an ok suggestion because at least it's safe and cheap, but you can't really say "it works" with n=1
Given the myriad comments in agreement, you seem to be either behind on research or research itself is behind. I hope you’re able to expand your thinking.
> "The technical of detaching from pain has significant value, and I have taught it to others. But some things are wildly painful and can't be dismissed that way..."
They explicitly aren't dismissing the pain, controlling the pain, being stoic about the pain, or arguing that you should ignore or suffer through pain. Read it again.
Both times was when RSI ) carpal tunnel was a very popular fad topic to discuss. Both times my interventions had no effect and the pain cleared up on its own.
I never developed "good typing habits" and when smartphones came out I developed new terrible habits, but that never caused RSI / carpal tunnel pain.
Everyone has insomnia sometimes, it's abnormal to be able to sleep easily. Candlelight is bad for the air around you and for your eyes the flickering damages your eyes, although the higher CO2 might help with oxygen diffusion.
Ha, i wish i could read in bed without falling asleep. One or two books did something to my brain where i could read them in bed, all the rest i have to fight sleep and re-read paragraphs after 20 mins max.
The same thing happened to my left ankle. A double sprain (both tear) made me walk with an angle and a locked feet for years, which didn't help with rehab at all and caused pain (because I was locking it in uncomfortable positions). Part of it was psychosomatic: like you said, expectation of pain, most of it was real pain caused by myself.
Also I stopped doing sport, kept eating the same, became fat and changed carrier towards CS, because clearly I couldn't keep working my jobs without the ability to run.
So definitely not as simple as you made it to be but true enough that this can be good advice to people with chronic pain.
Basically, the news was “everyone is getting rsi from computers!” And then everyone did. And the news fad faded and most cases, obviously many people do get it, also faded away. The brain is weird.
Anyone suffering from any sort of chronic pain should give this book or a similar book a try.
Similar to you, I convinced myself out a chronic tendonitis that would just not disappear even after physical therapy. It was gone a few weeks later. Just by following the recommendations in the book. It's basically self talk therapy.
I was trying to keep a death grip on sobriety. The clenching and clawing while putting up appearances... life brings us sadness. sometimes at times of desperation, the only thing I have left is my reaction.
When I look back on my mistakes, it all feels insane; the pathology of feedback loop neurosis had me chasing tornados with a butterfly net. What would catching it do for me?
Recognize the stillness where you are _right now_ my friend, and we can sit here for awhile and watch those clouds join the others as they roll over the horizon.
This is a new quote to me and I love it. Do you remember where it's from?
My post is kind of a shitty abridged version of that which does it no justice.
Simultaneously this hinders precision movements with the mouse, so my other fingers also tensed up as a result of it.
The solution that cured my RSI for 90% was to route mouse button triggers to keys on an external number-pad, which I operate with my other hand. (I use the "Karabiner" app on macOS to route keys).
In other words: I move the mouse with one hand, and do the clicking with the other hand. This relieves so much tension my RSI was basically gone in a few months.
It people tell you constantly something causes back pain, odds are you'll be more susceptible to experience it yourself. Even though your back is physically fine.
Also, I love the style of this blog with the chat-replies from friends.
You don't necessarily have to do that. I'm adding voice recognition into the game I'm working on right now, for example. It helps that it's a turn-based strategy game to begin with, though.
And there are players that manage to play games with limited or no mobility in their hands at all, with the right accessible controllers.
I don't think I'm doing anything too crazy with it either, so it's a little worrying, since it's happened pretty much every time I've played it lately.
Very cool! I've also found that it's helpful when the game supports different controllers too. I absolutely cannot play games with keyboard & mouse but plugging in an Xbox controller to the PC is completely fine. I'm sure people out there have the opposite experience as me, too.
My game will definitely have controller support also (most of it does now, a few screens are a little spotty I'm planning to fix in the next month or two, and I don't yet have multiple controller support, that may have to wait until later). But it's also fully playable with just clicking a mouse as well.
There was a book I can't recall the name of, in which one of the characters (a human) is stranded on an alien planet. He agrees to a certain type of relationship with his alien benefactor, but doesn't understand the cultural implications of what he's agreeing to. His fingers are lengthened through a medical procedure, so long that he can't hold anything, can't work, can't ever exist on his own again – he exists now only as a thing of beauty, a token for the alien to show off. He spends his days in what I picture as a courtyard in a roman villa, to be shown off to guests. This confers social status on his owner because of the resources it takes to keep a helpless sapient being fed, clothed, and happy. (The last one is debatable.) It is seen as one of the most intimate types of relationships in this culture. I think about this a lot.
Unless you know the doctor personally, or are rich enough to see high-class private practitioners who will actually pay attention to you because of your money and/or status, that would be a gargantuan waste of time. Needless to say, I too am speaking from personal experience.
That would indeed come under people who aren't "The vast majority of doctors".
They will usually just give you the referral you want. They may ask you to do some wrist exercises first, but if you are persistent, it will happen.
Think of primary care as talking to first level support at the call center. If you already know your problem needs a specialist, lead the conversation in that direction.
You can hurt yourself doing anything. Nobody says to consult a doctor before doing anything else, but there's lots of fear mongering around exercise. Going from sitting at a desk all day to doing some weightless squats, curling tiny weights, and bench pressing a bar isn't going to ruin your body. It's only risky if you're physically disabled and already know it.
I even see people saying you should see a doctor before you start walking or jogging. No. Start slow, and if it majorly hurts your bones and joints, then talk to a doctor because you may have something wrong. If you just feel a burn in your muscles after a while and an ache in your muscles the next day, you're fine. You're getting stronger.
The recommendation was not "see a doctor before starting an exercise routine if you are sedentary".
It was "If you are going to try to use an intense exercise pattern as a treatment for an RSI, consult a doctor first".
> Start slow, and if it majorly hurts your bones and joints, then talk to a doctor because you may have something wrong.
If you have an RSI, you already have something wrong; that's your starting point. And a lot of common RSIs affecting the risk and elbow can have a lot of impact on ability to safely do lots of common exercises (especially with free weights) at weights way (like, literally, an order of magnitude or more) below what would even be useful from a strength perspective. And, yeah, the right focused exercises can help, and if you've got a decent doctor, they (or, more likely, the physical therapist they refer you to), will actually provide you both appropriate exercises for your particular RSI and also appropriate guidelines on how to avoid exacerbating it with other exercise.
Are you not physically disabled in some way though if you have RSI?
More like, do your homework on whatever it that's wrong with you. Often, a doctor's input is very helpful, but that too comes with limitations and caveats.
RSI and similar mean there's something specific that needs fixing. PTs can dramatically speed up that process; trying to solve it on your own can result in more damage simply because you're not fixing the problem.
I'd agree that exercise is all well and good. But you should also make sure you're fixing the right problem.
The doctors just prescribed the PT and the PTs had me doing basic stretches that ChatGPT would done a better job with
Now I have back pain, wrist pain, and tennis elbow.
Obviously don't do things clearly aggravating your symptoms, but there is no magic diagnostic that would make a doctor tell you you can't exercise because of your wrists.
One thing I thought was interesting is he said that ortho doctors don't really think ergo keyboards help. I use a kinesis advantage 360 where I can (I still prefer a regular keyboard) I don't see much in the way beyond help with shoulder pain. I've had surgery to fix my RSI/ tunnel nerve inflammation. Anyways where I'm going with this is I do think exercise is a big help.
Of course, every person and diagnosis is different.
that, or just improved blood flow allowing repairs and trapped shit to be taken away.
I have very little wrist pain any more.
I also have a kinesis pro keyboard and a MX master mouse. They both add to the improvement.
variation of this - my wife half my weight does her Aikido exercises on my wrists when the wrists start to remind about themselves.
Supposedly this exercise helps in all sorts of problems that arise in a sedentary lifestyle (hands, arms, back etc).
Now, the only problem with doing it here is that most trees here are pines and strong branches start 20m above the ground...
I’ve found that when you’re going from (weak, sedentary) => (strong, active) it can sometimes be difficult to discern what activities are good or bad for your pain. Sometimes you need to work through pain to find relief and strength on the other side, but sometimes working through pain just leads to more pain. The boundaries aren’t always clear at the time.
But slowly building up the hang time and then moving to 1 pull-up then to 2 and slowly over months to 5 and then 10 seems to keep it happy.
Be careful and slow but consistent and results should be good.
( See your doctor of physio for advice )
I find it extremely helpful to take a mid-workday walk, ~20 minutes, usually after lunch. My brain turns off to digest anyway, so I lose little useful work time. Adopting the walk pretty much solved my issue.
I speculate that my issues are blood-flow related - I’ve always had cold hands/feet, suggesting suboptimal circulation. All the prolonged sitting then starves the muscles in my wrists of the oxygen needed to keep typing. Roughly in line with this study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16640514/
Obviously, there are many possible root causes for RSI conditions. But a midday walk is a nice thing regardless, and may be worth a try.
Strengthening is definitely a huge part of it if not most .. more often than not.
A few other things helped, if you have them use your benefits to verify with a physiotherapist or professional.
Wrist support:
M-brace makes an excellent and minimally invasive strap. Good to west while sleeping if you twist it while sleeping. There’s an older version of this which was an angled bracket which works in many positions. Helps relieve from fatigue or not get fatigued as easily.
https://m-brace.com/produit/wrist-support-132/
Laptops are generally awful ergonomics especially if you aren’t as active as may need to be. Invest in an ergonomic keyboards, ergomice, vertical mice, trackpads. Variety is the best ergonomics. Minimize or stop using laptop keyboards. I use Logitech k860, Microsoft ErgoSculpt keyboard, kinesis freestyle widest separation at times, even though they are not mechanical. Slim keys are actually pretty good.
If you have a standing desk use it more often to change up the angles and use different muscles.
Strengthening:
- A gyroball works well. Builds up the core muscles.
https://www.amazon.com/NSD-Essential-Strengthener-Exerciser-...
- Wrist curls, not too much weight, get advice. Don’t overdo it.
- Finger strengthening using hand grips
- If you can find some hand massage or scraping tools and learn how tonier them they can alleviate a lot of stiffness in hands and forearms.
If you already have an injury, you want to build up supporting muscles first so you don't end up making it worse, and start slow.
> Strongly recommend.
It fixes most modern afflictions of sedentary < 60 years old people, very very strongly recommended indeed
Under physical therapy supervision, my >60-year old mother is exercising fairly vigorously (for her age) and has been seeing great improvements in her overall health and strength, so don't let age be a factor and get professional help if needed.
Additionally look into trigger points: http://www.triggerpoints.net/
There's certain points in my arms and back, which when pressed hard enough, lead to complete and immediate pain relief (which led me to experiment with Sarno's method in the first place, as he suggests psychosomatic causes)
The trigger point is basically just a place where you can push on the muscle, and apparently when you push on a muscle that's tense, it's forced to relax itself. It's painful, but only as long as the muscle is tense. Relaxed muscles are not painful when pushed.
> The trigger point is basically just a place where you can push on the muscle, and apparently when you push on a muscle that's tense, it's forced to relax itself. It's painful, but only as long as the muscle is tense. Relaxed muscles are not painful when pushed.
fast-forward many sessions later, i learned how to do the same for myself whenever i'd feel a tension headache coming on, just find that tense knot and press hard; works like magic many times
She found Dr Sarno. To this day I'm not entirely on board with it...but whatever went on it worked. The surgeons looking at her MRI were totally baffled. It still showed all the issues and as one said "you shouldn't be able to even walk around without pain".
One thing Sarno says which I find interesting: he claims that the correlation between MRI imagery and pain is very weak. In other words you have people with a clean MRI who are in agony and you have people with all kinds of issues showing who are absolutely fine.
It is not just some fringe opinion from a single doctor e.g., here's recommendations from Barbell Medicine https://youtu.be/mdwj5ORPmX0?si=DOVVJCGgLe_U0GDT
About half in this study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8208267/
So the MRI should be treated as a correlating factor only. No bulging disk and pain is probably the more immediately useful finding, because you take out a likely cause.
I have no experience with it nor affiliation but maybe it is interesting for you.
I tried your standard r.i.c.e, taubmann technique, ultrasound, TENS units, easing up on my activities, EVERYTHING. The only thing that really helped me at the end was a book called the trigger point therapy workbook. TPT basically emphasizes using a form of deep tissue massage to attempt to break up residual scar tissue and increase blood flow.
I've been using it as a preventative form of medicine, and I have been RSI free for years now.
I've been practically a 16-hours a day computer user for near 40 years now...combined with playing instruments and video games. I've never had wrist, hand or eye problems.
I consider myself extremely fortunate/lucky. OTOH loud music has turned my hearing to utter shit.
I am also a 16 hour a day computer user and used to be a musician and I've had bouts of "ouch" from playing video games and also from lifting weights or riding a bike a long distance. Lifting weights is a good ouch generally, playing video games is a bad one. But my most downvoted comment is a response to someone being really dismissive about ear damage from loud music. I was in a band and it kind of messed up my ears. I don't have RSI and consider myself lucky, I can still work because my job is typing.
The comment that set me off was "how about simply not playing so fucking loud?"
I would like you to look at the parallels between your comment and the one that set me off, and look at my response and look at how a response from someone who IS suffering from it would see your response and realize how it's just... not helpful. "how about just don't get hurt like I didn't?" Easy! Just invent time travel and don't do that thing that hurt you. You can make choices and you can take precautions. But I did not wear ear plugs at shows because I wanted to hear everything and usually did but sometimes didn't wear ear plugs at band practice and that was very dumb. At the time, I thought it was important to hear it as it was in the room. Listening to the buzz in my ears now, mayyyybe I was wrong about that.
For what it's worth, I've also been using computers all day for 25 years and didn't get a lick of RSI. I am also wondering what I'm doing differently. Maybe finding that out can help the people who did get it.
In my case, I think it helps that my elbows are resting on the table always, and I take care that my hands/wrists don't need to be in a weird position for me to type. I did learn to type badly (basically typing at an angle), but maybe that means that my wrists were more comfortable that way.
This is another way of saying "It didn't happen to me because I do something special."
You don't see an issue with the parent comment because...you have the same viewpoint.
I assume you prayed over it, at least.
All I was saying was that I've found it difficult at times to empathize even though I know that I should. I'm admitting my failure to be a good person here. And my "OTOH" comment was a recognition of being a hypocrite. I'm saying sorry without groveling about it.
It is possible, those of us who have been nerds from an early age develop with body skeleto-muscular structure that is more forgiving to this lifestyle.
2 bouts of RSI that I suspect were psychosomatic.
As regards hearing: you should buy a few sets of nice re-usable earplugs to keep what you still have. My hearing is still great for my age but I do notice a difference from when I was younger - a few years ago I stopped hearing transformer whine (which was nice) but it was a stark reminder of the fidelity that I'd lost.
I didn’t have RSI, but as I approached 70, I started getting arthritis in my hands and wrists that sometimes made keyboard work unpleasant.
My doctor gave me a prescription for a cream with a very high dose of THC and CBD that worked like magic for me. If I stop using the cream, a month later the discomfort returns. As far as I know, this external use cream has no bad side effects. Talk with your doctor.
Notwithstanding the last few decades of trend, many people still want certain data/behavior to stay firmly within a device they (supposedly) own and control, as opposed to owning a dumb-terminal.
Just for example I need to check for environment in js if it's prod, it did some statement like (environment === 'prod' || environment === 'prod-blue etc etc. I stripped it all down to just environment.includes('prod') lol.
Another is just say if you're dealing with an api that returns a string for 'true' instead of true. It wrote a huge function about this...
Cursor is pretty smart about what to prompt GPT with. In the case that you described, you might prompt it with something like "check for prod" and I expect it would work. The reason it would have a better success rate is that it's usually quite good about what context to send over - it would likely pick up the type definitions (if you have those) or other files that do similar things and send those over as well.
To give a full answer to your question, I actually wouldn't prompt it with "check for prod" at all because that would be underutilizing GPT. I would probably prompt at the complexity level of something like "edit this component so that if we're in prod, we show a warning message at the top". I would expect GPT to do that accurately for a component up to 100-200 lines virtually every time.