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Comment by bbarn | Hacker News Reader

Only one mention of a doctor, once in the whole page, and he says to give it a rest and she'll be ok. Then she says she spends 50% of the time using her hands normally? No mention of further deterioration, or further attempts to figure out the problem? It seems like it's more important to her to say "look I am clever" than actually solve the problem here.

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The article is about the amazing things she's doing, how she's doing them, and, more broadly, all the fun she's having with design. It will benefit many people. She's under no obligation to report the details of her medical investigations.

Adding medical information would benefit those people more.

I have a hard time believing someone would just stop using their hands if they had the ability to do otherwise.

I do agree it would have been nice to know more of the details of what went wrong, though, and why she seemed to experience severe RSI when some other people don't. (Like me - I probably don't use the mouse/trackpad as much as a designer, but I've been clacking away at the keyboard for 25+ years with no significant issues so far.)

I would have loved to hear a bit more about the RSI and the issues that it caused her. The writing left it very unclear to me what the extent of her injury was, and made it seem like her hands were virtually useless.

I too thought that was odd, but I think the point is the method and its potential accessibility benefits, not a specific medical case.

I think you've missed the point entirely. This article sheds light on alternative ways of human input for computing devices. It also presents an innovative, if not slightly impractical solution to a problem the author faced. This could potentially open up new ways of interacting with computing devices.

I'll admit that bothered me too. RSI is real and it is crippling, although it is also almost completely curable with surgery and some physical therapy [1]. However, I found her story of working on tasks that typically need arms and hands, without them, pretty awesome. So on balance the story worked for me.

[1] http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/carpal-tunnel-... -- If you feel tingling in your fingers when you type STOP TYPING seriously.

You are confusing RSI and carpel tunnel. You don't treat RSI with surgery.

The author wrote: "... ended up working roughly 10-15 hours per day. I felt very proud of myself for working so hard and I remember joking about my arms the day I started noticing a slight tingling sensation in my fingers. if I had only known..."

She called it RSI and described classic carpal tunnel. Without the additional detail provided by the author, carpal tunnel is consistent with here description.

Slight tingling in the fingers could mean RSI too. Most people get RSI and not carpel tunnel.

http://www.amazon.com/Its-Carpal-Tunnel-Syndrome-Professiona...

Stopped reading after I knew this wasn't going to be addressed. I get that the author might not want to divulge specific medical information but the whole point of this idea is dependent on not being able to use your hands. I think it is a very important part of the story if you want me to listen to the rest.

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