You can’t sit there, my IoT desk tells me

Re: I know that feeling well...

'I've tried the "kneeling chairs"'

I remember being interviewed by someone squatting on one of those contraptions. Not content with that, as he wasn't behind a desk, he just kept scooting it all over the room. Some jobs, you're just glad you didn't get.

Re: I know that feeling well...

Ugh. I broke my sacrum/coccyx in a desk related fall actually. I was sliding forward in my chair when it caught on a tile and flipped me forward to land pretty damn square on my butt. I laid there in pain for about 45 minutes.

I went to a doctor who didn't believe me and figured I was just angling for illegal pain pills. I did eventually get him sacked.

My problem with desks is that they're still writing height, not typing height. I have bolted 8" extensions on the legs of my current desk. My keyboard is about an inch above my elbows and any sort of carpal tunnel pain has gone.

Re: I know that feeling well...

The young'uns like having their smartphones encouraging them and rewarding them. Even an app for brushing the teeth connected to an IoT toothbrush, in your mouth.

Re: I know that feeling well...

I've tried the "kneeling chairs", but I've buggered knees from riding bikes for more than 30years and I can't stand for more than 10 or 15 minutes without my back feeling like I've just been kidney punched.

I used one as a test, and discovered it was great for my back. The problem was that it also helped me discover that my kneecaps needed work as I couldn't get off it afterwards, so eventually I ended up having surgery for that. Never tried again ..

Re: Let's talk balls

What about balls? Has anybody tried sitting on them? Does it work for them?

I sat on my balls once - not to be recommended, the pain was excruciating.

Re: Let's talk balls

They were all the rage a couple of years ago, so I gave it a try.

On the plus side, if they are the right size (desk height, ratio of torso length to leg length, etc) they are actually nice to sit upon. You can move around on them, wiggle your situpon, even bounce a bit.

On the minus side, you can't move with them like you can with any chairs on wheels. Not that big a problem and somewhat a benefit as it forces you to stand up and walk the few paces to the printer or whatever. But. And this is a big but. You can't lean back. Because there is nothing to lean on to. But you will lean back at some point. Because you're used to it. Because you want to stretch. Because you have to sit through a boring phonecall. Whatever. You will lean back. And you will tumble to the floor in a more or less spectacular way, depending on your level of surprise and physical agility.

I still have that ball (Yes, the other balls as well. I know you, guys.), but now I use it to rest my feet when I sit on the couch.

Re: Daruma

Well spotted. My wish was too ambitious, I fear, and he will remain squinting forever. Or should I apply some Tippex and start again, do you think?

Re: I see how this is shaping up

"All this IoT stuff is being extensively engineered to replace our own thought processes in the idea that computers can take of day-to-day repetitive stuff without our thinking about it."

Hunter gatherers leave nature to grow things. They don't have to think about more than the most basic storage, they don't have to make plans, and their material needs are met with simple (but skilled) tools and clothing. Early agricultural societies required a lot of planning and organisation, and thinking about the day to day repetitive stuff.

A number of anthropologists believe that the adoption of agriculture was bad for human lifespan, health and intelligence.

Being devil's advocate, perhaps IoT will get us to more like the garden of Eden than the current Cities of the Plain model. Or perhaps it will just enable Facebook to complete the task of world domination.

Re: Cardboard boxes

Admit it - you were also building a fort.

Re: Well, if that Gaze contraption was foisted on me...

"I'd have to put a controller on my chair, to make it automatically follow the desk's height."

Yay, office rodeo!

/devil.jpg/

Re: How mainstream will IoT get?

I can just about see the point of the heating control, and to a very small extent fridges/freezers that can remotely tell you what's in them when you go to the shops, but not enough to want one, buy one, or trust one.

On the subject of office furniture, I used to work with a guy who demanded Microsoft Natural keyboards everywhere he went, and whined like a little girl with a skint knee if he had to use a pleb keyboard like the rest of us. Same guy demanded natural light bulbs (think that was what they were called, he might just have watched a lot of 70s porn and preferred soft focus though, and may also explain any wrist issues caused by keyboards....) so he didn't get migraines.

Re: How mainstream will IoT get?

Even remote control heating, one of the IOT successes, isn't actually that fantastic a plan.

In an old house, a steady temperature is good for preventing damp so it's worth having the heating on low continuously. "Smart" swings of temperature when you enter and leave might end up costing you more in mould treatment than you save in fuel.

In a new house, the insulation is pretty effective. So turning the heat off for a few hours once it's warm doesn't save much fuel because very little was going to be used anyway.

Re: Dunno their born, some people

Machine Shop & Tea Breaks? That's wot the canteen was for.

In the 'Erection' Shop the only chairs to be found was where a fitter and an apprentice was working on a job. The fitter would sit while (under his instruction) the apprentice did the work. The only time the chair was vacant for more than the time it took to get a cuppa/have a pee was the days when the apprentice was off at the local Tech college doing their C&G's

I was one of the apprentices doing just that from '69 to '72. Then I left and became a Mech Eng Student.

Them was the days.

Re: Standing Desks

You, sir, are probably a user. What are you doing in this discussion?

As befits techies, most of the solutions have been far more technical than is necessary.

Due to a fail while parking my Beezer bantam many years ago, I stand to work. I'm proud owner of several poser tables. In a delicious irony they're sometimes called poseur tables (Amazon, I'm looking at you). I bought most of my tables from Tesco Bar Hill furniture bit around 2am when they discounted them to £8 each.

If you really need a big desk you can buy an internal (honeycomb) door from Jewson and straddle two tables. You don't need the door handles.

I have a sofa in my office if I feel a lounge coming on.

Not a funeral, but a wedding.

We were all at the back mumbling into our beards (it was a Biker's Wedding), not really happy to be there *and* signing hymns when half-way through another hymn the Vicar moved to the front and said,

"Right. I've had enough. We'll start the hymn again and this time you will all sing!"

That was my memory of Catholic mass too

Having gone to such a school (we did try the public system, but the three schools in my area wanted to play pass-the-parcel, such was the attitude to Autism in the early 90s).

Stand up, listen to out of tune singing and try to lip-sync, sit down, listen to seemingly endless waffle, kneel, listen to more waffle, sit down, get out of the way of those taking communion… etc.

No, I don't think it did my joints any good either.

Re: There may be worse to come: IoT desks with the GPP feature!

Who you gonna call? The Deskwhisperer.

LACK

The dimensions are just right to accommodate a 19" rackmount device between the legs. Unfortunately the current version has been cheaped down to a level that you can only screw a single 1U device in; just the top inch (0.18 linguine) and the bottom half inch (0.09 linguine) are from a material that can, with not too much stretching of the term, be called solid; the remaining parts of the legs are stiff paper on the outside with a stiff paper honeycomb filling, with the paint layer making a significant contribution to the load bearing properties. But it'll do for a rackmount network or KVM switch, or storage unit (may require an additional bracket on the rear, because of the weight)

Re: Ouch

Id like to keep the keyboard close but then I'd have to stretch out for the mouse, which causes more trouble with the old carpel tunnels.

Re: Bah!

I've done some of my best problem solving while seated on the bog. Serious thinking frequently needs some form of displacement activity. It keeps the reptile brain occupied stopping it from interrupting with the neurological equivalent of "are we there yet?"

I hear you about the coffee machine. WTF is wrong with people? Sadly the solution is to throw the bloody thing out and replace it with a far more expensive and complex capsule machine. Just remember to hide the milk heater thing 'cause the feckers won't rinse it. Or just drink your coffee black.