Re: opening, Old Questions

On Mon, 28 May 2007 22:41:35 GMT, mastout@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (MA Stout)
wrote:

John F. Eldredge <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sat, 26 May 2007 12:04:40 -0600, "Monique Y. Mudama"
<spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 2007-05-20, David Friedman penned:
In article <1hyd7ia.10uaksc1h4ibccN%spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Jonathan L Cunningham) wrote:

I remember someone talking about a prototype computer desk, i.e.
the computer screen was the desk, at least 20 years ago.

I'm pretty sure that someone showed me such a thing in his office a
few years back. I think it was an ordinary monitor set into the desk
in such a way that the screen was parallel to the desktop--possibly
with a *** of glass over it. But I don't remember the details.

Doesn't sound so good for your neck ...

It isn't good for your neck. The training room at my workplace used
to have monitors located underneath glass desktops, so that you had to
look downward at a 45-degree angle to read the screen. Use of the
monitor for more than 20 or 30 minutes was enough to produce a
neck-ache. Having the monitor located with the screen parallel to the
desktop would require an even sharper declination of the head in order
to read the bottom of the screen. The muscles of the human neck are
designed for having the head facing forward most of the time, not
tipped downward, which puts more strain on them.

The training room at my workplace now has individual laptops for
trainees to use, which is easier on the neck. I am not quite sure why
they didn't keep the previous desktop computers, and just move the
monitors up onto the desks.

To save the necks of people like me. I was lucky enough to get a laptop
only a few years after I got bifocals, so that I could tilt the screen
back to where I could look down at 45 degrees instead of pointing my
chin up 45 degrees. What with a new prescription every year the expense
of having a computer pair of glasses and an everything else pair would
be a bit much.

I wear bifocals, but I also have a pair of glasses with the
short-range prescription only, which I wear when using a computer.
They are now about 3 years only, and my short-and-long-range
prescriptions have both changed slightly during that time, but the
change in the short-range vision has been minor enough that I had only
the bifocals filled in the new prescription.

Between working as a programmer/analyst, and using my home computer, I
use the computer about 10 hours a day, so I agree that having to tilt
my head back in order to see the computer screen through the bottom of
the bifocals isn't a very good solution. I have had to do that a few
times, after forgetting to take my reading glasses along when I went
to work.

--
John F. Eldredge -- john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
PGP key available from http://pgp.mit.edu
"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better
than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria
.