Well, this sucks. I just bought an ergonomic keyboard and before it even arrives the whole field of ergonomics is revealed to be a skeevy wangboozle as crooked as mouthful of Dickensian urchin teeth.
I don’t much care that companies and governments might be wasting hundreds of millions of dollars a year on dodgy “ergonomic chairs, keyboards and consultants”, as reported by Fairfax Media yesterday.
But I care heaps that I might have just wasted $39 on a discount Microsoft ergonomic keyboard from the Beast of Bezos and it may not immediately cure my crippling minor discomfort from typing too much.
First up, it’s a Microsoft keyboard and I had to be led screaming to the edge of that purchase.
Second, whoa! Thirty-nine simoleons! JB could’ve had a week’s worth of his preferred alternative back pain medicine for that money. (Nurofen and vodka martinis, in case you were wondering. It’s a miracle cure.)
But there are no miracle cures in ergonomics, according to Sydney University professor Chris Maher, who argues that what little data exists in the field indicates almost nothing — beyond a worrying hint that some ergonomic interventions might actually make things worse.
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald
