Ergonomics

[squirmelia]

I'm currently studying ergonomics and on Wednesday I went to the University of Surrey to attend the Ergonomics Society Student Conference and found that possible careers in ergonomics can involve designing remote controls, various things to do with trains, ergo-gnome-ics, and oh, nuclear bombs.

I consulted Ergonomics, Work and Health by Pheasant and it mentioned that "Victorian public houses commonly had a brass rail around the bar about 6 inches (150mm) from the ground, allowing the drinker to rest each foot on it in turn", so I then went to a pub to test that out.

Ergonomics, Work and Health also has some fascinating information about RSI and writer's cramp:
"Willis (1986) described RSI as a "metaphor for alienation" ".
and
"Crisp and Moldofsky (1965) go so far as to regard writer's cramp as a psychosomatic manifestation of repressed anger."

Comments

[fluffymark]

Nuclear bombs! :)

Could you design Nuclear bunkers too?

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

Here's one on students from Ramazzini:

"Almost every student who devotes himself seriously to the pursuit of learning complains of weakness of the stomach. For while the brain is digesting what is supplied by the passion for knowledge and the hunger for learning, the stomach cannot properly digest its own supply of foods.... As a rule, then, learned men are liable to fits of melancholia, and all the more when this temperament has been allotted to them originally. We know from observation that those who are genuinely devoted to learnign are lean, wan, lead coloured and want to lead the life of hermits."

[popartagenda.livejournal.com]

droooooool.
ergonomix

drooooooooooool in an ergonomic puddle

[modulatorium.livejournal.com]

Thank god we've moved on from thinking RSI is an 'all in the mind' type thing, and doctors take it fairly seriously nowadays (in my experience, anyway).

Personally I do think that there can be significant emotional components to RSI, but I believe that the actual phenomenon is completely physiological and should thus be taken very seriously.

I'm very interested in the course you're doing and wouldn't mind a chance to chat to you about it at some point. You're doing Human-Computer Interaction at UCL, right?

[solitarywalker.livejournal.com]

Mold of sky: if a damp wooden biplane stays in the sky too long...? *shrug* i'm sure a poet could do better.

Ergonomics can definitely involve designing remote controls. Most remote controls are horribly designed, a collection of buttons placed in such a way as to make the user wonder whether the designer had ever even seen a human hand.

[albatros.livejournal.com]

> brass rail around the bar about 6 inches (150mm) from the ground

A posing rail! Oddly, it allows the body to adopt a more interesting position than upright or slouchy laziness, making one feel at ease, rather than be fumbling for a position to hold without looking suspicious. After all, there is no reason to stay at the bar once you have your drink. Unless you're ogling at the bar wench.

It could also have been installed at a strategic position, together with the hand-rail, to coincide with the position that old pennies settle after hitting the bar wall, thus hiding the dropped penny from the casual impatient search of the punter. The upper bar was placed to ensure a banging of the head while searching from the bar wall direction, and moving away from the bar loses one's place in a highly competitive environment*. So at closing time, this effectively puts the penny in the pocket of the proprietor.

*If your name is Big Bob, then your place at the bar is sacred, marked by the hole in the lino and the shiny patch of the upper bar rail where your belly has rubbed it shiny for the past 20 years. In that case, you'll also have your own stool which is polished to the shape of your bum - which, given your extended patronage, overlaps all the extents of its upper surface. Now there's a subject: ergonomics for the top 5 percentile of big bottoms...

...of course, none of this is true.

[laslandes.livejournal.com]

Like your new pic btw. I haven't read the above yet. Maybe I should.