that worker's comp gets noted in some employer accessible database and flags you as a big trouble for any future employers, which would be a disaster for me since I'm 23 and don't plan on working at the company I'm at for all eternity.
If true, this is outrageous.
Indeed. The "if true" part is the big question.
I don't know. It sounds very possible, but I couldn't tell you.
Probably not helpful, since you are seeing a specialist, but I found fairly minor postural changes and switching to an ergonomic keyboard [and cutting down on Emacs usage] made a huge difference to chronic hand-pain.
the youngster might want to join this list; some of its members probably know.
Ah, that link has a link to a Los Angeles support group. Thanks, jayann.
Most employers would not stoop to such a level.
Besides, the Workers Comp system is designed to protect the worker and look out for his or her best interest.
hahahhahahahhahahahahahahahahahaa.
Prior to doing divorce work, I did workers comp defense. I rank it this way from least distasteful to most distasteful:
1. divorce/custody work
2. representing criminals (rapists/drug dealers/assaulters)
3. representing car companies/car finance companies trying to collect from poor people
4. Representing workers comp insurers
Take a look at TENS (Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation--drug-free, non-systemic pain management) for pain management (I've, um, had opportunity to use the Empi Select TENS device for my wrist, knee, and back, with good results)--it's a scrip-only device, but if you go to the Empi site you'll find the necessary forms. It's reimbursed by most health plans.
Also, if you haven't already, get your doc to write a script for some PT sessions. You'd be surprised how fast PT can make a difference.
He's doing PT, Chopper; his physical therapist is the one who warned him about worker's comp.
the last 2.3 years
2 years and 109.5 days? Is this some sort of metric calendar? Ten months of alternately 36 or 37 days?
Either quit jerking off, or do it twice as much and build strength in your wrists. Win- win!
And here I was hoping that TLL might know a lawyer around LA.
10: I'm still scratching my head about an article in this morning's paper that mentioned someone's claiming to be 47% of a particular ethnicity. How does that work exactly?
Sorry, Ogged. I do know several. In fact I went to college with Mark Geragos' wife. (She is a couple years younger). I should not be so flip with another's pain. AFAIK, there is not database for employers to search, insures otoh, will treat this as a pre- exsisting for ever, once claimed.
10: I'm still scratching my head about an article in this morning's paper that mentioned someone's claiming to be 47% of a particular ethnicity. How does that work exactly?
Presumably she has 10 parents, each of whom had 10 as well. So she had 47 grandparents of that ethnicity.
I love the New Math.
How much time does the Young Cripple need to heal? I know that sounds like a crass question, but maybe he could ask his employer to grant him some sort of temporary leave deal.
13: Maybe 15 of their great-great-great-grandparents were of that ethnicity? Seems like excessive knowledge of one's ancestry.
Ogged, you owe it to all of us to give us this malingerer's name, so that none of us are saddled with his constant whining and slacking.
Actually, could you arrange him to be transfered to LB's office to be her secretary?
Yeah, I can read. Anyway, TENS is pretty great (he says without bias, not being employed by a TENS manufacturer, no).
I can get to 43.75% at the great-great grandparent level, if I've done the math right (seven out of sixteen great greats), but you have to go way back for 47%.
Seems like excessive knowledge of one's ancestry.
Actually, that's relatively simple if all of one parent's ancestors come from one place, with a conspicuous exception: "Everyone always talked about what an odd fish Opa Leung was."
16: Yeah, medical leave. Why would you use workman's comp rather than your regular insurance? By which I mean, is it possible to use your regular insurance for a work-related injury--since it may not be obvious that it was caused by work. You weren't hit by piece of sheet metal. Would this work better?
20: 15 out of 32. Not much further back.
farther?
18: No, you can't take my secretary away. I like her. (Her only flaw is that she's a little overly deferential and self-effacing, which sends me into a flurry of matching her deferentialness. It gets a little 'After you, Alphonse,' talking to her. But I can cope with that.)
BG, were you the one asking about a new laptop? I just saw that MacBooks are being sold, refurbished, for $500.
If this is still useful, I can track down the link.
But of course you can never get to exactly 47%, because no power of 2 is divisible by 47.
JRoth--Definitely useful. Please do, and you're welcome to e-mail me.
I think further for "duration" and farther for "spatial" usually works. If you're talking about how far you traveled, it's both, so the hardest to judge.
But of course you can never get to exactly 47%, because no power of 2 is divisible by 47.
I assume they were talking about taking the limit of their ancestry.
Help a youngster out if you can:
From the looks of this thread, nobody can.
Come on, focus on the helpfulness, people!
Never mind, I can't find it, and think I must have been deluded.
I assume they were talking about taking the limit of their ancestry.
One asymptotically approaches single-celled organisms.
taking the limit of their ancestry
If I've done the calculations correctly, the limit is prokaryote
Not my area of expertise, so please don't sue me, but here's some stray misimpressions.
Causation; to the extent that the current pain was caused by the years of poor posture before employment, I don't know if worker's comp would even apply. Ask a real lawyer.
Notice: it used to be, in some places, that a worker's comp claim required prompt notice of the injury to the empoyer. That seems to be missing here.
Databases: I've heard that insurance companies keep these major databases, but what with HIPAA I don't know who has access, nor do I know if Congress is considering granting retroactive immunity for improper release of such data.
However, I also don't know of anything which would prohibit a prospective empoyeyer from doing a medical screening, including requiring a release of all medical records.
There may be a big crack between regular insurance (if there is any) and worker's comp. I've seen, somewhere, a provision in a medical insurance contract which disclaimed coverage for any condition for which someone else was (or might be) responsible - specifically including (that is, excluding) injuries which would have been covered by worker's comp, had the worker's comp claim been promptly and properly pursued.
BG, refurb MacBooks are going for $950 on the Apple site (go to Store and scroll down to the sale tag icon). If you held out until January, when upgrades and new models are released, you'd likely see the price go down further, and you'd get the new version of OSX besides.
Bostonians are urged to live-blog World Series meetups. It's lonely for a Sox fan out here.
34/35: wouldn't it be eukaryotes?
There may be a big crack between regular insurance (if there is any) and worker's comp. I've seen, somewhere, a provision in a medical insurance contract which disclaimed coverage for any condition for which someone else was (or might be) responsible - specifically including (that is, excluding) injuries which would have been covered by worker's comp, had the worker's comp claim been promptly and properly pursued.
That was my guess too. It just seemed to me that it might be a hard sell as a worker's compensation claim, and therefore, it might be hard for the regular insurer to prove that it shouldn't be covered.
I guess by 37 i meant, does ancestry make sense across this line? Not that prokaryote's aren't older...
However, I also don't know of anything which would prohibit a prospective empoyeyer from doing a medical screening, including requiring a release of all medical records.
ADA comes to mind as a limitation on that, although the judicial gloss is funky and failure to hire cases are hard to win anyway.
Jesus, $950 is too much money for me right now. I need my own functioning computer so that I can apply for jobs. An Apple would be nice, because it would be easier to transfer downloaded verizon and university e-mails that are in apple mail, and I could use the Apple's monitor to see the stuff on my 2001 laptop whose monitor is fried.
I can't wait until January to apply for jobs.
Has anyone else taken note of Emerson's conspicuous absence today? He's not out fighting fires, too, is he?
26: The number of ancestors in any generation doesn't strictly have to be a power of two. This is stereotypically more likely in people from West Virginia or Wales, but I'd imagine if you go far enough back it could happen to anyone.
41: I forget what exactly the problem with your laptop is, BG, but if it's just the monitor that is fried, you can get a used external monitor really cheaply. In a city as large as boston, I bet you could even get one for free. You might need an adapter cable that shouldn't cost more than twenty or thirty bucks at the apple store, and also might be available free on Craigslist. If your laptop has a DVI connector, I may have a DVI-VGA adapter that I'll send you for free.
44: It doesn't really matter; e.g. if one has three grandparents, one of them counts for twice as much genetic weight as the other two. So fraction of a given ethnicity should still have denominator a power of 2, if it's counted properly.
Polysomy is a loophole, of course.
Jake--The monitor is well and truly fried, but the hard drive is extremely iffy as well. It had a habit of freezing and then needing to rest for several minutes before I could turn it on again. Plus some of the keys weren't working, so I had already hooked up an external keyboard and mouse.
I think Jake is saying that some West Virginians reproduce via mitosis
46: Damn. You're right. Assuming that 47% refers to anything in the range [46.5,47.5) as otherwise it'd be 47.0%, you should be able to get there after a number of generations that I'm too lazy to calculate but suspect is no higher than 7.
I deny that NPH saw the 47% figure in any article.
47: if you really need to save money, the cheapest way may be to get an external hard drive like this and a used monitor and just copy all your shit over to the external drive and run from that. What kind of laptop is it? Does it have Firewire?
Q: What does the "H" stand for in Jesus H. Christ?
A: Haploid.
Biologists seem to think that joke is funny.
Also feel free to email me if you have more questions.
40: Good point, I didn't think of the ADA. [brushing aside huge piles of mental detritus to reveal meager knowledge of ADA from decades ago]. Maybe one would have to phrase the question carefully as an employer. I'm not sure that litigiousness constitutes a disability, although it probably does interfere with the normal activities of daily living. Maybe asking 'is there anything about you which might require reasonable accommodation, or which has benefited from reasonable accommodation by previous employers?'
38: I think you're right. If there is regular insurance, claiming against that and not even mentioning employment might be a way to go, although it wouldn't provide money to live while the disability heals.
Our questioner may, in fact, be purely screwed. The US health care system really does suck. Perhaps going to an emergency room and claiming to be an illegal? Nah. Sorry.
51: It's a 2001 Titanium Powerbook G4. It's the last one that shipped without OS X. I have OS X installed on it, of course.
I don't get this. Isn't this just putting together a computer from parts? Something really was fried at some point. There was smoke from the power cord once. I really only feel safe turning it one very briefly to extract data.
Now it occurs to me that if one examined each chromosome, one could get all sorts of crazy fractions.
Hey BG, what's the venue for the contemplated Wednesday meetup? I just might be able to make that one.
55: is the goal to get a better machine, or just a working replacement? Google turns up G4 Powerbooks and iBooks in the $500-$600 range, but the newer machines are still $800k+ refurbished.
Err, $800, not $800k. That would be terrifying.
Alternatively, if our questioner has some cash on hand and an understanding boss willing to grant leave, maybe he could just pay for the physical therapy himself?
Before I get accused of heartlessness: our Young Cripple did say that the condition looked really treatable with a bit of careful therapy and rest. If he were convinced he was going to suffer agonies for the rest of his life, I'd vote for suing the bejeezus out of everything in sight, but as it is....
Maybe fewer physical therapists offer sliding payment scales now that the discipline's become all medicalized, but that might be something to look into.
(I spent too long in corrupt France; look at me with all my under-the-table, informal, and relational suggestions. A true Parisian would've suggested you try to find somebody who had pull ("piston") with a local state-run clinic.)
26
"But of course you can never get to exactly 47%, because no power of 2 is divisible by 47."
Maybe this is a joke but just in case I will point out that no power of 2 is divisble by 50 either but you can get exactly 50%. On the other hand lots of powers of 2 are divisible by 16 but you can't get exactly 16%. The actual criteria is to look at a/100 in lowest terms and see whether the denominator is a power of 2.
As for the 47% perhaps it is from a test in which you send in some dna and the company reports back an estimate of your ancestry.
What our friend needs is a friend in the HR department of a moderately rapacious company doing business in California. Ex recto, I'd bet that the sort of thing he's worried about is at least technically illegal, but what he needs to know is what information is available to employers and what use the nastier ones make of it. It's also worth noting that the PT may have a personal interest in steering our friend away from work comp because reimbursement rates may be lower than other sorts of insurance and private pay. But this stuff is mostly state-specific so he really needs a California answer.
Usual disclaimers, etc., etc.
Although it might be dificult to create a situation where one knew 47% of actual ancestry to be a particular ethnicity, for the reasons given above (although also not impossible, for the reasons given above), in popular terms it's entirely likely. If one only knows the identity of 100 out of 128 ancestors in the nth generation back -- or maybe 100 in the generation that has 256 slots (yes, I'm too lazy to count how many generations, and it doesn't matter anyway) -- and 47 of the 100 known ancestors were Ethnicity X, then it wouldn't be shocking for someone to say 'I'm 47% X.'
OK, it would be lame, because most of us would say half. Unless there was some kind of legal barrier -- say a group that required provable ancestry at 50%, maybe a Native American group of some kind.
First off thanks for the response from all you guys. I'll definitely check out TENS and Sorehand and the LA RSI group. The last one looks like it will be invaluable.
In response to #35 I'm pretty covered as far as mentioning this to my employer. I've complained about my problem since its onset and have gotten ergonomic devices, though I now see what I really needed was an actual ergonomist.
As for the 47% perhaps it is from a test in which you send in some dna and the company reports back an estimate of your ancestry.
In which case it's an entertaining fiction.
In response to #62 my PT specifically mentioned that he didn't like workers comp patients because they pay less. I can only really blame the system for this, though it still makes me suspicious of his motives.
Also, he was recommended by my oft sports injured boss. I saw him because I wanted to see one soon and my HMO wait listed me for two weeks (I'm seeing the HMO one next week). The whole recommendation thing makes me semi-suspicious, though it did give me more credibility with my employer when his PT diagnosed me as fucked up.
Just in case anyone is wondering why I even bothered going on the net and typing all about this, I've made an exception for computer use related to improving my health.
54: Maybe asking 'is there anything about you which might require reasonable accommodation, or which has benefited from reasonable accommodation by previous employers?'
It's a while since I did anything involving the ADA, but I'm pretty sure that wouldn't work.
The ADA says:
"A covered entity shall not require a medical examination and shall not make inquiries of an employee as to whether such employee is an individual with a disability or as to the nature or severity of the disability, unless such examination or inquiry is shown to be job-related and consistent with business necessity."
And an inquiry is anything that would tend to reveal a disability -- e.g. in Conroy v. NYS DOC, the Second Circuit held that asking employees taking sick leave for a doctor's diagnosis was prohibited by the ADA, because the diagnosis might reveal a disability.
Not saying it doesn't happen, of course, but it is illegal.
OK, it would be lame, because most of us would say half. Unless there was some kind of legal barrier -- say a group that required provable ancestry at 50%, maybe a Native American group of some kind.
Charley's got it (scroll down about half way). My guess is that she mostly just meant "almost but not quite 50%" and was bluffing a bit on precision, but who knows.
I deny that NPH saw the 47% figure in any article.
It is more or less putting together a computer from parts, but if it's only one part that's broken and getting an entirely new computer is out of the budget, it's not such a bad idea...
Smoke from the power cord is usually just a damaged power cord rather than a damaged powerbook...
Presumably the seemingly bizarre figure of 47 percent has something to do with this:
In the federal lawsuit, people with at least 50 percent Hawaiian blood contend that the money derived from their ancestors' land should be spent only on them.
The idea (on the other side of the lawsuit) seems to be that there are many people who almost make the 50 percent and who should therefore receive some of the money. So, 47 being just under and close enough to 50 for the purposes of establishing a claim...
I don't see how it can actually make sense, though.
Regarding the cripple, this sort of problem can tricky. I recently had moderately severe back pain which went away almost immediately when I moved my change purse out of the back pocket of my jeans. I didn't seek medical attention for this but have some doubts it would have been effective.
My job requires some typing and in the past I have had minor pain in my hands. It has never become severe perhaps because I am not typing continuously. I would recommend changing your work setup and trying to minimize the amount of typing. Obviously this also means avoiding computer games and the like.
Regarding masking pain, it is my understanding that drugs like aspirin don't just mask pain they also reduce inflamation.
Lastly I don't see why employers should be expected to hire people who are physically unable to do the work.
43: I don't think fire will listen to anti-relationship advice. Try as you might, you can't convince that stuff not to reproduce unless you're using a hose. Kind alike dogs.
Lastly I don't see why employers should be expected to hire people who are physically unable to do the work.
And strangely enough, they aren't! ADA protects those who are able to do the job with or without reasonable accommodation. If you're physically unable to do the job even with a reasonable accommodation, you're SOL.
65
"In which case it's an entertaining fiction"
Such companies may commonly exaggerate the accuracy they achieve but there is nothing impossible in principle about this.
Here is an article about the dna ancestry tests:
http://www.slate.com/id/2138059/
They aren't super accurate but they do give results as percentage numbers like 47%.
Are you people insane? This was answered at #17: at the great-great-great level (32 ancestors), 15 of one ethnicity is 46.8%. Which is awfully close to 47%.
And learning that this is about a Hawaiian confirms my hypothesis: This person has one non-native parent, and another parent with a single non-native great-great-great-grand. Simple, and not hard to keep track of. And, if there's gov't $$/programs at stake, it's not surprising that she would have a pretty good idea of whether or not she meets the threshold.
BG - Rumor has it that a laptop update will shortly follow the 10/26 release of the next OSX. In which case laptops 2 iterations old will only be a couple years old, yet "outdated," and thus cheap. So just wait a couple weeks, and you should be able to do OK.
Say, young cripple, you might try contacting a free clinic or a social worker. Things vary from state to state, but a social worker could probably tell you more about worker's comp and its possible consequences. You should be able to find one through a hospital.
Here is a link to a free clinic in LA which says it provides social services. You may need to call around a bit to find someone with the right expertise, and you may need to be a bit persistent--free clinics are a bit overloaded.
You might even try calling the workers' comp administration offices and asking flat out. Or at least asking to whom the records are available and how that's overseen.
I doubt that there is a database of workers' comp recipients which is accessible to employers--it seems like there would be media coverage of some sort if so.
JRoth may be correct, but has a whole lot more faith in people than I do.
Are you people insane? This was answered at #17: at the great-great-great level (32 ancestors), 15 of one ethnicity is 46.8%. Which is awfully close to 47%.
I'm not insane. Just not too quick on the uptake. I need a visual.
Okay, so here's a question: On the paternal side, I have a set of great-grandparents who were first cousins, which means they shared the same grandparents (my gr-gr-gr-grandparents), which means that I have only 14 paternal gr-gr-gr-grandparents instead of 16. Which means what (if anything) in terms of these statistics?
I know that I'm about to offer an answer to a question that wasn't asked, and to violate all the customs of the site, but I'm not one to let that stop me (stolen motto: "time and trouble may tame an advanced young woman, but no power on earth can control an advanced old woman" ).
Sometimes a cripple's got to do what a cripple's got to do. In this case there may be a choice between:
a. a lifetime of pain and useless hands; and
b. going into debt for some decent medical care, and
c. shooting Liberty Valence.
They're not my hands, and we're not talking about uteri, which I don't have either, but I know which way I'd lean.
Talk to your employer, see what they'll do. Talk to your local department of labor, or whatever they're called. See the HMO PT. See an HMO orthopoedic person, if available. Maybe pay for another ortho consult. Maybe talk to a lawyer. But if avoiding the lifetime of pain and useless hands means you get on an employment blacklist, or means that you eat scraps and live on the streets until the hands heal, that's what I'd do. You can burn the blacklist bridge when, and if, you get to it.
In other words, follow Jackmormon and Frowner's advice, and be prepared to pay. It's probably going to cost something - time, money, employment prospects, whatever - but don't screw around.
My somewhat educated guess is that PYC will either qualify as disabled under the CA FEHA statute or come close enough to scare the crap out of his employer. Key FEHA v. ADA differences: much broader definition of disability, mitigating measures (treatment, etc.) not taken into account, and no damages cap.
Given what PYC has said, his employer likely should have started the "interactive process" e.g. how can we help you do your job? Sounds like they haven't. But the likely is because PYC may have shot himself in the foot (yet another CA recognized disability) if he first notified his employer of the potential disability only after becoming completely unable to perform the job.
As for LA attys, the plaintiff's employment law bar is a total crapshoot, many are quite dreadful blowhards and disability law gets very arcane very quickly (so PYC's ability to scare his employer simply by retaining any old counsel and screaming disability may be trumped if his employer's atty actually knows what he's talking about). Random thought: USC's Law School used to run an employment law clinic for small employers and might be willing to field an employee side question, give these facts a more review and provide basic guidance re merits of the claim.
I so knew that Shearer would show up to defend the poor, poor put-upon employers.
BG, I'm impressed that you're still working on a TiBook--mine died a long time ago.
Arbitrarily, I recommend to PYC a chiropractor and/or yoga, assuming the "bad posture" thing somehow involves his/her back.
I agree with Scouser. Go for the California FEHA, which goes beyond any federal entitlements to leave. FMLA only applies to employers of over 50, and to the employee who has worked at least 12 months for 1250 hrs during that period. ADA is also tricky; requires being "regarded as" disabled by the employers of over 15, but the employee must have worked at least 12 months and for 1250 hrs.
I don't know of any databases that track employees who have taken Worker's Comp other than for insurance purposes (preexisting condition, supra).
I don't know any LA area comp lawyers, although there is a Workers Rights' Clinic at UCLA, and the students there (cough, me) often do free legal clinics to give advice on various issues.
The Mineshaft LW is free to email me at bellelettre@gmail.com , I think I can dig info on the free legal clinics in the LA area, as well is be more precise about leave law--although I know more about the FMLA than FEHA.
NB, not that I'm still at UCLA Law, but that's where I got my JD a couple of years ago. But I remember being not completely useless when I did the law prof/lawyer supervised legal clinics. They're useful, and they exist to serve the community--and so I'm going to plug this as a potential resource.
Arbitrarily, I recommend to PYC a chiropractor
Bah, stick with the physical therapist. Don't feed the quacks.
Bah, don't lump all chiros with the quacks. There are good ones. Or at least I know one good one and assume he's not the only one.
Yeah, yeah, my grampa the GP is rolling over in his grave, but the chiro has helped my fucked up neck problems a lot, so there.
Once again, thanks so much to all you guys for contributing your knowledge and time. This is all very stressful, and I'm pretty lucky to have The Mineshaft's broad expertise to draw upon.
I'm going to try and get in contact with a social worker from my HMO ASAP. Thanks for the offer Belle Lettre, I'm going to wait and see a social worker before I call the lawyers in. If I do I'll definitely contact you since the prospect of choosing a lawyer is rather intimidating as scouser brought up in #83. My employer has been fairly accommodating and I'd like to mine the non-legal options that have been brought up in this thread before I call the lawyers in.
In response to #83 I'm in the clear as far as mentioning it to my employer. I brought it up at the outset, and we've made accommodations for my condition for quite a while. The issue is that they haven't had as great an effect as I'd hoped. Also, I've got a history with doctors going back about 2 years.
As far as unpaid leave goes, I have some savings, but unless I heal unexpectedly fast they probably won't last long enough. So, I'm leaning more towards the workers comp side at the moment.
As far as Chiro, I have to say it does work. I had some done a week ago and it did provide a big improvement to my back that's lasted for a week so far. My posture still sucks, but the ache I had in the lower back disappeared after 2 cracks by this guy.
Great! Please do feel free to contact me. I actually wasn't suggesting calling in the calvary; more like getting some advice about which statute to go with to procure your entitled leave, as some laws are better than others depending on your condition, work place, amount of time worked, etc. I imagine the Wokers' Rights Clinics have plenty of advice and know CA law well. I hope you get paid leave under FEHA if so you need, otherwise Worker's Comp sounds about right.
It sounds like you are already ADA accommodated though, so yes, your employer seems pretty cooperative and non-adversarial. Good!
Best of luck to you!!
re: 90
re: lower back problems.
http://www.amazon.com/Treat-Your-Back-Robin-McKenzie/dp/0959774661
this gets recommended a lot. My own GP recommends it. A lot of people claim the (absurdly simple) exercises in that book are much more effective than therapies that involve manipulation [chiropractors, etc.].
Jesus! We're saved! The Calvary is here!
84
Cripple is correct to be concerned about getting a bad reputation among employers. I won't be the only one with a less than totally sympathetic reaction to his troubles. The IT industry is notoriously infested with libertarian types.
My physical therapist has also told me that worker's comp gets noted in some employer accessible database and flags you as a big trouble for any future employers, which would be a disaster for me
Could we perhaps have a clue as to who this outfit are? I would like to be sure I don't use any of their products. (Please God let it not be Google..)
I think you need to join a trade union. Anyway, regarding the laptop, if you have data in a dodgy hard disk drive, I really can't see a good argument for leaving the data on the dodgy HDD and trying to "not use it too much" or some such. Get an external drive - they are cheap - and copy the damn lot over. Then you can use it to back up the desktop 'pooter as well! Depending how much there is, you could even just move the stuff onto a gigabyte-size USB stick. Burn it to a CD/DVD. Whatever.
But if you don't trust a hard drive, don't trust it.
Also, if the data is on a dodgy Mac [display or no] it's possible to boot the Mac up as a firewire drive [just hold down the T key as it boots]. It'll just mount as a disc on any machine connected to it by a firewire cable. Then getting the data off is easy.
watch out, kid. i had rsi when i was in my 20s. then i started using a split keyboard, and it went away. in my late-30s, it's come back with a vengeance, to the point where i've been declared legally disabled. luckily i live in a civilised country (the UK) rather than a piggish backwater, so the gov't is paying most of the cost to enable my employer to get me voice recognition software and other necessary equipment.
i was working through the pain, until i met a few people who had done the same, and who had literally lost the use of their arms until they quit using the keyboard.
PYC, I know this sounds dumb, but if you drive a stick shift, get an automatic. A friend of mine who was doing a long commute made this change and it helped her RSI more than any other single measure, after obvious stuff like the ergonomic keyboard.
re: 98
Even neater, you can install an OS onto it that way. I had an old laptop with a CD-Rom drive, needed to install a new version of OS X from a DVD. No problem. Just boot up as a firewire slave drive and install the OS onto it. OS X cunningly recognises that it's an existing OS and upgrades it while maintaining all the settings.
These sorts of clever-clever Mac things are very cool.
Such companies may commonly exaggerate the accuracy they achieve but there is nothing impossible in principle about this.
You think a currently available DNA test can tell you anything about your paternal grandmother's father? That's one eighth, right there, totally off the radar. And so on you can go, since they're really only looking at Ys and mDNA. At the 256 ancestor level, that's 2 people out of 256.
If I'm wrong about what tests are available, I welcome correction.
Unless you're like IA, or me, and have fewer that 256 people in the 256 slots.
A fellow at the 32 ancestor level was the child of two products of first cousin marriages. That is, his paternal grandparents were first cousins, and his maternal grandparents were first cousins. In each of the pairs, the people had the same last name. Going a few generations further back, we never see first cousins again, but plenty of 3d and 4th. This was all in Greenwich, Connecticut, not exactly the most isolated of places.
Anyway, the guy -- 32 level guy -- was a doctor, and wrote passionately against the conventional wisdom on the ill effects of genetic homogeniety. Until he got addicted to laudanum, and kind of fell apart. (Well, maybe some of the letters post-date indulgence. We wouldn't use the term 'blogging Becks-style' to refer to being under the influence of opiates, I wouldn't think, but there isn't really all that much new under the sun)
Young Cripple, for back pain and posture correction, I always suggest people go to a serious massage therapist. They're not as pricy as one might think.
Folks, think of what we could accomplish if we all simultaneously masturbated our James B. Shearer voodoo dolls to orgasm.
Keep your jersey on, love.
Howdy, Armsmasher. Howdy, all.
6 -- you and pitiful young cripple are welcome, ogged. I wish I could do more to help, I really only know the UK legal etc. side of all this. (The LA RSI group is I believe really good, also, Sorehand has a number of active members in California. BTW Sorehand's going through a 'it's all psychosomatic' phase right now but a direct question will bring out the other people.)
Jake--No the whole thing is really gone. There was smoke from he computer once too. That's why the monitor doesn't work. The wire that lights it up wore out. There was smoke and everything.
I did have someone solder it, but that meant that moving the thing was dicy.
B--I haven't used my TiBook in at least a year.
KR--Can you e-mail me? I haven't picked a location yet. Arthegall is supposed to come up with one.
102
"If I'm wrong about what tests are available, I welcome correction"
Paternal and maternal line testing is most common but there are tests available which purport to estimate percentage racial composition. See here for example. I have no idea if this company is reliable but there is nothing impossible about this and the tests can be expected to improve over time.
