December 17, 2012

Social experiment

Debates about violent video games and right to carry arms will rage on forever and nothing may ever get done other than a lot of quibbling.  The bottom line is, are you willing to give those things up, lets say for 5 years, on the chance that this sort of thing will stop happening?  I am.

Ban all violent video games.  Remove the right to carry a gun, or even own a gun.  Wait 5 years.  Count the number of mass murdering that goes on.  Then, go back if it didn't work.  If it did, we all win.


December 11, 2012

Repetitive strain injury

I twisted my neck earlier last week and as a result of overcompensating for that injury, I've started to notice some other issues with my muscles and joints.  As for the neck injury, it's the 3rd time in my life that I've had this and perhaps something I need to be concerned about down the line.  But.. this post is more about the muscles and joints.

As a gamer-turned-parent, (who still enjoys regular gaming in non-work/parenting hours). not to mention a person who sits in front of a computer for all hours of his working day, I've begun to invest a bit more time researching ways to prevent repetitive strain injury.

You can read all about RSI on Wikipedia, or proper ergonomics and posture.. but what I've found so far on the internet are ways to slow down RSI rather than ways to strengthen yourself so that it won't happen.  The latter being more important to me because I have no choice but to sit in front of a computer and keyboard and mouse 8-9 hours per day.  

You can find any number of different exercise to prevent your muscles from cramping up or bunching together during a prolonged period of hunching over your computer desk, and those are all very helpful.  But sitting in front of the computer for 10-12 hours out of 24 per day and doing stretches and exercises is no different from eating junk food and trying to exercise it off.  Sooner or later it's all going to catch up to you.   

I'm not going to lie -- I'm not exactly the person you go to when asking about exercise because I barely do any myself.  And furthermore, due to medical reasons I have very little chance of building up any kind of muscle mass.  This I can get into some other time.  So really what it comes down to, right now, is how I can build some muscles up in my body so that I can sit for (accumulated) long hours in front of a computer/screen.

This is my new quest.