Geek thought

A geek thought, as I sit here at lunch, rubbing my wrist between e-mails, and considering bringing in a trackball to replace my inherently non-ergonomic mouse:

There are a few one-handed computer keyboards on the market -- e.g. the frogpad (see photo), for about US$80. My wrist is sore. And last night's episode of ''House'' had a guy who lost a hand to gangrene.

The combination of these led to the question of, if some computer geek lost a hand through amputation, would she/he volunteer to have a USB cable jacked into their stump and connected to various forearm muscles, to be able to directly ''mouse''? Six muscles ought to be enough: up, down, right, left, right-click, left-click. Maybe an additional two muscles for the scroll wheel.

Cybernetics. Cool.

Although it's better just to keep your limbs and appendages, if you can.


--GG