This mouse is a demon disguised as a pied piper. It lured me with its promises of total adjustability, but it was a very clear demon.

"If you stare long enough into the abyss, it will also gaze at you." That's Nietzsche. He died in 1900 and didn't have the chance to see the PyottDesign statial.b, a mouse with more adjustments than I ever thought possible. If he'd lived longer, he would have said "If you spend too much time developing a fully adjustable mouse, stop."

Nietzsche's abyss comment could have meant that if you spend a lot of time searching for meaning, you may end up empty. This mouse makes me think along the same lines: if a computer mouse spends too much time trying to make it human-friendly, could it become too inhumane?

The answer is, I believe, "no". Once you get over the initial shock, it appears to be one of the most user-friendly designs. It's just that, unfortunately, making such a genuinely useful flippy-turny-spready-upside-downy adjustable mouse means creating something that looks a bit weird.

It looks like a Razer DeathAdder (and the original reference design was a 3D scan). It's also a trypophobes worst nightmare. If you can get past those two facts, then this freaky little thing is one the coolest ergonomic projects that I've ever seen.

PyottDesign explains that "modern grip styles have evolved out of players adapting themselves to standardized mouse shape." The Statial.b allows new mouse shapes to grow from grip styles." This means that your ergonomic preferences are put first and not your grip style.

You can choose between fingertip, palm, vertical grip, or claw configurations. This is for any hand shape. I could spend a lifetime explaining all the different moving components and the ways that it can be adjusted. Thankfully, the PyottDesign Statial.b page has over a billion pictures you can browse at your leisure.

Did I mention that it's free? You don't have to buy it, you can make it yourself. Unfortunately, it does sound quite difficult. PyottDesign's instructions (PDF) for building the mouse state that "knowledge about 3D printing, soldering, and basic electronics skills, as well as being able to upload code to an Arduino, are required for this build."

If you have the right skills and equipment as well as time to dedicate to it, then it may be worth a try to make a mouse which fits your hand perfectly. Oh, and something that will make your friends go crazy. You can have that too.