The Half Life of Body Hacking | Hacker News Reader

The Half Life of Body Hacking

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57 pointssageabilly21 comments

That Circadia device looks way too large to be comfortable. With some more engineering, it could have been made much smaller. Also, in the removal picture the battery seems to be bulging rather dangerously..

Battery maintenance and safety is a big concern. It's not easy to get at these devices once they're inside you. I know pacemakers use Lithium-Iodine battery chemistry, which is much safer and longer-lasting than Lithium-Ion.

Additionally, if it's just measuring pulse and heat, how much value does it provide over a smartwatch? My Moto 360 already takes regular heartbeat measurements and I can (crudely) map it next to my sleeping patterns measured from the accelerometer[0]. (Interestingly, there's a fairly high correlation between the two!)

I appreciate the vision of biohacking, but this device doesn't seem to provide much advantage over an external device, while introducing a whole bunch more inconvenience and risk.

[0]: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/538662/4_26.png

No kidding, my first thought was, this device is irresponsibly large. I don't know everything that is in it, but having made devices like that before, I would bet with some engineering investment it could use a coin cell, and not be much larger than 2 or 3 of said coin cells.

It looks like the Grindhouse Wetware blog is now private, but while it was still public, many people voiced concerns in blog comments about the safety of the battery and the likelihood of overheating/swelling -- prior to the device being implanted. I guess they assumed the concerns were unfounded?

...um it kind of looks like the LiPo battery was on the border of exploding, its pretty swolen... boom lost an arm.

edit: ah translated from website

"Then, however, turned to biochemical engineer of the team during a routine examination determined possible deformations in the battery casing. As Tim told me recently in Berlin, it suddenly looked like this, as could a Feared by some nightmare scenario actually occur: If the burst chip battery or, where there is a cut in the Silikonverkapselung, could have fatal consequences."

I would argue that body hacking is when you experiment with the functions —and metrics— of your own body.

Adding electronics should classify as body modifications or cyborging.

Imagine all the data points a body generates at any moment. This maybe the first step toward a cyborg future. When you have that much information about yourself the chances for experimentation are endless. I get excited just tracking my sleep, I have no idea what I'll be able to achieve with technology like this...

If there were a way to easily coordinate blood sugar, ketones, insulin, etc against food intake, you could really optimize your diet, and be able to shake out food sensitivities with objective data.

What are you tracking about it, exactly?

Well, there's an android app I used called SleepBot that graphs movements made in bed, can record sounds made at night (to learn about snoring, or sleep talking, etc) and then graphs all this stuff out over several days. It shows you amount of sleep, time of sleep, etc. Anyways, I ditched this particular tracking app because I found a better alarm somewhere else. While I used it though, it was interesting to see how terrible and uneven my sleep graphs were. It motivated me to tackle my sleep hygiene with more effective methods.

The real benefits I've seen from tracking thus far are time tracking g. An app called Goalist forces me to account t for every 5 minute block of time. Upon seeing the pie chart after a few eeks of diligent tracking, the amount of that pie that was taken up by "relaxing/idling" and "video games" totally disgusted me. I have now moved into a more effective use of time, I'm making sure those big slices of free time are taken up by educational stuff and coding practice. Visualizing these hidden factors in my life make them so much more palpable and easier to change!

When you have that much information, the chances for spurious conclusions are also endless.

Yep. Too much information in the absence of symptoms can actually a bad thing.

https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/a-skeptical-look-at-scr...

"When pharmacies in the UK started offering glucose and cholesterol tests, the number of visits to doctors increased, but only 10% of people with positive tests needed treatment"

I get a warning when I click on that link. Is this the same article http://www.delfini.org/Publications/SKEPDOC.15-3_Screening.p...?

Strange, i don't get a warning, but the certificate has only been valid since yesterday.

I agree. A lot of the members of the biohacking/grinder group at HacDC felt the same way. We kind of viewed this stuff as an interesting hacker intersection that was similar to being in the garage and basement stage of personal computing.

This article made me really miss that group.

What does this have to do with half lives?

Their point is that cyborg gear is evolving at Moore's Law pace, so any implants that you put in will be obsolete in a couple of years. Not to mention that hardware degrades quickly in a hot, moist, corrosive environment. This is at odds with more "traditional" body modification like tattooing, which lasts a lifetime.

"hot, moist" raises a question i've yet to see addressed. body-"mods" would be a lot more versatile/update-able if you could implant only the smaller stuff, mostly sensors, and connect up the bigger stuff externally with cables (and straps, or bio-velcro); so finally the question: other than rf/inductive linkage has there been much advancement toward a resident body 'plug'? (often seen as a feature of Keanu Reeves) while yet avoiding becoming a grand esplanade for infection.

Not to mention that hardware degrades quickly in a hot, moist, corrosive environment.

Pacemakers have mostly solved this problem, by sealing most of the hardware in an inert casing.

If you add something to your body at least make sure that the thing actually makes use of the fact that it is in your body. Like cardiac stimulator. This guy just uses his skin to function as a duck tape. And a bicep? Good luck flexing your arm without feeling pain and bending the thing.

All this seems like a slightly more socially accepted way of hating yourself and cutting your forearms.

It's not a surprise to see goths in every single video/article about body hacking. Whether they operate safely or not is not a concern, because obviously this isn't about research or science, or becoming a cyborg by sticking wires up your ass.

Its about making a fashion statement in the club and drawing attention. And while not every goth person or community is like that, it is a very prevailing characteristic.

"Grindhouse Wetware"

...that company name

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