Why I Had a Magnet Implanted in My Finger | Hacker News Reader

Why I Had a Magnet Implanted in My Finger

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I've had a small NFC + RFID chip implanted in my hand (between the thumb and index finger). I'm able to open my front door, unlock (not entirely, but it's part of the process) my laptop and my phone and I'm looking for other uses as well.

The idea of implanting something in myself was very off-putting to begin with. But after I could see the practical uses, discussed some of the ideas people had for usage it seemed like a pretty fun idea.

I received the xNTi from Dangerous Things which came pre-loaded in a syringe for implant. Under the observation of a professional I implanted myself, two months later there's no scar and I've mostly forgot about the chip except when I use it to open or unlock things (and I think, damn that's cool) or I pass on contact details to someone at bar via NFC who thinks I've just done a high-tech magic trick.

I can feel and slightly move the implant beneath the skin, it's a little weird to get used to, remembering "oh yeah that's the chip I implanted into my hand".

I'd not recommend anyone performing surgery on themselves, however I'm pretty familiar with some basic surgery on myself in various places of my body (that sounds odd, but I've been in very odd situations) and I did my research beforehand on the implant, as well as had a registered professional to oversee the "DIY surgery" (really just made sure I sterilised properly and didn't somehow sever an artery).

It's also safe for an MRI (which would have been the stopping point for me).

Now I want to do this. I have a friend who's a surgeon and I could probably convince them to supervise or do it for me. I've always liked the idea of my front door unlocking when I am near it.

How hard do you think it would be to remove if it ever became obsolete?

Make a small incision near the implant and pop it out. It'll be a slightly larger cut than the implant, but you can squeeze the implant out through the hole. They're made for easy removal.

Personally I'd get a professional to remove it, it'd be an awkward place to cut with a non-dominant hand, and I think it'll be slightly trickier since you'll need to cut rather deep to get to it. I don't think I'd be able to do that, nor would I want to risk trying.

> I'd not recommend anyone performing surgery on themselves, however I'm pretty familiar with some basic surgery on myself in various places of my body (that sounds odd, but I've been in very odd situations)

Can you share some of these situations?

edit: I see you posted a response, but it's flagged as [dead] for some reason :/

After a fall in a pretty remote area, I activated my emergency beacon and I knew my lung was collapsing. I snapped one of my hollow tent poles and jabbed myself in the chest cavity so I wouldn't suffocate (it was going to take them 30+ mins to get to me). A lot of after-care on that one, stabbing yourself with a dirty tent pole doesn't make for nice infections.

Have had to give myself stomach and intramuscular injections for various medical reasons too.

Have had to remove foreign metal form my leg, clean and stitch up the wound which was relatively shallow but long. Another accident, car crash in a remote area.

Always have a first aid kit handy! And probably don't hang out with me too much away from civilisation..

30 minutes is pretty good response time! The one occasion when I was involved in a backcountry emergency it took 8 hours for the Air Force to arrive with helicopters.

This seems a lot safer, it's also really close to the microchipping we do on a daily basis to pets and livestock.

Having the unit sterilized in a preloaded syringe has to be a lot better than a DIY solution.

There have been similar pieces by The Verge in the past ([1] and [2]).

People talk about the added perception that having an embedded magnet gives them, but honestly while my hearing/sight isn't great I've been able to sometimes get rather similar perceptions just through regular living. I think one use case I've read about was walking on the street and feeling a subway train below the ground. I've walked on a street before and felt the vibration of the grinding tracks, heard the scratch and screech of hard wheels on rail, and seen sparks or electric bolts when subway cars (at least Muni in SF) temporarily lose power via their rooftop cables.

I've had those perceptions without any kind of body mods. Is the issue that people nowadays are too stubborn to ignore the senses they already have, or grow so tired and bored of them that they need to add a completely new one?

I'm not sure that it makes any real sense to have an implanted magnet in a finger.

But hey, whatever floats people's boats; if there exist some people who absolutely need to change their own perceptions then I suppose all the power to them for making that decision and being capable of enduring the stress and pain from the procedure.

[1] http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/8/3177438/cyborg-america-bioh...

[2] http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/31/5952647/cyborg-conversion-...

> Is the issue that people nowadays are too stubborn to ignore the senses they already have, or grow so tired and bored of them that they need to add a completely new one?

That's kind of a negative outlook on the whole thing, isn't it? I imagine people said similar things about, for example, headphones, or GPS. And while both of those things have potential downsides, people don't use them because they're too lazy to read a paper map or too selfish to want to share a music experience with friends.

I feel like both of those things have very clear advantages (ie, paper maps are large and cumbersome, I can store much more data on a server, I don't want to bring a boombox on the subway).

I'm all for people doing what they want as long as it's not extremely selfish, but I cannot myself see a clear advantage to a magnet implant, other than:

A. Party tricks B. Telling people I have a magnet in my finger

I think it probably comes from a wish for ill-thought out sci-fi tropes with the less than adequate technology at hand.

I think I agree with your last sentence - the current technology is pretty crappy. But given our brains' plasticity, I don't see any reason against grafting additional senses onto ourselves, anymore than I see any particularly good reason against wearing a watch.

I don't mean for it to come off as a negative outlook, so apologies since it apparently did.

I just don't see an embedded magnet as being the same kind of assistive device as headphones or GPS. Neither of those examples provide a new sense (which was my original comment's example of what an implanted magnet does). They don't replace senses or add completely new ones. Unless someone is capable of storing an entire region's map to memory and locating themselves within that region precisely (maybe some people can to an extent, but not entirely the same).

Imagine if you were deaf: "I've been able to get rather similar perceptions just through regular living…walking on the street and feeling a subway train below the ground. I've felt the vibration of the grinding tracks…seen sparks or electric bolts when subway cars temporarily lose power…why would I grow so tired and bored of the senses that I have, that I would want to hear?"

Asimov, back in 1939, wrote a great short story that has stuck with me ever since I read it for the first time: The Secret Sense[1]. It tells the story of Martians, who are mocked and pitied by Earthlings for their terrible sense of sight and hearing, such that they have no appreciation for our great art, our paintings, our music. I won't give away any more of the plot, suffice to say I recommend you find yourself a copy to read, and hope it brings you the wonder and reflectiveness the story brought to me when I was a boy.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Sense (contains spoilers)

Well yeah, people who are deaf tend to have hearing aids (hopefully if they can afford to). Same as how people who are amputees have a prosthetic leg/arm/etc.

But I would say that serves a different scenario.

I feel like a good 80% of having a magnet implanted is 1) so you can tell people about your magnet implant or 2) to write article about a magnet implant.

It's so you can do that paperclip trick. She removed it immediately after.

You can get much of the same "sixth sense" by wearing a magnetic ring instead of an implant... No worries of rejection or infection, and you get to loan the "feeling" out when you talk about it.

Example: https://supermagnetman.com/collections/magnetic-wedding-ring...

This comes up every time someone posts one of these articles. A ring at the base of your finger will not provide the same sensation as a magnet under your fingertip. The nerves are far more sensitive in your fingertips and the transmission of vibration is far more effective when the magnet is trapped between layers of skin vs sitting loosely at the base of a finger.

I expect you could get a similar sensitivity from gluing a small rare earth magnet to your fingertip.

> Implants are dangerous. They are not approved by any medical authority, and doctors refuse to perform implants because, unlike pacemakers or artificial hips, implanted electronics violate the Hippocratic Oath -- grinders implant magnets for the sake of augmentation and enhancement. They have no proven health benefits and could result in unnecessary harm.

That does not make much sense. Body piercing, circumcision, tattoo etc.. are similar, but permitted and very common.

Piercings and tattoos are performed by non-medical professionals. Circumcisions are often performed by a doctor (unless you're Jewish? in which case it may be a mohel who is trained, albeit not always an MD, excuse any ignorance in this area) but I'm forced to imagine the hospital offers this service both based on cultural norms in the US at least, and perhaps out of an abundance of caution, considering it can at least offer sterile conditions and a trained hand for the procedure.

I wonder if you could get similar results by having some magnetic ink tattooed into an optimal pattern on the hand.

Maybe write an app for smart watch. Most devices have compass and vibrations.

Instead of surgery, I would probably go for something like a "compass belt" for an augmented sense. A compass belt is a belt ringed with little cellphone vibrators and a gps-based compass. Only the cellphone vibrator pointing north is activated at any given time. If I recall correctly, the huge downside is that, once you get used to having sensory north, not wearing the belt can be very disorienting.

In Daniel Suarez's "Daemon" novel (or maybe its sequel), one character wears a haptic feedback vest that covers their entire back and torso, with "pixels" that vibrate. It was described as having a second sight, since it's effectively like having low-res monochromatic vision in a 360 degree arc.

I'd be very curious to try something like that, but I have no idea what I'd "project" on such a thing. I suppose if I were a farmer or rancher, it would be interesting being constantly cognizant of where members of the herd were.

Maybe once my kid is older and starts crawling/running around, it might be a fun thing to wear to a museum so I'm instantly made aware if she stars making a bee-line away from me.

I had this done and my girlfriend got one implanted the day I got mine removed. Her's is rejecting and should be removed too.

It was neat, but it sucks if you're physically active at all. It was always sensitive / sore to touch. To the point that if I was doing pushups I had to keep that finger off the ground. Overall, would not recommend.

Rather than a solid magnet, I wonder if a ferrofluid tattooed into the skin would have a similar effect.

It would most likely poison you. These magnets need to be coated in a bio-compatible sheath in order to protect yourself. Your body will break down the magnet into a powder, which is never good.

I've had one for around 8 years now, but it has lost its charge. I will need to re-magnetize it at some point. Mine used to be sensitive as well but I haven't had an issue with that for several years. Smashing that finger though can be pretty rough! I've never heard of one of these magnets rejecting (I am assuming it is in a silicone sheath). I do currently have a transdermal horn that has been rejecting pretty hard for the past 5 years that I really need to do something about though.

Yea, hers is just a gnarly color right now. The silicone might have broken or her body is just not having it.

Let's hope the author never needs an MRI.

The author had the magnet removed after it became infected.

I think the implication was that an MRI for something else might have removed it much more quickly and less precisely

Steve Haworth, who pioneered magnetic implants and a bunch of other awesome body modifications just recently launched his new venture, cyborg nest. Their first product is a tiny device that attaches to 2 surface piercings and vibrates whenever you face north. http://www.cyborgnest.net/

Yeah, um, I am going to pass on that whole thing. I prefer to stay away from ERs.

I think this story teaches us that DIY surgery is not a good idea.

Is there a reason you couldn't do the same thing with a magnet or two in the finger tip of a glove?

I have heard that in general this is not as interesting as it appears. It works but after a while you stop sensing it and scar tissue will grow around it. Though I did at one point consider this.

This person didn't even seem to get that far.

Hmmm... MRI's Pellets, Bullets, and Shrapnel http://www.mrisafety.com/SafetyInfov.asp?SafetyInfoID=192

Why I Keep Talking About Why I Had a Magnet Implanted in My Finger

Will you be able to travel if you have implants? What happens when the scanners find something fishy? (Now I'm curious about medically approved implants as well)

At least for medical implants you get an "implant passport" which lists the implants and their locations, but if it is something that triggers metal detectors they are going to check you of course.

An implant in the hand should be simple: if your hand triggers the metal detector it is easy to verify that your hand is empty and that the location matches the documentation. Small magnet probably doesn't even trigger it though.

for a non-medical implant like this, though, you probably wouldn't be able to get official documentation. I'd hope that sense would prevail and it wouldn't be an issue, but good sense doesn't always govern airport security procedures, particularly in the US.

It would be cool to do this with a compass. Would it be possible to make it such that one could feel the pin even though it's encapsulated inside the device?

How good is the timewise resolution of the feeling? Up to what frequencys can you feel?

Sounds like becoming half a conjoiner out of science fiction, to be honest.

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