Am I a cyborg now?
idea.popcount.org
idea.popcount.org
- Do people who get these magnetic implants actually develop different "qualia" along with their new perceptions, or do they just add different interpretations to existing qualia?
- With respect to this specific device, does the buzzing change intensity proportional to the field, or is it an "on/off" thing?
- My understanding of nerves like touch receptors is that they activate in response to a stimulus, then send an electrical response to the brain. It sucks that you have to directly implant these little magnets in your fingers to get the actual stimulation. Is there anyway to wear the magnets on or outside your skin (say, embedded in a glove) and still get the nerve stimulation? I'm thinking of something like magnetic induction or some other resonance effect between some target and the nerves.
I'm not sure what the right answer is with regards to magnetic implants, but some people who have used the haptic compass mentioned in another comment have reported developing a seemingly innate "sixth sense" of direction. Presumably that might apply to a wide range of augmented sensory apparatus.
Meh, bloody semantics will get you every time.
It also has perks such as picking up small screws I drop, turning on/off my ipad/macbook/blackberry with just a swipe of my hand and dangling my keys if I need to hold something else in my hand.
This TED talk is fascinating [0]. Our brain is really a fantastic adaptative machine.
http://www.ted.com/talks/neil_harbisson_i_listen_to_color.ht...
http://www.hizook.com/blog/2010/08/11/electrotactile-arrays-...
Thank you for sharing.
Oh gosh yes. By default you want at least a 0.1uF ceramic close to the output of a regulator, and the additional 100uF electrolytic is good. Then since it's a one-off and not worth worrying about, I'd put another 0.1uF close to the input of the regulator, and another 100uF across the battery. And if you're still having problems at that point, possibly a small resistor in series with the buzzer to limit its inrush current. You could also replace the mechanical buzzer with a piezo buzzer (or piezo speaker and generate tones with the avr). (PS if you're stocking up, you might as well opt for 1uF ceramics and "low ESR" electrolytics for these purposes)
> I'd put another 0.1uF close to the input of the regulator, and another 100uF across the battery.
Interesting. I (naively) thought that a capacitor near a LiPo battery is illegal as you're not allowed to charge the battery directly. I thought when the battery power drops a capacitor will be doing exactly that. Can you explain why that's untrue?
Update: in other words: What's the difference between putting a capacitor near the battery and "charging"?
To the extent that you need to worry about it, the voltage on the two will be the same. The battery power only drops as you're drawing current. The point of the capacitor is to smooth out changes to the load by supplying current "first". Your capacitor will never get "more" charged than the battery somehow. The main difference versus "charging" is that you have no external energy source.
From a slightly more advanced perspective, the reason for the capacitor is to smooth out the (possibly bidirectional!) transient loads on the battery. It's quite possible that your "inductive buzzer" (depending on how it's driven) is actually backfeeding a little current through the arduino and onto the supply rails. Your battery will never be overcharged this way because any such energy came from the battery itself, but smoothing out the spikes with a capacitor eases the stress on the battery. In fact, I'd be surprised if the arduino board didn't have a decent-sized capacitor immediately on its supply lines, and this is part of the reason.
The capacitor won't overcharge the LiPo, because it would almost immediately expend the charge it stored
Cool project and a good read, thanks.
BTW, I'd like to know if a single buzzer is enough for this purpose - vibrate stronger as the angle north gets smaller. I'm quite sure human would be able to quickly learn this. Or maybe a combination of two buzzers.
BTW', I don't need to mention that I had similar idea to Indoor Atlas http://www.indooratlas.com/technology.html (but of course, ideas don't matter only execution)
Quinn Norton had a good series on it. There's also a longer talk by her about body hacking in general online.
It's an interesting frontier, but I don't have any good resource that has continual updates on it. Any recommendations? The only other place I've really seen stuff about it is BME Zine, but it's focused on BME in general, so there's a lot more noise than signal.
It extends our capacity for information gathering and exchange, and has extended human memory monumentally. I'm talking about writing.
Yeah, I admit it - I've drunk the Marshall McLuhan Kool-Aid. But think about it. You have ancestors for whom writing was an alien and unfamiliar information technology. And yet you can look at a page and suddenly be drawn into the sensations, ideas and experiences of men and women who died generations and continents away. All thanks to a technology that we have so thoroughly integrated with our experience of being alive and human that it's become second nature.
You're a cyborg already.
EDIT: Wow, I'm a little surprised I'm the first person to mention McLuhan? For those that don't know, he's the bloke that coined the term 'cybernetics'.
The magnet implant is probably way more sensitive vs this binary device, since it's pressing your sensory receptors in your fingers; they can also sense temperature and position changes.
Changing ones are more obvious and way more comfy. I think this is because a static one pulls or pushes the magnet all the time while changing ones let the magnet "vibrate" (from pulling and pushing all the time).
As someone with the actual implant, I'd say no.
Think of it this way, people have been wearing magnetic body jewelry as an alternative to piercings for decades. Sensing magnetic fields has never been associated with magnetic jewelry.
The same way that holding a buckyball between two fingers close to a fan doesn't really create an unusual or striking response, comparatively.
There's something unique about the implant that can't be replicated in other ways. I mean, I haven't tried this external device, but the above is my response to questions about magnetic rings, nail polish, earrings, etc.
I'd say a large part of the difference is mental. With an implant, your body internalizes the sensations, they're part of your body, your "one"-ness. With external sources, you may still feel the sensations, but they're not yours. Your body doesn't feel the fields, it feels an object that feels the fields.
It's hard to explain, and that's the best I got.
https://github.com/majek/dump/commit/7e9edeba2ead00a24341ec5...
Although I must admit - I grew up at a time when magnets were anathema to using computers, and I remain resistant to having magnets anywhere near my work area.
Think of it this way, people have been wearing magnetic body jewelry as an alternative to piercings for decades. Sensing magnetic fields has never been associated with magnetic jewelry.
The same way that holding a buckyball between two fingers close to a fan doesn't really create an unusual or striking response.
There's something unique about the implant that can't be replicated in other ways. I mean, I haven't tried this external device, but the above is my response to questions about magnetic rings, nail polish, earrings, etc.
This has probably already been covered by the NASA Human Systems Integration Division, so it might be worth having a dig through some of their stuff - http://hsi.arc.nasa.gov/index.php
I think it was some of them who are working on the subvocalisation stuff - http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/releases/2004/subvocal... - which is basically cyborg telepathy, near as dammit.