Magnet update.

So it has almost been four months . . . and nothing bad has happened! It hasn’t broken apart, it hasn’t pulled iron out of my blood stream, nothing.

I am going to get two more done, my left middle and pointer fingers, I might even get my ring, middle and pointer on my right hand done as well but we will see. Probably not, it does cost a fair bit of money that would probably be better spent on other projects.

What other projects you ask? Well for starters I bought and Arduino so all kinds of projects come to mind, I would like to do something with RFID. Maybe hack my laptop to only work if im using it or do the same with my desktops.

Other then that, I have been reading up on and researching Utah Electrode Array’s It is what Kevin Warwick used in his project cyborg. Both to control a robotic arm, and to send “emotions” to his wife. Personally I would like to set something up where I control a robotic arm, as well as send/store my “emotions” digitally. So look forward for more info on that coming soon.

Movie links It’s been a long time.

So I have been away from this section of the internet in far too long.

Here are some of the things I have found in my absence that relate to this topic ie transhumanisum:

Here is a pretty great review and trailer for the upcoming documentary “Turning into Gods” by Jason Silva.

In the same vein, here is another video, this time by Ray Kurzweil, its pretty inspirational, I feel.

If you haven’t played the Deus Ex games, well they are filled with Transhuman fun. The latest one seems to promise more of that, here is a trailer. Seems to be mostly, technology we could have in the next decade or two.

Finally there is this, The Singularity is Near – The Movie.

The prodigal Transhuman returns

So it has bee a while, sorry, school and work have kept my very very busy. 22 credits worth of classes and a service learning project == BAD IDEA.

I wish in my absents I had done something to really show for it, other then school work I got nothing. I do have more information on my implant.

First: I noticed today a small scar barely visible, at the point that the incision was made, in fact I was using a magnifying glass which is the only reason i could see it.

Second: From Lepht’s blog post.

something i should warn you guys about: when placing nodes in the fingertips, they have to go on opposite sides of each finger than the one next to it. for example, if you were starting with your left hand, you would (for practical reasons) only use the three fingers starting with the little one and ending at the middle; you would put the nodes on the left side of the middle finger, the right side of the next one and on the right side again in the little finger.

Third: Two friends of mine, Will and another are seriously thinking about getting a magnet, i am thinking about getting another few 5 total i’m thinking, one in each finger minus thumb and pinky is my end goal.

Four: How blind are people? I pick up paper clips and dangle the magnetic backing off of my finger all the time at work and NOT ONE person has noticed yet. Humans look around you, incidentally thats a pretty decent show, Look Around You.

1 month 1 week and 1 day.

It’s been a while, I have been busy. The “sense” is now fully developed and integrated into my life. The other day I was a friends house, I was having trouble finding the light switch, so instead of fumbling around in the dark like an idiot. I reached out and felt it with the force! (OK so not the force from Star Wars, I wish.)

I have been working on some Transhuman Art, mostly as a reaction to this class Jake is taking, I was going to talk to his class but the Professor said no. The art they talk about from what I gather is more images of non-Transhumans Ideas of Transhumanism. This kinda bothers me, maybe its my ego at being able to say “I am not Human, I am something more.” Regardless, I have been building wire sculptures thought which i run a current, nothing strong just a few D batters wired together. They do product interesting fields, but nothing I would call art. They seem to be too “mono-tone” as if some one painted a picture using only grey, and the contrast was created my layering the paint.

I finally felt a security device, the things you walk through big chain stores, while walking out of Hollywood video. Damn did it tingle, could feel it from 3 feet away, and it kept tingling for a while after, but I think that has more to do with my nerves. Similar to when you touch something really cold and your figure feels warm afterwards.

Day 22

It’s been a while, bit 8 days in fact, I have been busy, setting up an independent study in robotics, and robotic programing, helping students at the dojo I attend prepare for our youth tournament. So on and so forth.

This past weekend, I visited Smith College, there I attended a dance in there campus center. An interesting thing while in the ball room my finger tingled as if I was in the presence of an electromagnetic field. I believe this is a result of the architecture and building materials, mostly glass, concrete and metal, I feel that this created a type of resonance. Out side the ball room, there were some rather spiffy space age looking chairs, the heating ducts next to them radiated (what I feel to be) high strength EM field. Probably due to the use of electrical coils in the heating system. I also stopped by Hampshire college, I visited a friend in his mod, his refrigerator also had an abnormally powerful EM field.

Along the lines of weird and odd things I have felt, I wrote a paper on the topic of my implant for my English class, and got asked to read it aloud. Afterwards this girl talked to me, and mentioned x-mas lights, I had not yet felt them. On there own they really are not that interesting, but when shaped into some shape it creates very interesting EM fields.

My friend Jake is taking a class on transhuman art, we were talking about creating art that you could only experienced with a magnetic implant. In my most recent e-mail to Lepht, I mentioned this idea. His response.

“the art based on EM, i like that shit. try going to a junkyard or an electrical shop to find stuff that gives off weird fields – i find clock radios are always fucked up.”

I have been thinking of wire sculptures, and running an electrical current through it to create an EM field, maybe some motors and LED displays.

Other then that I really have nothing new to day. I will hopefully start writing about other Transhuman topics, as well as related tech, fringe science material.

Day 14

It has been Two weeks now since the implant.

I have not once regretted it, during karate it has been a minor annoyance but after 13 years of karate I can deal with a minor injury.

So a fair number of people have asked me about side effects, I have suffered none, let me be clear on that. I will how ever attempt to list the possible side effects and talk about them a bit.

Immediate Risks1. INFECTION: If you do the procedure on your own, or if everything is not cleaned properly the risk of infection is very high. Make no mistake about it, you are putting a foreign object into your body, evolution has worked hard to make are bodys resistant to this. When this happens your body has been designed to fight it off, trying to break what ever it is down, and push it out of the body.

2. PAIN: It will hurt. I didn’t find it as painful as I thought it would be, but I have a high pain threshold. It will hurt for a few days, and then just be sore and sensitive for a week or so. The hardest part is after it heals, is to stop protecting it so much.

Long Term Side Effects and Risks

1. NERVE DAMAGE: It is possible if the procedure is done by someone who is unskilled, that they will inadvertently damage the nerves in the area near the implant. At this time nerve damage impermanent. How long that will remain the case has yet to be seen but I feel it wont be much longer till we master the technology to repair nerve damage.

2. BIORHYTHMS: My significant other mentioned that it might interfere with my natural biorhythms. Truth be told this had not crossed my mind, but as far as I can tell there is no evidence, in any written material that this will happen, I have also seen a lack of evidence in my own experiences. Perhaps there are some long term effects that are as of yet unknown, but such is the fate of early adapters.

3. MAGNETIC EFFECT ON HEMOGLOBIN: A friend who is a biology major mentioned this one, hemoglobin has iron in it. You may see where this is going but allow me anyways, since iron is effected by magnets, wouldn’t the magnet pull the hemoglobin to the side of the vein or artery closest to the magnet and thus cause a build up and eventually slow down circulation in that part of the body? Well if it was a strong enough magnet yes, but after some research we both feel confident in saying, that this magnetic implant is not strong enough. Any build up will be swept away as blood is pumped through the body. If one were to have dangerously low blood pressure and weak circulation, I could see this being a problem.

4. BREACH: It is possible that the human body will in time breach the bio-neutral silicon sheath. This was much more common in earlier implants, as the silicon sheath was not as strong as it is now, in the one I have the silicon is as strong as a car tire.

A brief overview of what happens when the sheath is breached:

Once the sheath is breached, the body eats away at the gold coating, and then quickly “eats” the iron out of the body. In a healthy person this will not cause any real harm. At this point the magnet becomes very brittle and should be removed, by some one with medical training, from the body before the infection gets too bad. Most likely not all of the magnet will be esaly removed and this is OK, it is not toxic. The goal is to remove the larger bits to diminish the infection, at this point antibiotics will probably be needed to help fight the infection. Since the magnet shattered the sense will be gone, but it being a magnet in time it is very likely that it will reform.

MRI’s

A MRI (Magnetic resonance imaging) uses a very very strong magnetic field to take images. This means that it will rip the magnet out of a human body, the magnet will take the straitest path regardless of what is in the way, that means it will go through bone. If you get this implant MAKE SURE you make a note saying you have the implant and wrap it around your insurance card, consider getting a medical dog tag as well.

It has been two weeks since I got my implant, and not for one moment have I regretted it. It has become part of the way I interact with the world, I have learned so much about the technology I interact with on a daily basis. It has been great, now before people take this as my recommendation that they go out and get one, if you asked me yes or no, I would have to say yes do it. That said I urge caution, and I know it is hypocritical of me to say, but I say to wait and see how my implant goes.

Photos & Layout

I finally got photos up of the whole implant procedure, I put them up as a page of there own, in the future I will be using pages more often to separate content and long pieces.

<rant> One of the main problems i have right now with wordpress.com is that i can not have multiple pages with posts on them, only one may have posts the rest must be single static pages.</rant>

Regardless the photos are up, I am going to check with Jake, but I’m hoping to have a way to download them all, even the ones I did not post, there are about 83 of them in total. Also I will hopefully be doing something for Jake’s Trans-human art class, ie giving a talk or showing off, and that material will also be made available.

Pictures!

I just got all the un-edited pictures from the implant, they will be up shortly. Jake is also going to edit a few, so I will have a photo gallery with those up as well.

Day 7 or Pie Day

So one week latter:

Happy Pie Day everyone. IT is also one week from the day I got my implant. At this time last Sunday Jake, Will and I were walking to Pure  Body Arts.

What have I learned?

There was no great revelation as I moved from human to trans-human, but that is to be expected. IT has raised many new questions in my mind about what it means to be human, and if that changes any once you become trans-human.

Playing with magnets is great fun! Just got in the magnets I ordered,  I got five of three different sizes, 1/8″ diameter, 3/16″ diameter and 1/4″ diameter. I can place the 1/8′, 3/16′ right on my skin and it doesn’t hurt, unlike more powerful magnets, that pull to much on the implant. The 1/4′ pulls to much on the implant and hurts slightly, but I think that this will go away in time, as my finger heals.

Speaking of healing, the swelling has gone down and I can now see that the incision was a mere 3/8″ in length.

This morning I felt an Electro-magnetic field coming off the heaters in my house. This is noteworthy because we use hot water heating, basically a copper pipe with metal tins that act as radiators, and ho water is pumped through the pipe. I have no idea why I would feel anything from this.

Day 6

Observations and learnings:

I has been six days, at this time last week I was nervous and worried, thoughts of what if it didn’t work were going through my mind. Well it worked better than I could have hoped, honestly I had no clue what it would be like, already 6 days latter the sense is strong (I think, maybe it will get stronger, or more fine tuned I do not know.) Today was the first day i could put real pressure on the pad of my finger with out feeling overwhelming pain, also I can feel it under my skin if i push on the pad of my finger slightly. It is right where the two lines that Brain drew as guides crossed.

Tuesday I had trouble picking up 6 staples, by Thursday I could pick up 12 and today I picked up a medium sized paper clip. Also the magnets i ordered came today, they are waiting for me to pick them up tomorrow at my mail box. So those will be fun to play with, I ordered a nubmer of very small neodymium magnets.

Two cool things from work today, a woman handed me his credit card, I noticed it was RFID enabled, and in the process of swiping it I felt a slight tingle, so before I handing it back, I ran my finger over it. I can feel RFID’s which is pretty awesome! Then there was the server room . . . I could feel it through the wall and 1/16th in copper sheeting, felt like my laptops keyboard when my hand was about 6-8 inches from the door. When i touched the door it was very similar to holding my hand near my passport drive.