
Magnet Implants Can Actually be Pretty Annoying - iamdann
http://www.iamdann.com/2013/02/15/magnet-implants-can-actually-be-pretty-annoying
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Cushman
To summarize: Having a sense for something that is invisible to everyone else
can mean that many well-designed things are very poorly designed for you.

Which actually sounds like your basic early adopter problem. Hypothetically,
as more and more people gain this sense, there will be market pressure to make
the world more interesting and usable for them, and the growing competitive
advantage for those who have it will accelerate the process. This won't be the
last novel sense humanity sees... It will be interesting to see this play out,
if not with magnetism than with UV or radar or whatever it is.

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wlesieutre
I'd rather have manually induced signals than a magnet, ideally something that
could use low power bluetooth (or similar) to talk to my smartphone. Maybe a
set of muscle-twitching electrodes to replace vibrate mode on my phone, or to
poke me for anything else that I'd want to be notified of.

With enough outputs you even do things similar to the vibrating compass belt
that's mentioned elsewhere in the comments. Or instead of a north-compass, it
could point you toward any arbitrary destination via GPS.

~~~
shurane
Or just gloves instead of implants. So you can take them off, but still get
the benefit when they're on.

I don't see why it isn't possible.

~~~
wlesieutre
Definitely more what I had in mind

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Udo
Looking at how exceptionally crude this "implant" is, it should come as no
surprise to anyone how annoying and uncomfortable it turned out to be. The
technique here is to embed a small magnet subcutaneously, that's it.

I think having a magnetic sense in general would be cool, but not like this. A
real piece of cyberware instead of this crude body mod butchery might well be
worth trying out. It would be especially nice if it was sensitive enough to
work as a compass.

~~~
icefox
Much simpler I got this magnetic wedding ring:
[http://www.supermagnetman.net/index.php?cPath=48&osCsid=...](http://www.supermagnetman.net/index.php?cPath=48&osCsid=549bb9c1d09b33803c3dcd9318a92a85)
I wear it on my right hand (I live in NA, not EU so my real wedding rings go
on my left hand). With this I can take it off whenever I want. It is fun to
wear, but can get annoying at times. The microwave is the craziest day to day
object you will encounter. Mostly it was a fun thing to show off and very
handy for picking up anything metallic such as small screws. One of the best
experiences has to have been walking on a street that has the power
underground. The transformers were on the ground and the magnetic field is
like a big ball of water you can move your hand through and about. The
"deeper" you stick you hand into the ball (the closer to the box) the stronger
it was.

~~~
oscilloscope
Found a clearance section for the magnetic weddings rings, $5-6 a piece.

<http://www.supermagnetman.net/index.php?cPath=122>

I'd like to try two rings: one magnetized through the thickness, and the other
magnetized through the diameter. That would let me sense two orthogonal
vectors from the surrounding field.

~~~
alexsb92
Have you been able to find anything that would do this, as this would be quite
incredible to feel. You can measure magnetic fields with solenoids with
wrapped wire, but this would be quite the impractical solution for a ring.

~~~
oscilloscope
Super magnet man sells rings magnetized both ways. Here are the ones
magnetized across the diameter:

<http://www.supermagnetman.net/index.php?cPath=56>

I've placed two orders from this site over the past 7 years and it went great
both times. The magnets are incredibly strong. These rings will definitely be
in my next order

I would hesitate to wear a solenoid, due to the induced current from magnetic
fields.

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pygy_
Another point, not mentioned in the article, is that you can't approach an MRI
unit, unless you want to see the magnet rip out of your finger and
ballistically destroy stuff on its way to the 1.5+ Tesla superconductive
monster bathing in liquid helium.

/dramatic exaggeration.

Seriously, it can be very problematic, though. See
<http://www.simplyphysics.com/flying_objects.html>

~~~
rtkwe
Didn't know they were always or mostly energized. I thought they were only
powered during an actual MRI scan.

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fossuser
They're super conductors so shutting them off involves draining all the liquid
helium and nitrogen which is very expensive.

~~~
sp332
Well you can have a superconductor with no current running through it. Just
charge the electromagnet with current during the scan, then bleed it off
gradually when you're done. No need to turn off the superconductivity to power
down the magnetism.

~~~
refurb
MRI magnets are a pain to setup. It's not an easy task.

I can remember when the NMR (superconducting magnet as well) in our school
"quenched". It's a hell of a lot of current to dissipate.

Need to get some tech from Germany to come out and power it back up.

~~~
lostlogin
And $75k ish of helium - which is getting pricier by the day, and can at times
be impossible to source. And the riskiest time in terms of quenches, is during
ramping. Our last quench re-occurred just as they finished ramping it. We were
down for 3 weeks ish and the cost excluding helium was huge.

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digikata
A less permanent way to experiment with magnetic sense would be to superglue
the magnet to your fingertip. It might be a bit less sensitive, but there are
no incisons involved, and depending on how well the glue bonds, it should come
off in a few days to a week.

~~~
iamdann
This has been suggested a lot. I haven't personally tried it, but I have
friends with magnet implants who have and they said it was quite different,
actually.

~~~
digikata
Different, but you'd still get a sense. I'd think you could go with a more
powerful magnet on your fingertip than implanted within it too. So you could
end up more sensitive in some ways...

~~~
iamdann
Yes, very true. I think the main difference that I would imagine would be
psychological. The sensation of having something external vibrating against
your skin, as with a magnet superglued to a finger, is different than the
sensations being internalized.

When my magnet responds to something, it feels like _I_ am responding to
something. I don't feel a sense of separation from the magnet.

That being said, supergluing a magnet to a finger is probably the closest one
can get without getting the actual procedure. Which obviously isn't for
everyone, heh.

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jlgreco
Fair enough, but why doesn't he just cut it out?

At the first hint of pain that thing would be outta there for me.

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DanBC
I prefer not jabbing things under my skin. This bottle of oil, steel wool, and
a magnet is fun.

([http://www.discoverthis.com/project-magnetic-field-
bottle.ht...](http://www.discoverthis.com/project-magnetic-field-bottle.html))

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pdog
_> However, I do find that bringing it up on a “first date” is a great way to
separate the curious from the close minded._

It _does_ seperate the curious. Ironically, when a date finds the magnet, he's
the close minded one.

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guylhem
Maybe the problem is the size of the implant. I've seen pictures of rice-sized
implants - that's IMHO far too big to go into a fingertip - unless you don't
use your finger at all.

A smaller implant would be less sensitive to magnetic fields, ie less
distracting.

I'm not really into implants, but maybe something no bigger than a needle
could be tested by an eager volunteer?

A biocompatible coating is needed, which increases the size - the technical
challenge is making an implant small enough, coating included, to be helpful
without being painful or distracting

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cpeterso
Who'd a thought?!

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benologist
You need to think about anything you put in or under your skin. News at 11.

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astangl
Woah, this is actually a thing people are doing?

~~~
sp332
It's been done since the 90's at least but there's been active interest and
development in the last 8 years or so.
<http://wiki.bme.com/index.php?title=Magnetic_Implant>

However "Implant work isn't ready for prime time. While Huffman loves his
implant, he discourages others from getting it. "Most people don't understand
the risks, and implant work isn't appropriate for most people." Those risks
include infection and breach of the magnet's silicone sheath. The procedure
itself is painful, and the results vary from person to person for unknown and
unstudied reasons. Huffman doesn't see it as a candidate for study."
<http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mods/news/2006/06/71087>

