h a l f b a k e r yRenovating the wheel
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If you find yourself in hospital, there's a high chance that you'll
be hooked up to a portable wireless ECG. This is basically a
battery-powered transmitter, connected to a handful of leads.
The leads, in turn, attach to adhesive electrodes stuck to
various points on your chest. This gadget
allows a nursing
station to monitor a crude version of your ECG remotely, and
to intervene urgently should needs be.
If they decide to take a more detailed ECG, it is again done
using adhesive skin electrodes - just more of them than with
the wireless monitoring gadget.
In either case, though, the electrodes tend to come off. This
is especially true if you're sleeping, meaning that nurses will
come running to reattach your electrodes (or call the morgue)
at random times.
So.
If you're going to have body piercings, I suggest having five of
them on your chest, in carefully-chosen places. They can have
little popper-studs, as are used on ECG electrodes, for robust
connection of the leads. Ipso gadulka! the electrode-
detachment problem is solved.
Of course, the logical extension is to have a full-featured OBD
port fitted in your armpit, but we will leave that for another
day.
[link]
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// we will leave that for another day. // |
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Why ? It's the way forward. |
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The idea is OK; it simply doesn't go far enough. Having all major organs monitored by wireless technology is much neater. |
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Does that include tracking, for retrieval after unauthorised harvesting? |
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You mean do we go and get the bits back and then subject the miscreants to Termination With Extreme Prejudice ? |
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Think "Repo Men" but with more gratuitous violence and less compassion. |
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//Having all major organs monitored by wireless technology
is much neater// The problem with a human OBD
connector is that technology will change. For instance,
Sturton drives* a restored 1967 Cadillac Grand Aquarius -
top of the
line and way ahead of its time, and fitted with Cadillac's
"Mission Control" system monitor. It has sensors for 48
different parameters but, thanks to obsolescence caused by
the passage of time, the only parameter that can now be
read out is "Driver's Side Cupholder Temperature". |
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(*The owner gets furious about this.) |
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"obsolescence" doesn't mean "wearing out" |
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No, and the connector in the Caddy is in pristine condition.
But finding a machine that can talk to it is now very difficult. |
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//wireless technology//
Anything like this needs to be hard-wired, even if it's
"transmit only". Hackers these days will fuck up anything
they can get their signals in to...
But I do like the idea of secondary digital monitoring of
internal organs. |
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Well, in theory you could have: |
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(1) Core temperature
(2) Blood pH, glucose, O2 saturation and various ions (K, Na,
CO3...)
(3) ECG data
(4) Nerve conduction data (useful, perhaps in testing for
early signs of MS or other neuro problems)
(5) Flow profiles (flow vs time) for major blood vessels
(6) Driver's Side Cupholder Temperature
(7) Kidney output
(8) Blood alcohol
(9) and many more
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Many of these could be done with a single implant;
obviously others would require their own dedicated sensors. |
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Wired connections have problems in that they create a path
through the skin. However, I guess you could use inductive
coupling to transmit through skin, but only to a closely-
overlying reader. |
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Hey [neut], we have a special Black Friday offer on Assimilation coming up ... |
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I think the idea is pretty dern funny. I like it. But Max, won't
all this electricity wreck havoc on your locater computer chip
that your owner had implanted the day you were adopted
out? hahahaha... |
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I'd forgotten I had that chip. Dang, that explains why I keep
hearing local radio coming out of my shoulder. |
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1,2,5 &8 could be a single device located
somewhere unobtrusive (unobstructive) in the
blood system. Presumably for ECG you’d need
electrical sensors on or near the heart, which is
problematic. Neurological stuff is going to be even
more
problematic. |
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I like the original idea of external (transdermal?)
ECG terminals. |
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I think the idea of an implantable/injectable
device that measures a wide range of parameters
(and communicates them to an external terminal)
is brilliant. Real-Time Condition monitoring for
health. |
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There are presumably a very large range of
parameters that could be measured. Is there bulk
data that could be used to correlate these against
illnesses? |
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//offer on Assimilation//
Tempting, but I suspect there would be operating-system
incompatibilities. My mind (not to mention the rest of me)
doesn't work quite like other peoples. Connecting me to the
Collective would be like clicking on a "Download This Free
Viewer!" banner ad. |
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//Presumably for ECG you’d need electrical sensors on or near the
heart, which is problematic// No, not really. Regular ECG uses
electrodes stuck onto the skin of the chest. Simple piercings would
give at least as good a signal - my understanding is that the skin
grows to form a "tunnel" around the piercing, so the connectivity is
similar to an electrode stuck to the skin. If you were going to be
hard-wired for ECG, you'd have electrodes implanted under the
skin, but not necessarily any closer to the heart - you'd get a big
advantage from bypassing the resistance of the skin itself. Of
course, electrodes implanted closer to the heart would probably
give even better data |
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//Neurological stuff is going to be even more problematic.// Yes,
ish. You could pick a large, accessible nerve (such as the one that
runs down to your big toe); you're actually talking about a large
bundle of individual nerves, with a surrounding sheath. With two
pickups (thigh and calf, say) you could measure the time taken for
an impulse to propagate a fixed distance, and the pulse strength at
each point. I think that would let you detect things like
demyelinization in MS, say. |
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//There are presumably a very large range of parameters that
could be measured// Indeed there is. I guess the only limitation is
what kind of data is used/useable in diagnostics. Might be handy
to have a realtime cortisol sensor, for instance, and I guess
diagnosticians would learn to use the data if it were available.
"House, his driver's side cupholder is running a little hot. Should
we test for lupus?" |
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//offer on Assimilation// I am not having my ass immolated
at any price. |
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//A 12-lead ECG would need lot of piercings // Yes, but you
do get full surround-sound. |
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... including a subwoofer. |
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// I am not having my ass immolated at any price // |
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Oh, we must have misheard ... so what exactly was it that you offered those two rather attractive Ukrainian ladies so much money to do to you ? |
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[runs for dictionary to look up "immolated" before saying a
word.] |
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"kill or offer as a sacrifice, especially by burning." per Google |
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