from Hacker News

Magnet Implants Can Actually be Pretty Annoying

by iamdann on 2/15/13, 10:28 PM with 48 comments

  • by Cushman on 2/15/13, 11:41 PM

    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.

  • by Udo on 2/16/13, 12:02 AM

    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.

  • by pygy_ on 2/16/13, 12:03 AM

    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

  • by digikata on 2/16/13, 12:13 AM

    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.

  • by jlgreco on 2/15/13, 11:31 PM

    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.

  • by DanBC on 2/16/13, 12:46 AM

    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...)

  • by pdog on 2/16/13, 5:25 AM

    > 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.

  • by guylhem on 2/16/13, 12:15 AM

    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

  • by cpeterso on 2/15/13, 11:41 PM

    Who'd a thought?!

  • by benologist on 2/16/13, 12:30 PM

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

  • by astangl on 2/16/13, 3:14 AM

    Woah, this is actually a thing people are doing?