one other thing i've been thinking about...

[rmd]

so, microcontrollers are cheap. and there's a growing user-base of easily-accessible microcontroller related stuff, with the arduino etc.

there ae a bunch of people who have prosthetics. and there's a lot of kids coming back from overseas missing limbs. some of these people have to be nerds.

why am i not yet hearing about people doing customized things involving prosthetic limbs and electronics? i mean, outside of the MIT leg lab.

i assume it'll happen eventually. i'm just surprised it hasn't happened already.

Comments

[feste-sylvain.livejournal.com]

There is!

The Open Prosthetics Project (http://openprosthetics.org/) aims to harness the power of open-source to prosthetics, which had not advanced appreciably in decades.

(Many of my customers are in need of this work, seeing as they are bomb disposal technicians.)

[rmd.livejournal.com]

cool!

i mean, not cool that they need the prosthetics, but what a great project.

[srakkt.livejournal.com]

There's also the *really* low incidence of nerds in the Infantry.

Out of a handful-thousand Marine infantrymen that I have known, I'm the only one. Anecdote != evidence, of course, and my sample is not at all random.

The highest casualty rates for that sort of thing are among Infantry and MP's, wherein there's the lowest incidence of nerds, so... :/

[klingonlandlady.livejournal.com]

more video gamers and auto mechanics perhaps? but one would think they'd be motivated to tinker...

[lil-brown-bat.livejournal.com]

It hasn't happened for the same reason that there are multiple erectile dysfunction drugs whose primary market is best described as recreational, and an absence of effective treatments for any number of painful, disabling or fatal conditions. When rich white men start losing limbs, you can bet there will be robocop limbs to accommodate them.

[madbodger.livejournal.com]

I suspect part of the problem is that it's tricky (and possibly dangerous) to interface electronics to living tissue. Many years ago, however, I figured if I lost an arm, all I'd need were enough neural connections for 8 bits + strobe.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

...

so your arm can do lighting and strobe effects for a rave?