Cable Cutting: Your Options

Just about anything that you would want to watch these days can be found online. Whether it’s through legitimate online offerings like Netflix and Hulu, or through less than reputable means (i.e. torrents), paying to get the content that you want on the main screen in your living room shouldn’t cost you an arm and a leg. On average, cable TV service costs somewhere between $30 to $50 a month, and that’s before you start adding on extra services. Installation on multiple screens,  DVR, premium movie channels, specialty foreign channels… they can all add up to a bill that claws its way into the hundred dollar range. For those of you that would rather dispose of the their not-so-disposable income on different pursuits, there are plenty of alternatives out there to get your televised entertainment fix (you just have to jump through a few hoops to get there).

[A Note] Imported Articles

Anyone following this blog will see a bit of a difference in the content of the last couple of posts. Prosthetics this and that. What?

This past fall semester I took a science writing class. Along with some work responsibilities and other classes, I ended up working on another blog to get a taste for writing about more science oriented articles. Those recent posts are from said blog. Since the class is now over, I’m going to close down the site (I’d rather not contribute to the excess junk on the internet). Though the site is closing down, I wanted to save the articles I wrote. So here they are now, saved from the oblivion of deletion. Hope you guys enjoy!

Learning to Walk with a Self Learning Knee

Earlier this year Yvonne Ashley, avisiting homecare nurse from Jersey City, New Jersey, had to have her right leg amputated above the knee because of diabetes. 34 years ago in Haiti, Pierre Guy Theodore was born with a congenital birth defect that left him a double above the knee amputee. He was abandoned by his mother, but was saved by Sister Joan Margaret, an Anglican nun who had set up the first school in Haiti for handicapped children.  On December 6th, the two amputees met during Ashley’s first attempt at walking with a new and advanced prosthetic leg at Ortho Remedy, a prosthetics center located in Cliffside Park, New Jersey. This is the story of Ashley’s second set of first steps. How the good people at Ortho Remedy helped take those steps. And how a fellow amputee inspired her.

Insert Phone Here

Someone out there has probably had this idea already: I use my phone everyday. I just wish there was a more convenient way to carry it around. Pockets and belt cases be dammed there’s got to be a better way! Why can’t I just embed it into my arm?A prosthetic arm at least.

Pictured up top is Trevor Prideaux, born without a left forearm, he’s had a bit of a pet peeve when it came to using his phone comfortably. This became especially true with the popularity explosion of more complex smartphones . Without having to otherwise occupy his good hand, Prideaux would usually be stuck awkwardly balancing his phone on his shoulder or have to sit it down on a flat surface to talk over speakerphone. Well not anymore.

Laser Powered Prosthetics!

Just to be clear, these prosthetics aren’t actually drawing power from lasers beams. In fact, the possible prosthetics that WIRED is reporting on haven’t even been made yet. The possibilities are certainly there though. With further research (and funding) a future of highly advanced human augmentation is upon us.

According to research done at Tennessee’s Vanderbilt University in 2008, nerves can actually be stimulated by infrared light. Using short pulses of  infrared light researchers were able to successfully stimulate the sciatic nerve of a rat. While using electricity to stimulate that same nerve has been possible for quite some time, the use of infrared light was found to have:  ”improved spatial selectivity, lack of a stimulation artifact in the recorded response, and noncontact stimulus delivery.”

Form, Function, Art

High tech laser powered prosthetics? How about prosthetics that take style to another level? Forgoing the cheaper alternatives of simply buying a cheap sleeve or having someone tattoo artificial limbs, Bespoke Innovations is producing fairings that look like they’re coming straight from the future.

What’s a fairing you ask? Short and simple answer, they’re plastic coverings to standard prosthetics. The San Francisco based company uses 3D scanning technology to make sure that the fairing they produce will match up with each customer’s body type. In the same way that people have different sets of glasses for different occasions and outfits, the people behind Bespoke aim to give amputees the same option as well as providing a confidence booster. Prosthetics are not a one size fits all affair and Bespoke fully acknowledges this with the company’s tagline “Because Every Body is Different.”

Producing fairings made out of leather, wood, chrome, plastic and just about any other material, here are some examples of Bespoke’s work:

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Interested in what the company can do for you? Try visiting the company’s official site here.

The First Prosthetic

The big toe imaged up top is old. Really old. And it’s a great topic for this blog to start on.

According to researchers who recovered the toe in 2000, it dates somewhere between 950 and 710 BC, and is one of the earliest examples of prosthetic use in the Ancient world.Found in the Theban Necropolis, a strip of land on the West Bank of the Nile opposite Thebes in Egypt, this particular prosthesis replaced the big toe on the right foot of an Egyptian woman. Made out of wood and leather the toe actually looks very similar to a modern day toe prosthetic. Just take a look at the image on the left for a modern example. Use of plastic aside, general shape and function are practically the same between the pictured toes and the ancient toes.

Standardized Amputation and The Future

Its’s a sad fact that amputations happen. Whenever you hear about a situation where a limb might have to be removed, you can imagine what the consulting doctor will say. It’s a somber scene in a consultation room, with the hum of a busy hospital droning in the background. “We’ll try to save as much as we can…”

It makes sense really. Of course you’d want to keep as much of your original self as possible. But is it really necessary?

[Blurb] Aaaaand I’m Back!

It’s been quite a while sine I last posted in this blog (my last post was from a different year for crying out loud!). Short version of a longer one, other commitments just ate up my time and I wasn’t able to blog as much as I would have preferred. Long story? I was lazy and life was starting to kick me in the ass. That’s as specific as I’d like to go because quite frankly I’m just not that comfortable revealing that much about my personal life with the internet… just yet anyway.

In any case, it’s a new year and newer me. Here’s to [hopefully] a full year of blogging and writing!

[Tip off] Buy a New HTC Phone get an extra 3gb of Storage on Dropbox

The title says it all here folks. If you buy an HTC phone running the company’s custom Sense 3.5 UI you will be entitled to an additional 3gb of storage for your Dropbox account. Users will be given the extra space automatically once they sign into the service with their new handset. This is easily the biggest boost to getting more space on Dropbox, since adding more free space is generally done in 250mb increments. [from PocketLint]