Comment by jacquesm
7 hours ago
None of these have anything to do with your average diabetic loop hacker. You are comparing people that live for the thrills with people that are just trying to live.
7 hours ago
None of these have anything to do with your average diabetic loop hacker. You are comparing people that live for the thrills with people that are just trying to live.
They're also people who had a lot of confidence in their own skills (including thinking they knew better than others) and ended up being wrong.
I would say that can have a lot to do with your average diabetic loop hacker.
I'd like some proof that the embedded programmers working for 'the man' at medical device companies are better and more motivated than those that are hacking on loop devices.
You're comparing people with a death wish in disguise with people that are extremely motivated to improve the QOL and they're very careful about how they do this, in fact if you read up on this you'd notice the insane attention to detail and the very rigorous process, on par with what I've seen in industry and in fact probably better than most.
All of this talk in this thread makes me think back to a time when people were laughing at that Finnish kid that was making his own OS with his buddies. Surely nobody would ever trust their business, their property or the lives to open source.
I checked and this is actually hacker news, not the BSA.
I'm arguing that "it's their life, so they'll be more careful than 'the man'" is tenuous.
There have been many people who "made informed decisions" about their medical treatments over the advice of professionals and ended up being wrong. They don't count as thrill seekers.
Even in other threads on HN, you'll find takes on this topic ranging from "I don't trust my device, so I do finger tests every day" to "I trust my vibes and my device and don't do finger tests anymore" which tells me there's a pretty wide spectrum along which hackers might fall.
I'm not at all arguing that it's impossible that someone would do a good job of hacking their device, let alone do better than pharma/med companies.
I just don't buy that everyone who hacks away at it will inherently do a better than said companies because their life is at stake. There are way too many examples of people taking their lives in their own hands and getting it wrong.
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