Posts

Showing posts from August, 2011

A Different Beat

Image
The revelation came to me somewhere around the middle of the race. I'm pretty sure it was after I'd fallen the first time, sending my glasses flying into the brush while I was yelling, "I'm fine!" to those around me while I staggered to recover my pace, but still before I'd fallen the second time, cutting my hand open and yelling a slew of bad language into the trees. Sidenote: if this runner falls in the woods and he can not see another runner in front or behind him, I assure you: he does makes a sound. Plenty of them, in fact. The scene for all of this was the On the Rocks Trail Run at Rocky Ridge Park in York, PA. This was my first trail race in nearly a year and more importantly, my last prior to the Susquehanna Super Hike, a 28.4 mile ultra coming up next month. On the Rocks featured a 2 loop course; runners could choose between the 8.5 and 16.3 distance. I'd chosen the latter. Given the name and location of the race, it shouldn't surpri

I'm not Scared of My Insulin Pump, Are You?

So a "security expert" (read: hacker with a salary) who is also a diabetic, found a way to hack his pump and CGM. Rather than approach the pump companies "partly out of fear for his own safety," he revealed his findings at the Black Hat security conference. In other words, he wanted his hacker friends to be impressed. Strange that he feared for his safety yet titled his talk, " Hacking Medical Devices for Fun & Insulin ." Read about it here . I don't mean to downplay whatever security flaw there is. Radcliffe's right - these devices shouldn't be easily compromised. Still, in saying, "It would only take one person to do this to kill someone and then you have a catastrophe," he neglects to think about the potential negative impact of what he has done: 1.) The FDA in the US is notoriously slow in approving devices for diabetes, despite the fact that these devices enhance care, improve lives and, by association, save lives. Radcliffe&