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Chinese Man Builds His Own Prosthetic Hands
New submitter macbeth66 writes "Almost 10 years ago, Sun Jifa lost his hands in an explosion. Unable to afford the prosthetic hands recommended by the hospital, he built his own. From the article: 'After eight years of tinkering, he says he finally developed a working model that allows him to grip, hold, and mimic other necessary movements via a system of pulleys and wires.'"
Seems like this would be hard to do without hands...
High five he had after finishing it!
It's that he did that with no hands!
I went from 'go Chinese man!' to 'one of those could have been a chainsaw!' remarkably quickly.
I'm trying to decide if that makes me bad.
The 10,000 yuan man.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
He must have become progressively handy over the years, since he did it himself and no one gave him a hand. I wonder if we will hand off the project now? I guess if nothing else, he has become more handsome as a result of his efforts.
See communism works after all. You start with a need, put in a little hard work and entrepreneurialism and poof, new arms. Of wait that's capitalism. Disregard.
That is quite a feet.
Puns totally intended.
One day one of you sorry smartass pricks is going to face a challenge in life.
It is doubtful you will meet the challenge as well as this man did.
Think about that when the day comes, which I assure you it will.
But in the mean time I hope your smart mouth gets you an ass whipping,
and soon.
Say what you will about the Chinese but, if this were an American, he'd be shopping for a book deal and making millions as a motivational speaker. He'd probably get some weird Craftsman sponsorship as well. Instead, he seems genuinely interested in helping other people get access to what he built. It's inspiring, to say the least.
This man deserves a medal for ingenuity under extreme hardship.
One thing that added unnecessarily to his misery though was that the hospital recommended a prosthetic that he couldn't afford. It's not a huge stretch of the imagination for hospitals to run cheap RepRap-type 3D printers for such needs and print out basic parts on demand. Both the building and running costs are very low indeed.
Of course such parts would be very poor compared to professional prosthetics or even professional 3D printing, but when the choice is between that and nothing, it's hard to argue against it. And the flexibility of such printing means that it is easily adapted to evolve with individual requirements, and replacement of printed parts is almost cost-free when they break or wear out.
It seems a good fit for this kind of unfortunate situation, and it might have made this man's days more bearable as he worked on his own solution, or indeed contributed to it where plastic is more appropriate than steel.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
I guess the self-made man still means something these days.
Fishing related explosion!? go on....
Also I hope his fingertips aren't rounded or Apple might have already patented that!
Slavery is the legal fiction that a person is property; A Corporation is the legal fiction that property is a person.
...Fullmetal alchemist!
*Drum Roll*........... Ladies and Gentleman........... Please put your hands together for CHINESE THING!
Once again, the UK shows the way with the NHS. While in China, Afghanistan, the US and North Korea, only the elite get medical treatment, in the UK everyone gets it (and it's half the price per head than the U.S. system).
it looks like he also built a bionic cock.
http://i.huffpost.com/gadgets/slideshows/244958/slide_244958_1382942_free.jpg?1345045217000
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Clever dick!
Sorry, couldn't resist an oldie...
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
why no one bothers to hire him. I can imagine that his (hands-on) experience, both form producer and consumer side regarding prosthetics is quite rare and china has to be in great demand of such skills, that is being such a large and industious country.
Don't dare fish
With dynamite
Lest you want to build
Arms left and right
Burma-Shave
Actually only a few will float to the top if you use explosives. The majority will sink to the bottom and go to waste. If you want to do it right, stun them with electricity, but not enough to kill them, and then they will float to the top. That way you can also release live the ones you won't eat. I've seen the DNR gather fish for their surveys using stunners and the equipment is rather simple.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Let's get the "I made your eyes, Roy" and Luke Skywalker gags over and done with...
The man puts the 'auto' in automail.
Touched on above but I'm not seeing it answered (and my google-fu was weak) so: China's a Communist country, why was this guy expected to buy his own prostheses? Isn't one of the benefits of Communism supposed to be that the State takes care of that?
Nowhere in the article does it say that he was using explosives, merely that he suffered a fishing related explosion. It could have been something as simple as the gas tank on his boat blew up. Don't diminish the accomplishment of him building arms he can control with his elbows out of scrap metal. I'm thinking Tony Stark should be talking to this guy.
He's very handy.
Just think of the hands he can make now that he actually has hands.
That guy made me think of Tony Stark who build himself an armour out of spare parts in a cave, except that Tony had hands to do it and also this guy can't fly.
"The hallmark of humanity is the ability to move beyond sensory inputs" - Mary Helen Immordino-Yang
Surely you understand the difference between an untryable theory ("from each according to ability to each according to need" won't work because people are greedy/selfish/rationally self interested) and the dictatorship currently in power in China?
Dictatorship of the proletariat will always become dictatorship over the proletariat.
I'm still trying to figure out if "I can work, love normally and feed myself just like anyone else," is a typo, or if he is just really comfortable talking about his sex life. Either way, he's an inspiration.
Reminds me of the arm that Ash built for himself in Army of Darkness!
Groovy!
Anyone wonder if these hands are just a collection of various cutting tools? Could come in very handy if you want to be a gardener, a pet hair stylist, a people hair stylist, or if you just want to be able to stab the asshole-boyfriend of the cutie-daughter of the folks who took you in after Vinnie the P. died in their ultra-suburban home.
Instructions too confusing. Got dick stuck in prosthetic.
But Lincoln could have killed more vampires with mechanical hands than he could with a log cabin.
Emancipator 2: Judgement Day
There are a lot of pyro sites, search for them, and you will find lots of answers that you are looking for
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
"I can rebuild myself, I have the technology!"
Check out Mark Lesek in Australia, he's doing the same thing but a whole arm, based on an early 1900s patent with modern improvements.
"You didn't build that!"
But Sun Jifa obviously did.
as a result of geezerhood, i have a useless body part. time for a prosthesis
Capitalism wins again!