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Why Sleep Apnea Patients Rely On a Lone, DRM-Breaking CPAP Machine Hacker (vice.com)
Jason Koebler writes: "SleepyHead" is a free, open-source, and definitely not FDA-approved piece of software for sleep apnea patients that is the product of thousands of hours of hacking and development by a lone Australian developer named Mark Watkins, who has helped thousands of sleep apnea patients take back control of their treatment from overburdened and underinvested doctors. The software gives patients access to the sleep data that is already being generated by their CPAP machines but generally remains inaccessible, hidden by DRM and proprietary data formats that can only be read by authorized users (doctors) on proprietary pieces of software that patients often can't buy or download. SleepyHead and community-run forums like CPAPtalk.com and ApneaBoard.com have allowed patients to circumvent medical device manufacturers, who would prefer that the software not exist at all. Medical device manufacturers fought in 2015 to prevent an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to legalize hacking by patients who wanted to access their own data, but an exemption was granted, legalizing SleepyHead and software like it.
Fuck that, I'm lazy, motherfucker.
Or... you're an idiot who doesn't know anything about it? I'm 6' 3" and I weigh under 92kg. I constantly sleep with my mouth open because my nose is so badly blocked (most likely a deviated septum, which affects ~80% of the population) Sleep Apnea isn't always weight related and often has the same symptoms as ADHD.
The data from each CPAP manufacturer is locked-in to their ecosystem. Often the only way for users access their data is upload it to the manufacturer's system. This means that if you change manufacturer, then you can't take your old data with you. Even worse, sometimes the manufacturer also lock-in the user to their agent where the user needs to visit the agent to get a detailed report to provide to the sleep physician.
You break all the laws of physics and you seriously think there wouldn't be a price?
...and I've used Sleepyhead. I certainly appreciate it, but nobody "relies" on it - all the machine settings are available on the unit and Sleepyhead basically just displays info. It's very cool.
So for data nerds like me I like to dig into it, but the fact that I slept 7 hours 3 minutes last night with 4 wakeups vs 6 hours 52 minutes the night before with 6 wakeups really isn't critical information in any way.
And let's be honest: as much as I'm a tech-head, me "using the data" to fuck around with the settings on my machine is about as likely to kill me as NOT 'using the data" to fuck around with the settings on the machine.
-Styopa
It remains less common in women, and far less successfully diagnosed for them. There is a good NIH study on the issue at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... .
If it effected 80% of the population, it would be a normal septum and the people without issues would have the deviated septum.
In this context, it's the original word meaning. It's not meant as in "their nasal septum is different from normal population", it simply means "their nasal septum isn't straight but is curved".
It's indeed extremely frequent in the population.
But whether it impacts health is an entire different problem.
A non straight wall in your nose doesn't automatically causes apnea, it merely increases the risk.
There are no 80% of over population with apnea.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I hope you are not a doctor (but you could be).
However While Obesity can be a factor in sleep apnea, it isn't the only one. They are some very Obese people without it, and some skinny people with it.
Now Obesity is a more complex issue to treat then just Eat Less, exercise more Calories in is less then calories out...
If you try to starve yourself, your body will burn less calories, as well you will have less energy in exercising. If you just going crazy with exercising, you can injure your self then put yourself in a condition where you cannot exercise for an extended period of time. Also as you start exercising more, you will need to eat more, if you don't then you put yourself in the starvation mode.
Diet fads are always changing, and it is difficult to find the good ones vs the fad of the week.
Now if Sleep Apnea is a complication related to obesity. a CPAP machine which helps them get a good night sleep, is the first phase to help them loose weight. Having a full night sleep gives them more energy during the day. To Exercise and also exhaustion from lack of sleep will tend to make you want to eat more because it is your body saying I need more energy! So a good night sleep and feeling more refreshed means you don't need to eat as much during the day.
We have all made poor life choices in the past. And there is always something better we should be doing. But we can't start judging people from every bad choice they made, and punishing them further beyond the natural consequences of such actions.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.