speaking of: i met someone with a sleep apnea machine and, according to them, it’s “Wi-Fi enabled” and automatically reports their sleeping habits in real-time to their insurance company. it was an expensive machine so the company agreed to let them use it with certain conditions. so they’re required to be at home and asleep/attached to the machine for a minimum of 4 or 5 hours each night. you can’t get up at night to make tea or go read in the living room or something. this person emphasized that even if you have work to do, or aren’t tired, or would rather stay up late and sleep in tomorrow, it doesn’t matter: you must be attached for a minimum number of hours in a designated window of time. something like a “three strikes” rule was in effect: fail to be in bed more than three times without a month’s prior notice, you lose your machine. they told me how their car had a problem while they were traveling and doing networking/work-related stuff, and had to spend the night in a motel or something. the machine recorded that they were absent from their bed that night, and the insurance company sent someone to take the machine away from them a few days later.
I want you guys to understand how fucking important a sleep apnea machine is. Sleep apnea is a very common condition, so a lot of people write it off as just “snoring”. Sleep apnea is not just snoring. Sleep apnea is when you stop breathing during sleep. So this insurance company has decided, that if you are not attached to this machine at certain periods of time, you should lose the ability to breathe while you sleep. They’ve decided that the price of breathing while asleep, is constant fucking surveillance. WHILE YOU ARE ASLEEP.
