The Ultimate Dogfooding Story(codinghorror.com)
codinghorror.com
The Ultimate Dogfooding Story
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001217.html
37 comments
According to SawStop PR, SawStop has prevented about 150 injuries.
It appears that Stephen Gass is attempting to extort revenues.
> Here in the States the argument over licensing the SawStop technology has been hot, heavy, and plenty of it. Mr. Gass wants 8% for a license, which will add about $80USD to the cost of the typical table saw, plus the cost of the mechanism and the labour to install it. Delta, et al. balked at the price.
http://www.woodworkforums.com/showthread.php?t=60686&pag...
Woodworkers are pretty smart and safety conscious. I've taken a couple wood working classes at my local community college. As our teacher, a master woodworker, told us - "woodworking is about problem solving. it doesn't matter how you do it - there is no right or wrong - only smarter, faster, and safer. it doesn't matter how you do it, as long as it looks nice"
It appears that Stephen Gass is attempting to extort revenues.
> Here in the States the argument over licensing the SawStop technology has been hot, heavy, and plenty of it. Mr. Gass wants 8% for a license, which will add about $80USD to the cost of the typical table saw, plus the cost of the mechanism and the labour to install it. Delta, et al. balked at the price.
http://www.woodworkforums.com/showthread.php?t=60686&pag...
Woodworkers are pretty smart and safety conscious. I've taken a couple wood working classes at my local community college. As our teacher, a master woodworker, told us - "woodworking is about problem solving. it doesn't matter how you do it - there is no right or wrong - only smarter, faster, and safer. it doesn't matter how you do it, as long as it looks nice"
It appears that Stephen Gass is attempting to extort revenues.
Don't you think you should... rephrase that? I believe the term is "negotiate a price", not "extort revenues".
I'm no fan of software patents or obvious patents, but if ever an invention deserved a patent, this is it.
I'm not suggesting that this is a story of greedy companies, or of greedy inventors. I believe the companies when they say that most people aren't willing to pay an additional 8% (for a tool that will probably last a lifetime) to hedge against amputation injuries. I just don't understand that, is all. Check out this abstract from some epidemiologists:
http://www.joem.org/pt/re/joem/abstract.00043764-199610000-0...
They sampled 283 amateur and pro woodworkers in New Mexico and report that "5% of all respondents suffered partial amputations." That is a really big fraction. Obviously, I'm unlikely to saw as much wood in my life as a professional carpenter, but it still seems like my odds of losing a finger as an amateur woodworker are probably far higher than one in 100,000. They might even be on the order of 1%. Which, to me, makes SawStop a no-brainer at $80. I want the miter saw and band saw versions, too.
Don't you think you should... rephrase that? I believe the term is "negotiate a price", not "extort revenues".
I'm no fan of software patents or obvious patents, but if ever an invention deserved a patent, this is it.
I'm not suggesting that this is a story of greedy companies, or of greedy inventors. I believe the companies when they say that most people aren't willing to pay an additional 8% (for a tool that will probably last a lifetime) to hedge against amputation injuries. I just don't understand that, is all. Check out this abstract from some epidemiologists:
http://www.joem.org/pt/re/joem/abstract.00043764-199610000-0...
They sampled 283 amateur and pro woodworkers in New Mexico and report that "5% of all respondents suffered partial amputations." That is a really big fraction. Obviously, I'm unlikely to saw as much wood in my life as a professional carpenter, but it still seems like my odds of losing a finger as an amateur woodworker are probably far higher than one in 100,000. They might even be on the order of 1%. Which, to me, makes SawStop a no-brainer at $80. I want the miter saw and band saw versions, too.
The price difference isn't $80. My Grizzly cabinet saw retails for around $1100 today. The equivalent Sawstop saw retails for over $3000. When he couldn't convince other manufactures to include his technology, he built a high-end saw to market himself. That still puts the extra safety out of range for us lower-end consumers.
And the danger with table saws isn't carelessly putting your finger into the blade. The danger is kickback, where the saw violently throws the wood your cutting off the table, which can knock your hands about in unpredictable ways. Bandsaws and miter saws don't kick back. You can safely put your fingers very close to the blade (although a little less so with miter saws which do tend to push the wood around a bit as the blade enters the wood).
Of course, I wish I could afford one of his saws. I once put all four fingers of my left hand into a dado blade on my table saw due to kickback. I'm lucky to still have them.
And the danger with table saws isn't carelessly putting your finger into the blade. The danger is kickback, where the saw violently throws the wood your cutting off the table, which can knock your hands about in unpredictable ways. Bandsaws and miter saws don't kick back. You can safely put your fingers very close to the blade (although a little less so with miter saws which do tend to push the wood around a bit as the blade enters the wood).
Of course, I wish I could afford one of his saws. I once put all four fingers of my left hand into a dado blade on my table saw due to kickback. I'm lucky to still have them.
That still puts the extra safety out of range for us lower-end consumers.
Yeah, alas, the $80 is the imaginary price difference that might exist in a world where every saw buyer thought as I do, leading every manufacturer to leap at the chance to license SawStop.
If the premium really were only $80 I might spring for the bandsaw version too, though I've used bandsaws many times and understand what you're saying about the relative danger. I just like being paranoid, when I can afford it. Just because a mistake requires you to be incredibly boneheaded or absent-minded doesn't mean it won't happen.
I can't necessarily blame the SawStop guy for building high-end saws that I'm reluctant to afford. I'm no expert on saw economics, but I find it easy to believe that there's no way to build a viable startup by trying to compete against the likes of Grizzly on price.
I will say, though, that every time I contemplate taking up woodworking without a SawStop saw I run into sentences like this:
I once put all four fingers of my left hand into a dado blade on my table saw due to kickback.
And then I start thinking about all the other hobbies I could be pursuing. Piano! Knitting! Electronics! Machining! (Which, if you do it right, doesn't involve a lot of kickback either. Wear those steel-toed boots, though.)
Yeah, alas, the $80 is the imaginary price difference that might exist in a world where every saw buyer thought as I do, leading every manufacturer to leap at the chance to license SawStop.
If the premium really were only $80 I might spring for the bandsaw version too, though I've used bandsaws many times and understand what you're saying about the relative danger. I just like being paranoid, when I can afford it. Just because a mistake requires you to be incredibly boneheaded or absent-minded doesn't mean it won't happen.
I can't necessarily blame the SawStop guy for building high-end saws that I'm reluctant to afford. I'm no expert on saw economics, but I find it easy to believe that there's no way to build a viable startup by trying to compete against the likes of Grizzly on price.
I will say, though, that every time I contemplate taking up woodworking without a SawStop saw I run into sentences like this:
I once put all four fingers of my left hand into a dado blade on my table saw due to kickback.
And then I start thinking about all the other hobbies I could be pursuing. Piano! Knitting! Electronics! Machining! (Which, if you do it right, doesn't involve a lot of kickback either. Wear those steel-toed boots, though.)
> And then I start thinking about all the other hobbies I could be pursuing.
The feeling you get from taking pieces of raw lumber, shaping them, planing them, joining them (and yes shimming them), eventually turning the wood into something with form and function, through problem solving and love.
The feeling you get from seeing someone like and enjoy a piece of furniture you built as a gift.
Come to think of it, I think hobbies are about pursuing personal feelings. Not about the actual doing.
Even though, I've temporarily put woodworking on the back burner, I'm glad to see fellow woodworkers (coming-out-of cliche deleted). I still gawk at Woodcraft products. I still inspect the craftsmanship/joints of strangers' furniture (http://www.woodcraft.com/)
The feeling you get from taking pieces of raw lumber, shaping them, planing them, joining them (and yes shimming them), eventually turning the wood into something with form and function, through problem solving and love.
The feeling you get from seeing someone like and enjoy a piece of furniture you built as a gift.
Come to think of it, I think hobbies are about pursuing personal feelings. Not about the actual doing.
Even though, I've temporarily put woodworking on the back burner, I'm glad to see fellow woodworkers (coming-out-of cliche deleted). I still gawk at Woodcraft products. I still inspect the craftsmanship/joints of strangers' furniture (http://www.woodcraft.com/)
Oh, I may not resist the siren song of Norm Abram forever. We're just haggling over the price here. ;)
Perhaps 8% is a reasonable number to not lose your digits. Unfortunately, the customer isn't going to be able to decide (unless they buy SawStop's own) until Delta et al. license. and/or significant public pressure is brought (e.g. someone famous losing their fingers woodworking)
Another reason why companies like Delta et al. are resistant to the innovation is the imminent threat of tens of millions of damages in retroactive lawsuits (e.g. by licensing this technology now - it is tantamount to admission that they were negligent in not providing it earlier [at least in the years since SawStop was announced to the industry].
720k * 40% * (2009 - 2003) is a lot of potential class-action litigants. 2003 is the year when Stephen Gass stepped up his negotiations by approaching the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission about a federal mandate.
"Woodworking equipment produces approximately 720,000 injuries per year often causing severe psychologic and functional impairment. Responses from 1000 injured woodworkers to a demographic survey revealed that 60.5% of injuries occurred to amateur woodworkers; 42% of injuries were caused by the table saw and 37% of respondents reported amputation of one or more digits. The most significant causal factor reported was failure to use properly installed guards, but personal factors, such as fatigue and postprandial somnolence were also implicated. Twenty-seven percent of respondents required hospitalization for an average of 3.7 days, and 22.8% were treated by hand surgeons."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3498745
Another reason why companies like Delta et al. are resistant to the innovation is the imminent threat of tens of millions of damages in retroactive lawsuits (e.g. by licensing this technology now - it is tantamount to admission that they were negligent in not providing it earlier [at least in the years since SawStop was announced to the industry].
720k * 40% * (2009 - 2003) is a lot of potential class-action litigants. 2003 is the year when Stephen Gass stepped up his negotiations by approaching the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission about a federal mandate.
"Woodworking equipment produces approximately 720,000 injuries per year often causing severe psychologic and functional impairment. Responses from 1000 injured woodworkers to a demographic survey revealed that 60.5% of injuries occurred to amateur woodworkers; 42% of injuries were caused by the table saw and 37% of respondents reported amputation of one or more digits. The most significant causal factor reported was failure to use properly installed guards, but personal factors, such as fatigue and postprandial somnolence were also implicated. Twenty-seven percent of respondents required hospitalization for an average of 3.7 days, and 22.8% were treated by hand surgeons."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3498745
I don't know anything about retroactive lawsuits.
But if people can sue these companies after they license the technology, why can't they sue them for not licensing and providing safety? It would sounds so ironic.
Am I missing something here or the laws are really in such a way ...
Am I missing something here or the laws are really in such a way ...
"Woodworkers are pretty smart and safety conscious."
I agree, but there can times when control slips. This is anecdotal, I know, but my Dad cut his arm off with a radial arm saw when I was 3.
My brother was a baby and he wasn't getting much sleep, so my Dad was pretty distracted at the time. He's very careful now. I sent him this video and he told me later that it gave him the shakes.
I agree, but there can times when control slips. This is anecdotal, I know, but my Dad cut his arm off with a radial arm saw when I was 3.
My brother was a baby and he wasn't getting much sleep, so my Dad was pretty distracted at the time. He's very careful now. I sent him this video and he told me later that it gave him the shakes.
> Woodworkers are pretty smart and safety conscious
And so are the car drivers, which doesn't prevent a vast majority of accidents from happening because of a human error.
And so are the car drivers, which doesn't prevent a vast majority of accidents from happening because of a human error.
human error is part of it, but also the not safety conscious part. how many drivers actually think about how they're hurtling across the ground in a metal or plastic box sometimes faster than the fastest land animal can sprint? most people who drive are not thinking about safety, they're just "driving" which often means a background task while they talk or think, etc.
Sure, of course. My point was that any inherently dangerous activity whether it's sawing, driving or even something as mundane as cooking will dull the perception of danger with time. Woodworkers are not the exception.
ahh, my bad for reading in one direction and not thinking. A is like B, not B is like A. good point.
Or it might be a story about the expected value of an injury which would be sustained without the technology vs. its cost. If you haven't considered what various potential injuries are worth and their probabilities and what this technology costs then you are just playing the "if it saves just one child its worth it" game.
Agreed, and see my other post for the numbers I could find with a quick Googling.
And it's true that anecdotal evidence has limited utility, but: My high school's shop teacher? Missing fingers. My wife's father, a former carpenter? Missing fingers. What does every shop teacher fret about, constantly, out loud? Fingers. I don't think we're talking about saving just one child, here. These injuries are not that rare.
And it's true that anecdotal evidence has limited utility, but: My high school's shop teacher? Missing fingers. My wife's father, a former carpenter? Missing fingers. What does every shop teacher fret about, constantly, out loud? Fingers. I don't think we're talking about saving just one child, here. These injuries are not that rare.
The "if it saves just one child" problem is more of a problem when you try to force your solution and the associated costs onto other people. In a free market, where it's my own finger on the line. Well, I'd be very likely to buy a saw with this technology.
In my garage sits my grandfather's table saw. He was a pro woodworker. It's big, heavy, and runs on three-phase power. It runs like a champ, but scares the crap outta me. I use it, but am very, very careful.
Always respect your tools. Take care of them, and they will take care of you.
In my garage sits my grandfather's table saw. He was a pro woodworker. It's big, heavy, and runs on three-phase power. It runs like a champ, but scares the crap outta me. I use it, but am very, very careful.
Always respect your tools. Take care of them, and they will take care of you.
[deleted]
Lest you think he started with the finger - it was hot dogs first...
"Ultimately, it seemed like the most reliable technique would have to involve contact detection, Gass recalls. And because your body has an electrical capacitance, it offers the potential for that. I figured that if you put a voltage into the saw blade, your body could absorb some of that signal. Then the voltage in the saw blade would drop.
Within a week, Gass formulated most of the idea’s details in his mind. Thirty days later, he completed his first working prototype. Initially, he tested the prototype by touching the side of the saw blade with a finger. And while that proved the saw could stop in a fraction of a second, he still didn’t know if it was quick enough to prevent serious injury. Gass wondered how deep a 4,000-rpm saw blade would cut into human flesh during the microseconds that it took to stop the blade. To answer that, he needed to touch the blade teeth.
"I came up with the idea of using hot dogs, and it worked pretty well," Gass says. "It’s cheap, readily available, and you don’t get any protesters coming to your door."
From a Design News article - he was chosen as DN's Engineer of The Year 2007 (aside: DN is one of the best pure applied engineering publications that I actually read - apply for a subscription)
http://www.designnews.com/article/print/5897-Man_on_a_Missio...
"Ultimately, it seemed like the most reliable technique would have to involve contact detection, Gass recalls. And because your body has an electrical capacitance, it offers the potential for that. I figured that if you put a voltage into the saw blade, your body could absorb some of that signal. Then the voltage in the saw blade would drop.
Within a week, Gass formulated most of the idea’s details in his mind. Thirty days later, he completed his first working prototype. Initially, he tested the prototype by touching the side of the saw blade with a finger. And while that proved the saw could stop in a fraction of a second, he still didn’t know if it was quick enough to prevent serious injury. Gass wondered how deep a 4,000-rpm saw blade would cut into human flesh during the microseconds that it took to stop the blade. To answer that, he needed to touch the blade teeth.
"I came up with the idea of using hot dogs, and it worked pretty well," Gass says. "It’s cheap, readily available, and you don’t get any protesters coming to your door."
From a Design News article - he was chosen as DN's Engineer of The Year 2007 (aside: DN is one of the best pure applied engineering publications that I actually read - apply for a subscription)
http://www.designnews.com/article/print/5897-Man_on_a_Missio...
[deleted]
That's not what "eating your own dog food" means. It means using your product to do your own work. As in: if Gass were a woodworker and used the saw on his own projects, he'd get better ideas about saw design.
I like the saw story too, but its applicability to software projects is...? Here's the moral of the story offered by Atwood:
Nothing exudes confidence like software developers who are willing to stick their own extremities into the spinning blades of software they've written.
That's inane even by his standards.
I like the saw story too, but its applicability to software projects is...? Here's the moral of the story offered by Atwood:
Nothing exudes confidence like software developers who are willing to stick their own extremities into the spinning blades of software they've written.
That's inane even by his standards.
The original video of Steve Gass sticking his own finger into the table-saw: http://www.dumpert.nl/mediabase/325071/6bb3c29d/time_warp_ci...
(the one on CH is of a hotdog... this one is of a real, live human digit!!!)
(the one on CH is of a hotdog... this one is of a real, live human digit!!!)
It is a good story. I don't know if you can call the risk of a finger "ultimate," though; when Nikola Tesla bet his life on the skin effect of very high frequency alternating current as a PR counter Edison's animal electrocution demonstrations.
You can always nitpick, but compared to what 99.9% of engineers put at stake when selling a product, putting your finger in the blade is quite the vote of confidence.
If by "engineers" you mean "programmers" then yes; but I think that among actual engineers, you'll find a lot of people who ride in cars they designed, walk across bridges they designed, cut with tools they designed, drive on roads they designed, and so on.
I've heard of the Sawstop technology before and what I heard was very depressing if true.
Basically none of the table saw manufacturers want to deal with this guy because they are afraid or lawsuits.
The logic goes like this, right now everybody knows a table saw will maim you, there's no expectation that it won't.
But if they implement that technology, and it then fails, then there will be a BIG lawsuit.
Meanwhile everybody who uses a table saw and sees Sawstop, wants it.
But the guy is having a very difficult time setting a major manufacturing operation to ship Sawstop table saws himself.
Again, I don't know if this is true, but it's very sad if it is.
-- EDIT:
I missed this:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=453822
Basically none of the table saw manufacturers want to deal with this guy because they are afraid or lawsuits.
The logic goes like this, right now everybody knows a table saw will maim you, there's no expectation that it won't.
But if they implement that technology, and it then fails, then there will be a BIG lawsuit.
Meanwhile everybody who uses a table saw and sees Sawstop, wants it.
But the guy is having a very difficult time setting a major manufacturing operation to ship Sawstop table saws himself.
Again, I don't know if this is true, but it's very sad if it is.
-- EDIT:
I missed this:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=453822
A lot of medical researchers apparently also experimented on themselves.
I work at a place where we develop microscopes (fairly powerful, laser-based microscopes). It's complicated to get the autorizations to bring biological tissues (that's our official, grant-application name for supermarket meat) into the uni lab, so most researchers just trust the calculations and image their own fingers.
My research director always uses the same finger, although it's a bit of a superstition...
My research director always uses the same finger, although it's a bit of a superstition...
I would argue that this was a horrible decision, even if everything turned out in the end. It reminds me of when a kid makes a really stupid decision that by chance turns out well, and the parents (correctly) yell at him despite the result.
If it had turned out that there was a minor flaw/"bug" in his implementation, he'd lose his finger for no reason.
What would be much better is to make lots of test saws with his technology and give them to carpenters for free. The worst thing that could happen is that someone who would have lost their finger anyway would lose their finger. The best would be free publicity.
If it had turned out that there was a minor flaw/"bug" in his implementation, he'd lose his finger for no reason.
What would be much better is to make lots of test saws with his technology and give them to carpenters for free. The worst thing that could happen is that someone who would have lost their finger anyway would lose their finger. The best would be free publicity.
Is what Jeff Atwood doing even legal?!?! You can't just "quote" 80% of someone's work and then publish it as your own! In the article I counted only 6 sentences that Jess Atwood wrote himself. Can I just, say, "quote" a best seller, add a few words of commentary and then publish it? I think not.
I seem to remember the founder of American Body Armor performing demonstrations on himself by firing a .38 revolver at himself while wearing armor ... or something. heavily paraphrased.
Here is the video of the creator testing it with his own finger: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3mzhvMgrLE
This may be the first application for table saws, but this has been around for awhile. It's basically the kind of saw that doctors use to remove casts.
A guy I once worked with aptly referred to the "dog-fooding" as "feel the pain" approach.
I don't like the principle behind the dog food. It means that you create a product good for dogs but not humans. Something not made for you. Then, when you start eating it, you improve it to a level being acceptable to you, a human.
I like to think that I create human food, a product that I need and care about if it's good or not at the start.
I like to think that I create human food, a product that I need and care about if it's good or not at the start.
> It means that you create a product good for dogs but not humans.
That's not the original meaning of dogfooding. Compare: "Lorne Greene would tout the benefits of the dog food, and then would say it's so good that he feeds it to his own dogs."
That's not the original meaning of dogfooding. Compare: "Lorne Greene would tout the benefits of the dog food, and then would say it's so good that he feeds it to his own dogs."
http://www.taunton.com/finehomebuilding/how-to/articles/saws...
"Having heard all of the various reasons put forth by the manufacturers for not doing anything, I firmly believe it simply comes down to money," says Gass. "They cannot figure out how to make more money by adding SawStop. They are not paying for the injuries that occur now, so why should they spend money to change their product to eliminate a cost they aren't bearing?"
So, although this guy has offered his safety technology to all tool manufacturers, SawStop is only available on SawStop-branded saws, which cost a bit more money, which causes people to bitch and moan, because who wants to spend money on a feature that merely prevents injuries?
The appropriate software-platform analogy is left as an exercise for the reader. ;)