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The Ultimate Dogfooding Story

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Re: The Ultimate Dogfooding Story

#11

Post by mhb »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #8

This guy is my personal hero, but -- alas -- this is also a story about worse is better : 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 oc…

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.

Re: The Ultimate Dogfooding Story

#12

Post by [deleted] »

wallflower wrote: post #2

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…

[deleted]

Re: The Ultimate Dogfooding Story

#13

Post by sounddust »

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.

Re: The Ultimate Dogfooding Story

#14

Post by mechanical_fish »

wallflower wrote: post #9
mechanical_fish wrote: post #8

This guy is my personal hero, but -- alas -- this is also a story about worse is better : 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 oc…

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. balke…

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.

Re: The Ultimate Dogfooding Story

#15

Post by mechanical_fish »

mhb wrote: post #11
mechanical_fish wrote: post #8

This guy is my personal hero, but -- alas -- this is also a story about worse is better : 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 oc…

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.

Re: The Ultimate Dogfooding Story

#16

Post by LogicHoleFlaw »

mhb wrote: post #11
mechanical_fish wrote: post #8

This guy is my personal hero, but -- alas -- this is also a story about worse is better : 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 oc…

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.

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.

Re: The Ultimate Dogfooding Story

#17

Post by wallflower »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #14
wallflower wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. balke…

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…

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

Re: The Ultimate Dogfooding Story

#19

Post by gruseom »

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.

Re: The Ultimate Dogfooding Story

#20

Post by codemonkey »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #14
wallflower wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. balke…

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…

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.

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