Here is the video of the creator testing it with his own finger: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3mzhvMgrLE
The Ultimate Dogfooding Story
31–38 of 38 posts
Re: The Ultimate Dogfooding Story
#32I 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.
Re: The Ultimate Dogfooding Story
#33A 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...
Re: The Ultimate Dogfooding Story
#34It 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.
Re: The Ultimate Dogfooding Story
#35Is 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.
Re: The Ultimate Dogfooding Story
#36This 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…
"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.
Re: The Ultimate Dogfooding Story
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Re: The Ultimate Dogfooding Story
#38This 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.