Bugzzzzz
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Ok, but what if there was no cost?
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Ok, but what if there was no cost?
Why should I even bother with such a pointlessly impossible hypothetical?
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What about things that protect eyes from both?
Now that's just crazy talk!
honestly, I don't even know what I'm doing here any more
Practising trolling?
Filed under:
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Because we're not actually talking about screwdrivers; the screwdriver is just a metaphor. We're actually talking about every time that we've noticed something bad in the real world, and said “hey, why don't we do something about that”, only to hit the wall of “fuck you, we love getting stabbed in the metaphorical eye, don't you dare take that away from us”.
Filed Under: @ScholRLEA
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Apparently the SawStop guy tried to sell his feature to the people who make saws, and they weren't interested in paying what he was asking, so he is apparently trying to get legislation passed to mandate all table saws have SawStop
While there shouldn't be legislation mandating that particular vendor's safety device, now that such a device has been invented and shown to function well, it would be reasonable for manufacturers of power saws without equivalent levels of safety to be found by courts to be making products without proper concern for user safety, opening them up to lawsuits for compensation. But other designs of safety system might work even better; the patent ought to encourage others to try to find other ways to do this (or the lawsuits will encourage saw makers to bite the bullet and license the technology).
I'd imagine that within 20 years all fixed circular saws will have effective safety devices fitted as standard.
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But other designs of safety system might work even better; ... I'd imagine that within 20 years all fixed circular saws will have effective safety devices fitted as standard.
Some types of safety devices are already mandatory: Safety switches, blade guards and anti-kickback1 devices. Manufacturers claim blade guards are sufficiently effective in reducing injuries. Based on the link @CoyneTheDup posted, I would disagree. However, in something like 75% of the injuries, the safety devices were missing, either because the tools were old, and the devices were not required when it was made, or because the operator had removed them for convenience. (From personal experience, they do sometimes get in the way of making some kinds of cuts.)
these 2008 figures (PDF) look to be ballpark if you combine handheld and table saws injuries. With an estimated 750,000 injuries every year for all saw types,
That's actually a follow-up to the CPSC study I looked at last night. The 750000 injuries were total for the 8-year period of the study; the average was 94000 per year (range: 87700 to 101400). That's still a lot of injuries.
it must be one of the most dangerous professions.
In 86.7% of the injuries, the saw was "owned by the operator's household." It's not clear to me from what I have read so far (and I don't have time to continue reading at the moment) whether this means 86.7% were hobbyists and DIY-ers, or whether this includes professionals using their personally-owned tools on the job.1 Kickback: The wood or other material being cut can catch on the back edge of the saw blade and be flung with considerable force. Because the operator typically stands in front of the saw while operating it, the material tends to be flung directly at him2.
2 Use of the masculine pronoun is intentional; 97.2% of power saw injury victims are male.
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However, in something like 75% of the injuries, the safety devices were missing, either because the tools were old, and the devices were not required when it was made, or because the operator had removed them for convenience.
And in those cases the saw maker would either have no (or arguably no) liability. Still, with 23500 incidents a year where they might have product liability, putting additional devices on is still likely to happen.
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If there was a button in your car which, when pressed, caused the transmission to just drop straight down on the road, would you consider that a problem with the car? Y/N?
What if you're doing some hard circuit racing and the transmission is prone to overheating? Such a button might prove incredibly useful during pit stops.
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And if your transmission was leaking warp fluid, you'd want to drop it as fast as possible before the antimatter containment failed.
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What if you're doing some hard circuit racing and the transmission is prone to overheating?
Then the design is shit and you need better cooling :P
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I understand that missiles/rockets have a big red button you can press that causes them to explode in flight. But it's a feature. Almost any saw (electric or manual) can be used to remove body appendages (intentionally or unintentionally).
We often design features into our tools that can be destructive if misused. It isn't the results of misuse of the feature that defines whether the feature is a misdesign; it is the rationale for it.
- Having a delete, encrypt or compress files...that can also be misused on system files? Well the tool obviously has value, so meh...
- Having a button to blow up the rocket? Rockets out of control are dangerous, so meh...
- Having a saw that can remove appendages? Well, you can't make a saw that won't...if misused...so meh...
- Having a button to drop the transmission out of the car...why? What could possibly be gained by having that? So that would be misdesign.
Besides, sometimes compressing system files is part of the system's normal operation -- your average Linux kernel nowadays uses a compressed file format (bzImage), and initramfs-en are also compressed files of some flavor.
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Ok, but my question is if it could be done with no trade off at all, would you use it?
I'd start buying those magic devices when I needed a new screwdriver, but I'd probably keep using the ones I have, because while there are many things that are a problem in my life, blakey's imagination isn't really one of them.
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You know what's killing you as you breathe? Oxygen. Oxygen has the side effect of slowly murdering us, tiny explosion after tiny explosion inside our cells. If we keep going in this reductionist charade, you'll eventually arrive at the conclusion that the best move is not to play -- not doing anything at all, ie, a fate worse that killing yourself.
Maybe if you'd actually understand why I chose the screwdriver metaphor in the first place you'd realize what is the point of discriminating actual bugs and fantasy bugs for the sake of looking for shit to complain about.
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Carbon dioxide is worse, because you might accidentally freeze that and then stab yourself in the eye with it.
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Oxygen can be frozen, too (-219 °C), and will do more damage if you stab yourself in the eye with it.
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We are obviously going to need a scientific demonstration before we can hope to see eye to eye.
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We are obviously going to need a scientific demonstration before we can hope to see eye to eye.
In order for a fair and impartial experiment, I propose the following:
- @flabdablet receives a sharpened implement of frozen-oxygen
- @HardwareGeek receives a sharpened implement of frozen carbon dioxide
On a predetermined signal, each will stab the other in the eye. A medical professional will then examine the injured eyes for relative damage and then treat each participant's injuries. The results of the medical professionals obeservations will be revealed after @flabdablet and @HardwareGeek have overcome the shock and trauma associated with the experiment.
I'll show myself to the Evil Ideas thread now …
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So what happens if the frozen oxygen is exposed to flame after the eye-stabbing?
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So what happens if the frozen oxygen is exposed to flame after the eye-stabbing?
After, or during?
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I'm not sure a spike of frozen oxygen will burn. I suspect you might need fuel as well.
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I'm not sure a spike of frozen oxygen will burn. I suspect you might need fuel as well.
You know what I thought was cool? Physics.
Then it started ruining my dreams.
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I suspect you might need fuel as well.
Hmmm, you are correct. Well, getting (and maintaining) solid oxygen would be difficult anyway since the melting point of O2 is around 54K.
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I suspect you might need fuel as well.
Absolutely true. However, solid O2 is likely to turn things you wouldn't normally consider fuel into fuel. It's not FOOF, but it's still a pretty damn strong oxidizer.
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Absolutely true. However, solid O2 is likely to turn things you wouldn't normally consider fuel into fuel. It's not FOOF, but it's still a pretty damn strong oxidizer.
Indeed. After all, liquid O2 makes it very easy to burn diamond and steel. AIUI that has more to do with the insanely high concentration of O2 than anything else.
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liquid O2 makes it very easy to burn diamond and steel
Even elevated concentrations of gaseous O2 makes it easy to burn steel; that's exactly what an oxyacetylene cutting torch does1.
AIUI that has more to do with the insanely high concentration of O2 than anything else.
I believe you are correct. I suspect much of the damage from frozen O2 would actually be the result of the liquid O2 that forms as it melts. Here's an interesting factoid I learned today:Liquid oxygen spills, if allowed to soak into organic matter, such as wood, petrochemicals, and asphalt can cause these materials to detonate unpredictably on subsequent mechanical impact.
1 The oxyacetylene flames (a typical cutting tip has three oxyacetylene openings surrounding a central oxygen-only opening) are used only to preheat the steel. Then the cutting valve is opened, and a stream of pure oxygen flows from the central opening. The heat from the combustion of the steel is sufficient to melt the surrounding steel as well as maintaining the combustion.
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Even elevated concentrations of gaseous O2 makes it easy to burn steel; that's exactly what an oxyacetylene cutting torch does1.
Yes, but, as you pointed out, that requires preheating first. I don't believe that preheating is necessary with liquid O2 because the concentrations are that high.
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I'm not sure a spike of frozen oxygen will burn. I suspect you might need fuel as well.
The eyeball would be the fuel.
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The steel has to be hot enough to burn first, which is what the preheating does.
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The steel has to be hot enough to burn first, which is what the preheating does.
Keep in mind that the higher oxygen concentration will lower the ignition temperature, though.
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I suspect powdered steel (or iron) would combust spontaneously in LOX, but large pieces would not. However, I haven't found anything to confirm this in a few minutes of research. I did learn that Dewar flasks used to store cryogenic liquids use a small amount of powdered carbon to absorb any trace gases in the vacuum between the walls of the flask. If LOX gets into the insulating space, say through a crack in the glass, trace impurities of iron in the carbon can contribute to spectacular failure of the flask.
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I'm not sure a spike of frozen oxygen will burn.
We will clearly need to conduct our experiments in an atmosphere of pure butane.
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We will clearly need to conduct our experiments in an atmosphere of pure butane.
Unnecessary. @HardwareGeek's eye should provide the necessary fuel for flame. The butane will just corrupt the experiment.
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We will clearly need to conduct our experiments in an atmosphere of pure @HardwareGeek's eye.
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For some reason, I don't like the direction this conversation has taken...
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You all are missing a critical point.
For this to be more than a mere demonstration of the effects of eye-stabbing, we'll need to conduct as many trials as are feasible...
... in this case, two.
Filed under: Is it de-monstration, or demon-stration??
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I'd start buying those magic devices when I needed a new screwdriver, but I'd probably keep using the ones I have, because while there are many things that are a problem in my life, blakey's imagination isn't really one of them.
I get that. I realize that the benefit would be very slight; all I'm trying to clarify is whether it would be a benefit. It seems pretty clear-cut to me that—all other things being equal—a tool that can injure me is worse than one that can't.
You know what's killing you as you breathe? Oxygen. Oxygen has the side effect of slowly murdering us, tiny explosion after tiny explosion inside our cells. If we keep going in this reductionist charade, you'll eventually arrive at the conclusion that the best move is not to play -- not doing anything at all, ie, a fate worse that killing yourself.
I have no idea what you're on about. Trying to get a straight answer out of people about which things are better than which other things is going to make me want to kill myself? TDEMSYRMaybe if you'd actually understand *why* I chose the screwdriver metaphor in the first place you'd realize what is the point of discriminating *actual* bugs and fantasy bugs for the sake of looking for shit to complain about.
Look, safety is actually a good thing. It is good for the person who is protected from injury; it's good for the rest of society not to be burdened with their healthcare. I realize that adding safety features to everything may seem tiresome and overprotective, but the truth is: humans are actually really bad at making decisions about their own personal safety. 99% of the time, you're gonna be better off trusting the judgment of the person who designed your tool, that they wouldn't have added that safety feature unless cost of adding it was cheaper that the cost of not adding it.
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It seems pretty clear-cut to me that—all other things being equal—a tool that can injure me is worse than one that can't.
I agree. Nevertheless, if the actual risk is really small, it's probably not worth a replacement. Stabby screwdrivers definitely don't seem like a priority to me, even suspending disbelief that you could invent a non-stabby version.
I agree with a lot of your point, but it's also just as easy for an outside observer to overestimate the benefit and not consider any of the drawbacks. Yes, yes, keeping in mind that your thought experiment hand waved all this away, that just shows how your experiment may fall short of real world applicability, as analogies often do. Which I'm not saying takes away from their lesson.
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Closest we can get is that they are all equally unknown.
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...which is NOT AT ALL the same thing.
If my task is to balance the ridiculously low probability of a horrible eye stabbing incident involving my standard screwdriver against the ridiculously low probability of getting a fatal cancer from the plasticiser in the eyeguards on the safety version, it's completely reasonable to say "fuck it" and stick with what I know.
In other words, modifying tooling or procedures in order to mitigate very-low-risk hazards involves risk in and of itself: the modifications might well have unintended consequences and cause more injury than they prevent.
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You all are missing a critical point.
For this to be more than a mere demonstration of the effects of eye-stabbing, we'll need to conduct as many trials as are feasible...
... in this case, two.
I see what you are getting at. After the first stab trial, @HardwareGeek and @flabdablet should each get fresh implements, this time with @HardwareGeek being given the SOX, and @flabdablet the SCDOX. At the point the stabbing would be reapeated on their remaining good eyes.
This would minimize any experimental bias caused by:
- Differences in stabbing force.
- Small differences in individual body chemistry.
- And other factors that I CBA to think of right now.
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Look, safety is actually a good thing. It is good for the person who is protected from injury; it's good for the rest of society not to be burdened with their healthcare.
Yes, this is all true.
I realize that adding safety features to everything may seem tiresome and overprotective
Because most of the time it is. Safety features are there to protect against accidental injuries.This is where the screwdriver thought experiment falls short. This another reason why I would shy away from an "anti-stabbing" screwdriver. Such a tool isn't designed to protect against accidental injury, it's designed to protect against deliberate injury. And if someone is out to deliberately hurt me, if the screwdriver won't work, they'll grab a hammer, or a utility knife, or any of a number of other ready at hand tools.
tl;dr: making an "anti-stabbing" screwdriver would do nothing, except give the creator a warm, fuzzy feeling.
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the melting point of 02 is around 54K.
- What's this zero-sub-two stuff?
- 54 kilo-what? I need a temperature scale!
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organic matter, such as [..] asphalt
I only drive on roads made from organic asphalt.
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Look, safety is actually a good thing.
People speaking in absolutes sometimes irritate me. Did you ever read Safe at Any Speed? (That's just a summary; the actual story is a lot better)
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point the stabbing would be reapeated on their remaining good eyes.
Now you're on to something...
Is anyone here an insect? We need more eyes...
Filed under: What's the big idea? - barker's down to just one eye already.... blakey? What did you do?
Filed filed under: No the I in my avatar is not available for screwdriver testing.
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What's this zero-sub-two stuff?
I sometimes use a 0 instead of an O. Usually, no one notices.
54 kilo-what? I need a temperature scale!
You don't like Kelvins? Ok, try this temp scale out:
O2 has a melting point of about 97°R.
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I sometimes use a 0 instead of a O. Usually, no one notices.
I spent a good chunk of yesterday trying to find out why projects weren't compiling. Somehow, I'd entered an O instead of a 0 in a #define statement that sets a firmware version using hexadecimal notation.
And of course being C/C++ the error was rather nonsensical.
