Bing design = retro Google? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bing.com/search?q=bing+%3D+retro+google%3F&go=&qs=n&form=QBRE&pq=bing+%3D+retro+google%3F&sc=0-9&sp=-1&sk= <comment> simba-hiiipower I really don't see this as a move towards trying to become a 'retro Google'... Looking at where MSFT is heading with a unified design across all its products and properties, it looks to me like a natural evolution of the page becoming more 'Metro' (simple, clean, intuitive). And there are really only so many ways to display text/links in a 'minimalistic' fashion while keeping the basic functionality people expect...

I'd guess though that this is a first in a series of small, gradual, changes to the site geared toward 'metrofying' it. I bet we'll soon see Segoe replace Arial as the predominant font next.

</comment><comment><USER2> Bing styles itself as a retro Google, to capture people who long for the old days.

Chrome OS styles itself as an old Windows desktop (compared to forthcoming Win8) to capture people who long for the old days.

Business as usual.

<comment><USER3> How does Chrome OS resemble old Windows?

here's chrome os: [http://cdn.techpp.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/chrome- os-a...](http://cdn.techpp.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/chrome-os-aura.jpg)

here's windows 7: [http://www.techfuels.com/attachments/windows-7-2000-nt/28356...](http://www.techfuels.com/attachments/windows-7-2000-nt/28356d1328782271-windows-7-practical- tips-windows-7-netbooks-windows-7.jpg)

Do you mean to say Chrome OS looks like Windows because the toolbar is on the button like Windows and not on the top like *nix?

<comment><USER4> Why do you think nix has a toolbar on top? There's no "nix interface". There are thousands of them. And most of the interfaces allow you to change the location of the panels. I laughed out lout at what you said.

Either way, IMHO those two desktops look similar.

<comment><USER3> The most popular *nix UI is the one you get with OS X and it's toolbar is at the top. So is the standard toolbar on Ubuntu.

And there are not thousands of linux interfaces. Having the ability to customize does not mean there's a new interface every time you adjust something. Leave the hyperbole on 4chan.

<comment><USER5> Can we just not call it _nix? I think that is what is confusing. Maybe its just the most popular desktop linux format (at least currently) or something else. It is kind of weird to talk about a standard_ nix interface that isn't a terminal (at least it seems that way to me). Every linux box I use always has different desktop/X-environment from the next. There may not be thousands of X11 desktops, but there are quite a few (cde, enlightenment, gnome, kde, xfce, just off the top of my hdead) that all have their differences. I would agree more with the other guy, but acknowledge its pedantic details.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You can't see this unless you're set to United States in your preferences, but it does look extremely like old Google, which is no bad thing.

<comment><USER7> I'm not in US - screenshot please?

<comment><USER8> [http://www.bing.com/search?q=bing+%3D+retro+google%3F&se...](http://www.bing.com/search?q=bing+%3D+retro+google%3F&setmkt=en- US)

<comment><USER9> Whats that weird strip at the top? It looks like some image that's been cut off.

<comment><USER10> I'm sure there were enumerable back and forth discussions about that. Bing differentiated itself in the beginning with the large background image on the homepage as opposed to the simple colourful logo on white background that defined the Google experience.

Then Google copied the background image idea.

Now Bing has gone minimal, but there's obviously still some residual pull/desire around using imagery.

That little strip is a remnant. Like a human appendix it's a residual organ that wasn't completely eradicated as it evolved into the current design.

<comment><USER3> Do you have a screenshot of Google with a background image? I don't recall ever seeing one.

<comment><USER10> Google added it as a "feature" and made it a default for a short amount of time to market the background customization option:

[http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/09/google-adds-a-background- im...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/09/google-adds-a-background-image-to-its- homepage-by-default-at-least-for-24-hours/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Forgive me for being too blatant, but I'm puzzled by their reason of doing this. Do people really switch search engines because of the UI? I understand that some people might prefer the less cluttered version, but when it comes down to it, the way it looks is secondary to its primary function: giving you good results. After a while, the look becomes less important.

I don't think it also serves their interest well, too, when their UI is a reminder of their competitor (the retro look of their competitor, to be precise). Google succeeded with a minimalistic UI because it made them look different from the rest and no one did it before. When Bing does it now, it makes them look like Google.

<comment><USER10> >the way it looks is secondary to its primary function: giving you good results.

I'm honestly not trying to be mean, but I'm not sure you understand human psychology in this area. Humans are _very consistently_ swayed by looks over intrinsic value.

People aren't necessarily doing quantitative A/B tests between search engines, they're just plugging the latest search terms they want answers to into the search field and (in many cases) getting a search result that seems to fit the bill.

If the search engine displays results in an visually uncluttered (seemingly authoritative) way then that would seem like a good search engine choice.

There was that blog post the other day where someone updated and improved their site design and was lauded by users for all the new features they had introduced, when all they'd done was refresh the design.

<comment><USER11> > I'm honestly not trying to be mean,

Hey, no problem :), I'm just here for the discussion.

> but I'm not sure you understand human psychology in this area. Humans are > very consistently swayed by looks over intrinsic value.

I do understand that looks matter _to a degree_. Some website redesigns does make them much more appealing. But I feel like at best the effects are only temporary. It doesn't take long before the user gets bored and thinks about how ugly it looks, _unless_ the redesign comes with added functionality/feature (which I fail to find in this case).

Moreover, I mentioned earlier that it doesn't seem beneficial for Bing that its redesign is a reminder of its competitor. So I still find their decision puzzling.

<comment><USER10> >unless the redesign comes with added functionality/feature (which I fail to find in this case).

The redesign, in-and-of-itself likely provides added f/f in terms of reduced cognitive load in parsing the search results page. It's simple and easily grokked.

>a reminder of its competitor.

I don't think anyone is definitively and quantifiably testing Google search results in their day to day lives, but I suspect there's a nagging sense that they're not really as 'good' as they used to be.

I speculate that it's because the results have become more cluttered. Very few people would consciously compare Bing 2.today with Google 2.yesterday.

I think it's a clever play. It will probably not pan out as it's difficult to turn a ship as large as "Default Search" in another direction but we live in interesting times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> if bing is interested in optimizing its 15% search market share, this is a nice move (and don't get me wrong, 15% of search is a pretty big business). BUT, if they're interested in upending the market and really doing something interesting, they should have a chat with duckduckgo to see what the future of search might look like.

my hunch is the former is their goal...

<comment><USER13> DDG is my default search engine, i quite like it.

But, you and I live in different galaxies if you think DDG is Bing's key to gaining market share. DDGs value of privacy and no filter bubbles, is not a compelling (or even understandable) concept to an overwhelming majority of users. Facebook proves this.

<comment><USER14> Even to those who understand it, the value of DDG is variable. I tried DDG for a few weeks, but switched back to google simply because I was actually having to sort through more results than the specialized results that google gives me.

I like feeling that my privacy is preserved on DDG but I'm still debating whether or not it's an acceptable trade-off for search result relevancy for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is porn the 7th result down for anyone else?

Screenshot: <https://twitter.com/#!/gee_totes/status/197695446821519360>

At least, I think that's a porn link. Don't dare click on it because I'm on a work computer.

<comment><USER16> Nope, it's far worse. It's just a spam link to another search engine that does a search for "Vintage Xxx Tube". SFW so long work doesn't consider search results containing descriptions of porn sites to be unsafe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> A word of appreciation for the highlighting of the search words in the cached page, such as Google had and lost.

(Having to bulls-eye a dinky little triangle to click 'cached' in a single- item drop-down ... not so much appreciated.)

</comment><comment><USER18> Does this mean that Bing is on its way to being a billion dollar website? See number 1 here: <http://www.paulgraham.com/ambitious.html>.

<comment><USER19> It is a billion dollar website considering it loses billions every year. That means they are investing billions in it.

Also being a copycat doesn't work too well unless you have a completely different strategy than competing head-on, which Bing doesn't.

<comment><USER20> It's a good strategy when your competitor is consistently making changes which long terms users hate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Very smart, and spooky.. I was using Bing yesterday and noticed how it was so cluttered. Nobody likes to see so much text squeezed so close together. Glad they got rid of the left hand text. Great stuff. I was close to switching to Bing, and this may have sealed it for me.

<comment><USER9> Weird. I use those tools on the left side almost every day.

Finds something posted within the last 24 hours --click-- Find only forum discussions with your search term --click-- (This is especially valuable since I get the most information about damn near everything from reading people's discussions on that thing) Get a map of that restaurant I just searched --click--

The only thing that's bothering me on Google's search is that right column with the social stuff, especially if my search generated a lot of it. But my eye just doesn't tend to go there anyways so it doesn't bother me that much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I like it but why couldn't they go all the way and leave out the dropdown image on top? It's jarring to the otherwise clean and enticing page. Put a non-intrusive link instead.

The above rant aside, I think it's a good move on their part.

</comment><comment><USER23> It's not that different from the default look and feel of DuckDuckGo. Just sayin'...

</comment><comment><USER24> It's what people want. I think they nailed it.</comment>


Are we ready for AI-powered security cameras? - <AUTHOR> https://thenewstack.io/are-we-ready-for-ai-powered-security-cameras/ <comment><USER2> My question is: are we ready for __digital__ cameras?

Making things digital leads to some inevitable developments. The digital world grows more and more powerful daily</comment>


A Genius Donation System - <AUTHOR> http://www.losttype.com/font/?name=mensch

<comment><AUTHOR> I had to download this font today, that the designer had used in his mockup. Via google I came out on the designers website. I must say that I was really impressed by this donation system. I ended up not paying for the font, but this system is the first one that managed to make me feel bad about it.</comment>


Dark (Programming Language) - <AUTHOR> https://darklang.com/ <comment><USER2> Thanks for posting, happened to catch this in new. Anything I can tell people about Dark? (You'll generally find more info in [https://medium.com/darklang](https://medium.com/darklang), though we're redoing the site now).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> How Dark deploys code in 50ms:

[https://medium.com/darklang/how-dark-deploys-code- in-50ms-77...](https://medium.com/darklang/how-dark-deploys-code- in-50ms-771c6dd60671)</comment>


Trusted Internet Connection 3.0 [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/M-19-26.pdf <comment><USER2> "Removing barriers to cloud" worries me. Many government agencies have banned USB storage devices due to the policy complication and security headaches it invariably creates; I don't see this going any better than them announcing that they're "removing barriers to USB".

Being a compromise between convenience and safety is a core aspect of security, however when there's an administrative policy umbrella which covers a few ways "cloud" may be used safely, when it may be used unsafely... it seems like they need to create their own exclusive cloud or rethink this (yes, I understand this is a very non-specific, high-level-view document, and that the implementation details aren't outlined).

Hearing 'this involves a lot of risk, let's do this right' is one thing, seeing an administrative guidance from the US Government saying they will be implementing it is another thing entirely, and learning that this pertains to "cloud-in-general" use during the year 2019... I mean, to be clear, the document suggests that if they go through their own encryption funnel as specified by policy, they can touch 3rd party storage and applications. No matter how clandestinely you fill the safe, no matter how securely you hide the location in which it's buried, you're still using this big corporation's consumer grade junk. There's the saying "don't implement a technical solution to solve an administrative problem" (and vice versa)... this is implementing an administrative policy to acknowledge the technical problem, however what it will "solve" before they jump to the next thing will have to be seen. I'm willing to bet this will be scratched wholesale or change dramatically far before 85% implementation.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Trusted Internet Connection (TIC) guidance for US government agencies will allow for network traffic to flow seperate from self-hosted physical TIC infrastructure, opening the door for cloud-based solutions.</comment>


What has Amazon Web Services had to say about Prism? Anything? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> They hope you'd never ask ...</comment>


The Nobel Laureate Versus the Graduate Student  - <AUTHOR> http://scitation.aip.org/journals/doc/PHTOAD-ft/vol_54/iss_7/46_1.shtml

<comment><USER2> It's subscriber only...</comment>


Oil Falls Below $40 for First Time Since 2009 as Glut Grows - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-20/oil-heads-for-longest-weekly-losing-streak-since-1986-amid-glut <comment><USER2> And it will go lower! Canadian crude hit $23/bbl earlier in the week.

North America is close to maxing out storage capacity...possibly within 90 days. We've not been this close to max storage capacity in more than 80 years.

North American crude oil production currently exceeds demand (meaning what we have capacity to refine) by over 1 million barrels a day. All that extra is getting dumped into storage.

And the spread in price between crude oil and gasoline will likely stay large.

The USA can't export crude (by law), but _can_ export refined product (gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, etc).

So there's a finite closed market for crude oil (that's running out of places to store it), but a ready export market for refined product (mostly Central and South America).

Net result: low crude oil prices, high gasoline prices.

<comment><USER3> There are also some refinery problems in Indiana which is keeping gasoline at a premium when compared to oil.

<comment><USER2> That primarily impacts Canadian heavy crude exports. The BP Whiting refinery was the primary consumer of Canadian crude.

Few other refineries (other than some on the Gulf coast) are configured to handle the product.

That's why Canadian crude prices are collapsing...and why the price of gasoline in the upper midwest is going up.

The only other option for Canadian crude to pipeline export to the Texas gulf coast. The problem is pipeline capacity (that's why some much Canadian oil goes out by train), but even more critically, the pipelines typically offload at the giant Cushing OK storage center...and Cushing is right at 100% storage capacity. (you can't just pump crude straight into a refinery...there a timing mis-match that has to be dealt with via storage).

The Canadians are about to really get squeezed.

<comment><USER4> We're already getting squeezed. We officially entered into a recession a while back. Housing prices in Alberta have collapsed. Every other province is about to get squeezed as all the oil patch workers head home and look for jobs. Buying things online sucks, and travelling is a terrible idea. Budget's shot to hell in the middle of an election, which is good if it helps force Harper out.

<comment><USER5> > Housing prices in Alberta have collapsed.

Sales have collapsed perhaps, but not prices. We shall see if $30 oil can take the wind out of Canadian real estate, I'll believe it when I see it, the confidence level of Canadians when it comes to housing is _extremely_ high.

<comment><USER4> You're right. Sales are down 30% in Calgary, but prices have only dropped 1.6%. [1] Still, that's compared to a 9% rise for the rest of Canada. [2] I'd still expect them to drop significantly more as laid-off oil workers burn through their savings and find themselves unable to pay their mortgage.

[1] [http://www.creb.com/Seller_Resources/Housing_Statistics/](http://www.creb.com/Seller_Resources/Housing_Statistics/) [2] [http://public.tableau.com/shared/S48Y522MR?:display_count=no](http://public.tableau.com/shared/S48Y522MR?:display_count=no)

<comment><USER5> Actually, not going up 10% a year in Canada pretty much could be considered a collapse!

> I'd still expect them to drop significantly more as laid-off oil workers > burn through their savings and find themselves unable to pay their mortgage.

One would think so, but real estate seems to be able to often defy both logic and mathematics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is slightly worrying, because if we want to reduce CO2 emissions, we need to leave the oil in the ground.

High prices may not be ideal economically, but they do reduce demand for oil, and increase demand for alternative energy.

<comment><USER7> Well, counter-intuitivley, consumer gas prices aren't falling nearly as much if at all.

Personally I think the DOJ should investigate refineries, as none of the seem particularly eager to compete on price. They're making record profits as the price of crude collapses while the price of gasoline is flat.

[http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-refinery-profits- recor...](http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-refinery-profits- record-20150731-story.html)

It seems very fishy to me that we have so much crude building up, yet consumers aren't seeing any real benefit from cheaper gas, cheaper shipping, or cheaper domestic flights.

<comment><USER8> Refining capacity doesn't increase because of a drop in crude oil prices. If supply of gasoline cannot be increased, prices will not fall even if the raw crude price falls.

The EPA has been hostile to refinery expansion or new refinery construction.

<comment><USER9> Capacity doesn't increase, but costs do decrease as the cost of raw materials drops.

Now, obviously price is only partly determined by cost.

<comment><USER10> That's kinda the whole point. There is nothing for refineries to gain by reducing the price of gas because...nobody is going to sell gas at a lower price and take over the market because...the EPA does not allow one to build refineries.

Free markets y'all.

<comment><USER11> So much this. Price is driven by supply and demand. Not the cost of materials.

<comment><USER12> But price changes supply, no?

Some oil is $1 a barrel to pump. It will always be worth pumping.

Some oil is $50 a barrel to pump. It is only worth it when oil price is greater than $50 a barrel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wonder why so many people are only looking at the economic side of this

DO THEY NOT REALIZE THE IMPLICATIONS FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND HOW WE USE FOSSIL FUELS?

We burn (no pun intended) through resources as fast as we want until there are none left. And then what?

<comment><USER14> > And then what?

And then the price of the scarce resource will go up, pushing us towards alternative energy sources. And as time passes, we should have more efficient ways of harnessing those.

<comment><USER15> This line of logic says that it is impossible for us to come to any sort of "cliff" where we are unable to smoothly transition from one energy source to another (where the possible ensuing resource wars could prevent us from _ever_ harnessing those alternative sources). It's basically a "nothing bad can happen because _ECONOMICS_!" answer.

<comment><USER16> It does, and to do so it presumes that there will always be some readily available alternatives with smooth supply curves, and neglects transition costs.

<comment><USER17> I've seen it referred to as the Adam's Law of Slow Moving Disasters

[http://blog.dilbert.com/post/102964934001/fact-checking- adam...](http://blog.dilbert.com/post/102964934001/fact-checking-adams-law-of- slow-moving-disasters)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> One one hand, I'm a bit worried as I know various folks that are dependent on the oil industry and this will probably mean more layoffs/companies closing, on the other hand, I'm really happy to see this (helps many economies as well as ordinary folks) and it seems some of the changes from oil to other sources of energy are finally showing some results (I hope)

<comment><USER19> OPEC is trying to destroy the American shale businesses by making them unprofitable. There was huge investment in shale based on higher oil prices and if they can't recoup that investment OPEC stands to keep their monopoly.

<comment><USER20> OPEC is no longer a coordinated entity. For decades OPEC's member nations waged economic war on each other by cutting prices to increase marketshare, in violation of OPEC quotas. The Saudis acted as the swing producer, lowering their output to keep crude prices near the OPEC target. Last year the Saudis abandoned that roll and admitted that OPEC had become a a free-for-all.

<comment><USER21> Cartels are always unstable. It's why they seek forcible enforcement methods.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Cheap natural gas also can mean cheap electricity, in case anyone was wondering about the effect this might have on companies such as Tesla. Natural gas produces more electricity in the U.S. than anything else, including coal (by a tiny margin).

<comment><USER23> I don't think this matters much for companies like Tesla. Electricity is already extremely cheap for a car. The average cost of electricity in the US is about 12.5 cents/kWh, which works out to 3.75 cents/mile for a Tesla. That's cheaper than a Prius at $2/gallon, despite being a substantially larger and heavier car. If you can get in on time-of-use rates and charge overnight when demand is low, it can be nearly free.

High gas prices can be good for Tesla, but lower electricity prices won't move the needle for most people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The capital cost for the saudis is $15 and they are okay pushing it to $20.

One paradoxical fact about the drop in oil prices is there is a uptick in investment in renewable !

The market for renewable is not only folks who care about prices but also people who are worried about emission and self-sufficiency ( this is more to do with countries )

So a drop in oil prices is leading to greater investment in solar and wind which I do not think the saudis expected !

Another interesting analysis is the fact that the boom and bust cycle in oil is getting much shorter. Economists are not exactly sure why that is happening.

One think to worry about is this deflation might bifurcate and cause another recession. Only time will tell.

<comment><USER7> Saudi Arabia is a country, not a company. Oil is used to pay for everything, and they need oil to be around $106 to balance their budget.

[http://graphics.wsj.com/lists/opec- meeting](http://graphics.wsj.com/lists/opec-meeting)

If oil fell to $20 for any significant amount of time, there would be serious political strife in Saudi Arabia.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Was wondering about the impact of lifting US Oil exports and ran across some interesting research:

[http://www.aspeninstitute.org/sites/default/files/content/up...](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/sites/default/files/content/upload/FINAL_Lifting_Crude_Oil_Export_Ban_0.pdf)

[http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-approves-limited-crude- oil-t...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-approves-limited-crude-oil-trade-to- mexico-1439570613)

</comment><comment><USER26> Hopefully this trend will continue as we move away from oil for many types of energy generation. And for those that low oil prices should reinforce car use - in many American cities, it's not the price of oil that is the limit, it's the amount of space for the cars that is the limit. And where space isn't a limit, out in farm country, low oil prices help tremendously, since transport is much less elastic than it is in cities.

</comment><comment><USER27> Lower oil prices seem to be driving the major US indices lower lately.

Why is that? Lower energy expenses seems like a _good_ thing for businesses.

<comment><USER28> Not an expert, but I've been read that demand for oil is typically used as a leading indicator for economic growth. Seems like the global economy is slumping, and as a result doesn't need as much energy (oil)

<comment><USER27> Ah, so in that case it wouldn't be causal, just a correlation.

<comment><USER29> It is causal, but in the reverse direction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> So now that it is down and will go up to $120 again soon, how do I invest in it?

<comment><USER31> USO [https://www.google.com/finance?cid=705740](https://www.google.com/finance?cid=705740)

<comment><USER32> You never want to hold commodity ETFs like USO overnight due to beta decay. [http://www.etf.com/sections/blog/5362-uso-oil- usl.html](http://www.etf.com/sections/blog/5362-uso-oil-usl.html)

You're better off setting up an options account and buying futures.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > ... OPEC members are planning to boost production

In 2012 Saudi had a $2.3 trillion USD gross operating surplus in crude petroleum and natural gas. They can afford to play this game (market share) for really long time.

<comment><USER33> No they can't. They can play the game for about three more years, max. And that's at the risk of destabilizing their kingdom. They're currently issuing debt [1] for the first time in a decade or more, trying to slow the erosion [2] of their $670 billion of reserves. As of today they've lost 10% of their financial reserves in one year, and that's going to get a lot worse as the new lower average price of oil sets in across 2015 and 2016. At a $40 to $50 oil price average for 2016, they'll lose upwards of 20% of their reserves next year. A few years of that, and the anxiety will be great in the house of Saud.

I'm not sure where you're getting $2.3 trillion for anything. Their entire GDP is $750 billion.

[1] [http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/10/saudi-bond- idUSL8N...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/10/saudi-bond- idUSL8N0ZQ03F20150710)

[2] [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-28/saudi- fore...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-28/saudi-foreign- reserves-drop-for-fourth-month-to-672-billion)

<comment><USER34> They could also cut social programs. Scaling back the subsidies for face throwing acid might buy them some time.

<comment><USER20> And that's how the House of Saud will finally fall.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> And yet gas is still over $3 a gallon. Funny that...

<comment><USER36> Well, gasoline production consumes oil, which means that the price should theoretically lag behind oil's price for a period of time at least equal to the time it takes to go from crude to a final product.

In addition, most gas stations will buy gasoline futures a few months out to stabilize their costs, and when oil price falls, the cost of the underlying gas purchased is still at the negotiated futures contract price. So it makes sense that the price wouldn't fall in tandem with crude prices.

<comment><USER37> >In addition, most gas stations will buy gasoline futures a few months out to stabilize their costs, and when oil price falls, the cost of the underlying gas purchased is still at the negotiated futures contract price. So it makes sense that the price wouldn't fall in tandem with crude prices.

Only if the gas station is speculating and trying to arbitrage the market. Otherwise, they would reduce the price to reflect the updated price of the underlying futures.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I remember ten years ago when worrying about Peak Oil was all the rage. You don't hear too much about that nowadays…

<comment><USER39> It's obviously a matter of when, not if. It's difficult to put an exact estimate on when oil scarcity will become a true crisis, but we can all agree that it's a non-renewable resource which will not be around forever.

<comment><USER38> _It 's obviously a matter of when, not if_

It was just as obvious a hundred years ago that horse manure piling up in city streets was just going to keep getting worse.

 _we can all agree that it 's a non-renewable resource which will not be around forever_

True but irrelevant. The oil supply is finite only in physical terms, not in economic terms. It is possible to extract an unbounded amount of value from a bounded resource. All you need is an increasing price, which happens automatically as supplies decrease, and which provides an incentive for substitution. I'd happily take a wager that humanity will transition off petroleum long before we "run out" of oil.

<comment><USER34> In some sense, peak oil happened. All of the easily accessible, abundant oil has been used up. Now you need a higher level of technology to extract oil. Because that's more expensive to produce than the easy stuff, renewables are catching up.

The stuff really is more challenging to produce, you need much more understanding and higher quality tools. Fortunately we're enjoying the compound interest of computers, software, material science and a million other fields that make difficult things simpler.

I won't take your transition bet, but i would bet if we had to extract oil using only technology older than 2000, we'd be pretty screwed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> This could screw Russia. They have lost a hell of a lot of revenue already on this. I do wonder if that is the point.

<comment><USER41> Not just Russia but every single nation that has a major part of their economy in oil production: Venezuela, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Norway, Canada, etc.

Although to be fair, Northern Europeans manage their oil extremely well. Their 'rainy day' fund is now in the trillions.

[http://graphics.wsj.com/oil-producers-break-even- prices/](http://graphics.wsj.com/oil-producers-break-even-prices/)

<comment><USER42> There's going to be carnage in the financial markets when the oil producing nations' start selling off their assets in order to pay for necessities.

Saudi has already started issuing bonds. Once they start selling off their trillion dollar sovereign wealth fund the ripple effect will be felt on asset prices all around the world. It has the potential to cause a self-reinforcing feedback loop as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I know! Let's drill in the arctic and ruin that too

at $40 it will certainly be worth all that lack of profit

(this is exactly what shell is trying to do right now with Obama's permission)</comment>


14 Design Patterns to Improve Your Convolutional Neural Networks - <AUTHOR> http://www.topbots.com/14-design-patterns-improve-convolutional-neural-network-cnn-architecture <comment><USER2> Very poorly written summary of a good paper. Feels like the author has no clue what she's writing about.

Here's the link to the paper instead: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.00847](https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.00847)

</comment><comment><USER3> Some of the sources quoted in the article are actually good and worth the read. But the article itself is, ironically, convoluted. Based on the content of the article it feels as if the author is mostly a self-proclaimed expert on the topic. A quick LinkedIn check shows no meaningful credentials to substantiate any credibility to her as an authority on the matter.</comment>


Turning my obsession in the stock market into a side project - <AUTHOR> https://eduardosasso.co/blog/turning-my-obsession-in-the-stock-market-into-a-side-project/ <comment><USER2> The number one issue I have with a lot of finance newsletters is the lack of historical context so I think it's extremely valuable you featured historical data right next to the daily data to give context on how small daily moves actually are (minus this latest bout of volatility). I think that has a lot of overlooked behavioral value, why not also feature 20 & 30y data, considering this is the time series many young investors will need to consider for retirement?

I find myself often googling to check S&P futures so this email would remove that step for me. Might also be cool if the email had other features like Tax Loss Harvest notifications when an ETF you're watching drops more than X%.

I did some research on the finance newsletter space myself a while back, here's some of my favorites I ran across:

• [https://capitalminded.com](https://capitalminded.com) (more long term index fund focused)

• [https://verdadcap.com](https://verdadcap.com) (more nerdy quant/value stuff)

• Matt Levine's Money Stuff (couldn't find the sign up link but it's always great)

• [https://www.finimize.com](https://www.finimize.com) (general news)

• [https://www.epsilontheory.com](https://www.epsilontheory.com) (somewhat annoying but also interesting at times)

• [https://www.aqr.com/Insights/Perspectives](https://www.aqr.com/Insights/Perspectives) (value/quant stuff from a billionaire hedge fund manager)

Tried Robinhood Snacks but can't get over the feeling it's written by low paid interns and doesn't offer any actual insight, just condensed mainstream narratives.

<comment><AUTHOR> I like to see the historical data so I can put the numbers in perspective, Yahoo Finance doesn't provide 20, 30y time frame that's the main reason. Thanks for the list I'll check them out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You should have a look at this nice and free stock market API. Also well documented.

[https://financialmodelingprep.com/](https://financialmodelingprep.com/)

<comment><USER4> Whoa! I love it, thank you for sharing this. It seems like it's a free API for personal use with some rate limitations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Awesome project, I am sure it will help me lose lots of money.

<comment><AUTHOR> Same. Thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Github link for anyone interested in checking the code [https://github.com/eduardosasso/bullish](https://github.com/eduardosasso/bullish)

<comment><USER6> Why does it say "Buy High, Sell Low" instead of "Buy Low, Sell High?" What it says leads to losing a lot of money...

<comment><AUTHOR> That's just for fun. I guess I've been hanging out too much at r/wallstreetbets

<comment><USER6> You might consider the impact it has on potential customers. I can see how it's an in joke for r/wsb, but unless your target audience is only that community, it raises a red flag.

<comment><USER7> Lighten up, the effect of this quote is probably as effective as Code of Conduct

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nice, simple execution. I have a similar setup with Atom's daily premarket emails. One piece of feedback. Excluding the futures section, the centered text of the various timespans within the Performance section is harder to scan than left-aligned text or a 2x4 table would be.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Yeah I agree I was just trying to come up with something decent given my limited design skills.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nice simple idea. It would be cool to see today's current email on the sign up page so people get idea of what to expect the next day in their inbox.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I wanted to do that but I was expecting Sendgrid to provide that which they don't so I need to build something. It's on my TODO list. Thanks for the feedback.

<comment><USER10> wow very good idea! but better to see the next week email, to get an idea of what to expect the next week in the market

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nice work mate! It's exciting turning your side projects into reality. Hopefully there will be thousands of subscribers in a year and you could make some good money out of it.

p.s. you can replace Google's captcha with hCaptcha ;) [https://dev.to/stanbright/cloudflare-replaced-recaptcha- with...](https://dev.to/stanbright/cloudflare-replaced-recaptcha-with- hcaptcha-i-followed-their-example-it-took-me-18-min-1ipn)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! Yes it is, I really enjoy trying to solve my own problems. SendGrid provides that signup form and it's very limited, probably I'll need to have a custom one at some point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I appreciate the effort, especially the free tier only approach, but... my framework for data collection and reporting: what behavior, if any, do I expect to happen as a result of data? If the answer is none, there is no point in the email / report / pagerduty alert.

> The idea is for the mailing list to go out every weekday before the market > opens so you can be informed enough to decide if it's worth paying close > attention to the market on any given day and make some moves.

Looks like the behaviors this information is intended to induce is:

1\. Gather more data more frequently (reload WSJ / Y! finance? front page?) 2\. Make more trades ("Buy High, Sell Low")

If SP500 futures moving but markets are closed, what action could you possibly undertake profitably? Market open is a special auction you can't really arbitrage like that, so you'd be hoping for intraday moves? Are these the behaviors you _want_ to be inducing? Should retail investors be making trades during times of high volatility?

I suspect no; retail investors will buy into rallies and sell into slumps, exactly the behavior Bullish's tagline mocks.

<comment><AUTHOR> The point is for average investors not day traders to get an uncluttered view of the market before it opens so they can have an idea if a possible big swing is happening on any given day. I find it useful in my use case since email is the first thing I check in the morning.

<comment><USER12> Okay, you read the email and think it says 'maybe a big swing'. what do you do?

<comment><AUTHOR> Then it's up to you. You can buy the dip, sell whatever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Damn, guess I should have written a blog post. Yesterday I launched the MVP of my stock news site [http://stockqua.com](http://stockqua.com) with (eventual) goal to help people build up qualitative & quantitative analysis of stocks & industries to make better investing decisions.

<comment><AUTHOR> You should. I've been hashing out my ideas in writing lately and it has been helping me a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This was a great read, really enjoy the branding, the feel, the minimalism in the design etc. From a product perspective, I have a hard time seeing what value this adds to your average trader, for me this wouldnt help influence any decision making. For example every morning I listen to Bloomberg's "Five things to start your day", this is largely actionable information that adds color and context to movement in the markets. I would think if you can hone into say sector-specific emails, like technology etc, to help zoom in on what sectors as a whole, say tech, are looking like this week versus historical, potential reports driving these changes etc, you may get a larger subscriber base. ps: the tagline under Bullish logo at the bottom is backwards. Says buy high sell low.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. It's a simple idea that scratches an itch, I like your idea about sector-specific info that might be something to look into to. The tagline is correct it's just for fun!

<comment><USER14> Ahh, I was thinking certainly this perfectionist didnt reverse these words on accident! Also, that shed build, pretty nice, the Al Merick behind the original garage desk, also nice. I lived in SD for a while, miss it but damn that water is cold compared to the east coast.

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Do you adjust returns for dividends?

That's always been a bugaboo of mine as it makes a big difference over decade+ time frames.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I'm tracking adjusted closing points.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> > Living the "quarantined" life

> It needs to be something I can finish in a week tops

> Ship it

Love the simple project idea & execution. I'm working on my own side-project during this isolation period, and your blog post is helping to inspire and motivate.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome. Keep at it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Very cool! I signed up. I was wondering if you did some research before picking sendgrid. I see their free tier has a limit of 100 emails a day after the first month. Their 100K/month is $15/month which is not bad I guess.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I've done some research and decided to go with Sendgrid because they are the only ones that offer API in their free tier. Their free marketing campaign plan offers 2k contacts + 6k emails month which should be plenty to start.

<comment><USER17> Thanks! BTW, no email confirmation after signing up. Not a big deal but wanted to let you know. I expected email verification.

Update: $15/month is good for up to 50K emails. Not 100K as I initially said.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This looks cool. However, am I the only one that first saw Bullish▲ and thought it was really Bullshi▲, in other words a slightly censored Bullshit? Especially if reading the motto "Buy high sell low" quickly all at once.

<comment><USER19> "Buy high, sell low"... isn't that the OPPOSITE of what an investor wants to do?

<comment><AUTHOR> LOL. That's just me making fun out of it.

<comment><USER20> It's a really bald joke, like naming your restaurant "Tastes Bad Pizza". People are just like huh?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > Get informed and decide if it's time to Buy High and Sell Low

Love that tongue-in-cheek accent.

<comment><AUTHOR> Some people get it. Thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm curious why you used Yahoo finance instead of Alpha Vantage?

<comment><AUTHOR> Alpha Vantage API showed inaccurate results from time to time and their customer support is nonexistent.

<comment><USER23> I've noticed the same thing with Alpha Vantage, but I switched to Alpha Vantage because Yahoo turned off their public API. It's the Yahoo API available again now?

<comment><AUTHOR> They have an undocumented one that you can check in the network tab on your browser. this is how the API looks like [https://query1.finance.yahoo.com/v8/finance/chart/%5EGSPC?in...](https://query1.finance.yahoo.com/v8/finance/chart/%5EGSPC?interval=1d&range=5d)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Neat project.

For something more detailed with top headlines, big movers, earnings highlights, etc. I really recommend the "Wall Street Breakfast" newsletter from seekingalpha.com.

</comment><comment><USER25> In my experience from developing Backtest ([https://backtest.curvo.eu](https://backtest.curvo.eu)), a backtesting tool for EU index investors, the hardest part has been finding good and reliable data that goes as far back in time as possible.

I only focus on index data so it's a bit easier but it's still hard. Lots of scraping, downloading and parsing CSVs, Excel sheets, some puppeteer magic...

Some sources that I use:

\- MSCI data ([https://www.msci.com/end-of-day-data- search](https://www.msci.com/end-of-day-data-search))

\- Financial Times website (e.g. [https://markets.ft.com/data/indices/tearsheet/summary?s=SP5M...](https://markets.ft.com/data/indices/tearsheet/summary?s=SP5MVT:CME))

\- Investing.com (e.g. [https://www.investing.com/indices/us- spx-500](https://www.investing.com/indices/us-spx-500))

\- STOXX

\- DAX

\- FTSE for FTSE stock indexes ([https://research.ftserussell.com/analytics/indexviewer/chart...](https://research.ftserussell.com/analytics/indexviewer/chart?id=346864P&id=746163P&dataType=5Y&from=undefined&currency=EUR&perftype=Total&date=20-Jan-2015&chartType=LineChart&relative=undefined&datefrom=20-Jan-2010&frequency=weekly))

\- Yieldbook.com for FTSE bond indxes ([https://www.yieldbook.com/m/home/index.shtml](https://www.yieldbook.com/m/home/index.shtml)) \- ICE website for ICE bond indexes

\- ...

I'm constantly adding new indexes and sources (see [https://backtest.curvo.eu/updates](https://backtest.curvo.eu/updates)) but it's tough!

Some examples of what Backtest does:

\- MSCI World: [https://backtest.curvo.eu/portfolio/NoIgsgygwgkgBAdQPYCcA2AT...](https://backtest.curvo.eu/portfolio/NoIgsgygwgkgBAdQPYCcA2ATEAaYoAyAqgIwDsAHMQKwAsxZAnDsQLptA)

\- My portfolio: [https://backtest.curvo.eu/portfolio/NoIgmg9gTghgdgcgM4AIAK0A...](https://backtest.curvo.eu/portfolio/NoIgmg9gTghgdgcgM4AIAK0AuAzCAbASwhABphQAZAVQEYAWAZgHYAGGgDnYfdJYDoWATgC6ZEAEkAoixYAhAGJ0ASvIASDGrz71RoKTNl0KAVjCCuWuiLHUWzThxoatHXROlyAKgCklAWTQGYxdhUKA)

If the author has any questions, just reach out to me! Happy to share my experiences.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I'm trying to stay away from scrapping, parsing, and that whole mess. Right now I'm relying on Yahoo Finance undocumented API and possibly IEX Cloud in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Just signed up and looking forward to seeing how this evolves!

We recently launched an investing newsletter at [https://topstonks.com](https://topstonks.com) (just got our first paying customer yesterday), which tracks the social sentiment angle of a few weird places on the internet - WallstreetBets and 4chan.

We're definitely still learning the ropes, but Let me know if you ever want to talk shop!

<comment><AUTHOR> I've already subscribed to your project, I like your idea quite a bit. I have some other plans in the pipeline lets see how this one goes first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> You should try out the Investopedia newsletter. [https://link.investopedia.com/forward/5d121631cac67b640d47dc...](https://link.investopedia.com/forward/5d121631cac67b640d47dc49byh2w.b6ab/5c78e2de)

I like it a lot more than The Morning Brew.

The Morning Brew's jokes get too obscure and make it hard to read.

Caleb does a much better job than the Brew IMO.

</comment><comment><USER28> looks cool, very similar to: [https://snacks.robinhood.com/](https://snacks.robinhood.com/)

</comment><comment><USER29> The [https://themarketear.com/](https://themarketear.com/) newsletter is pretty good

</comment><comment><USER30> Appreciate the appreciation for a well crafted email. Nowadays it feels like emails are filled with mindless drivel as a part of some drip campaign or retention strategy optimizing for a high open rate rather than delight.

Hopefully things change, but over the years, I've become allergic to subscribing to anything by email – I'd rather go to a website when I want to

<comment><AUTHOR> I partially agree, there are good/informative emails out there. I for one subscribe to many and unsubscribe to tons all the time and my inbox is tidy, probably because I'm a little OCD

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Just recently was also thinking about building some small tool to monitor my trades too. And few days ago start looking at the same yahoo finance library hah.

Anyway, after reading this, just went ahead and implemented my thing too.

In my case I just need to monitor a specific instrument, a few lines of code were enough after figuring out how to use the underlying libraries.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great. Yahoo Finance is pretty good and there's [https://www.iexcloud.io](https://www.iexcloud.io) if you need something more robust.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Great idea! I would probably use this more if you looked at the futures performance from yesterday's market close to this morning, in addition to past 1 day. The reason why is that I don't care as much about futures specifically, as I care about what they could predict for the coming market open.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. Right, that's something to think about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Just an FYI, the Hey.com hyperlink in the post seems to be a relative path, just slapping it onto the end of the post route. All of the others work fine, it looks like you just need to add an `http(s)://` on the front and you'll be good.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixed. Thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> For finance API I've used [https://iexcloud.io/docs/api/](https://iexcloud.io/docs/api/) which is free/cheap.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep their API is solid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Pre market isn't just for futures like the blog post says. Any security that has a trading session before the regular session trades "pre market"

</comment><comment><USER36> Nice. I need a source API for short interest... ideas?

<comment><AUTHOR> From all the API's I've looked at IEX Cloud seems the most comprehensive with a generous free tier [https://www.iexcloud.io](https://www.iexcloud.io)

<comment><USER37> You can get access to some of IEX's data for free with higher limits than IEX's free tier by opening an account with Alpaca. That gives you access to polygon.io as well, which doesn't limit API requests (Your API ID is used as the auth token for the polygon.io API).

<comment><AUTHOR> The thing with Alpaca and Polygon I think is that their most affordable plans are only for personal use I believe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Been using this for a few days.

Would be nice to make use of the subject line more so I might not even have to open to email (yes more minimalist!)

e.g

DJ +0.22% | S&P +1.2% | ...

</comment><comment><USER38> I'm getting an error when trying to subscribe: "Error submitting the request. Please try again later."

<comment><AUTHOR> send me a dm at blakbelt78 at Gmail and I can help you out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Great work!

Building something end-to-end is a valuable experience, even if the end result might appear outwardly "simple".

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, it takes commitment even with the simplest idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> We build something similar(UI is not polished) for the India's BSE Stock Market.

It sends buy/sell emails to users every morning(see below for links to screenshots)

Is there a need for something like in the US/elsewhere ?

[https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1pc2eu4dQJh4b6UegsVmR...](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1pc2eu4dQJh4b6UegsVmRxud5WOJLzfZ0?usp=sharing)

</comment><comment><USER41> Saves you $2000 a month rent on a Bloomberg terminal. Though I think they have additional functionallity.

</comment><comment><USER42> Super cool. Thanks for doing this

</comment><comment><USER43> Thank you. The daily email is missing a closing quote in the "Buy high sell low

</comment><comment><USER44> Nice! But why must i enable javascript just to signup for your newsletter?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's probably something with Sendgrid, the signup form is provided by them, I'll probably need to write a custom one myself at some point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I have a personal setup that does something similar to this using Huginn.

</comment><comment><USER46> I for one, went ahead and signed up!

</comment><comment><USER47> Beautiful project, I like this idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! Trying it out to see if it's something useful to more people. I have a couple of ideas that I would like to add in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> buy high sell low? shouldn't it be the opposite?

<comment><AUTHOR> That was just to make fun

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Show HN is missing, title is a click-baity, does not summarize the idea.

<comment><USER49> After reading the article, the title seems pretty accurate.

OP did a Show HN a few hours ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22867313](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22867313)

This article seemed to be a deep dive into how the project came to be.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep. That was the plan.</comment></comment></comment>


We Really Don't Know How to Compute (2011) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3tVctB_VSU <comment><USER2> I wanted to see the slides, so I tracked them down: [https://github.com/strangeloop/2011-slides/blob/master/Sussm...](https://github.com/strangeloop/2011-slides/blob/master/Sussman- WeDontKnowHowToCompute.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Interesting: what is being described is a computational paradigm very similar to traditional hardware description languages (Verilog, SystemVerilog, VHDL, etc)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Briefly glancing through the slides, this appears to be based on the work in "The Art of the Propagator" by Alexey Radul and Gerald Jay Sussman.

[PDF] [https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/44215/MIT- CSA...](https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/44215/MIT-CSAIL- TR-2009-002.pdf)

See also the recent discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20405183](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20405183)

</comment><comment><USER5> Discussed at the time:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3163473](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3163473)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2820118](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2820118)

</comment><comment><USER6> I could listen to Sussman talk about computers for days.

I'm jealous of the kids at MIT who got to be his student.

<comment><USER7> Quite a few of his MIT lectures are online, like the SICP lectures: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8FE88AA54363BC46](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8FE88AA54363BC46)

<comment><USER6> Oh I know, I've watched all of those twice. I adore those lectures. It's what converted me from a frontend dev dabbling in backend programming into a dedicated programmer ~10yrs ago.

They way they approach programming using Scheme, building complex concepts from nothing like Lego blocks. Plus it contains one of the best explanations of abstraction which is probably the most important and powerful part of programming, that really blew my mind back then. Choosing when and how to balance abstraction in your code is still a daily challenge, even as I've matured as a developer, which makes me think back to these lectures often.

<comment><USER8> As someone who is a self taught front-end dev, this comment has peaked my curiosity. I'll now have to give these lectures a listen over the weekend.

<comment><USER9> piqued

<comment><USER8> You learn something new every day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> on infoq: [https://www.infoq.com/presentations/We-Really-Dont-Know- How-...](https://www.infoq.com/presentations/We-Really-Dont-Know-How-To- Compute/)</comment>


Despite Proven Technology, Attempts to Make Table Saws Safer Drag On - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/2017/08/10/542474093/despite-proven-technology-attempts-to-make-table-saws-safer-drag-on <comment><USER2> Ya, no. Besides the horrendous patent issue (say goodbye to market competition), this will double the price of table saws. No thanks. Consumer protection laws are not about making obvious choices for me. Its supposed to protect me from the unknown unknowns - things that the average consumer would not know is dangerous. Everyone has heard about these safer saws for over a decade now. Everyone knows saws are dangerous. If people wanted them, they'd buy them. This law will not making these saws any cheaper or make saws any safer, it's just removing consumer choice.

This is a ban. This is not why we have consumer protection.

<comment><USER3> What about employees or students who have to use the equipment? They can't force their employer or educator to spend the money, but it's their fingers that'll be lost.

Maybe laws to ensure that if you are employing or in any way requiring someone use your saw you need the safety features.

The patent stuff is it's own issue for sure, and yet another example of how crappy the system is.

<comment><USER2> AFAIK schools already have these because they're pocket change to a school budget and students are notoriously dumb. It makes sense. So perhaps, we can think about a law but we should first evaluate if it is necessary. I can agree with the sentiment.

<comment><USER4> As TFA discusses, this certainly wasn't the case in 2013 when Mr. Ward had his hand destroyed in a high school shop. This technology had already been available for a decade at that point. Anyway the fact that a $400 machine has this feature doesn't mean that big multi-user shops can spend $400 and get it. Cheap table saws are made very cheaply, and are much less useful than $2000-and-up table saws. (More expensive/better built saws also last _much_ longer than cheap saws.) Are there really public schools that wouldn't notice lots of additional spending?

<comment><USER5> Lots of additional spending? We're talking about one saw per district, a saw meant to last _years_. If they can't shift the budget to work in a one time purchase of a single tablesaw, in exchange for the safety of hundreds of woodshop students, that's on them. Most equipment in a school woodshop lasts multiple decades.

That said, many school districts already have made the switch. My high school already had a Sawstop by the time I first took a woodshop class in 2006, and it had already stopped multiple students from losing fingers.

<comment><USER4> Everything is relative, of course. It's likely that not all public schools have the same enrollment or tax base that yours had. At some point the number of public school shops without this technology will be low enough that an ethical company like Bosch could just give all the poor schools a new table saw. That seems less involved than the lobbying efforts described in TFA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "CPSC Acting Chairman Ann Marie Buerkle said she was also concerned that the rule might force companies to license technology from SawStop, which she said might create a monopoly."

I think this is a valid sentiment. Why should the federal government literally award a monopoly to one company? This is not consumer protection. People know what they are getting into when dealing with a saw. This is government overreach. If people want the safety, and if a $400 stopsaw is has equivalent functionality (excluding sensing tech) as a $200 normal saw, than the increased demand will prove that the extra $200 is necessary.

<comment><USER7> Do you also resent your goverment for legislating the cars are safer? There are more than glancing similarities between SawStop and airbags.

That this is currently patent-encumbered isn't really relevant. It would be trivial to write the law now but defer its enforcement. We're only 4 years away. It's time to let manufacturers know this is what they'll be building.

<comment><USER8> Cars should be made safer WRT to the people outside the car who might have to deal with the consequences. For example, a car with spikes on the outside should probably be illegal. But as long as the danger is knowingly and exclusively contained to the occupant of a vehicle I see no reason to make it illegal. Motorcycles, for example, lack standard safety features like seatbelts and airbags, and yet we haven't made them illegal.

<comment><USER7> I guess I asked for it but I didn't really expect somebody to argue against things like airbags and SRS. Hey, what about driver seatbelts?

It's a constant surprise to me just how much some people want to forgo very reliable and affordable technology to play contrarian and stick it to the man. The problem is, it's a team of paramedics, police, fire and rescue who have to scrape your broken arse off the road. You don't just evaporate when your self- reckless decisions snuff you out.

And in many counties and US states, motorcyclists have to wear helmets that meet certain safety guidelines.

<comment><USER9> Its not about eliminating the technology; its about _choosing_ its presence. These safety features _are not free_ to have, and are not necessarily worth their cost, in _every_ situation.

But by enforcing it at the federal level you remove that choice from consumers _everywhere_ , with at best a limited understanding of the environment in which the rule is being applied.

It is not nonsensical that I might want a $400 death trap versus a $5k properly regulated and safety-confirmed vehicle if I immediately need a car, and I don't have 5k to spend. What regulations do is fuck over anyone who wants the $400 death trap (valid reasons), by only allowing the $5k (and better) to exist. The guys who can afford the regulated machine are better off, the guys who can't are worse off.

Why might I be fine with a death trap? Because its that or I lose my job, and _I 'm willing to take on that risk_. And I'm assuming I can better gauge the meaning of that risk for myself than the governments can (whereas they have a better understanding at a macro level)

Its not about safety, its about autonomy, and the belief that the government is just able to make poor decisions as you are, but their mistakes are far longer lasting, and destructive.

<comment><USER7> Doing these "worth their cost" risk assessments where _n_ =1 leads to its own problems. Regardless of what they considered their own skill, nobody ever died in car accident, or cut their thumb off in a table saw... until they did. It's hard to be objective about your own absolute risk factors with decades of survival bias to clamber over.

And governments don't do this stuff for you, or even just the lobbyist. Injury costs the economy through lost productivity. Fatal RTAs take much longer to investigate and block critical infrastructure.

Just going back to vehicles, getting $400 death traps off the road is a good thing. These are often unsafe to other people directly (heavy, no crumple zones) and indirectly through emissions. However deferred implementation of safety features (air bags, SRS, table saw brakes, etc) means that by the time they're mandatory, you can almost always find one second hand. The "death trap" category just gets safer, not more expensive.

<comment><USER9> Ofc, if you believe in the free market, then n=1 calculations will naturally sort themselves out for the most part to the eventual and overall benefit of everyone, better and more efficiently than what the relatively slow-changing government will achieve except in very particular cases.

And while you can still find death traps, they're now even deadlier than before because the market still exists for them, but now you can only obtain 10, 20 year old death traps, after regulation instantiates. And ofc the point of regulation is that eventually all death traps leave the used market too, and there's simply nothing at all left to serve this market.

Regulation _intentionally_ kills the market being served; ideally for longer- term macro-level benefits.

Safety is not free. And governments are not infallible in their devision- making. But neither is the free market. This is the crux of the issue; it depends on who you believe is better able to make macro-level decisions: natural markets or regulatory bodies.

Safety, or whatever other hot topic of the day, is just a distraction leading people to talk past each other.

and it gets further confounded by current reality vs ideal. ie there's no external costs not being accounted for with the table-saw-stopper if hospitals, insurance, etc aren't being subsidized. If individuals have to pay the whole bill for their mistake, which should naturally be true in a totally free market, then it'll all sort itself out soon enough (lest the market collapse). But since in reality various costs are being subsidized/hidden by greater forces... this doesn't hold so easily. Of course, if gov interference is the primary reason for more gov interference, then you're in a positive feedback loop that probably won't take you anywhere good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> My wife, when we were dating, bought me a Unisaw, one of the so-called dangerous saws. (She's also the woman who would say "I'm going out to get some milk, do you need more clamps? Woodworker joke, sorry :)

I have no intention of getting a sawstop saw. Why? Because my shop is full of dangerous tools. My 1930's drillpress ripped some of my hair out, my 1940's metal lathe can take your arm off, my bandsaw is way more dangerous than a table saw, don't get me started about my shaper, etc. Tablesaws, treated with respect, are very safe.

But why not have an even safer tablesaw? Because I don't want to get complacent around one tool and have that feeling linger when I go use the next tool. They are _all_ dangerous and all need to be treated with respect. Unless there is a way to make them all safe (there isn't), it doesn't make sense to me to have one safe one.

<comment><USER11> I find the complacency argument to be flat. The Sawstop technology doesn't prevent injury, you still get nicked by the blade, it just dramatically reduces the severity of injury incurred. Additionally when the mechanism trips the break and blade are spend and must be replaced.

So the motivation to be safe around the saw isn't negated, it's just driven by different factors. Instead of motivation coming from the fear of losing a part of your hand, it's coming from fear of getting nicked AND having to replace expensive parts of your saw AND the time loss from having to stop working.

Having a case and screen protector on your phone don't magically make it impervious and you don't suddenly starting handling it recklessly. Having seat belts and airbags in your car doesn't suddenly make you open to ramming your car into that asshole driving like a jerk in front of you. So why would no longer fearing losing your hand if you screw up make you more open to touching the spinning blade on your saw?

<comment><USER12> Furthermore, making it into a monetary loss might actually help people be more careful. Time and again I see people respond much better to "that will be expensive to fix if you break it" than to "that will maim or kill you."

My flying club's annual safety meeting always puts heavy emphasis on the time and money cost of breaking our equipment for this reason. It seems to work well.

<comment><USER13> Everybody has an experience making an expensive mistake that they can relate to. (Living) people don't generally have experiences dying that they can relate to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> They don't mention if it's possible to build saws without sawstop patents. Is this guy lobbying for all saw companies to be required to license his technology?

EDIT: It appears that they're currently suing Bosch for developing their own similar technology.

<comment><USER15> Not just suing, they have an injunction and at the moment you can't buy a saw in the USA with Bosch's REAXX technology, which actually works quite differently than SawStop.

Here are two videos where you can compare for yourself:

SawStop: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3mzhvMgrLE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3mzhvMgrLE)

Bosch REAXX: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4heF0Y2-QYc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4heF0Y2-QYc)

Here's an article that talks about the lawsuit: [https://www.protoolreviews.com/news/sawstop-vs-bosch- reaxx-l...](https://www.protoolreviews.com/news/sawstop-vs-bosch-reaxx- lawsuit-not-yet/26066/)

<comment><USER16> Clarification: If I'm understanding this right, the stopping the saw works differently, but the detection works the same.

<comment><USER2> So they are patenting capacitive sensing in the context of detecting a finger? you know, like a touchscreen? Wow. The USPO fucking sucks.

For the record, I don't even know how the sensing actually works in the saws. I'm just guessing because its fricken OBVIOUS.

<comment><USER17> So many things seem obvious after they are explained. Fact is, no-one had built this kind of thing before sawstop. If it were so obvious, how come only one company did it?

<comment><USER18> >So many things seem obvious after they are explained

but randyrand guessed (I assume correctly, its so obvious I didnt bother checking, googling now ... yep capacitive coupling) without prior explanation. This is one of those 'X, but on a smartphone' patents.

<comment><USER17> Are there other tools that detect fingers and stop heavy machinery instantly? Did they exist prior to sawstop? Just because someone can guess how an invention works doesn't mean it was obvious, you've also got the benefit of being told of the idea in the first place. It's an invention that saves over ten life-changing injuries a day, if it was so inherently obvious, why did no- one else think of it before?

So many comments on here seem to focus on the electrical side of the patent, yet it's only part of the invention. There's also the non-trivial discovery of how to safely stop the fast spinning blade instantly.

<comment><USER19> The REAXX saw uses a completely different method to stop the blade so it is the electrical side of the patent that is being used to stop the only other example.

Also, the electrical side of the patent seems to be the most obvious.

Detecting touch on metal has been around for > 30 year. Seems like the obvious way to answer the question of how to tell if somebody is touching a metal blade.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> As far as I know sawstop will trigger on wood that is lightly damp. And at ~$100 per occurrence it gets expensive fast ($70 for sawstop cartridge and 15-50 for a new blade.)

Yes there is a bypass but you don't always know if the wood is too wet or not.

<comment><USER21> Bosch have a better system that doesn't destroy the blade or require the cartridge to be replaced every time because it merely retracts the blade very quickly into the bed, but SawStop are using their patents to stop Bosch from selling it. Apparently they went to the effort of patenting every possible approach that doesn't require the expensive but profitable single-use cartridge even though they have no intention of using them, just to stop competitors from doing it.

<comment><USER22> Looking at the system, it looks like even Bosch needs to replace some components after the safety system kicks in.

<comment><USER23> Yes, the explosive fuses at $1 a pop. It could be improved to use resetable fuses but those are slower. There is a safety trade-off here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> We can all be for consumer rights, but I can't understand how anyone runs a business with a table saw without retracting technology. It seems like insurance companies would require this because if you don't have it in your table saw, you are being negligent with your employees.

</comment><comment><USER25> I remember seeing this either on Science or Discovery channel when I was younger, talking about great inventions. I remember thinking it was a good idea, but forgot about it until last week when I saw an article pop up about the patent issue but that the FTC is thinking about contemplating making it mandatory. I think it should absolutely be mandatory, but I hope that the FTC can deal with the patent issue and let companies use the technology (or similar technology) for free rather than having to deal with paying royalties (or at least not have to pay 8% of profit from the tool).

I think the argument that, "you should know that this item is unsafe" is stupid, because just because something is unsafe doesn't mean a good, quality of life saving feature should be excluded. You could make the same argument about having seatbelts or airbags in cars, because you know it's dangerous but you're taking the risk anyway. Accidents happen, taking measures to prevent them or mitigate the damages should be done, if possible.

This isn't something I use, since I don't often create things from wood, but I would pay more for a technology that saves my finger in the off chance I accidentally move my finger towards the blade or something else happens, like the table accidentally shifting because my dog ran into it.

<comment><USER26> > _I would pay more for a technology that saves my finger_

Same, and I'm horrified to consider that professional tradesmen whose livelihood _depends_ on their fine muscle control would choose not to pay more for a tool like this. Part of it is the mindset of "I'm not an idiot, I'd never accidentally position my hand anywhere near the blade"; but wood is a natural product with variations, and hitting an unexpected dense section might cause the piece to kick back. Then you might move rapidly to avoid it, and trip & fall onto the blade, or stumble & reflexively put out a hand…

<comment><USER23> You know why heavy gloves are used? Work clothing? Why there are safety rules and mandatory training? Why there are emergency stops?

See, there are other ways to provide safety in this situation. And you cannot make anything really idiot proof. World will find a better idiot.

This automated solution has a major drawback when sawing through anything too capacitive, wet wood, wood with nails etc.

The company pushing the legislation has a major agenda that is not safety - patent licensing.

<comment><USER27> _Please please please_ don't wear gloves while operating table saws or any other spinning tools.

<comment><USER23> You actually should wear form fitting tough gloves. (Unless you like splinters.) You should not wear loose gloves or clothing that could get pulled into the saw.

<comment><USER27> Not with spinning power tools. Nope nope nope nope!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I own and use a tablesaw for home maintenance, and occasionally building utilitarian furniture, loudspeaker boxes (musician here), etc. My saw is an ancient Sears Roebuck that a buddy found at a garage sale.

I'm aware of the SawStop technology, but haven't felt motivated to buy a brand new saw. The deal for me is simply that I don't have enough use for a saw, to justify buying a new one. I wouldn't recommend this approach to anybody else -- just using myself as an example of a person who has somehow rationalized keeping the old technology.

My approach is to limit what I do with the saw. My hands never go anywhere near the blade. For smaller workpieces, intricate cuts, etc., I use hand tools or just figure out a different design. I'm willing to waste wood rather than try getting one last cut out of a scrap. Also, I simply don't use it very often. Most of the time it sits with the blade retraced, covered with bicycle parts.

But in a lot of fields, it's impossible to discuss safety, or to get a straight answer about safety questions. Every technology has detractors with arguments that it is actually more dangerous. (Try reading web forum threads about bike helmets).

<comment><USER29> Tip buy a CNC router and throw the table saw out. Along with a bunch of other tools.

<comment><USER30> Interesting idea!

How much would I have to spend? What if I want to do some simple cutting? Trivial?

<comment><USER31> Figure several thousand dollars if you want something that can handle a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood. One of the commonly known brands is ShopBot:

[http://www.shopbottools.com/](http://www.shopbottools.com/)

You can DIY one cheaper, of course, but you're still looking at a few grand. If you don't mind slightly less accuracy, and want to do it as a kit (instead of completely homebrew - which can be a pain to learn about if you aren't familiar with CNC already) - this company is pretty well known:

[https://buildyourcnc.com/](https://buildyourcnc.com/)

Also something else to keep in mind: If you do metal work, you can purchase (or build) a CNC plasma cutter. You typically have to supply your own plasma cutter, or spend extra for it (what you normally pay for is the table, mechanicals, and interface electronics - computer is also extra). Many or most of these can be easily converted to adding a router for woodwork (provided it has a height control head to handle it). Just make sure you get one that can handle 4x8 sheets.

There are also CNC routers, etc that can handle much smaller sizes, if you aren't going to do anything big. Many of these are easy to DIY and there are plenty of examples, tutorials, books, PDFs, instructables, etc - on how to build one.

A small desktop CNC router can be homebrewed for less than $500.00 (plus a fair amount of time). Of course, you will need to have access to at least some basic tools to build one, and be competent at using them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> As someone who accidentally put a thumb through a table saw, this technology is awesome and I hope to see it become more mainstream.

<comment><USER33> What was the outcome? Did you require stitches or lose the thumb? Do you have lasting nerve damage or similar?

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Last time I tried one of these, I warped the drive shaft so badly the saw was entirely unusable ever again.

And that was a brand-new demo unit put on the floor specifically to show it off.

I'll take my chances and use the time-tested method of using a custom-built wooden jig to hold the piece while it goes through the blade.

</comment><comment><USER35> The meta meaning of this thread is the most interesting part. Otherwise intelligent people are running straight into the buzz saw of obvious cognitive biases. Phrases like "Table saws are mostly used by competent people and the injury rate is pretty low" commenting on an article that spells out the injury rates and costs veer into near self-parody. Obviously humans are highly capable of over-estimating their own competency, in the face of graphic and statistically compelling evidence.

</comment><comment><USER36> My question is this, what happens when cutting wet wood? Or wood that has nails in it? Did you just cost yourself $$$ by doing it?

<comment><USER37> Yes, it does not work with wet wood. You rarely want to cut wet wood though.

As for wood with nails, you NEVER cut wood with nails in a workshop. Nails + metal blades = sparks, and woodshops, even with ventilation and vacuums,have wood dust everywhere on the floor, the air, etc. It'd be the surest way to start a fire.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> The stupid thing is, this technology could be applied to more than just table saws; most woodshop machines are fairly dangerous if you don't keep your mind and eyes on things. The thing is, even experts can get lulled by "having done this 100 times before" \- and a terrible accident happens.

There are tons of power tools, shop tools, and other machinery that could be made safer. Yes, it will cost money, and consumers may not want to pay it. But I know if I ever purchase a table saw, it's going to be one of SawStop's - because my fingers are part of my livelyhood as a software engineer, and worth the money, easily.

How it works is kinda neat, but it does have some limitations:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SawStop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SawStop)

Chief among them that if you want to use a dado blade system, it won't work. But for general crosscutting and such, not a bad piece of insurance.

<comment><USER38> In general you really shouldn't be using dado blades. It's an easy and dangerous way to skip setting up a router and a temporary fence. There's a reason dado stacks aren't sold in europe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I came in hoping to stumble upon an explanation on the cast saw used in hospitals that won't cut skin at all. I believe I seen an explaination once, but it didn't sink it apparently. This must be a completely different technology.

<comment><USER40> [https://myria.com/how-does-a-cast-saw-work-without- cutting-y...](https://myria.com/how-does-a-cast-saw-work-without-cutting-you)

tl;dr it vibrates instead of rotating which doesn't break skin because skin is flexible

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> If big companies won't adopt it, startup a company and build a better saw and people will buy it. Table saws are dangerous, I remember in high school having a piece of wood splinter and fly past my head hitting the ceiling. People don't seem to have problems buying safety with cars, I see it as just an industry full of cheap ass power tools that constantly need replacing.

I'd buy such a saw just so when my dumb ass neighbor borrowed it he wouldn't cut off his fingers. I laughed at him when he asked for the chainsaw.

<comment><USER42> >People don't seem to have problems buying safety with cars

Compare the introduction of three-point seat-belts. These were legally required while they were still under patent, but unlike SawStop, Volvo shared their invention with other manufacturers for free. They didn't try to use regulatory capture to force people to pay them.

[https://www.media.volvocars.com/uk/en- gb/media/pressreleases...](https://www.media.volvocars.com/uk/en- gb/media/pressreleases/20505)

<comment><USER43> Yea, people don't have problems buying safety with cars because they are forced to. You can't buy a new car without a seatbelt or airbag (and other mandated features), even if you wanted to. If they instead were optional features that actually cost money, a sizable number of people would skip them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> have you seen his price point? Nobody wants his tech because its crazy expensive. The brake isn't reusable, so you have to have a spare lying around so your project doesn't get delayed. I don't want it because proper safety keeps your fingers attached. Its not rocket science.

<comment><USER45> "The brake isn't reusable, so you have to have a spare lying around so your project doesn't get delayed."

Is the false positive rate non-trivial? Because losing a brake and saw only when otherwise someone would lose a finger seems like a great deal, even from a detached, purely economical perspective taking into account health care and disability costs.

<comment><USER38> You really don't want to buy an expensive saw and discover that the false- positive rate is high.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Festool is going to acquire Sawstop. Looks like these are going to be some really nice saws.

[http://toolguyd.com/sawstop-to-be-acquired-by-festool- parent...](http://toolguyd.com/sawstop-to-be-acquired-by-festool-parent- company/)

</comment><comment><USER46> _" None of the funds appropriated by this Act may be used to finalize any rule by the Consumer Product Safety Commission relating to blade-contact injuries on table saws," the rider on the budget bill reads._

What the actual fuck.

<comment><USER47> Exactly my reaction. That's corruption.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> This system is expensive enough that its purchase really ought to be left up to the consumer. A rule mandating sawstops would double the price of entry level saws and put them out of reach of hobbyists.

</comment><comment><USER49> Is this fundamentally a story about bad/criminal actors, or another strange outcrop of an insurance-centric industry?

The facililty described in the article seems to be a criminal racket. But my question in these cases is usually: is this a spectrum? How many places are on the seedy-but-not-criminal portion of that spectrum?

Kickbacks and body brokering might be ilegal, but the ultimate goal of these isn't: find clients with insurance you can bill, bill clients as much as the insurer will pay. There are options that aren't criminal, but also aren't a good allocation of resources.

</comment><comment><USER50> Sad, sad, sad. Greed trumps safety. I wonder how many other safety inventions have not reached mass adoption?

<comment><USER51> Is it greed exactly? Wouldn't the saws just cost more?

I suppose the R&D on building the components into their current products is something they don't want to do, so maybe that's the greed aspect?

<comment><USER52> I think the greed mentioned here is that SawStop is lobbying to make it mandatory for saws to use their technology while trying to stop others from bringing similar systems to market, all so that they can price-gouge a captive market.

IIRC last time it was discussed here, they were trying to charge ~$100 per saw to license their tech, when the usual margin on a saw was about a quarter of that.

If they just accepted a reasonable licensing fee, their tech would be ubiquitous already and they wouldn't need to try and use regulatory capture to force people to use it.

Relevant quote from TFA:

> CPSC Acting Chairman Ann Marie Buerkle said she was also concerned that the > rule might force companies to license technology from SawStop, which she > said might create a monopoly.

<comment><USER51> Thanks for putting that into better light. So it's SawStop that is asking for too high a license, they aren't getting bites at that price point, and now trying to get legislation to force other companies to pony up.

Now I get the greed aspect, should have been more obvious. I was thinking in terms of component cost and not licensing cost, how naive of me...

Though in this case, at least they did create something novel making the patent legit.

<comment><USER17> I don't see it as being greedy. If you invent something clever, and we have a whole patent infrastructure for protecting inventors, why wouldn't you want to get paid for people using your inventions? No-one is seriously claiming that these patents are bad, or trivial, or obvious. The patents exist, they are available for companies to license, it's just that the competitors don't want to pay for it.

<comment><USER23> They are also prevented from inventing their own similar solutions due to prior art and broad patent.

The solution in SawStop qualifies as super obvious to a person not even well versed in art. As such it should not be patentable. However making a patent invalid in the US is extremely hard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> From what I saw, the entire system is more or less single use, resulting in a destruction of the sawblade and the catch. As well as severe shock to the drive. I'm not one bit surprised there is serious opposition to the idea, capitalism and all

<comment><USER54> Well, you'd only lose your blade and cartridge if you would have otherwise cut yourself...so it sounds like a good trade. Yes, it does get triggered if you have a stray nail in your wood (bad idea) or if the wood is too wet. But from the little experience I have, it'd only be triggered by wood that's wetter than you'd want to cut in the first place.

SawStop is used at our community woodshop. I've seen it go off (someone touched by blade after they turned off the table saw, but before the blade at stopped spinning), but I haven't heard of it harming the table saw in any way.

<comment><USER55> If the blade had slowed down substantially before it was set off, the potential for damage would be greatly reduced.

<comment><USER23> Oh and why not just instead use a clutch to disconnect the drive instead? There is one already I bet. Without motive force the blade stops in your hand without explosions. It has low mass so low momentum. (This won't work for massive blades but neither will exploding them. You will need an active brake.)

However the patent is on the dumb detector and is overly wide.

<comment><USER31> Have you ever used a table saw?

When shut off, the blade doesn't have "low momentum"; if it were clutched, it would still be spinning fast enough to seriously mangle or sever fingers. An active brake won't be fast enough.

Remember, each tooth is flying at an insane amount of speed; you need to be able to stop the saw dead in a fraction of the length of the tooth (within the length of about 3/4" \- about the thickness of an adult hand/finger). You don't - you can't - do that with a friction brake, or even some hypothetical friction plus e-braking (regenerative braking).

That spinning mass of steel has a ton of momentum, even disconnected from the motor. The only way to reliably stop is is to quickly jam something non- yielding into the teeth of the saw.

If you can figure out another way, kudos to you! But I would suggest you first learn about what and how a table saw works first, just to know what kind of forces you are dealing with. They are anything but small.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> I do wonder if this is an issue of misaligned incentives. If a person has workers' comp insurance through their company, why not give a reduced price to the company if they deploy this tool? The owner can show they reduce the risk of high payouts. The insurance company should, rationally, drop the bill by 50-100 a year. Even 30-50 could make the price difference of the saw worth it then.

<comment><USER54> My local community workshop has it. You're also responsible for paying for a new blade and cartridge if you trigger it. If you're a community workshop it seems like a no brainer because of liability.

But on the flip side, some construction workers pin back the blade guard on circular saws because it can get in the way.</comment></comment>


Show HN:Emphatic.co – social media done for you, on-demand - <AUTHOR> http://www.emphatic.co/?h

<comment><USER2> I like your service. However, I am not sure if 100 updates are too many for a small business. You could instead promise "invested time" into each update. That might not be as measurable as a definitive number of posts but as a small business I would rather get 50 good, thought-through posts than 100 superficial non-sense updates.

<comment><USER3> This is good feedback to consider, thanks for that, appreciate it.

When we say 100 updates, it's 100 good ones :-). The thinking behind starting at 100 is so that the customer gets a couple updates a day in order to keep their audience engaged.

That said we are definitely looking into being more flexible with the plans. We have had some requests for a larger package than the Gold, > 225 updates/mo, and are willing to do this. Also thinking about top up credits, if you have an acute need like an event or product launch.</comment></comment>


Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey donated $100,000 to Trump's inauguration - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/19/oculus-co-founder-palmer-luckey-donated-100000-to-trumps-inauguration/ <comment><USER2> We get it. Palmer Luckey likes Trump. It's time to end the crusade against him.

Living in a hyperbole saturated liberal echo chamber you'd think that no decent, moral human beings could be capable of supporting Trump. But many do.

The conservatives spouted similar nonsense in their own hyperbolic echo chambers when Obama was president.

</comment><comment><USER3> Then let's be coherent and respect what that man does on his private life with his private money.

Like Trump or not, Occulus is a real company with real people working there making money from selling a legitimate product. So don't associate the two things.

(God, why do I have to write this?)</comment>