knife tests .com?

[Cobalt]

Like I said. Show me something with teeth and then I'll take it seriously. Entertainment is one thing.Reality TV is not reality- it's just entertainment.

I got more teeth than you can imagine In fact, my wisdom teeth fit in perfectly

Your pompous responses have become typical through out many different threads. You seem to feel that you are the only one that has anything of value to add.

so what you are saying is that everything I wrote in response to your postings is irrelevant and totally beneath you? Your mostly irrelevant discourse that completely confuses any situation is noted. Sham describes it perfectly.

I would submit to anyone to read your long posts and describe exactly what it is you are saying and how it relates to anything.

For someone who indicates that just inspecting a knife is enough, calling me toothless is pretty laughable.

keep on rollin and wowing those that are impressed by your ludicrous writings.

 

[Spark]

Moodino, FYI the navigation on your lighttesting site is busted. I couldn't get to any of your pages using the top navigation.

 

[Moodino]

Thanks for stating the obvious. It's not busted at all.To reiterate a stock answer- the public facing imagometrics.com UI that's up on the Internet is a shell, a mirror of an Intranet/Extranet that is only visible to our clients and partners. We don't share with the public unfortunately. Thanks for pointing it out though- sometimes I do forget
As for allegations of my posts being pompous, I fully respect that notion. We get that reaction constantly when we reflect on the unscientific or flawed test methods. I'm sorry if I made anyone feel bad. That's certainly not my intention. At the same time, making people, especially customers, feel good about sound evaluation methods is our objective. I'm always willing to spend some time helping others better their methods and to help them make money. This next line sounds pompous... we helped the flashlight community- manufacturers, designers, modifiers, marketers and customers and core technologists through the example that we set. At first their reaction was identical to the one being voiced about my posts. In fact, I was booted off one forum. Two years later, all my prognostications and predictions indeed came to pass. I'll be the first to admit, my approach is abrasive- that's more to do with my writing style than anything else. Meet me at a Starbucks and you'd never guess the guy your talking to is Moodino on BF. I can't help that really. I've made my point and am glad to back off and get on with my backlog. Again- sorry for any hard feelings.

Moodino, FYI the navigation on your lighttesting site is busted. I couldn't get to any of your pages using the top navigation.

 

[noss4]

Moodino: My site is open to the public anytime to anyone. People can view my tests for free 24/7

I let the viewer make up their own minds. If it is for information or entertainment
It is solely up to individual.

I hope people have fun viewing my tests because their fun to do.

You need to loosen up and have some fun.

Also my email address is on my site on every page.

 

[Cobalt]

As for allegations of my posts being pompous, I fully respect that notion. We get that reaction constantly when we reflect on the unscientific or flawed test methods. I'm sorry if I made anyone feel bad. That's certainly not my intention. At the same time, making people, especially customers, feel good about sound evaluation methods is our objective. I'm always willing to spend some time helping others better their methods and to help them make money. This next line sounds pompous... we helped the flashlight community- manufacturers, designers, modifiers, marketers and customers and core technologists through the example that we set. At first their reaction was identical to the one being voiced about my posts. In fact, I was booted off one forum. Two years later, all my prognostications and predictions indeed came to pass. I'll be the first to admit, my approach is abrasive- that's more to do with my writing style than anything else. Meet me at a Starbucks and you'd never guess the guy your talking to is Moodino on BF. I can't help that really. I've made my point and am glad to back off and get on with my backlog. Again- sorry for any hard feelings.

I can respect that. :thumbup:

 

[Spark]

Thanks for stating the obvious. It's not busted at all.To reiterate a stock answer- the public facing imagometrics.com UI that's up on the Internet is a shell, a mirror of an Intranet/Extranet that is only visible to our clients and partners. We don't share with the public unfortunately. Thanks for pointing it out though- sometimes I do forget

Meh, whatever. I was just checking out the site and wanted to see the standards and methodology used since you'd talked about it. If you don't want people to check that out, ok I guess I just don't get the point of having a website where none of the links work, unless you only want it accessed on an intranet / extranet. I mean, not even the site map works, the only link that's viable is the home page and the "contact us" - are you all relying on word of mouth or something else?

 

[Moodino]

All valid observations. How can I disagree?. after all, we design websites for fortune 500 clients. You got it right. We don't want to share our methods. After all, we sell the suite of tools for $15K per seat. A company will buy the suite to use in thier manufacturing or development process.They have to sign an agreement not to share the contents with anyone outside thier corporate domain. In the begining I shared a little, very little and next thing you know, many of my 'esteemed' competitors had pirated this or that from it. So I pulled it all off the site! Happily so. There's an old saying "Why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free".
So we stopped feeding IBM, PWC, HP, Accenture etc freebies. Now they pay. I don't need any advertising or e-brochure. The high level architecture tells our prospective customers what to expect. Once they bite, we roll out the whole deal for them.

We only respond to bone afide RFP's anyway- no street business really in our field.
In terms of helping our protogés... I often steer folks over to resources on the Internet and sometimes I'll post quick tutorials in forums like this.
I have noss4's e-mail ... I'll do my thing tomorrow.
Cheers and thanks for this gr8 website.:thumbup:

Meh, whatever. I was just checking out the site and wanted to see the standards and methodology used since you'd talked about it. If you don't want people to check that out, ok I guess I just don't get the point of having a website where none of the links work, unless you only want it accessed on an intranet / extranet. I mean, not even the site map works, the only link that's viable is the home page and the "contact us" - are you all relying on word of mouth or something else?

 

[BRASMAN]

noss4,

I love your tests and thanks for posting them on the net. It is great to see a source of unbiased testing like you do it. I could care less what it does in some lab I want to see it cut and hack things and see how it does. Your air canon with the bushman was great.

 

[Spark]

All valid observations. How can I disagree?. after all, we design websites for fortune 500 clients. You got it right. We don't want to share our methods. After all, we sell the suite of tools for $15K per seat. A company will buy the suite to use in thier manufacturing or development process.They have to sign an agreement not to share the contents with anyone outside thier corporate domain. In the begining I shared a little, very little and next thing you know, many of my 'esteemed' competitors had pirated this or that from it. So I pulled it all off the site! Happily so. There's an old saying "Why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free".
So we stopped feeding IBM, PWC, HP, Accenture etc freebies. Now they pay. I don't need any advertising or e-brochure. The high level architecture tells our prospective customers what to expect. Once they bite, we roll out the whole deal for them.

We only respond to bone afide RFP's anyway- no street business really in our field.

Ok, I can understand not handing out freebies definately. I guess I'm just not being clear - if I was a prospective client, and I went to a site like imagometrics.com and wanted to find out more information about the company, and found every link in the high speed CSS drop downs didn't work, I'd go elsewhere. Then again, maybe you guys are legends in your field and have a captive market. I'm not writing this to throw you under the bus, I just can't see a reason to make everything "forbidden" when you are attempting to sell your services. Maybe you guys have a seperate, publically accessable website detailing your company elsewhere and I'm completely misreading this.

I'm not saying reveal details and proprietary methods, far from it; man's gotta eat right? I just don't get the logic behind hiding the options in the "solutions" "options" and "services" fields from prospective clients. I thought Imagometrics was a testing service company, not a "check out my webskills!" site.

 

[Moodino]

You're right ! We do not need to advertise. As I already stated, we respond to RFP's and solicit business directly ourselves. We do not depend on on the public site for inquiries. Everything that you see in the high level architecture (the shell with forbidden links) exists in ultra secure Intranets. You will notice that our e-mail addresses and telephone numbers are there in the 'Contacts' page off the home page. That's all we need. We don't accept inquiries from the general public because they are not our clientele anyway. Most private individuals can't afford our fees. Our main clients are Federal Government, International Governments, Multi-national corporations, Big manufacturers and Prime Contractors. They know what we're about and that the services we offer are unique.As to my personal involvement in the gadget and knife forums, that's research for our participation in a study of online communities. That and part of some work we're doing on a new standard called ISO 20282 . Here's the link...
http://www.iso.ch/iso/en/CatalogueDetailPage.CatalogueDetail?CSNUMBER=34122&scopelist=PROGRAMME
Here's an excellent case of the kind of work we do on contract.Not knife related, but you'll get the point. Aaron Marcus is one of my mentors and is an esteemed colleague- not a 'joiner' but the genguine article- as it were...
http://www.amanda.com/resources/Intrxns.SJPD.Art.pp12ff.120906.pdf

If you want to see links to some of our so-called competitors here they are. See if you can get some methodology info from them. Many use variations on the same theme:

Http://www.accenture.com
Http://www.IBM.com , http://www-03.ibm.com/easy/page/558
http://www.cooper.com
http://www.AMandA.com
http://www.forrester.com/Products/Consulting/CXP
http://www.humanfactors.com
Here's a whole directory of 'Joiners' ... http://www.usabilityprofessionals.org/people_pages/consultants_directory/index.html
What we have is quite unique from what all our fine colleagues offer.
If we were to show them how, the number of 'new joiners' and therefore competitors to us would grow and yes, we'd lose a lot of business.
Plagiarism is epedemic on the Internet. One way to protect oneself from it is to not share, or share in controlled doses. An Intranet/Extranet is restricted sharing.
By the way, many of the forums I've studied have 'Undergrounds' that are essentially restricted Intranets, disguised as restricted access pages. It's fairly easy to hack into them so we prefer the securest restriction of all- Completely restriced Intranet- on offshore servers.
I hope that helps. Like I said , I'm happy to help develop a scientific product evaluation process for the community to try if you want it. I can contribute about 10 hrs gratis to put it on paper.

Ok, I can understand not handing out freebies definately. I guess I'm just not being clear - if I was a prospective client, and I went to a site like imagometrics.com and wanted to find out more information about the company, and found every link in the high speed CSS drop downs didn't work, I'd go elsewhere. Then again, maybe you guys are legends in your field and have a captive market. I'm not writing this to throw you under the bus, I just can't see a reason to make everything "forbidden" when you are attempting to sell your services. Maybe you guys have a seperate, publically accessable website detailing your company elsewhere and I'm completely misreading this.

I'm not saying reveal details and proprietary methods, far from it; man's gotta eat right? I just don't get the logic behind hiding the options in the "solutions" "options" and "services" fields from prospective clients. I thought Imagometrics was a testing service company, not a "check out my webskills!" site.

 

[Spark]

You're right ! We do not need to advertise. [etc]

Well that explains it then. I don't know anything about your industry, hence my confusion with it and asking questions. If you guys are that much of a legend in your field, yes, you don't have to solicit new business. I was just looking at your mentor's site, though, and I notice that he's got much the same offerings you do, but hasn't restricted the areas that clients would look at. I guess he's hurting for business?

EDIT: That police in-car system is badass.

Like I said , I'm happy to help develop a scientific product evaluation process for the community to try if you want it. I can contribute about 10 hrs gratis to put it on paper.

I'm not going to twist your arm asking, but if you can come up with standardized procedures, go to town. I think anyone would agree a standardized testing procedure with scientific controls by unbiased testors would benefit the industry as a whole. The problem with this, of course, is finding someone unbiased to do it and using repeatable testing methods with standardized materials. Paper / cardboard cutting has a lot of variables to it, as does lock strength testing, prying, corrosion, etc. If you want to put it on paper, I'll be happy to sticky it.

 

[Moodino]

RE:"... I think anyone would agree a standardized testing procedure with scientific controls by unbiased testors would benefit the industry as a whole. The problem with this, of course, is finding someone unbiased to do it and using repeatable testing methods with standardized materials. Paper / cardboard cutting has a lot of variables to it, as does lock strength testing, prying, corrosion, etc. If you want to put it on paper, I'll be happy to sticky it."
Good grief! That's what I've been saying all along LOL!
I'll see what we can work up for you.

 

[Cobalt]

RE:"... I think anyone would agree a standardized testing procedure with scientific controls by unbiased testors would benefit the industry as a whole. The problem with this, of course, is finding someone unbiased to do it and using repeatable testing methods with standardized materials. Paper / cardboard cutting has a lot of variables to it, as does lock strength testing, prying, corrosion, etc. If you want to put it on paper, I'll be happy to sticky it."
Good grief! That's what I've been saying all along LOL!
I'll see what we can work up for you.

Moodino, the problem is that the way you type, it is hard to figure out what your trying to say. Your paragraphs are confusing and you throw comments, from what must be your industry, that mean nothing in the kife world or even the steel world. I know a little bit about testing procedures on hi-tech materials and nothhing you stated made any sense. What Spark just stated is what I was telling you and you were casually blowing off.

I read your sites first page as well and still have no clue what it is that you do.

 

[Moodino]

I give up! I'm gonna play weenie and just give up.
Enjoy the movies:jerkit: .

Moodino, the problem is that the way you type, it is hard to figure out what your trying to say. Your paragraphs are confusing and you throw comments, from what must be your industry, that mean nothing in the kife world or even the steel world. I know a little bit about testing procedures on hi-tech materials and nothhing you stated made any sense. What Spark just stated is what I was telling you and you were casually blowing off.

I read your sites first page as well and still have no clue what it is that you do.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

I read your sites first page as well and still have no clue what it is that you do.

Develop and implement testing procedures, to the extent they can be standardized, thus very high level protocols. Note many of these are currently exisiting for knives, CATRA has a number for various aspects (lots more besides the edge holding everyone is aware of), as does Furi-Tech (handle, edge holding, etc.).

There are also industry standards for the various materials tests (Q-Fog, abrasion, charpy, etc.) . Most of the physical properties are known just from the geometry as it specifies such things as wedging and the static/rotatonal mass.

The reason there is so much confusion in the knife industry is simply because of the fog and lack of information my makers/manufacturers. The steel type and heat treating is usually unknown (one or both), and the geometry is usually not well specified. What is the edge thickness/angle. Where are the static/dymanic balance points? What is the mass?

If you had these answers you would not see questions like "Which is a better knife the RD9 or Camillus Combat Bowie." because the statistics show these to be completely different knives.

-Cliff

 

[Cobalt]

I give up! I'm gonna play weenie and just give up.
Enjoy the movies:jerkit: .

you know first you write in code, then when people confront you you bow out and make some assenine remark, then you come back and apologize for being abrassive, then when people explain to you that they have a hard time with your site, you just act like an ass again. I am pretty sure by now that it is not just your writing that is the problem, it is your demeanor. :jerkit: :jerkit: for you and a big:thumbdn:

 

[Moodino]

You speak my language! This is the only blade review site that I can relate to from a science and metrics POV. Thanks!:thumbup:
http://www.cutleryscience.com/reviews/reviews.html

Develop and implement testing procedures, to the extent they can be standardized, thus very high level protocols. Note many of these are currently exisiting for knives, CATRA has a number for various aspects (lots more besides the edge holding everyone is aware of), as does Furi-Tech (handle, edge holding, etc.).

There are also industry standards for the various materials tests (Q-Fog, abrasion, charpy, etc.) . Most of the physical properties are known just from the geometry as it specifies such things as wedging and the static/rotatonal mass.

The reason there is so much confusion in the knife industry is simply because of the fog and lack of information my makers/manufacturers. The steel type and heat treating is usually unknown (one or both), and the geometry is usually not well specified. What is the edge thickness/angle. Where are the static/dymanic balance points? What is the mass?

If you had these answers you would not see questions like "Which is a better knife the RD9 or Camillus Combat Bowie." because the statistics show these to be completely different knives.

-Cliff

 

[Cliff Stamp]

... a science and metrics POV.

The big problem when it comes to talking about knives is remembering the audience. If you get too technical you will lose everyone and it becomes meaningless. For example, awhile back I took some CATRA data and applied a few simple models to show how blunting was nonlinear and could be explained in terms of a few simple variables and their likely physical attributes and how based on this you should compare edge retention in a meaningful way.

I then showed the exact same model is a general one which holds even on hand recorded data (which just has a higher random and possibly systematic bias) and even for such things as dental scrapers because it is a wear based system primarily in the long term. Now there was little responce to this here and I have recieved about 5 emails discussing it in a semi-serious manner. In comparison when I talk about using knives to chop woods and such the interest is very high and the feedback large.

Communication of information is dependent not simply on the quality or level of content but also on the manner. What I have been trying to do for a number of years is to encourage people to measure the dimensions and such of knives as accuratesly as possible, speak out about knives that don't perform well and to try to have some way of quantifing the performance. Either using another knife for a reference or use similar material each time, always chop a 2x4 or cut 3/8" hemp rope.

Yes of course these are not ideal and could be improved but you don't start off learning how to swim by diving with humboldts either. You also have to remember that these people are not getting any money, it is just a hobby and they of course want it to be fun. So demanding that they use force/torque probes is kind of absurd. As for industry, I have been requesting full measurement details (edge geometry, balance points) for years with no effect, let alone actual measurement performance standards.

There is still a large amount of manufacturers doing absolute nonsense such as promoting a knife as being high performance because it can bend like putty without even noting the actual force it takes to move it beyond elastic. While Noss is at times not very quantitative and it can be very difficult, or maybe even impossible, to say in some cases which knife actually performed better than another one, there is some information being obtained and that is a good thing. Hopefully he stays at it for awhile and gradually moves towards being a little more standard.

-Cliff

 

[Moodino]

Cliff
RE:"Communication of information is dependent not simply on the quality or level of content but also on the manner."

You are right! I broke one of the key heuristics of good communication- speak the user's language- then again, I assumed that since the thread was about testing that I WAS already speaking the lingo. I was wrong! I should really spend more time on a forum before posting. Anyway, I think the main lessons learned are:
1) Understanding what the 'audience' wants to see is more important that knowing what you want to show them or showing them what you think they need to know.
2) Metrics and science only matter to performance engineers. Knife enthusiast end users are more impressed with 'Golly Gee Willikers' circus side show entertainment, and one shouldn't belittle this predeliction or attempt to denbunk it's value.
3) The concept of testing a knife in a manner that's aligned with it's intended purpose in empirical trials is pointless in educating or informing a community that doesn't actually use knives but merely wants to know what thier endurance to unrealistic torture might be. Simply put, I was reflecting improperly on perfectly valid experiments for the particular community of interest! As I have in other domains, I stuck my professional finger into the wrong pie!

 

[hardheart]

Between this and the Strider threads, I don't see why you aren't banned yet.