Project Farm, a YouTube creator that faces various brands of tools off against each other, has purchased an early (but apparently production) release of one of these. In a recent comment on one of his videos he’s stated he aims to have a video of ratcheting screwdrivers including this one out in a few days.
I’m optimistic given the attention to detail portrayed in this video, and the fact that Linus displays a passion for quality workmanship in his reviews of other products.
Even without many third party reviews, they've sold through 60,000 drivers (and counting) in less than two days. Seems like plenty of people are already taking them for their word, or just want to show support for the channel.
Never really got the whole controversy around that, and looks like Linus didn't really either. I would potentially chalk it up to cultural differences. At least where I live (and maybe in Canada?) we have quite strong consumer protection laws to the point that pretty much all warranties are less strong than the law is, so I don't really pay attention to them at all.
I came in at the tail-end of the controversy and didn't get it either, but then I watched the initial comment Linus made on the stream that started it and it was really weird. Basically his argument for not having a warranty was "if I die and my wife has to take over the business but doesn't want to, I don't want there to be any liabilities that she needs to be on the hook for".
You're a big business employing dozens of people and selling millions of dollars worth of goods now, you can't have the attitude "if I don't want to do this anymore I want an out where I can just say sayonara thanks for the fish"
eh. the warranty that they have now issued is less than what the level they want. so people still want to trust them to "underpromise and over deliver" as they say. I'm not convinced it really hurt them.
They have been talking about the screwdriver for a long time. I'm tempted to buy one because I have been following the development but I'll wait for Project Farm to render a verdict on it before I buy it.
There are "continous" ratchet screwdrivers out there. I just purchased one out of curiosity, just to see how they work. Reviews are very positive, and the same tool seems to be sold unter multiple brand names like "Inbus Flow", "Stier ratchet driver". Cannot find an English webpage, though:
I received the Inbus Flow today. The continous/smooth/stepless (or however you want to call it) ratchet meachnism is very interesting. You can hear almost nothing and resitance in the open direction is very low. I am not sure if I prefer this or the conventional meachnism which gives feedback through "clicks". The handle is the same width as Linus' tool, which is a bit too large for my taste. Unlike Linus' screwdriver it can hold 12 full sized bits, but the shaft looks a bit cheaper. Looks like a comparable tool for half the price.
I do love his videos though I find them a little rapid fire and after awhile I loose track of what is what. His testing methodlogy is pretty thorough and practical but wish he could change the presentation format a little. That said it is such a firehose of details that I don't have any suggestions on how he would do that. I just find it overwhelming to keep track of each product through the test cycles. Maybe it just needs a better summary at the end.
Yes, if he showed summary spreadsheets at the end I wouldn't have to watch the video with a pen and notepad and my finger hovering over the pause button. I wish they would update his wiki again.
unrelated: the depth of the YouTube channel library is simply staggering. it amazes me to uncover channels that i absolutely would have subscribed to on day-0 if i had known them.
at the same time, youtube is really bad at exposing you to new channels that you would enjoy. they bombard you with similar videos ("here's 15 more toilet seat review videos for you!") but they're not able to extrapolate channel tastes for some reason. it's left largely up to the user to dig around for collaterally-themed channels.
>at the same time, youtube is really bad at exposing you to new channels that you would enjoy. they bombard you with similar videos ("here's 15 more toilet seat review videos for you!") but they're not able to extrapolate channel tastes for some reason. it's left largely up to the user to dig around for collaterally-themed channels.
This is exactly why I am working on a team to create alternative YouTube recommendations. Our algorithm is designed to surface smaller more obscure but relevant channels.
Search a channel to get a list of channels making similar content. Our recommendations for Project Farm include other tool review channels like A Concord Carpenter / Toolboxbuzz and Thrifty Tool Shed. Click through to A Concord Carpenter's list of similar channels also reveals Tools & Stuff. Thrifty Tool Shed is a great example of a very small yet relevant channel that the algorithm surfaces (~15k subscribers).
Of course there are dozens more channels on PF's list that are about more general carpentry, metalsmithing, and home-engineering projects. And you can use the search bar at the top of the page to search any other channels you watch to get their similar channels lists.
this is great! how are channel similarities discovered?
feedback:
* the galaxy map is next to useless. this is the data model, which is neat, but does nothing for usability
* searching can be improved. i search for AvE but got all results with ".ave." so that could be improved
* allow me to search by youtube channel URL directly, or video URL (where the service dereferences for the channel)
I’m optimistic given the attention to detail portrayed in this video, and the fact that Linus displays a passion for quality workmanship in his reviews of other products.