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This is IT?
Dave (picked at random) and 8000 other slashdot readers wrote in to tell us that they too had been overcome by the relentless hype machine that is IT, Ginger, Segway, whatever. Read about IT in your favorite hype-dispensing media outlet, each of which thinks that it has an exclusive on the story of IT. Flash diagram of IT. Time. NY Times. Reuters. And don't forget to watch the advertisement, errr, "demonstration" of IT on Good Morning Consumers tomorrow. Update: 12/03 13:37 GMT by T : Segway's webmaster John Grohol points out the segway website as well.
Wasn't there a thing named IT in an episode of South Park? Mr. Garrison was pissed at airline companies and invented his own form of transportation involing a gyroscope and an anal probe.
*shrug*
If anything has been slapped together out of old technology, it's Microsoft Office, but hey, that's just fact, you don't have to believe it.
Hey Visio is a good product, let's buy it, slap a MS logo on it, and sell it for double the price.
I have Visio 4.0 kicking around the office which is the last version before the Redmond Giant bought out the company, and it has most of the functionality of the MS Version (with all the office menus stripped out) and doesn't crash nearly as often!
Go to www.segway.com and you'll get the standard IE "This page cannot be displayed" form with all sorts of helpful advice on why it can't.
Which is all well and good, except I am using Omniweb. Damn that freaked me out.
Let the conspiracy theories begin!
Laugh while you can, monkey boy!
Not meant as a flame, but why would it be Asian American if the person was in China? A man in China has nothing to do with America.
JOhn
Campaign for Liberty
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Although, as a motorcycle rider, myself, what you don't get from those stats are the fact that there are significant, controllable risk factors in that "18 times" number. Large percentages of motorcycle fatalaties (over 50% in recent years) involve alchohol use. Other "high risk," rider-controllable items include excessive speed and actually having a valid license. I'm also of the opinion (based on some statistical and some anectdotal evidence) that the quality and quantity of your safety gear matters a ton. While there are studies showing that, for example, wearing a DOT-approved helmet is better than not, I haven't seen a study that takes that further and looks at full-face vs. three quarters, wearing leathers, eye protection, gloves, boots, etc...
;).
It seems very clear to me that at least 50% of the motorcycle fatalaties and perhaps as many as 75% - 80% could be completely eliminated by intelligent analysis of the risks and making rational choices about how and when to ride. I do not get on my bike without leather jackets, boots and gloves; a full-face Snell-approved helmet and (at the very least) kevlar reinforced jeans. I've ridden across the Arizona desert in August like that, during the day (although I can't say it was pleasant - or, frankly, a rational choice about when to ride
So, anyway, yes, motorcycles are statistically much more dangerous than cars. But much of that risk is entirely within your control. It's much like the situation we have now - the highest risk cause of death for American women of all ages is cancer of one form or another. Many women hear that and think "breast cancer!" But, in fact, the issue is lung cancer, since something like half of American women alive now smoked at some time in their lives. If you control for smoking (a "lifestyle choice") your main risk is heart disease, not cancer.
Motorcycles are definitely more dangerous than cars (especially when you apply my same "lifestyle" choices to your car driving - eschew driving drunk, for example). But it's my belief that, given the smaller margin for error, the same poor decision in a car (driving while drunk, for example) is much more likely to result in your death than the same poor decision on a motorcycle.
not a tree-hugger by any means, but at the same time the first three on the list, which are actually real world solutions, draw the ire of every "green" on the planet as instruments of rape of mother earth.
I am a treehugger, of the highest order. This is pretty OT, but I want to explain something to you. Most "Greens" would probably be reasonable enough to see the problem on a whole. The earth is capable of sustaining only so much pollution. What that level is is debatable... lets just assume, on a long term, we are at/near/close/exceeding that limit. We cannot pollute at this level indefinitely. We will choke and kill everything (including ourselves) off the planet. This is a reasonable assumption.
Now, seeing as this is the case, we have two choices: A) Continue to our deaths. B) Curb pollution (consumption).
I would be happy to leave ALL coal power plants AS THEY ARE on the ENTIRE PLANET if we can make up for a equal reduction somewhere else... let me suggest children's happy meal toys. If we made the choice to NOT manufacture/burn/landfill 12312 million small-plastic-brick-a-brack trash every year could we reduce pollution significantly enough to accept the coal plants? maybe, maybe not... if not, lets stop producing.... single-voltage wall-wart transformers.. make them all multi-voltage, and stop supplying them with every electronic device.... or paper-boxes on toothpaste tubes.... or hard-plastic packaging on paper-clips... will these decisions be sufficient? I doubt it, but the point is, it would be EXTREMELY easy to make a group of small choices that would make our *problem* disappear... look around you - how much of that WASTE could you easily do without knowing we weren't headed to a toxic future? I bet there are an awful lot of simple small choices you'd (and I) would be happy to make... the alternative is not an option... we have to eventually make a choice here.
The point? We must choose where we are going to pollute. The "market" is a vehicle for death - plain and simple, citizens with conscience (greens like myself) can not be burdened to live in mud huts because their neighbours are not willing to stop consuming 'Limited Edition Hand Made Soap-Opera Actor Themed Plastic Dolls.' That kind of mindless waste costs us all.
I say keep the coal plants, but use the energy they create WISELY!
Sorry for the OT, but alot of "not a tree-hugger" types miss this minor point and try and brand Greens as being unrealistic and unreasonable.
BTW, Id prefer Nuclear to coal.. its a risk vs. gain thing... CANDU!
Somehow, I like Mr. Garison's better
The Digital Sorceress
I hope the testers have good health benefits. Ouch!