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My Segway HT "Month-iversary"
Phillip M. Torrone writes "I didn't realize it, but I've been using a Segway HT for one month as of 01/04/03. To put it simply--it's been great and the HT has exceeded all expectations, I'm cautiously optimistic that this was a great purchase and look forward to the next 30 days. You can read, see and hear about my experiences here: http://www.bookofseg.com." I have yet to see one of these in real life, but they do look fun.
I think all the people who are saying "electric scooter, big whoop. $3,000, yeah right" are slightly missing the point. Yeah, it's kind of wimpy for the price tag. Yeah, it's kind of expensive, and it's questionable who would want to use it.
But this is just the first model. It's more sort of a proof of concept--a demonstration that the scooter can work, and looks as neat as all get-out in motion. As time goes on, the performance will improve and the price will fall.
Look at the Palm (Pilot). The first model was, what, 128K? With no backlight, no infra-red, or anything? And how high was the price tag? And now the Visor Deluxe, which was at one time the wet dream of anybody who even looked at a Palm, is only $130 brand new.
Look at the DVD player. The original models were expensive enough, the first bunch of discs were glitchy enough, that a lot of people scoffed and made snide remarks. But the DVD went on to become the fastest-adopted new consumer technology ever.
So here we have a relatively slow, electric-powered self-stabilizing scooter, for $3,000. Are very many of us going to buy it? Do very many of us have the money to sink into that sort of gee-gaw? No and no. I know I'm not going to be spending three grand on something like that myself, either. Nor would I be likely to spend two grand, or even one grand.
But by the time it gets to about $500, sign me up.
What in the world is this story doing in the science section?
That thing only has a range of 15 miles. That's really not very far if you're not in college or living in Manhatten. It's 7 miles round trip for me to get to a grocery store. Beyond the grocery store (and a gas station), it's well more than 15 miles to get to anything else.
Before you ask: no, I don't live in the boondocks. I live in a metropolitan area (Tampa, FL, US).
Offtopic alert -- but I had to reply:
Funny you should mention this. I gave up using my Palm about 2 years ago. It's strictly a toy.
Ever buy a fold-up keyboard for a Palm? And use something like WordSmith? Ever just slip the keyboard and the Palm into your pocket, go someplace and just WRITE? Having the keyboard with me everywhere is what made it a killer "app" for me. Meetings, coffeeshops... no more yellow pads. No more searching for information. I've always got it with me. And before I saw the keyboard, I couldn't even imagine it.
The most exciting part, for me, about something new is waiting to see how people innovate. I'd keep watching the Segway...
I would have to say that explosives are the most abused technology in all of history.
"the segway ht i series weighs well over 70lbs, without the activation key you'd literally need to drag it around. the weight of the unit, a couple great locks as well as using common sense should keep your ht safe and secure."
What the heck is this guy thinking? 70 lbs is NOTHING. Most men ought to be able to pick up 70 lbs and toss it on the back of a pickup. I know I could, and I only weigh 230. I hear about motorcycles being stolen all the time on the news by 3 guys picking it up and putting it in a truck, even heavy harleys.
The guy's a fool if he thinks the weight of the unit will deter anyone from stealing it.
p.s. My 21" monitor weighs 80 lbs, and who do you think carried it in?
well, for one thing the segway was more marketed towards people like mailmen and such - and it's an improvement over thier current needs.
Then there are places that propelled transportation is very desirable (such as where I live, an extremely hilly area - east tennessee) where many hills are kinda long and steep for a bike ride (as a teenager I had a spedometer on my bike, by about halfway down the hill I lived on I got up to 45 MPH coasting - no input from me - and I finally lost nerve and braked - I was still accelerating). I've seen pictures from california where things are pretty dense and steep - so they would be usefull.
The important part of your post is "what will it do for me that my bike won't?" - probably nothing, but that doesn't mean it won't for someone else - not every single person on the planet lives in the same environment that you do.
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
simple, it IS a plant by segway's marketing department. I know people make fan sites ... but some of that stuff goes beyond simple fan-boy articles. He's even got links to buy it at amazon. Its a barely covered astroturf campaign. To top it off he even throws in a great description of Kamen. If I read any more of this site I'm gonna puke.
"over thanksgiving weekend, we went to dean kamen's house for a amazing tour, a great dinner and a glimpse into one of the greatest minds of our time...i'll have a full write up later..."
He's more bought than a hooker's enthusiam. NT though
hey all you fat rich americans
;-P
try WALKING
i mean really, this segway thing is so ridiculous, i am absolutely ashamed looking at it. can you imagine what other people think of you riding around on this thing? it's like training wheels for our electric scooters when we're old, fat, with diabetes. i have nothing but derision for anyone who buys one.
negativity disclaimer: i am an american, i get paid an above average salary, and i am trying to lose weight.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Sure, you can look at the Segway as another excuse not to walk or ride. But the truth of the matter is, for distances greater than 3 city blocks, most people will hop in their cars and drive. This leads to community designs without sidewalks, an absence of shops that can survive outside of a mall, shopping, strip, or otherwise, and other omissions (shade trees, pedestrian crossings, etc.) that tend to reinforce the impulse to drive.
In this light, the Segway is an ideal tool for getting people who otherwise would have driven the mile or so distance to the grocery store, video rental place, or local strip mall, and putting them on the local streets. Consider this a way of boosting pedestrian traffic by extending the 3-block distance people would choose to walk, and thus displace auto travel. This is what Jobs and other people who saw the Segway meant when they said that cities would be redesigned around them.
Sure, I'll walk, or ride my bike, or ride the bus. But then again, I don't own a car. If a Segway can displace cars for short-distance travel, then all the more power to them, fat lazy Americans be damned!
BTW, 15 miles on a single charge is far more than many people tend to commute, even in their cars, in highly urbanized areas. Hell, I used to bike the 15 miles from West LA to Burbank and back (up the Cahuenga pass and back every day) - that trip took me 1.5 hours (each way). If you're willing to bike that much, more power to you, but complaining 15 miles isn't enough range for a Segway is missing the point - 15 miles is overkill for the purpose the Segway is meant to serve - bridging the gap between the 3 blocks most people are willing to walk, and when they whip out their car keys and start contributing to traffic, pollution, and parking problems.
Also, if you think about it, you get a lot more exercise standing on a Segway than you do sitting in your car...
Motor Scooter - Cheaper, goofy, kids ride them.
Segway - Expensive, zero radius turns, better form factor, new innovative control approach, cool, too expensive for kids.
Okay, the motor scooter is cheaper so it is better.
I see a number of people talking about the $3,000 price tag of this thing (which, in my opinion, is about $2,500 too much ;-)
Yet Amazon, who claims to be "the only place to buy the Segway HT," is selling them for $4,950.
What am I missing?
When you talk of fat, lazy americans, please disregard from using the phrase, "us".
Some of us aren't fat, lazy, pigs.
I know this will be modded to troll immediately, since I'm questioning something everyone considers wonderful. That said:
1) I can see this device being a real help to the elderly or people with various handicaps, but:
2) I notice the submitter pointed out he jogs every day, but I hear more and more reports about how over 50% of the population is overweight. I can only wonder how this will effect that particular issue. I would guess that it won't be long before they have to make sure the HT is even sturdier because so many people using them are over 250 lbs (or over 325 w/ cargo).
3) I can't help but to remember what Ray Bradbury discussed in Fahreinheit 451. The fire chief is explaining how books became eliminated and people stopped thinking (or was it Faber talking about how people stopped thinking). He pointed out buttons were replaced with a zipper, and that was just that many fewer minutes to think in the morning when getting dressed.
I've spent the last 2 years chained to a computer. (I'm not complaining, my salary is going up and up and I'll never have to worry about my retirement or having a job for the rest of my life.) Now I'm back to exercising every day at the gym. I've got over 50 lbs to lose.
It's great that we can do more faster than ever before. But if we don't balance all the new toys and gadgets we have to make life so easy, we will lose a significant part of the quality of our lives. For example, computers were supposed to save time (and paper, too), but now we get more done and we're asked to do more. Sure, they save time, but then the company wants even more from us (and numbers show computers have driven paper use up -- due to number of drafts printed out and number of extra documents printed -- and docs printed in multiple copies).
I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but I am saying it seems we should seriously question how it is used in life. We can make the choice of a life crammed full of too much to do, or one where we can take the time to enjoy life. I've noticed that the people that take time to enjoy life (like many friends I know through Quaker Meeting) live life such that they don't need to save the extra half hour here or rush to another appointment at some other time.
Saving time, or making it easier is not the answer. Segway, for most of us, is not the answer. Finding a way to reduce the clutter and meaningless activites in our lives would help save much more time than a Segway HT.
Just my 2 cents worth. Go on and mark me as flamebait.
I'd love to see whether the Segway makes people more or less active.
Without going too much in to weight debates, maybe the point is if you're too heavy for the Segway the excercise may do you some good.
matguy(.com)
>>Bikes are not inconsiderate or dangerous.
This is true, but reaks of the "guns don't kill people" argument. What I mean is that, while it's certainly possible to use a bike considerately, and indeed most people do, it takes a bigger concious effort than just walking down the street, since you are much bigger and are moving much faster. Thus, it's much easier to be careless and inconsiderate, just as having a gun makes it infinitely easier to wound or kill someone. And believe me, as someone who both goes to Penn State and has lived in the town for over a decade, there are *plenty* of people who are both dangerous and inconsiderate.
Yeah, and it's the reliance on the calculator that has caused many of our teachers to be unable to do multi-digit addition in their heads. If we took a couple old grannies and let them add prices, they'd have the solution in a snap. Let an average 20 year try that, and they'll sit there and ponder where the calculator is.
Teachers have grown lazy, and in trying to advance students as far as possible, they've overlooked the basic foundation that they need to build upon. We expect kids to do algebra when they can't do arithmetic. We've undermined our children's ability to do arithmetic by making it easier.
I'm one of the lucky ones. I wasn't allowed to use a calculator until I hit the public school.
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
Any ideas?
O'WONDERWe're working on it.