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Segway UK Boss Dies After Driving Off Cliff
necro81 writes "Jimi Heselden, the British multi-millionaire defense contractor and philanthropist, who bought the Segway company last December from inventor Dean Kamen, died yesterday after an accident while riding one of the machines. While using a ruggedized X2 version of the two-wheeled balancing scooter at his estate in North Yorkshire, he apparently drove over the edge of a precipice and into the River Wharfe. He was found later by a passerby and declared dead on the scene."
He was last seen at the plant arguing with one of the engineers who had assured him the latest Segway was "uncrashable." He rode off muttering something about having the last laugh. Clearly he was a business and marketing genius but a bit of a lemming in day-to-day life.
But in all seriousness, I'm very sorry for him and his family. If I didn't constantly encounter the damned things on sidewalks and in pedestrian spaces on the National Mall in DC I wouldn't be so quick to lampoon their maker's untimely demise.
My work here is dung.
...what a way to go out. Fitting, but jeebus...
Living With a Nerd
Please look up the definition of irony before posting anything with that particular word in it.
(This especially includes all Sheryl Crow fans)
Thanks in advance.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
He must have fallen for the pre-launch hype, where the inventor and a variety of major tech figures were claiming that cities would be designed around the things. Maybe he thought it levitated?
amphibious assault Seguay couldn't keep its head above water
air bags?
www.qsopht.com ~q
My condolences to his friends and relatives.
I'm sure there will be a lot of smart-ass comments making fun of this guy. The fact remains that a person lost his life in a tragic accident. Thoughts go out to his family.
Flexible bare-metal recovery for Linux/UNIX
I guess he bought a segway... to his coffin.
*sigh* I'll show^W^W^W^W segway myself the door.
Look ma! No hands!
This will just be another clump of dirt on the corpse of Segway. It actually sucks in a way. It was invented to try to radically mix up society and how we travel, change the way we travel in cities. Use less gas, get people moving, less space for parking, all that cool stuff. Instead it became a toy for Segway Polo, jokes for Mall Cops, and t tours. Never getting the impact it was intended for..
The only guy I've ever known to fall off of a segway is the man who owned it. Shit sucks bro.
This has to be the worst way to get free press for your product. But I'll give it to the man... He's dedicated.
He was a real stand-up kind of guy
simple fact:
if you combine
1. off road conditions
2. high speeds
you are basically deciding to do a passionate tango with death
a ruggedized segway? obviously in the same category as an ATV when it comes to "one dead me, please"
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
And yes, I know I'm going to hell.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
So what's the point? Blame (ban?) the Segway?
And, oh, by the way:
In the UK, it is illegal to drive a Segway on the road or even on pavements or cycle paths. They can only be used on private property, despite campaigns to let them be used on cycle paths.
What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
I know - Blackadder got their first.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Read the article. It was not the inventor that died, but the owner of the product.
I guess he won't be show on "Wacked Out Sports" next to the guy who tries a jump and almost has a 800lb snowmobile come crashing down on him.
Is this the first confirmed death while operating a Segway?
And I thought Wharfe was a pussy...
This could just be an extremely geeky suicide?
What is the British equivalent to "Hey, Ya'll, watch this!"
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
...goes something like this:
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
More info about the guy and the accident is available at the Daily Mail
Call it a Segw
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This ground is a way to get round the stupid whitespace filters
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
Ban gravity.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Methinks he should have ordered the hoverboard option for his Segway.
Well, he did own the invention I guess.
at the bottom of this page right now:
Good news is just life's way of keeping you off balance.
I like microcars
Did you check your facts before you opened up the floodgates of your arse? The guy may have been a defence contractor, but his company made FORTIFICATIONS. Not in the sense of point-defence systems, but in the sense of freaking walls.
Driving them around on sandstone cliffs overlooking a fast flowing river does that. As sad as it is, it's definitely a contender for the Darwin Awards.
I'm sorry to have giggled at this story. But it's like a Robot Chicken episode come to life. Can't help it.
Proverbs 21:19
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
The Personal Transporter's *actual* inventor is this engineer I've bumped into -- I work with his brother. DK was "merely" the person who put money and PR behind it. Dean gets a lot of credit -- but really, *his* biggest invention was the insulin pump.
More specifically, he was the chairman of HESCO bastion, a company that makes large cube-shaped wire & cloth baskets you fill with sand. They are used for flood control as well as by the military for defensive walls.
Just an FYI, the XT and X2 lines have been out for years; *IF* that's what he was riding -- and there truly is no other "off-road" Segway -- then it is what it is... but it ain't new.
This.
why don't you fall off a cliff, this guy left school at 15, become a miner , apparently gave millions to charity, provided defensive fortification's for the armed forces, i suspect he did a lot more in his life, to help and protect people than you ever will in your un-important existence. Your lack of respect and humanity says more about you , your values, your upbringing than anything else.
True to its name, the Segway provided a segue into the next stage of life.
Is this the first confirmed death while operating a Segway?
It's hard to say. I think there have been reports of people dying from Segway accidents (2004 Las Vegas accident) but it's never really been clear if the Segway killed the person. I'd imagine if someone hopped on your product and rode off a cliff you wouldn't be so quick to say it was a death from riding your product. However, could you find someone that had a heart attack or went into diabetic shock and died from lack of medical attention while operating a Segway? Yeah, probably. I don't think it's right to blame the product here. You obviously have to consider the danger inherently present in the individual as well as his or her surroundings. The Las Vegas accident was a speedway incident involving a 59 year old falling into a pit area during the SKUSA SuperNats car racing event. Can you blame the product?
My work here is dung.
...who thinks one can simultaneously quietly smirk and feel sorry for the guy? i believe the feelings are mutually exclusive. (I've seen enough people watching Jackass-type stunts who wince, laugh and are appalled by the idiocy, in the same breath.) Recognizing and acknowledging coincidence doesn't make you de-facto evil- it's in how it's expressed. but above all, my strongest reaction is.. who the hell tests a vehicle near a cliff?! wait..who let's the _head_ of a company test a vehicle..near a cliff?! doesn't some common sense, protective mechanism, insurance policy, sense of self-preservation kick in, at some point?
"Moral indignation is just jealousy with a halo."
In a related note, the proposal to rename Segway into Acme Incorporated was put on hold for the time being.
I guess this was his segway into the afterlife!
(* Rimshot! *)
Um, so? He got rich of off making stuff for the MIC. In this case "freaking walls." How does this refute any facts? He just makes war easier to wage.
So do farmers and prostitutes.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
You left out the "made millions selling crates of rocks and sand that taxpayers overpaid for to keep the MIC going and assist in the defense of the ongoing military invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan."
I'm also not sure why leaving school at 15 and becoming a miner makes him more highly valued, but it sounds like you have a twisted set of values anyway.
After reading more, I realize this is an actual tragic death. The first couple times I saw the headline, I thought it was certainly an Onion article.
Well, in that case nobody should be giving haircuts, becoming medical doctors, or growing food either. Surely the bastards won't fight when they're starving with nobody to patch up their friends they accidentally shoot because they've got their hair in their eyes.
worst. crash. ever.
Facts have a liberal bias.
This death has nothing to do with the Segway device. The man probably had a heart attack and fell off. It is rare for a Segway to just simply fail as it has many redundant subsystems. It is even less likely for a Segway failure to result in serious injury as the speeds involved are just not that high.
This was an assassination.
What percentage of HESCO's business is generated by the military? What percentage of farmers' and prostitutes' business is generated by the military? Obviously there isn't a clear cut barrier here, there rarely is IRL.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
Without war a defense contractor would be out of a job. Bombs, guns, or walls, contributing to war is contributing to war.
I guess I'll continue getting rid of my weed the old fashioned way. ;) Sorry, could not resist, hope you get better RSN. At least it makes for a good story.
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"defense contractor and philanthropist?" Really? I'm not sure those two are entirely compatible species.
Currently hooked on AMP
Segway to heaven?
The Segway is a wonderful device that the world needs to strongly embrace. Like all devices it should improve over the years. To the extent that sales of Segway devices suffer loss of sales this is a tragedy for the entire world. And of course the individual and his family have my prayers as well.
So what - it enables the US troops to continue the illegal war of agression against Afghanistan for example. It's all part of the war machine.
Sure, the donations and national support are nice. However most of the fifteen year olds I've met had already been minors for years...
Best to test such things to destruction in a fixture before using them in manned operations.
Also, were you wearing chainsaw protective chaps or pants?
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Depending on where they are based anywhere between 0 ant 100%...
I am very sucseptible to "let's have another drink"
Well... one could argue that without military we'd all still be hunting nomads and we'd have no need for farms to produce more food than needed to survive. Also, there would likely be no farms without military to protect it... So, I could say that farm businesses rely on military.
Also, not everything the military buys is used for war.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
To provide lab data about which sealants and tapes last, and which are likely to fail, research was conducted at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Environmental Energy Technologies Division. Their major conclusion was that one should not use duct tape to seal ducts (specialty tapes are available for this purpose). (They defined duct tape as any fabric-based tape with rubber adhesive.) The testing done shows that under challenging but realistic conditions, duct tapes become brittle and may fail.[6] Commonly duct tape carries no safety certifications such as UL or Proposition 65, which means the tape may burn violently, producing toxic smoke; it may cause ingestion and contact toxicity; it can have irregular mechanical strength; and its adhesive may have low life expectancy. Its use in ducts has been prohibited by the state of California[7] and by building codes in most other places in the U.S. However, metalized and aluminum tapes used by professionals are still often called "duck/duct tapes".
from Wikipedia
One last thing: Sometimes I wonder; "Is that someone's signature? Or do they type that at the end of each post?"
One could argue a whole lot of things but few of them are relevant to the question whether or not this guy (and his company) got rich selling stuff to the MIC.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
"Damnit, I dont think I will ever figure this bloody thing ouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut!"
This wouldn't have happened if he were using the latest POGO Segway... instead of the "ruggedized" Segway.
Very true. So if you were judgemental about people who deal primarily with the military, you might consider farmers (or prostitutes) selling almost exclusively to the army in a bad light.
OTOH, it seems sensible to consider the profession or the market as a whole: since much of the market for groceries is NOT military, it's reasonable to assume a farmer probably didn't enter the market to sell to them in particular, he just sells to the "highest bidder" (or something like it) irrespective of their status. For instance, a farmer in Iraq might conceivably do most of his business with the US forces, simply because they pay the highest price and/or they are much of the market that exists in his area right now. (I have no idea whether this example has any resemblance to real life.)
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As long as he has not bumped you off...
one could argue that without military we'd all still be hunting nomads
Are you suggesting that the military hunts the nomads for us now?
I wonder whom his family is going to sue for the apparent colossal failure of a defective product?
If I'm ever a rich guy I'm going to make a point of dying in some eccentric fashion. I mean think about it - the mental picture of a rich dude driving a segway off a cliff into a river is just epic.
I'm not trying to make light of the fact that this man's life ended, just giving tribute and appreciation to the manner in which it ended. Better than choking on a ham sandwich.
One man's irony is another man's poetic justice.
Isn't it Ionic?
Dontcha think?
A little too Ionic.
Yeah, I really do think.
It's not Covalent boooooonds
On your Wedding Day
It's the free electrooooooon
that ya just couldn't take.
..."Parachute sold separately."
Whether it's a gun that kills more people or a barrier that allows troops to advance safely to where they can kill more people really amounts to the same thing.
If only Alan Sugar had bought the Sinclair C5 as well, and been flattened by a sixteen-wheeler while trying it out.
This story is funny and ironic.
How the hell do you fall off a cliff riding one of these things and he was on his own estate?
This guy needs a Darwin award!
Did anyone find out if the segway survived the fall?
Wow these slashdot posters are getting younger every day!
You used to read crazy posts about employment that made you suspicious that the poster hadn't actually ever had a job so was probably a university student. Occasionally there were posts with wild suggestions about university life that made you suspect that the poster was a teenager still at school.
Now I've read a post which asks "...Have you ever ridden a bike on the street?.." . By heck, I think the under 10s are now posting ....
Shinguards
Found next to the body was the Segway, still in the upright position.
Anybody want a peanut?
I'll probably go to hell for this (and apologies to Parry Gripp), but cue the jingle...
Corporate executive riding on a Segway!
Corporate executive riding on a Segway!
Corporate executive riding on a Segway!
Bam bam ba bam bam bam!
Corporate executive riding on a Segway!
Corporate executive riding on a Segway!
Corporate executive riding on a Segway!
Bam bam ba ba bam bam!
He's got a helmet on
And he's going off a cliff
And don't that old lady look surprised?
Aaaaayyyyyieeeeeeeeee!!!
Corporate executive riding on a Segway!
Corporate executive riding on a Segway!
Corporate executive riding on a Segway!
Bam bam ba bam bam bam!
Bam bam ba bam bam baaaaaam!
The X2.... bringing rent-a-cops to flea markets everywhere.
Oh my goodness, what a Segway into a capaign for the dangers of driving recreational vehicles.
Lets be a little bit more respectful. Most of the soldiers in iraq and afghanistan can probably thank him for their lives due to his invention of the Hesco bastion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesco_bastion
"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms,
I'm just speculating, but is it possible this wasn't an accident? Was he ill or about to investigated for something? It just sounds so odd: riding a Segway off a cliff? Why not just bail out? They don't go that fast.
Yeah, it's like goldy or bronzey, only it's made of iron.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
why don't you fall off a cliff, this guy left school at 15, become a miner , apparently gave millions to charity, provided defensive fortification's for the armed forces, i suspect he did a lot more in his life, to help and protect people than you ever will in your un-important existence. Your lack of respect and humanity says more about you , your values, your upbringing than anything else.
Sorry.
Bill Gates
While I know this is an unfortunate event, I have to say that the comments on this thread are the funniest I've read all week.
My opinion is, any good man probably wouldn't have a problem with others finding some amusement about his death, and any bad man does a great service to mankind with post-mortem amusement . Personally I'd want everyone who knew or cared about my death, including my family, to find something funny about it. Or laugh at all the stupid and or funny things I did in life.
I mean really you are taking this so seriously I am guessing this guy as he was going over the side of the cliff probably thought to himself "well at least people can get some good laughs out of this one". Life starts and ends nothing new and nothing different. There is nothing to be upset about cause it is what it is but seriously HE DROVE OFF A CLIFF WITH A SEGWAY..... rofl
We're going to have to scrap that "See the white cliffs of Dover in your Segway!" ad campaign.
While using a ruggedized X2 version of the two-wheeled balancing scooter at his estate in North Yorkshire, he apparently drove over the edge of a precipice and into the River Wharfe.
Clearly they should have ruggedized the rider.
Cubes of rock and sand...
There's a Minecraft joke in here somewhere.
Dude, that's nuts. Do you have a youtube video of it or anything?
1. Be a nice guy and die tragically: making your last act on earth to make people sad.
2. Be a jerk and die any way at all: making your last act on earth to make people relieved.
3. Be a nice guy, and die in ironic or comical way: making your last act funny enough to take the sting out of your death.
If you've always tried to be a nice guy, when your time goes - try to go out on something that won't make your funeral any more morbid that it has to be. I can't really afford a segway, so I'm always on the lookout for a good sale on Rocket Skates or giant slingshots.
...to ride a segway to your death? All you have to do to escape is take a step backwards. its not like you are sitting down or anything!
Pattaya, the sex tourism capital of the world grew up around the US military base at U-Tapao, Thailand in the 60's and 70's.
Angeles City, the next biggest sex tourism destination grew up around the Clarke AFB in Pampanga, Philippines in the 70's and 80's.
As far an an industry goes, prostitution gets a lot from the Military (ahem, I mean income wise).
Well perhaps we can order some Hesco Bastions and make one.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
since he's dead....
Ask Me About... The 80's!
It's a sad day for geeks. Then again, most days are sad for geeks :(
(Moves on to develop the product that will make him wealthy. One day. Perhaps....)
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Fly Segway, fly!
Ouch! Did you have any protective gear on at the time? And were you compensated for the testing you were performing?
"declared dead on the scene" Hardly surprising if he's dead. Anyway, he was married. Oh, you meant "declared dead at the scene"!
Try $800.
Bicycle frames (with a few exceptions) and not counting the department store crap, are pretty much all the same throughout the model range once you hit the $800 price point. What changes is the level of the groupset. Sora->Ultegra->Dura Ace for Shimano road, Alivio->Deore->XT->XTR for Shimano mountain bike.
The advantage of the higher groupset is primarily weight, not quality. A Deore or Sora based bike will perform just as well for just as long as a Dura Ace or XTR bike, but it will weigh more.
The addition of suspension to mountain bikes skews the price somewhat, as there are ranges in the forks/shocks as well. An $800 mountain bike will be a hardtail with a springer (probably undamped) fork; you need to get into the $1500 range or so to start getting decent forks, and a proper full squish will be around $2000.
Carbon frames also push prices upwards, but carbon is nowhere near as pricey as it used to be.
My Cervelo - a top-line road bike - equipped with Ultegra/FSA, was a tick under $3000, and it is top-notch in terms of quality. And it is 16 lbs.
For road bikes, $800 gets you a decent bike. Over $2000, nothing is crap or really compromised any more. All the extra money gets you is lighter weight.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
if so, continue to enjoy your dance with death with my blessing
because its nice to know you are there to give me a new liver or kidney if i need one
anyone who has to risk death to enjoy life is suffering from a psychological problem in my book, sorry
i may lack balls in your book. in my book, you lack a brain
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it