Especially, since you are very likely to have time to detect the missile, consult the superiors, get permission and turn off GPS before the missile strikes the White House. Do you think the TERRARISTS would launch the missile from Afganistan or what? Some people might need to check for paranoia.
This is precisely why terrorists kill people. If the "leaders" didn't care so much for their safety, women and children would not die in acts of terror.
Consider that Alexander II (Russian Czar) had at most a couple of officers protecting him, when he was killed by a bomb, going somewhere in a carriage. Do you think Russian terrorists at that time would need to kill innocents to make a point? No, because they could make a point better by killing politicians/nobility.
Today Dubya needs thousands of soldiers/FBI agents/policemen/SS guys to protect his sorry ass. Great, at least he can take care of his own safety. But the terrorists would go after easier targets.
In many European countries it is not considered necessary to take so much care about protecting the leaders. The reason is very simple - these leaders don't usually make millions of people pissed off so much that they want to kill them.
I think the creators of the films may simply disagree with Le Guin that having all characters asian/black/whatever is important. I certainly didn't care about the skin colours, when I read Earthsea. May be it's because I am white, but the fact is - if I were to make a mini-series based on Earthsea, making everyone darkskinned would be the last thing on my mind. I would not be making these films to stroke the ego (or reaffirm the confidence) of the dark-skinned viewers, which may be against Le Guin's wishes, but which is still a perfectly normal thing.
She sold the rights, and those who bought them think that Earthsea is a story about an archipelago, sea, dranons, magic and stuff first and a story about dark-skinned people... well, not at all. I can hardly blame them for it.
I've wasted six minutes of my life reading the fucking comments by Le Guin only to find out her only complaint is that Earthsea is not the second Matrix, full of black and asian actors. That's surely a relief - I was afraid that the miniseries' creators butchered the book or something...
I mean, I can certainly understand that some people care about the skin colour of characters in fantasy books, but I am not among them. I don't think I ever paid attention to the skin colours when reading Earthsea or, frankly, any other book.
Really, I don't know what else to say. Haven't we had enough of this shit with Star Wars being racist to Yamaicans, Jews and Asians, Lord of the Rings being racist to everyone else, GTA being racist to Haitans and so on. I wonder why noone seems to care about all movies where blue eyed blondes are being cast as dimwits, villains and so on...
Some kids would reply saying that paying anything is not for them, only free is good enough. This a rational response from people with very small disposable income. When you are a kid, paying even 66 cents may be too much, especially when the Internet connection is free (paid by someone else or included with something).
However, for the majority of the users the benefits are different. I can download Earthsea from BitTorrent a few days after it's aired. There is no chance in hell that I can see it on TV here or get on DVD sooner than in 6 months. I can download an unreleased film, a 1950s film, a Korean film, anything that is not available in the nearest DVD store. Choice, speed - these are qualities of P2P that are just as important as the low cost. Another factor is freedom - I can get a Japanese uncensored version of Kill Bill, I can get the preferred edition of any other movie, in the language I want.
Of course, DVDs sometimes provide many of the benefits. That means that filesharers sometimes buy DVDs. I am not against paying for my entertainment, I am just saying that as long as P2P can provide something more, I don't want that freedom taken away from me. And don't forget the fact that a very significant fraction of material on P2P is not available to a vast majority of potential viewers/readers/listeners - it's the only truly global content-delivery mechanism.
But there are enough people in the loop to make absolutely sure that this insanity will never stop. 1) There are idiots, who consider domains like.jobs a good idea. They start the process. 2) There are idiots who would buy any junk in the vain hope of earning a few extra bucks with their crappy website. 3) There are greedy bastards (registrars), who like the opportinity to earn a few more thousands selling the useless domains to the idiots in (2). 4) There are a couple of bureaucrats in ICANN who would gladly spend time on this shit, trying to make it seem like they actually do have a useful purpose in life.
That's it. Even if the majority of Internet users (99.999%) do not need these domains, the process will continue. The only way to stop the insanity is to get rid of (3) or (4) by reforming ICANN or making domains completely free (to remove the incentive for registrars).
They've been bitching they had this for a while... Hit Windows-Key-D, OHMYGOD, SHOW DESKTOP! Some people have it in the Quick Launch Bar. Showing desktop is the least of all Expose features. The biggest one is the ability to instantly see all windows you have open quickly and neatly arranges on the screen and select the one you want to switch to. This is not Show Desktop, this is more like Alt+Tab... cubed. I only saw Expose in action once, but I was sold instantly. It's really amazing.
I don't know, really... It installed just fine (though it required me to install SP4 for Win2k). Installation process was straightforward, I could check whether I want to report stats to MS or not. It warned me that it won't search mail if I don't use Outlook, etc., but allowed me to proceed.
I could not change the target directory for the installation and where to store the index, but other than that I don't have many complaints about the available options. You can choose what folders to index, what the IE toolbar should include and some other minor stuff.
Indexing worked rather fast - about 20-25 minutes for a drive with 30000 files (15 Gb total). The computer was very responsive during that time too. The toolbar was added to the taskbar, it could be resized, moved, hidden and stuff. Not obtrusive, has a keyboard shortcut for it. Searches in both English and Russian (and probably all other languages as well).
It searches text files, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and Web pages. It also searches some metadata in images, films and music, as well as all filenames. The results are presented in a rather nice way (a window appears above the toolbar) that can be navigated using mouse or keyboard. Context menus work on the results (so images can be previewed using a shell extension like PicaView, for example).
For websearch it uses the default browser (I have Opera), though for desktop search it uses IE (if you want see more results than are displayed in the small search windows). FUCK, THIS FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT JUST CRASHED ON ME!! Well, I searched for my name (4000) results and then tried to scroll the results and IE crashed... It also has a small bug that when IE opens, you need to manually click on search desktop, though the search query is copied for you already. There are two text fields - one in the IE toolbar and one on the page, but only the toolbar works, apparently.:)
Well, this is certainly a beta, I'll go and submit a bug report.:) But it looks good enough for a beta and I might use it instead of Google Desktop (which I don't even want to try) or Yahoo product, which is not released yet.
So wardialing is legal, as long as your modem (voice modem) first says "I am going to test for the presence of a modem on this line"? IANAL, just looking for loopholes.
The idea that software could not be copyrighted but books, music, etc. could is hypocritical.
No, it is not. The Constitution mentions inventors and writers only. It doesn't mention software, paintings, sculptures, sheet music or buildings. Guess what, these other items are not protected by copyright, or the protection is limited. Yes, record and movie studios and software companies managed to get full copyright protection, but this doesn't make it hypocritical to say they're a bunch of greedy bastards and SHOULD NOT HAVE HAD that protection granted.
They don't need to sue them. They only need to ask police to raid them, seize the servers (and often conviniently time the raids so that the admins have just bought some shiny new hardware using donations from the users) and keep them indefinitely. In the Internet Age a few years are an eternity. Ask anyone (any alleged hacker, pirate, etc.) whose computers were seized by FBI as evidence, when did they return them (if at all). So if RIAA/MPAA can neutralize the link sites for a year or two, they would happily go for it.
We know from the experience with ShareReactor, that they don't need to press legal charges or do anything. Just raiding the ISP and seizing the server can usually stop site admins (people, who do it as a service to the community, for free and in their free time) in their tracks.
Hopefully, some countries (we need just one) would not succumb to the legal pressure from the MPAA bastards and technological measures will be developed to combat the brutal police force.
Especially since you can't ignore the myth when writing an article about the myth. That would be the same as writing an artice about The Twelve Labors of Heracles by saying "according to modern science, there was no Heracles" and all his "labors" are a physical impossibility.:)
As you may have noted, he now links to one of these sites from wikipediasucks using "SOLLOG SAYS SLASHDOT.ORG RULES" text for the link.:) Clever troll.
But would you want to watch a Final Fantasy-like movie with personages looking like the Quake 1 guy? With the blurred face-like textures stretched over a blocky head? Without any lipsync, and, to speak of it, without any discernable lips. Does the idea of watching a 2 hour movie with similar image quality make your heart beat faster?:)
I think, this (at least the reporting in Wired) is even less scientific than you imply. How the hell can the statement Linux contains 985 bugs can be true? I mean, did they just count missing semicolons or something? You can never be sure that the code you are looking at doesn't contain more bugs than you are aware of. A combination of several pieces of perfeclty valid code can produce a bug.
Someone may confidently say that Linux contains at least 985 bugs - here is the list or that Linux contains about 1000 bugs - we check the whole source code, found 100 bugs and from experience we know that we usually miss 90% of them. But to imply that they found each and every bug or that they know the precise number of bugs without actually finding them is baloney.
If Google (or anyone of those unknowns who made a similar program earlier) could patent the idea of desktop index-based search, Yahoo!, Microsoft and everyone else would be unable to offer a competing product. That means we would not get a perfectly useful desktop-search product in 2006 (whatever it will be).
I am not sure I agree. Do you imply that you are disgusted by that video, that it's horrendous and repulsive, compared to a video of the Quake 1 guy? Yes, there certainly are many little things, but do they cause a measurable, statistically significant negative reaction in a representative sample of human population (demonstrated in a meaningful blind study)?
If Uncanny Valley existed, SIGGRAPH would close a decade ago, because the participants would be disgusted by ever more realistic human 3D models.
Well, can you arrange a meeting with her in a nice restaurant, claiming that you are a CEO of a large software company that wants to give an anonymous donation to her future election campaign, or invite her to give a lecture at Hawaii or something? Then, when she accepts, just slice her throat. That would be doing something and many people would be proud of you.
We can argue that this is a huge progress compared to Louis building Versalles for himself (though to be honest we must remember that anyone in decent clothes was freely admitted there) and spending the remaining money on the wars too.
But seriously, you are completely right. There just aren't many people with the Vision in politics, people who want not just to serve and do the job (which means marginal improvements without drastic changes), but people who want to change the world. And sadly, I don't see what can be done about this. Anything short of a revolution doesn't look likely to work.
My browser (Opera) doesn't have a toolbar at all. Keyboard shortcuts complimented by menus are much faster and very easy to remember. Now I am thinking about removing other visible interface elements, such as titles, scrollbars and the address bar.:)
On a more serious note, I find icons useless when they are unfamiliar. For example, in Adobe Acrobat 5.0 I need to make a conscious effort (a second or so) to realise what most of the icons do (or hover a mouse over them to read the tooltip). A menu (not even a text button) would be much faster and not require permanent allocation of display space. And the familiar icons are even less useful, because a shortcut such as Ctrl+O is much more familiar and faster than the best floppy icon you can draw.
I only use toolbars when I am forced to, that is when interface designers haven't thought about a keyboard shortcut or a way to define them. And even then I'd rather use something like Alt+C, S, S.
Re:Local bike cops got segways...
on
Segway Polo
·
· Score: 1
No, there isn't such a way. If you consider how much electronics is there in such a small space, you would realise that the engineers had to build bullet-proof EMF shielding or the device could not be released. Any external source of EMF (several meters away) is going to be so powerful it would first fry your brains.:)
You all were duped, and not just because of this. You were duped to think that Segway is nothing more than a silly toy and you all were happy to change from the speculation-bandwagon to bashing-bandwagon after it was released. You are not alone, but please, don't just follow the flock, think for yourself. And, while we are at it, get the relevant facts.
I suggest you read the Code Name Ginger, that famous book published by Harvard Business Press, that was part of the hype and whose leak became a major factor (though it's unclear, positive or negative) in the product's failure.
Everyone who ever rode Segway, fell in love with the device in the first minutes (or, for the sake of accuracy, a vast majority of those people). Very smart people saw amazing potential in the device - you know them. Bezos, Jobs, Doerr and many others were completely fascinated with the endless possibilities of the Segway.
But Dean Kamen, a paranoid secretive moron, who was almost as bad as a manager as he was brilliant as an inventor managed to completely fuck up the product launch. There was almost no user testing, there was almost no marketing done, because that greedy loser didn't want to pay enough for this and because he was obsessed with his delusion that Honda sleeps and dreams of stealing his invention.
As a result, the device was a flop. Don't be deceived, it's still a brilliant piece of engineering, the users still love it, and it still makes perfect business sense - the trials by several organisations who were not afraid to test it despite the bad publicity showed that money can be saved by using Segways and that it's practical to use. But this excellent product was introduced to the market in the worst possible way.
Steve Jobs was willing to fund almost half of the project, he wanted ardently to participate in the project in any way Kamen let him. Invest 50 million USD? OK. You don't want to alienate other investors, so only a minority share of 10 million is possible? OK. You can't sell me shares? OK, I am willing to be an advisor, sit on board, do anything, without pay and despite being a big name with two extremely successful companies to run.
But Kamen would not listen to anyone but his own oversized ego. Some of you may read the Chapter 15 about the meeting with Bezos, Jobes and Doerr (published somewhere online), but the whole development was like this. Kamen wanted to micromange his 250+ people company, didn't want to pay decent bucks to employees, refused to give stock options to compensate for low salaries and made a million of other business mistakes. All that have costed Segway the market.:( And it has costed us our bright future of clean, fun and enjoyable transportation in cities.:(
Slashdot Mirror
Especially, since you are very likely to have time to detect the missile, consult the superiors, get permission and turn off GPS before the missile strikes the White House. Do you think the TERRARISTS would launch the missile from Afganistan or what? Some people might need to check for paranoia.
This is precisely why terrorists kill people. If the "leaders" didn't care so much for their safety, women and children would not die in acts of terror.
Consider that Alexander II (Russian Czar) had at most a couple of officers protecting him, when he was killed by a bomb, going somewhere in a carriage. Do you think Russian terrorists at that time would need to kill innocents to make a point? No, because they could make a point better by killing politicians/nobility.
Today Dubya needs thousands of soldiers/FBI agents/policemen/SS guys to protect his sorry ass. Great, at least he can take care of his own safety. But the terrorists would go after easier targets.
In many European countries it is not considered necessary to take so much care about protecting the leaders. The reason is very simple - these leaders don't usually make millions of people pissed off so much that they want to kill them.
I think the creators of the films may simply disagree with Le Guin that having all characters asian/black/whatever is important. I certainly didn't care about the skin colours, when I read Earthsea. May be it's because I am white, but the fact is - if I were to make a mini-series based on Earthsea, making everyone darkskinned would be the last thing on my mind. I would not be making these films to stroke the ego (or reaffirm the confidence) of the dark-skinned viewers, which may be against Le Guin's wishes, but which is still a perfectly normal thing.
She sold the rights, and those who bought them think that Earthsea is a story about an archipelago, sea, dranons, magic and stuff first and a story about dark-skinned people... well, not at all. I can hardly blame them for it.
I've wasted six minutes of my life reading the fucking comments by Le Guin only to find out her only complaint is that Earthsea is not the second Matrix, full of black and asian actors. That's surely a relief - I was afraid that the miniseries' creators butchered the book or something...
I mean, I can certainly understand that some people care about the skin colour of characters in fantasy books, but I am not among them. I don't think I ever paid attention to the skin colours when reading Earthsea or, frankly, any other book.
Really, I don't know what else to say. Haven't we had enough of this shit with Star Wars being racist to Yamaicans, Jews and Asians, Lord of the Rings being racist to everyone else, GTA being racist to Haitans and so on. I wonder why noone seems to care about all movies where blue eyed blondes are being cast as dimwits, villains and so on...
Some kids would reply saying that paying anything is not for them, only free is good enough. This a rational response from people with very small disposable income. When you are a kid, paying even 66 cents may be too much, especially when the Internet connection is free (paid by someone else or included with something).
However, for the majority of the users the benefits are different. I can download Earthsea from BitTorrent a few days after it's aired. There is no chance in hell that I can see it on TV here or get on DVD sooner than in 6 months. I can download an unreleased film, a 1950s film, a Korean film, anything that is not available in the nearest DVD store. Choice, speed - these are qualities of P2P that are just as important as the low cost. Another factor is freedom - I can get a Japanese uncensored version of Kill Bill, I can get the preferred edition of any other movie, in the language I want.
Of course, DVDs sometimes provide many of the benefits. That means that filesharers sometimes buy DVDs. I am not against paying for my entertainment, I am just saying that as long as P2P can provide something more, I don't want that freedom taken away from me. And don't forget the fact that a very significant fraction of material on P2P is not available to a vast majority of potential viewers/readers/listeners - it's the only truly global content-delivery mechanism.
But there are enough people in the loop to make absolutely sure that this insanity will never stop. .jobs a good idea. They start the process.
1) There are idiots, who consider domains like
2) There are idiots who would buy any junk in the vain hope of earning a few extra bucks with their crappy website.
3) There are greedy bastards (registrars), who like the opportinity to earn a few more thousands selling the useless domains to the idiots in (2).
4) There are a couple of bureaucrats in ICANN who would gladly spend time on this shit, trying to make it seem like they actually do have a useful purpose in life.
That's it. Even if the majority of Internet users (99.999%) do not need these domains, the process will continue. The only way to stop the insanity is to get rid of (3) or (4) by reforming ICANN or making domains completely free (to remove the incentive for registrars).
They've been bitching they had this for a while... Hit Windows-Key-D, OHMYGOD, SHOW DESKTOP! Some people have it in the Quick Launch Bar.
Showing desktop is the least of all Expose features. The biggest one is the ability to instantly see all windows you have open quickly and neatly arranges on the screen and select the one you want to switch to. This is not Show Desktop, this is more like Alt+Tab... cubed. I only saw Expose in action once, but I was sold instantly. It's really amazing.
I don't know, really... It installed just fine (though it required me to install SP4 for Win2k). Installation process was straightforward, I could check whether I want to report stats to MS or not. It warned me that it won't search mail if I don't use Outlook, etc., but allowed me to proceed.
:)
:) But it looks good enough for a beta and I might use it instead of Google Desktop (which I don't even want to try) or Yahoo product, which is not released yet.
I could not change the target directory for the installation and where to store the index, but other than that I don't have many complaints about the available options. You can choose what folders to index, what the IE toolbar should include and some other minor stuff.
Indexing worked rather fast - about 20-25 minutes for a drive with 30000 files (15 Gb total). The computer was very responsive during that time too. The toolbar was added to the taskbar, it could be resized, moved, hidden and stuff. Not obtrusive, has a keyboard shortcut for it. Searches in both English and Russian (and probably all other languages as well).
It searches text files, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and Web pages. It also searches some metadata in images, films and music, as well as all filenames. The results are presented in a rather nice way (a window appears above the toolbar) that can be navigated using mouse or keyboard. Context menus work on the results (so images can be previewed using a shell extension like PicaView, for example).
For websearch it uses the default browser (I have Opera), though for desktop search it uses IE (if you want see more results than are displayed in the small search windows). FUCK, THIS FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT JUST CRASHED ON ME!! Well, I searched for my name (4000) results and then tried to scroll the results and IE crashed... It also has a small bug that when IE opens, you need to manually click on search desktop, though the search query is copied for you already. There are two text fields - one in the IE toolbar and one on the page, but only the toolbar works, apparently.
Well, this is certainly a beta, I'll go and submit a bug report.
So wardialing is legal, as long as your modem (voice modem) first says "I am going to test for the presence of a modem on this line"? IANAL, just looking for loopholes.
The idea that software could not be copyrighted but books, music, etc. could is hypocritical.
No, it is not. The Constitution mentions inventors and writers only. It doesn't mention software, paintings, sculptures, sheet music or buildings. Guess what, these other items are not protected by copyright, or the protection is limited. Yes, record and movie studios and software companies managed to get full copyright protection, but this doesn't make it hypocritical to say they're a bunch of greedy bastards and SHOULD NOT HAVE HAD that protection granted.
MST3K uses BitTorrent to distribute their own programs for free. So there are even movies (albeit crap movies) on BitTorrent legally.
So how do they plan to sue them?
They don't need to sue them. They only need to ask police to raid them, seize the servers (and often conviniently time the raids so that the admins have just bought some shiny new hardware using donations from the users) and keep them indefinitely. In the Internet Age a few years are an eternity. Ask anyone (any alleged hacker, pirate, etc.) whose computers were seized by FBI as evidence, when did they return them (if at all). So if RIAA/MPAA can neutralize the link sites for a year or two, they would happily go for it.
We know from the experience with ShareReactor, that they don't need to press legal charges or do anything. Just raiding the ISP and seizing the server can usually stop site admins (people, who do it as a service to the community, for free and in their free time) in their tracks.
Hopefully, some countries (we need just one) would not succumb to the legal pressure from the MPAA bastards and technological measures will be developed to combat the brutal police force.
Especially since you can't ignore the myth when writing an article about the myth. That would be the same as writing an artice about The Twelve Labors of Heracles by saying "according to modern science, there was no Heracles" and all his "labors" are a physical impossibility. :)
As you may have noted, he now links to one of these sites from wikipediasucks using "SOLLOG SAYS SLASHDOT.ORG RULES" text for the link. :) Clever troll.
But would you want to watch a Final Fantasy-like movie with personages looking like the Quake 1 guy? With the blurred face-like textures stretched over a blocky head? Without any lipsync, and, to speak of it, without any discernable lips. Does the idea of watching a 2 hour movie with similar image quality make your heart beat faster? :)
I think, this (at least the reporting in Wired) is even less scientific than you imply. How the hell can the statement Linux contains 985 bugs can be true? I mean, did they just count missing semicolons or something? You can never be sure that the code you are looking at doesn't contain more bugs than you are aware of. A combination of several pieces of perfeclty valid code can produce a bug.
Someone may confidently say that Linux contains at least 985 bugs - here is the list or that Linux contains about 1000 bugs - we check the whole source code, found 100 bugs and from experience we know that we usually miss 90% of them. But to imply that they found each and every bug or that they know the precise number of bugs without actually finding them is baloney.
If Google (or anyone of those unknowns who made a similar program earlier) could patent the idea of desktop index-based search, Yahoo!, Microsoft and everyone else would be unable to offer a competing product. That means we would not get a perfectly useful desktop-search product in 2006 (whatever it will be).
I am not sure I agree. Do you imply that you are disgusted by that video, that it's horrendous and repulsive, compared to a video of the Quake 1 guy? Yes, there certainly are many little things, but do they cause a measurable, statistically significant negative reaction in a representative sample of human population (demonstrated in a meaningful blind study)?
If Uncanny Valley existed, SIGGRAPH would close a decade ago, because the participants would be disgusted by ever more realistic human 3D models.
Shit! Damned if you do, damned if you don't...
Well, can you arrange a meeting with her in a nice restaurant, claiming that you are a CEO of a large software company that wants to give an anonymous donation to her future election campaign, or invite her to give a lecture at Hawaii or something? Then, when she accepts, just slice her throat. That would be doing something and many people would be proud of you.
We can argue that this is a huge progress compared to Louis building Versalles for himself (though to be honest we must remember that anyone in decent clothes was freely admitted there) and spending the remaining money on the wars too.
But seriously, you are completely right. There just aren't many people with the Vision in politics, people who want not just to serve and do the job (which means marginal improvements without drastic changes), but people who want to change the world. And sadly, I don't see what can be done about this. Anything short of a revolution doesn't look likely to work.
My browser (Opera) doesn't have a toolbar at all. Keyboard shortcuts complimented by menus are much faster and very easy to remember. Now I am thinking about removing other visible interface elements, such as titles, scrollbars and the address bar. :)
On a more serious note, I find icons useless when they are unfamiliar. For example, in Adobe Acrobat 5.0 I need to make a conscious effort (a second or so) to realise what most of the icons do (or hover a mouse over them to read the tooltip). A menu (not even a text button) would be much faster and not require permanent allocation of display space. And the familiar icons are even less useful, because a shortcut such as Ctrl+O is much more familiar and faster than the best floppy icon you can draw.
I only use toolbars when I am forced to, that is when interface designers haven't thought about a keyboard shortcut or a way to define them. And even then I'd rather use something like Alt+C, S, S.
And then "You've been burglarizored!"
No, there isn't such a way. If you consider how much electronics is there in such a small space, you would realise that the engineers had to build bullet-proof EMF shielding or the device could not be released. Any external source of EMF (several meters away) is going to be so powerful it would first fry your brains. :)
You all were duped, and not just because of this. You were duped to think that Segway is nothing more than a silly toy and you all were happy to change from the speculation-bandwagon to bashing-bandwagon after it was released. You are not alone, but please, don't just follow the flock, think for yourself. And, while we are at it, get the relevant facts.
:( And it has costed us our bright future of clean, fun and enjoyable transportation in cities. :(
I suggest you read the Code Name Ginger, that famous book published by Harvard Business Press, that was part of the hype and whose leak became a major factor (though it's unclear, positive or negative) in the product's failure.
Everyone who ever rode Segway, fell in love with the device in the first minutes (or, for the sake of accuracy, a vast majority of those people). Very smart people saw amazing potential in the device - you know them. Bezos, Jobs, Doerr and many others were completely fascinated with the endless possibilities of the Segway.
But Dean Kamen, a paranoid secretive moron, who was almost as bad as a manager as he was brilliant as an inventor managed to completely fuck up the product launch. There was almost no user testing, there was almost no marketing done, because that greedy loser didn't want to pay enough for this and because he was obsessed with his delusion that Honda sleeps and dreams of stealing his invention.
As a result, the device was a flop. Don't be deceived, it's still a brilliant piece of engineering, the users still love it, and it still makes perfect business sense - the trials by several organisations who were not afraid to test it despite the bad publicity showed that money can be saved by using Segways and that it's practical to use. But this excellent product was introduced to the market in the worst possible way.
Steve Jobs was willing to fund almost half of the project, he wanted ardently to participate in the project in any way Kamen let him. Invest 50 million USD? OK. You don't want to alienate other investors, so only a minority share of 10 million is possible? OK. You can't sell me shares? OK, I am willing to be an advisor, sit on board, do anything, without pay and despite being a big name with two extremely successful companies to run.
But Kamen would not listen to anyone but his own oversized ego. Some of you may read the Chapter 15 about the meeting with Bezos, Jobes and Doerr (published somewhere online), but the whole development was like this. Kamen wanted to micromange his 250+ people company, didn't want to pay decent bucks to employees, refused to give stock options to compensate for low salaries and made a million of other business mistakes. All that have costed Segway the market.