Useful Things

By Jerry Pournelle

December 23, 2002

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Column 269 (Continued from the Previous Week)

Segway

Cheryl Curid brought a Segway Human Transporter to Andy Seybold's annual Wireless Dinner, and later to Show Stoppers. I got to ride it. The Segway looks like a scooter turned 90 degrees. It's gyro stabilized, and after about two minutes of use it is very natural. It's lots easier to learn than a bicycle or roller skates, and lots safer, too. It's fun. It's cool. It's way cool.

On the other hand, this was billed as a system that would change the world, and I don't think it will do that. It's fairly easy to control, but you can get up to a good clip rather quickly: I am told it will go 15 miles per hour although I don't suppose I had the one I rode above five or six miles per hour. Even at 5 mph, two of them in a head-on collision would be a punishing experience. If I could have bought or rented one to run around COMDEX and Las Vegas, I'd have been tempted, although the initial price of $5000 is more than I'd pay just to show off; but I wouldn't be at all tempted to ride one in COMDEX crowded with dozens of other Segway riders! Maybe next year there will be a few running around the show floor, but I guarantee you that once a thousand or more of them show up, they won't be permitted out there. So if I used one to get from the hotel to the Convention Center, a reasonable thing to do, where would I park it?

As to using it around the neighborhood, I need the exercise from walking and if I want to expand my radius, as the Segway web site suggests, I have a bicycle. I see some novelty uses for these, they are fun and way cool, and there are probably some highly practical uses as well, but I don't think we will be redesigning our cities to accommodate them, and I don't think that for most of us there's a Segway in your future.

Thirsty for RAM? We Still Are

BYTE.com Contributing Editor David Em has been experimenting with Alias|Wavefront's Maya Unlimited Version 4.5

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