[extropy-chat] Segways banned in Disney World

Mike Lorrey mlorrey at yahoo.com
Mon Feb 9 14:42:33 UTC 2004


--- Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 08, 2004 at 10:53:33PM -0500, Brian Alexander Lee wrote:
> 
> > Luckily there is a simple solution to the "running out of power"
> > problem.
> > Monitor your energy via that handy battery life dial on the segway.
> 
> You don't get it. Empirically, people don't do that. People don't
> wear helmets, and they behave like jerks when sharing the same
> space as pedestrians. That thing didn't get banned for nothing. 

It got banned in SF because it wasn't a bicycle. Gene, have you ever
pedalled up Russian Hill? That is quite a bit more than 'burning a few
calories'.

> 
> I don't think Segways would have these problems where there are lots
> of dedicated bike lanes (and where pedestrians are trained to share a
> part of the sidewalk with cyclists -- which do wear helmets here).

The banning of the Segway is a real life impact of the stupidity of the
Precautionary Principle. I am shocked that we have people here
defending such idiocy.

>  
> > This is a minor problem that hasn't stopped the 5,000 purchasers of
> segways.
> 
> Gosh, so they will start designing cities around it any time now, I
> guess.

Actually, that is an idea being considered for the Free Town Project...

>  
> > You may as well avoid cars since running out of fuel at 85mph can
> > cause
> > harm.
> 
> Completely different failure mode.

Yeah, sure, on a busy highway. What again is the kinetic energy of a
2000 lb car at that velocity? Thats 21 million lb ft^2/sec^2

A Segway in tip over mode is going 8 mph. Weight of you and it, lets
say 250 lb = 36,000 lb ft^2/sec^2, or less than two tenths of one
percent of the kinetic energy of the car running out of gas.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

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