Saturday, May 31, 2003

I got to ride a famous Segway at SPAWAR the other day (Picture) and came away with a thought about it. It's like using a computer, all mind and twitching. When you're on it you are reduced to your thumb and mind to move it. Lean forward and go, twitch your thumb and you turn. To move fast you just pretend to fall forward fast, and to stop quick you fall backward quick. All is well if you stay in this ameba state of thumb and mind, but very quickly you try and go beyond that and use your body, like you would on a bike, to muscle the thing around. When you do this you immediately feel like your fighting against invisible forces, like when you hold a spinning bicycle wheel by the axle and try and move it around. Which is what his happening because you are fighting the force of gyroscopes in its base. If you try and force a Segway things start to feel strange and out off balance. So this is a scooter that is like the world so many of us work in all day, sitting, thinking, twitching.

Our host showed us how to horse it though. He lowered the handle bar to about 3 feet and used the special key to let it go 12mph (we were on the 6mph key). Then he took off crouching and zooming around the parking lot, riding balancing on one wheel, with one side on a curb, and then rode straight into the bushes and dirt for some off roading. But he was just using his body to lean and hold on to the machine, not the way you horse a bike like you would any inanimate tool.

This thing takes control and takes you for a ride, vs. you taking it for a ride.

---------------------posted by Caleb John Clark on 5/31/2003 10:47:00 AM