fuck Dean Kamen! For two years leading up to the 'segway' his company pronounced it as an invention that would change the designs of cities. The then unamed item would create a revolution in transportation. The speculation was a flying automobile.
It turned out to be a godamned scooter with different wheel placement? Wow, a gyroscope. You suck Dean Kamen. You suck.

by the way, Dean Kamen is our answer to Lex Luthor. An Evil Genius bent on world domination through stupid design. Only 'Incredible Maniac' can stop him.

Dean Kamen and many of his inventions are totally cool. Speculation that we would have an afordable, save flying car is totally absurd.

I stand by my earlier assessment. fuck dean kamen.

I have mixed feelings for Dean Kamen. As for hoping for flying machines -- yeah, thats a bit of a strech. All you had to do is look at his patents to know what the guy was up to.

He filed for this patent in 1999:
US patent #6,302,230

Which described and illustrated a very similar vehicle.

1. A vehicle for carrying a payload including a user, the vehicle comprising:

a. a platform which supports the user;

b. a ground-contacting module, to which the platform is mounted, which propels the user in desired motion over an underlying surface;

c. a motorized drive arrangement, coupled to the ground-contacting module; the drive arrangement, ground-contacting module and payload comprising a system being unstable with respect to tipping when the motorized drive is not powered; the motorized drive arrangement causing, when powered, automatically balanced operation of the system wherein the vehicle has a present velocity and a maximum operating velocity, determined by a requirement of acceleration to maintain balance and, in operation, has a balancing margin determined by the difference between the maximum operating velocity and the present velocity of the vehicle;

Why less wheels? I say the more wheels the better. I would like a motorcycle with a thousand MatchBox Car wheels.

But two wheels are better than four!

Someone please tell me why the concept of a flying car is laughable. 20,000 years ago nobody could imagine the wheel. 5,000 years ago nobody could imagine the plow. 1,000 years ago nobody could imagine the gun. 500 years ago nobody could imagine the steam engine. 100 years ago few people could imagine the airplane, automobile and radio. In fact connecting multiple computers through a network would have been laughable until just a few decades ago. Why is a flying vehicle for practicle use such a stretch? Sikorski created a personal helicopter that could take off and land in an area the size of a suburban lawn. Why can't it happen?

Its not a matter of it not happening. In fact, I think the technology of the problem is the *least* of our worries. Although I do think a cheap workable technology for a flying car is still quite a ways off.

Think of the invention of the car. It took quite a while for the car to become common place, decades. It took nearly 50 years until highways were built -- and they weren't really built just for cars, more as a military application with some nice civilian use side effects. Cars also had the advantage of having roads that were already in existance before the car.

"Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads." -Doc Brown

Well.. thats not true. In the advent of flying vehicles there would have to be a *MAJOR* overhaul in how we handle our traffic in the air. How would you keep personal flight on a mass scale orderly? How would you keep from people crashing their cars into commercial jet airliners if they happened to be by the airport one day? Hell, what happens when people crash into eachother at an altitude of 100ft?.. 1000ft? Does everyone need a pilots license, or do we have to open a new bureau of transportation and begin a nationwide training and licensing program?

So, no, I don't think you are going to see a commercial anytime soon for the new "Honda Airccord, MSRP $22,000" I don't think many people are even working on the technology. Its too expensive, technologically and culturally to be a viable solution at this point. I don't expect to see it in my lifetime -- at least not on a mass scale.

I believe cars that drive themselves is a more cost efficient technology to work on. Imagine the traffic of New York City seemlessly weaving through itself.

I agree with you both. It can and will happen, it's simply a matter of when. But must they be as ubiquitous as cars are today? Just because the technology exists doesn't mean everybody should use it.

If the problem is getting people from where they are to where they need to go quickly and efficiently, I prefer we focus on solutions such as people not needing their own vehicles to get from A to B because there are so many other people at A trying to get to B that they can all share one, fast ride. Thinking like this, we already have flying cars, but they are more like flying busses.

I fear that flying cars would make it even easier for people to live far away from where they need to be on a daily basis. The real solution doesn't require futuristic technology. It requires policies that will bring people closer together again.

Flying cars will one day exist. I just hope that on that day everybody is located close enough to efficient mass transit that there's little need for a car, much less one that flies, and that in most cities there will be very little space for such things. It's a race to see which will happen first.

On the last note, cars that are non-human controlled cars may be able to increase the speed of cars (because of the faster reaction times) that flying cars wouldn't have a speed advantage within city limits.

main problem: people have enough trouble navigating their cars through 2 dimensions. can you imagine what they would do if they had to drive in 3? I don't even know if my grandparents can even fathom the concept of 'up'. (example: "what the hell do you mean JT? I can go up? what the hell is that?"). And of course, knowing my luck, they would find a magical rock, that grants wishes and flys through the air on wimsey and love, then they would hit the damn thing. They would also drive way to slow in the verticle lane. AARP is deliberately keeping flying vehicles off the market.

Hey jerk off,
your site sucks. i dont even know where to begin... oh i know: "BASE and drums rock."
hmmmm... last time i checked BASE was something used in baseball, but you probably knew that you fucking idiotic jock. by the way its BASS! jesus christ...
Next order of buisness... your little pussy shit about the bottled water in africa and the "ebrio". stupid. thats all i have to say. you dolt.

The midwest is for hicks and people who are in hick denyal. Go pick me an ear of corn, and refil my coffee.
For every "pi-rated" song you dont download, im gonna download 3. You suck. downloading music for free is a way of cheating the system, and the system is already corrupt. But you probably dont care. you tool.
Capital punishment is funny. period
In closing, I am being completely honest, I have NO idea what the main point of your "site" is. I'm not even sure if its supposed to be funny... if it is, give it up, its not.

in closing #2, you suck, your site sucks, you're an idiot and a tool.

ha ha ha ha. Brian is pretty awesome. We should listen to his psychotic ramblings. Couldn't even leave an e-mail address. ha ha ha ha. Just stay anonymous brian, I don't think you want us to know who you are. pussy.

Is he talking to me? ; )

if you're going to rip someone about the technicalities of base vs. bass.....shouldn't you have something less than 16 spelling and punctuation errors in your own comments? Ahhhh hipocrasy, but I guess, to borow your word, I'm just in denyal....or something.