| Saturday,
January 13, 2000 Last night at dinner (AJ Budrys's 70th
birthday party) Craig Miller asked me if I knew what "IT" was. I
had to confess that I had never heard of "IT" which turns
out to be a Dave Kamens invention that is, according to Steve Jobs and
other backers, going to revolutionize civilization. Also code named
Ginger, it's going to require redesigning cities, which, according to
Jobs. all you have to do is see it to realize that we ought to rebuild our
cities to accommodate it.
That's all third party reporting and I doubt Steve Jobs is quite that
naive. Anyway last night I looked for reference to Kamens and IT and got a
report on a quarter of a million dollar book deal about this device which
won't be released until late this year. That's impressive but not enough
to change the world. It's not even all that large an advance for an
unwritten book. These things are usually structured at about 1/4 on
signing, another on 1/4 on delivery, another 1/4 on hardback publication,
and the last payment on paperback publication. Some contracts get more up
front but oddly enough those are usually larger and a quarter million.
This morning a search produced the
Drudge Report, which says that "IT" or "Ginger" is
a motor-powered unicycle scooter, sort of a Razor scooter with some
differences. There's a drawing on the Drudge site. I have no idea
whether or not Drudge is joking. He doesn't usually make that kind of
joke, and this comes from a patent application which seems to be
associated with the IT promotion group. If he is putting us on he's doing
it with a straight face. Which doesn't mean that he can't be had by
jokesters, for that matter.
I say all this because, although I had not heard of it -- where was I
that I missed it all? -- there has been so much buzz about
"Ginger" and "IT" and how it was going to change the
world. Now "it" turns out to be a low-powered relatively short
range personal transport system?
I thought we had an invention that would work as a personal transport
system within cities. It's called "legs". Some don't have the
use of them and use "wheel chairs" and we have rebuilt many
cities -- Berkeley, California being the prime example -- to make life
easy for people who are confined to them and who can't use legs, but
"legs" remain the standard transport. Most of us know how to use
them, and they are not easily forgotten or stolen.
Over the years our personal "walking radius" -- the
distance we will walk rather than resort to automobiles or other powered
transport -- has got smaller and smaller. In my case I substituted a
bicycle, which is a bit more convenient than a unicycle scooter because my
bicycle has a basket on it. But in Studio City I can walk most places, and
those I would not walk to because of distance I wouldn't take a powered
velocipede either: as for instance to my laundry/tailor which is a couple
of miles away, close enough for a bicycle but it's awkward to be carrying
my freshly cleaned and pressed tuxedo on a bicycle, and I am sure it would
be doubly so on a powered scooter. And of course I take a car rather than
legs or a bicycle when it is raining.
I expect Drudge is having a joke. I hope Drudge is having a joke. But
then there is the wonderful Aesop fable about "The Mountain in
Labor". I recall reading it at an early enough age that I had to ask
my mother what "labor" meant, and that led to my having to be
told things children my age were not, in those times, supposed to be aware
of. But that was in a different country.
I do not think powered unicycle scooters or powered scooters in general
will very much change the world, but perhaps I live in a restricted part
of it, and there are places where much energy would be saved by them.
Perhaps. But I also notice that my energy aware neighbor, Ed
Begley Jr., has got himself a dual-fuel car rather than his older
all-electric, since the baby came; and I don't see him much on his
electric-power boosted bicycle anymore. (Understand, this is not
intended as putting down Ed. His house generates all the electricity he
uses through its solar panels, so he's not being inconsistent when he
experiments with alternate forms of transportation.
Incidentally Ed tells me that solar power shingles for your roof are
down to about $3 bucks a watt, and you have to cover your roof with
something. Without battery storage you'd have to use the power as fast as
generated, but on a hot day it could certainly contribute to your cooling:
both by absorbing the energy before it gets to your house, and by helping
run the air conditioner, which in LA at least you only need when the sun
is shining...)
Of course that "Watt" will need defining. I suspect it means
1 Watt/hour at high noon, clear skies. The average will be considerably
less. Be generous: assume we can get 1/2 Watt/hour for an average of 8
hours a day. Then we have 4 Watt/hours/day. In 1000 days we will
have 4 KiloWatt Hours, or 250 days for 1 KW/Hr. I believe electricity
sells for under $1 KiloWatt/Hr, but I have not priced it recently.
Certainly it's not a lot more than that. It was 1.5 cents a KW/Hr when I
was a kid and it was TVA power, and the price was remarkably stable during
those years of inflation by a factor of ten to 100 on nearly everything
else since my childhood. (Kerosene was 10 cents a gallon in 1944, during
the War.)
I am not sure that $3.00/Watt solar cells are all that good an
investment. I suspect that new power sources, including space solar power,
would have a greater payoff both in environment and return on investment.
Some discussion in mail.
Jerry,
found a reference to this http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/01/12/airborne.laser/index.html
item over on slashdot. Thought that you might be interested, and have some
thoughtful commentary.
john
This is one of several notes I have on this. The referenced report is a
bit breathless. I have been aboard an airplane equipped with that, and I
was the keynoter at the Directed Energy symposium last Fall. All this is
still in the labs, but yes, it can be made into an operational weapon.
It's boost phase of course with a limited range; but it should work in a
SCUD environment. USAF found and destroyed exactly zero unlaunched SCUDS
during the Gulf War.
All evening working on getting installation versions of the Windows
version of Roberta's reading
instruction program. So far it works fine on Windows 95, 98, and ME in
32 bit color, OK in other resolutions except some color transparencies
aren't what they ought to be but it is usable, and not at all in Windows
2000. Still, the number of machines that have a CDROM drive but not 32-bit
color isn't large, and Windows 2000 is a lot less widely distributed
particularly in schools and home school situations than the other versions
of Windows.
The program is self administering: that is, once the pupil learns a bit
about rules and mouse clicking and such, it works pretty well unattended,
with the vocal instructions done by Roberta. Sound levels aren't as
uniform as I like, but they're all adequate. And 70 lessons of about half
an hour each and anyone can read any word in the English language.
The old DOS version works too, but that requires a tutor -- someone who
can read to read the lessons off the screen to the non-reader. It works
well, and for those who are looking for an excuse to spend some quality
time with a child it's pretty good, but we are astonished at how few seem
willing to put in half an hour a day (per kid) to be sure their kids can
read. (Read: look at a word like Constantinople and SAY it properly; more
to the point a word like Oldsmobile or birthday or Dalmatian which is
likely to be in the speaking vocabulary and say it thus putting all
speaking vocabulary words into the reading vocabulary.)
The Mac version uses the Mac's text-to-speech engine to read the
instructions and thus doesn't need an instructor. The Windows version is
more or less a conversion of the Mac version except that the sounds are
all on CD-ROM recorded by Roberta.
And after years of work it looks to be nearly done.
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