February 7, 2001

12:39 PM

Did anyone catch 60 Minutes II last night, and their piece on inventor Dean Kamin? After watching this show I felt that the hype surrounding "IT" may not be unfounded. His company's inventions are truly revolutionary. Plus, the guy has some really cool homes that make Bill Gates' mansion look boring.
posted by Sal Amander (17 comments total)

Oops, sorry. It's Dean KAMEN.
posted by Sal Amander at 12:43 PM on February 7, 2001

I know this guy has gotten a lot of hype lately, but he seems like a genuinely nice guy with great ideas about what he wants to accomplish for the scientific community. Granted, I don't know him personally, but I've been reading lots of interviews with him recently (especially after the whole "IT" uproar) and I personally think he seems like a pretty excellent guy. Plus, the whole First project is really neat, and if he can even inspire a few kids that normally wouldn't have been exposed to science, I'm all for it.
posted by almostcool at 1:56 PM on February 7, 2001

Everyone knows that "IT" is a powered, stabilized scooter. That's it. Nothing more. If this DOES change the world we'll having millions of people speeding here and there on Razor scooters. Wow.

"Revolutionary" is a relative thing. I got a new shrimp peeler the other day. It's cut my shrimp peeling time IN HALF!!!!! Totally revolutionary!
posted by y6y6y6 at 2:44 PM on February 7, 2001

I got a new shrimp peeler the other day. It's cut my shrimp peeling time IN HALF!!!!! Totally revolutionary!

You cannot look at Kamen's iBot wheelchair and say that it's NOT revolutionary. Just ask a wheelchair bound person who has tried this Deka invention. Be sure to ask this person when he's in the iBot wheelchair looking at you AT EYE LEVEL!

Everyone knows that "IT" is a powered, stabilized scooter. That's it. Nothing more.

I suppose that you've seen 'IT' firsthand? Come on, those scooter patents are a decoy to keep the press at bay. 'IT' may not be the item itself, but it's method of locomotion. Just my opinion. I'm sure there were plenty of people that thought the automobile would never replace the horse.
posted by Sal Amander at 12:08 AM on February 8, 2001

It's not changing very many peoples' worlds.

You're right aaron, Dean should hang it up, give up this stupid "innovating" thing because it's totally pointless to invent something truly revolutionary that happens to be cost-prohibitive to give to everyone. Why can't he be a better engineer? What a selfish bastard that Dean Kamen is.

</sarcasm>
posted by mathowie at 12:33 AM on February 8, 2001

iBot has not.

Aaron, ask the people who will purchase an iBot if it has changed the world. I'd like a 3-page essay on my desk tomorrow. er, wait.

Kamen isn't doing any of the hyping, btw - remember this all started with a little thing from inside.com, and the only quotes about the glorious godsend have been from people other than Kamen, too. He's only talked about it when denying that it'll be the glorious godsend people think it'll be.
posted by hijinx at 4:16 AM on February 8, 2001

That's called "using surrogates."
posted by rodii at 6:53 AM on February 8, 2001

OK, iBot isn't available yet (it will be this year), I give you that. But can you deny that Kamen's portable dialysis machine has changed many, many lives?
posted by Sal Amander at 7:46 AM on February 8, 2001

Sorry, DoublePostGuy

aaron, I'm not DoublePostGuy. I could prove it to you by showing everyone's IP addresses, but for now you'll have to trust me. I did some digging and I know who it is, and it ain't me.
posted by mathowie at 9:36 AM on February 8, 2001

I did some digging and I know who it is, and it ain't me.

<silliness>
Are you sure you aren't spoofing your IP address, Matt? Or, since you have access to the server logs, maybe you went in and changed the IP addresses to deceive yourself. Thought you might want to check that possibility out just in case.
</silliness>
posted by daveadams at 10:30 AM on February 8, 2001

You never know. I mean, maybe Matt's got some sort of Tyler Durden-esque action going on with this DoublePostGuy entity....

</more_silliness>
posted by youhas at 3:17 PM on February 8, 2001

I KNEW Matt was not DoublePostGuy! I bet DoublePostGuy is somebody famous, so they came up with that name so as to blend in with us normal people.
posted by thirteen at 3:25 PM on February 8, 2001

DPG's not famous. His name is DoublePost Guy. Read his bio.

Unless he's famous under a stage name. Or a pen name. Hmm.
</yet_more_silliness>
posted by snarkout at 3:46 PM on February 8, 2001

Actualy the car hasn't technically replaced the horse. It has, in western cultures, largely replaced it but even then there are some people who still use them.
This whole xreplacesy model of technological development is just untrue. What happens isn't a replacement of a whole category of thing with another but a broadening of categories.
posted by davidgentle at 9:22 PM on February 9, 2001