[jiveturkey]

Jeez, what is it with the fiat proclamation of dorkiness?! First the atlantic and now nytimes. Like I commented on that article, this must be a coastal thing.

This article goes even further to declare the aesthetics dopey. really? they look just fine thank you very much.

It must be a literary habit to latch on to some minority negative opinion, so as to establish trust, then to argue the positives.

Someone is doing some really good submarining. Bird, most likely.

[dasil003]

Not as dorky as a segway, but definitely dorkier than a bike. Scooters have a long history of dorkiness, see razers in skate parks.

[J-dawg]

That's a fascinating idea. Since reading PG's essay I've thought I was quite good at spotting submarining, but that wouldn't have occurred to me.

Promoting a negative opinion seems risky though. After all, isn't the dork factor widely regarded as being what killed the Segway?

Do you have any examples of when the "negative submarine" has been done successfully?

[letsgetphysITal]

The segway died because it was trivial to tip it over without a lot of practice and training, which is not ideal for adults, and it cost thousands of dollars to purchase.

The total outlay for a 1.5M Bird trip is a buck 90, and you can use one if you've ever ridden a push scooter or bicycle as a child.