Re: Segway listed as #1 on list of 50 worst inventions.
 

...but humans also weren't meant to eat ungodly amounts of high-frustose corn syrup and sit staring at a glowing box for eight hours a day.

Re: Segway listed as #1 on list of 50 worst inventions.
 

And I "got" no respect for those who have no ability to communicate in a socially acceptable manner. Now, I could probably come up with all sorts of reasons why these people don't but really most of them would stem from laziness. I won't do that though because I don't always know the whole story. They may not be native English speakers, they may have a learning disability, or they may just genuinely be lazy. Point is, I shouldn't call them lazy just because that is the reason I think of first. Not everyone has the same gifts as everyone else and one would do well not to paint with such a broad brush.

Sorry for the tangent.

Re: Segway listed as #1 on list of 50 worst inventions.
 

Sounds to me like your avid biker friend is incredibly rude. Yelling insults at passing strangers isn't the way people should act.

As to the Segway being one of the worst inventions ... I don't believe it should be on that list. Is it a failed business project: Yes, absolutely, but a failed invention: no.

Re: Segway listed as #1 on list of 50 worst inventions.
 

You guys can argue with all you want, I still have no respect for those fat people that are more than capable of changing their life around, I can give you tons of examples where they did, but there are an exponential amount of people that have not. The worst are the ones on the bigguts.com, deliberately bulking up in fat, just a disgrace. Being fat has alot of health issues, I dislike fat people because of the health side of it, not the aesthetics. Its like disliking smokers and alcoholic, they are just killing them selves slowly... I am not saying be skinny, I personally think skinny people are pathetic too in a way, they are so small and skinny.

Re: Segway listed as #1 on list of 50 worst inventions.
 

Ok, so...

another thread turned into nattering.
Sorry but the folks I see on Segways are usually working or touring the sights of our beautiful city. I do see folks on Segways at the Championship event and after volunteering in the pits for FTC, I would have loved to have had access to one by the end of the day.

Why get caught up in a silly discussion, blasting people you may know or not know, may have seen or not seen, using them? If you want to have a discussion about fat and lazy people, start one in chitchat and I'll be more than happy to come make a post in that thread asking if you don't have anything better to do with your time than ridicule and generalize.

Jane

Re: Segway listed as #1 on list of 50 worst inventions.
 

I think bikes are a way better form of transportation than the seg way...


edit: if people think I am quick to judge, why are the same people quick to judge against me?

Re: Segway listed as #1 on list of 50 worst inventions.
 

After taking ME 2110 at Georgia Tech (the class you are discussing) I feel like the Segway is an interesting invention but it does have some safety problems (all sorts of everyday things have safety problem to though).

EDIT: After flipping through the list, I see that it is basically a list of 50 things that one person doesnt like.

Re: Segway listed as #1 on list of 50 worst inventions.
 

Q: What is the cost of obesity?

A: On average, people who are considered obese pay $1,429 (42 percent) more in health care costs than normal-weight individuals.[12]

What is the cost of obesity by insurance status?

A: For each obese beneficiary:

* Medicare pays $1,723 more than it pays for normal-weight beneficiaries.
* Medicaid pays $1,021 more than it pays for normal-weight beneficiaries.
* Private insurers pay $1,140 more than they pay for normal-weight beneficiaries.[12]

What is the cost of obesity by the type of service provided?

A: For each obese patient:

* Medicare pays $95 more for an inpatient service, $693 more for a non-inpatient service, and $608 more for prescription drugs in comparison with normal-weight patients.
* Medicaid pays $213 more for an inpatient service,$175 more for a non-inpatient service, and $230 more for prescription drugs in comparison with normal-weight patients.
* Private insurers pay $443 more for an inpatient service, $398 more for a non-inpatient service, and $284 more for prescription drugs in comparison with normal-weight patients.[12]

source:http://www.win.niddk.nih.gov/statistics/index.htm

Q: How many adults age 20 and older are overweight or obese (Body Mass Index, or BMI, > 25)?

A: Over two-thirds of U.S. adults are overweight or obese.[4]

All adults: 68 percent
Women: 64.1 percent
Men: 72.3 percent

Thats alot of people... and there are 305,689,000 americans, 68% of that is 207 868 520 americans overweight.

thats $297 044 115 080 more spent on health care for people that are obese... That is a lot of money
$ 297.04411508 billion (US dollars)

http://berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/...6/smoking.html
compared to $72.7 Billion spent on tobacco related illnesses, I think obesity is a way bigger problem...

Now think of the possibilities that extra money can be spent on, help ending poverty?

Re: Segway listed as #1 on list of 50 worst inventions.
 

The 300 million number is for the entire US population not the adult population. i get your point but your numbers are off.
Many people who are overweight cannot lose weight easily either due to lack of time to exercise, medical problems, and other factors factors that are somewhat to completely out of their control.

Re: Segway listed as #1 on list of 50 worst inventions.
 

Highlight mine.

Who ever said losing weight was easy? Everybody wants an instant gratification success without any real hard work. Just pop a few magic pills and everything is better! People who want to seriously lose weight need to make major decisions that slightly alter everything they do.

Instead of driving 60 miles to work, move closer to a walkable neighborhoods and walk/bike to work. Bingo, free exercise while you commute. Bonus points if you can also walk to the most common stores you'll need (grocery store, convenience store, pharmacy, etc).

When in the grocery store, don't buy junk food. If you don't have any in your house, you can't eat it.

Keep a list of all the calories you eat everyday; after a while you'll begin to dread having to add that snack to the list and you'll just skip eating it.

Stop driving to the corner store to buy a gallon of milk; seriously if it's less than a half mile away you can walk there and back in under 15 minutes.

Get rid of your leaf blower. Use a rake. Unless you have a back condition, get rid of your snow blower and use a shovel.

If you have to eat fast food the breakfast menu is generally more healthy than the lunch/dinner menu.

Eliminate high-fructose corn syrup from your diet. It's not natural, and the enzymes in your stomach can't break it down easily. Thus, your body doesn't accurately know when it's full, and you'll tend to eat more food than you need.

It's lots of little decisions like this compounded together that all help reduce weight. There is no magic solution other than consistent hard work and personal will power.

Re: Segway listed as #1 on list of 50 worst inventions.
 

This is what I mean about people being lazy, they DON'T do those... I know its a long process, I was 210 after my Freshman Football Season, dropped down to 187 then got back up to 205 and leaner, that took 1.5 years... and countless hours in the gym busting my $@#$@#$@# lifting some heavy $@#$@#$@# weights...

Re: Segway listed as #1 on list of 50 worst inventions.
 

They're off in a number of ways. He quoted the 68% figure for "overweight or obese" and tried to multiply it by the extra cost for "obese". That overstates the cost by a factor of two even without taking into account the "age 20 and older" distinction.

The advice to do some research didn't go far enough. It is also necessary to read for comprehension, and not just stop when a quick scan of the numbers looks like they confirm a pre-existing point of view.

Re: Segway listed as #1 on list of 50 worst inventions.
 

While overall message in your post is reasonable, the quoted point is pretty much entirely wrong.

1. "Natural" means nothing in this context. The product is chemically simple enough that it wouldn't matter if it was derived from plants or petroleum (through some creative organic chemistry). You're just getting glucose and fructose. (Glucose and fructose are the same sugars that combine to form common sucrose, and, along with water, are the principal chemical constituents of high-fructose corn syrup.) The implication that natural things are generally better for people is a dangerous falsehood.
2. Stomach enzymes don't break down glucose and fructose. (You might be thinking of amylase, which makes simple sugars from starches. Glucose and fructose are already simple sugars, and don't need to be broken down in the mouth or stomach.)
3. The satiation reflex is complicated and it's not correct to summarize it in terms of false premises. Bulk of food, appetites for specific chemicals (e.g. sodium) and other factors act more quickly and directly than the response to oxidative metabolism. (Digestion takes hours.)

There's a grain of truth to the idea that high-fructose corn syrup has some impact on health. Fructose is one step further along the glycolysis process than glucose is. And because the step that converts glucose to fructose consumes adenosine triphosphate (ATP, the chemical that your body uses as a unit of energy for immediate use), you use slightly more energy metabolizing glucose than fructose, when using the glycolysis metabolic pathway. However, most fructose doesn't get used in glycolysis (via phosphorylation), and instead is undergoes another metabolic process, fructolysis, in the liver. That means that the (slightly) increased concentration of fructose in high-fructose corn syrup will cause a relative increase in fructolysis and a decrease in glycolysis.

There's no scientific consensus on the health consequences. Both glycolysis and fructolysis are normal processes in healthy animals, and it's unclear whether more of one and less of the other poses a risk to human health. Studies are underway to determine if there are measurable problems with metabolizing proportionally more sugar in the liver (glycolysis takes place everywhere; fructolysis is localized in the liver).

Many of the myths surrounding corn syrup are the product of people who don't understand to any extent whatsoever the biological processes at work, and are drawing conclusions based on this lack of understanding. The only thing they get out of it is the dubious proposition that "HFCS makes you fat". This is why high school biology is useful, even to non-biologists.

Re: Segway listed as #1 on list of 50 worst inventions.
 

The subject of this thread is obviously changing. I just want to throw out there that the weight limit for a Segway is 260 lbs. There are obviously a range of people who weigh 260 lbs but the vast majority of them I am sure are capable of walking any where that a Segway would be bringing them. I doubt many people (if any) are morbidly obese because they ride a Segway.