Word: leaning
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...Just lean forward," Kamen commands, so I do, and instantly I start rolling across the concrete right...
...think about backing up." Once again, I follow instructions, and soon I glide in reverse to where I started. With a twist of the wrist, I pirouette in place, and no matter which way I lean or how hard, Ginger refuses to let me fall over. What's going on here is all perfectly explicable--the machine is sensing and reacting to subtle shifts in my balance--but for the moment I am slack-jawed, baffled. It was Arthur C. Clarke who famously observed that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." By that standard, Ginger is advanced indeed...
...human being into a system where the machine acts as an extension of your body." On first inspection, balancing on Ginger seems only slightly more feasible than balancing on a barbell. But what Kamen is talking about is the way Ginger does the balancing for you. Lean forward, go forward; lean back, go back; turn by twisting your wrist. The experience is the same going uphill, downhill or across any kind of terrain - even ice. It is nothing like riding a bike or a motorcycle. Instead, in the words of Vern Loucks, the former chairman of Baxter International...
...When he would lean back and relax, and smile, it would become infectious,” said friend and Fly Club president Angus R. Burgin...
...this Black Friday's sales come in next week - and you will see anxious economists in malls doing exit polling - they may not mean that much even if they're encouraging. Last year's day-after-Turkey-Day numbers were plump but the rest of the season was lean until after the January markdowns, and the recent trend has been that shopping gets done earlier and earlier every year. This Black Friday could be pure gold and still be the last decent day of the year...