Jury Duty!

I got called up for jury duty this week, and unlike ever before, I was actually selected to sit on a trial. I am not allowed to talk about the case at all until it's over, however, but hopefully that will be soon. I will say that it's been weird being cut off from the world. We're not sequestered, but nonetheless I'm away from phones and e-mails and colleagues for most of the day.

A recent Washington Post Article about Segways, a $5,000 high-tech two-wheeled electric transporter, offered the following astute observation:

"My theory for why it hasn't caught on is that you look like a dork when you're on one of those things . . . even if you're in a police uniform," said Paul Saffo, a mechanical engineering professor at Stanford University and Silicon Valley forecaster.

This led me to wonder why cell phones, by contrast, did catch on, since it is an indisputable fact that people talking on cell phones in public also look like dorks. The only explanation I can find is that unlike Segways, cell phones actually have some practical use.