Fifteen years on, there are not one, not two, but three kinds of "hoverboard" out there for consideration. One is a device popularly
marketed as such in
2015/early
2016 which, critically,
DOES NOT HOVER. It is instead
a two-wheeled battery-powered standing scooter. Obviously, marketed as a hoverboard because "two-wheeled battery-powered standing scooter" sounds vaguely like something an elderly person would ride in the cafeteria line. But the key takeaway is that with this version of the hoverboard, there is no goddamn hovering going on. Try and take it out over a lake, and you'll sink (and probably be electrocuted).
Now, the other hoverboards which came out late in 2015, they're the real deal. One is
a sort of bulky, boxy, fan-powered thing which can carry you triumphantly around for all of six minutes. The other, light years cooler to look at, is a
maglev device which can carry you around all day --
provided that you spend all day in this one skate park built by Lexus, where a network of underground
magnetic rails do the heavy lifting to keep a person-occupied hoverboard off the ground.
Not to pooh-pooh these innovations too much. After all, by today's standards, the first
cars and
airplanes and
mobile phones were boxy and inefficient and a far cry from the sleek modern marvels (even
the first horse was just a tiny thing). So good on
science and
technology to advancing us to what will surely be looked back upon by slackers flying every which way as the humble beginnings of a true future hoverboard
revolution.
----
For THE IRON NODER CHALLENGE: 9 FAST 9 FERROUS