I don't know who you are, but I came within a hairs whisker of meeting the man and it is one of the few things in my life that I honestly can say I regret.

That he 'discovered' something is a strawman, that's not what this is article is all about, if you had actually gone further than skin deep (say past the title) you would have seen that for yourself. That's not a claim Engelbart made, that's just something his daughter said (last line in the article).

And anybody that has driven a recumbent knows this too, but that doesn't mean you get to belittle all of them for pointing this out.

If you got nothing out of it because you already knew all of it then good for you, I've been riding bikes since I was 3 (hard to avoid when you're dutch) and only in my late thirties I finally fully grokked the dynamics of riding a bicycle, they're anything but intuitive.

The most interesting thing about bicycles is how we got them to be so 'right' without knowing that theory, it's a classical case of evolution in progress, nobody with the physics knowledge required ever sat down to design the thing, tons of weird designs were tried (and are still being tried) which led to a nearly optimal shape. And lots of the bits and pieces in that near optimal shape were used long before they were understood.

Incidentally there seems to be a disproportionate representation of the ability to juggle and ride the monocycle amongst mathematicians, why is that?

If anyone is interested in building one of these for their toddler, there is a great pattern located here: http://crumleydotorg.chattablogs.com/archives/038834.html

I used the above pattern to build 2 of them for my 2.5 year old twins... they love them and have great balance now.

Here's how mine turned out: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/113513/bikes.jpg http://dl.dropbox.com/u/113513/bike1.jpg http://dl.dropbox.com/u/113513/bike2.jpg

I broke-even in price, it cost approx. $60/bike which is what it costs to get a similar "elmo" bike at target: http://www.target.com/Elmos-Beginner-Bike/dp/B00155X3UI

If you're going to break the bank, it's going to be b/c you couldn't find cheap wheels. This is where I went wrong, since I spent about $11 per wheel at home depot. I later found them for $4 at a smaller local hardware shop. ;p

That's a good job you did there. And so much more satisfaction making your own than just going out and buying one.

What better gift to your child than something made with your own hands and on your own time.

Did you read the article? It's not celebrating that he found pedaling less important than balancing, it's telling how he came up with a method to explicitly teach balancing by steering constantly and therefore making the wobble-lean-steer-tilt relationship stand out and be the bit to focus attention on.

( Also, have a 'trying to be cool' sticker for your jaded cynicism: http://www.paulgraham.com/essay.html )