How did Dean Kamen ever get famous? He gained worldwide fame during the decade for popularizing the Segway, a two-wheeled portable transporter that, if it had become even remotely successful, would have accelerated the obesity epidemic. As it is, the Segway has become a tourist oddity. (Best Buy in Serramonte has one on display by the way, right behind a rack of microwave ovens.) Look what it did to Brad Pitt in this photo I took last year. And this month, Kamen's touting that's he's the father of North Dumpling Island, a supposedly independent nation off the coast of Connecticut. North Dumpling will be a self-sustaining, eco-friendly, net-zero-energy community. Part of the energy savings will come from the fact that the lights on North Dumpling will be light emitting diodes, which use about 1/9th of the energy of incandescent bulbs (7.8 watts versus 60 watts) and last 50,000 hours instead of just 1,500 hours. Kamen's done a lot of interesting work in medical devices, but seriously, he's now a nation builder? North Dumpling selected Philips to provide its LEDs, which so far shows the government hasn't completely gone haywire there. Philips has become the world's largest lighting vendor, partly through acquisitions like ColorKinetics. Since 2005, Philips has spent $5 billion in lighting acquisitions. Will that be enough to save North Dumpling. Mark my words: Eight months from now, Kamen and his fellow citizens will be hunkered down with stone knives and bear skins.