You're right. They should have scholar.google.com locked up in a testlab, accessible only to google employees. until they iron out ALL the bugs. That's far better than to let all acedemia use it right now for the benefit they could recieve using it.
As should be obvious, I think you're nuts. I've used google scholar for projects at uni for a while now, and it has been quite usefull. It could be better (direct display of homonyms...you never know what jargon scientists will use for the same bloody phenomenon), but it's usefull in it's current state. I'm far happier being able to use it now. If they want to call it beta, fine for them.
WinCe/mobile has PalmOS beat on one thing only; natural handwriting recognition.
You should know though (apparently having had a treo) that palm supports word/excel better than win mobile does. Formatting, saved files etc. It's a well known irony that palm does better than MS at it's own format. All the rest you mention...palm does that too, effortlessly (although why you'd want to read stuff in.lit I really don't know).
"but when it comes to my PDA it has to just work and it is for getting serious work done quickly."
So get a palmOS device (or, what I'd want now is a win mobile device with palmOS on it:))! When my friends and I get into the old 'my pda is better than yours' arguments, I do this: we "race" to see who can a)set up an appointment faster b)who can draw an annotated map faster in the app of users choice c)see who can dictate a word faster and d)find a contacts email faster. A palmos device wins at all of 'em.
Oh...and another nice thing is to see which device can play it's mp3's the longest (through headphones, to make it more objective):)
And wtf is that 'closing an app doesn't really stop the thread from running' crap which win mobile still pulls? I click close and my damn app better remove itself from memory unless I don't want it to (as is the case for when I run my mp3's when reading)...
The only things win mobile does right is handwriting recognition, the hardware and slightly easier appwriting. But for basic PDA functionality palmos wins every time.
I've heard/seen pics that the palm t3's and later ipaq ppc's (iirc) have near identical hardware (at least in terms of circuitboard/cpu). What are the chances of getting this project working on a t3?
Too true. In Delft, a professor working on quantum representations of electronic circuits told me the following: it takes them 3 months to get a chip from a fab. Sometimes the chips are flawed...so there go another three months. Sometimes everything is correct, but the circuit still doesn't do what it's supposed to; a quick modification to the design...and another three months worth of waiting. Not to mention the expense! A different group in the faculty is working on systems using electron beams to create chip prototypes...but that's a slow way of doing things (but cheaper than making chip-masks).
There is still one mayor problem with 3d rapid prototyping systems though; the rasterisation leaves you with a part which needs to be finished (meaning there are always steps between the lower and higher layers; you won't get a smooth surface...kinda like a lego pyramid before they had anything other than plain blocks; it's an artifact from the stepping of the deposition motor and the fact that most 3d prototyping systems have to work in discrete layers).
So when you say rocket motors, am I correct in assuming that you mean just the laval tube? Depending on the exact geometry, I wouldn't be surprised if finishing the actual protoype's surface is a part of the problem. Stepping problems (the lego effect) don't appear in traditional metal fabrication like milling, turning, extrusion or moulded parts, but I bet the inherent metal structure which results from 3d protoyping also makes for some interesting stress calculations. Add to that a difficult finishing process which could also affect the structure of the tube and I'm not surprised 3d prototyping a laval tube is difficult.
Then again, it could be that a)you mean the entire motor (?!) and b) these are absolutely not the difficulties you've faced:)
I know...currently they use ESA and Sea Launch for their space trucks more than the shuttle due to lower costs, but sometimes they need the extra capacity the shuttle can provide. I use the term space truck for any launch vehicle who's job it is to just deliver payload into orbit...much like a truck delivers cargo to an earthbound destination. And seeing the amount of satelites launched (appart from the fact that yeah, it's in space, it's more dangerous, and it isn't routine) I would call it a space-trucking business...now all we need is a true space truck (as pertaining to cheap launch costs).
I think I do get what you're getting at:) That's kinda why I mentioned Rutan, even though I know what he's doing isn't what you mean, at least he's getting there in terms of a fully re-usable first stage and a second stage which doesn't need to fly up but just has to deal with re-entry. Sure, he doesn't go orbital, but he is seperating launch stages into discrete stages which are designed to perform in their seperate environments.
What's interesting is what Rutan is planning after his next launcher: orbital in seperate re-usable stages. SS1 and WK are just neccessary steps in the production process.
I'm aware of the physics of the situation. Which is exactly my point. Speed is not very important. No resitance means that (barring the gravity the ISS causes) your launch speed can be mere meters per second: the trash'll get there and doesn't have a reason for having to get there fast. Only when you shoot for re-entry burnup do you need a specific speed in order to miss satelites...and we can calculate their positions just fine, so I'd guess that low speeds would suffice even for that option.
As for the second part: think mass production. Think multiple microsats on one launch. Optimal vehicle designs only mean something if you have the money for it...point being that if you can build that re-entry vehicle cheaply enough, and keep launch costs low (which for a standardised, mass-produced vehicle is a pretty expectable thing), you design the payload to work with such a vehicle. That's how mechanical engineering for mass-production works: look at Ford. Look at tank production in WWII. Look at the Joint Strike Fighter: at least three designs on the same superstructure, translating into less money spent than if we'd done three seperate vehicles. If you can get people and cargo into orbit, you're there. What, your cargo needs people to deploy it? No problem, we'll send two of the cheap ships, one with a crew module, one with the cargo...and that's feasable because both vehicles (appart from the cargo/crewmodule) are the same and we have built a hundred of them. Oh, you'r cargo need to be launched into orbit and then retrieved? We'll outfit a retreival arm into the cargo container. Different orbit? Again...we'll just fill this ship up to here with fuel...the extra fuel costs due to un-optimal fueling/vehicle design will be lost against the savings we have made by designing just the one superstructure instead of designing three different ships from scratch.
Now I'm not saying all differentiation in launch vehicles is bad/dumb/whatever. I'm just saying that for getting people/cargo into space, one all purpose, retaskable vehicle will save money. What I'm saying is take a space shuttle and strip it bare untill you have a launchplatform. Then add space to add either a cargo module, or a crew module, or a hybrid, or whatever. You'll end up with a ship which is more versatilke than the shuttle for a fraction of the cost. I mentioned the tanks and the JSF before...also look at what general motors and other car companies want to do with electrical/hybrid cars, or what they're already doing with modern-day cars: they're using a common base and differentiating from there (plug in an engine, a chassis and an interior onto the base, and you have a new model car). They do this because it makes sense: it reduces cost and makes different designs (from that common base) easier, cheaper and faster.
Thing is...we're not talking about mere flight...neither are we talking about mere cars/trucks.
BTW run the numbers on that and I wouldn't be surprised if spaceflight is as hazardous as driving a car. Hell, top of my head says driving a car is more dangerous than just 1.8% mortality rate. So who is applying "bad logic for political reasoning"?
EVERY single telecom company will dissagree with you. As will every national intelligence agency. As will quite a few material scientists I know of.
Dude, you are full of shit. Not only that, but you are risk averse (which might not be a bad thing, nesseccarily). If it where up to people like you, there'd be no cars, no trains, and no european discovery of the americas. It's people like you who take all the fun out of life. You/are/ that grey old lady who is against any and all progress, because it might be dangerous. Just don't keep your kids in the house for ever 'cause 'the outside world is dangerous!'...they'll die of shock when they do leave the house.
Trash is not a problem. It is (in orbital terms) trivial to eject trash in such a fashion that it would either hit the sun, crash onto the moon or burn up on re-entry.
The rest (crew/experiment return) could be handled with what the Hermes was supposed to do. Burt Rutan has shown that the concept works.
When you think about it, there's only two (maybe three) vehicles needed, and they could concievably be unified in one design: crew transport, cargo transport and satelite transport. I say just design a re-usable launch vehicle that can transport one standard shipping container (the ones they use to ship freight on boats) and all you have to do is design a container for each kind of launch...
The problem with putting people on mars is not that they wouldn't be usefull...it's that they can't be put there yet and robots can (partially due to the outdated shuttle).
Ask any NASA scientist and he'll tell you that all our question about mars could be answered within an hour by having a human on the ground there. We do it by robot because thats currently the only option. But that's expensive. And a robot won't tell you 'hey, this ground is moist!', or 'this looks odd, I know I can climb those rocks, I'll go take a look!'.
Sure, robots are safer. But all 'space'-scientists would like to put a geologist on mars, just for five minutes, to get some decent answers.
Oh, come on! your position is indefensible...give in!
'the Shuttle has a very good safety record for what it does' This means getting crew, orbiter and payload into orbit and getting the crew and itself safely back. That's the only thing it can mean and that is what it does mean. The shuttle cannot be controlled remotely (unlike it's never-flown russian counterpart!). So any comparison to a non-crewed launcher is flawed.
"It is not essential for humans to be in the spacecraft to deliver payloads."
True....but only humans at this point can give neccessary feedback and handle unforseen circumstances...which are bound to come up when your talking about a frontier field like space flight. Even with our current state of the art robotics we'd not have seeen apollo 13 back. Your point that 'if it had been a robot, no-one would have cared' is beside the point: schumacher-levy has adequately demonstrated that it's insane to have all our eggs in one basket.
"What they haven't accomplished very effectively is RCC and tile repair"
Which makes me wonder, especially that last bit, "why?". I remember that guy who made the bearproof suit later developed some kind of foam/coating which disapated heat like a madman (he had a vid of him holding a piece of wood with the coating and a lit blowtorch on it...nothing happened!). Now I know that creating a bearproof suit isn't really credentials...but it worked (and was proved to do so...he got himself attacked by a bear and he survived without a scratch), but apparently there was quite the industry interest in the coating...especially because it was cheap to manufacture and 'made from simple items...you wouldn't believe what it's made of!'.
So what I wonder is this: with the amounts of research having gone into material science and thermodynamics, why is the shuttle still using the most innefficient method available? In the thirty years since, there must be some better way of thermal protection than the oh-so-labour-intensive-each-block-custom-made-and- only-fits-there method they still use...
BTW: "Honestly, I feel sorry for the people who signed off on the safety of the Columbia launch: every other safety board in the shuttle's history, including those during the ones early in the Shuttle program."
This sentence is missing something...could you please clarify that? I can't really make it up from the context.
And BTW2: I still can't believe that the US has seen so many generations of new bombers, and most likely a successor to the SR-71 blackbird...and you're still only on the first gen of a !partially! re-usable orbital launcher. Good luck militarising space:smiley(but a sad one at the same time):
They patented the internet! ('cause it's a telecommunications thingamybob you subsribe with your ISP for, and you download stuff off it!).
How about an IQ test for the USPTO employees? Something along the lines of 'how many fingers am I holding up?' would improve things....and a pay raise if their response is 'hey! Stop giving me the bird!'.
Sorry, but how is this 'news'? Or even 'stuff for geeks?' Have you seen the specs? Near 200 bucks for just a gig of flash ram? I mean, if the thing did something new, or in a new way, I'd say sure...but this is just another mp3 player! WTF is this doing on this site?
Again: had someone hacked together an SD card of a gig together with his own breadboard and made an mp3 player, then this would be/. worthy. As is, this is a product which is low on storage and not so high on features. Hell, j.random palmpilot does all this and more! I know my t3 and it's gig'o'SD can whup this iRiver 'till it can't swim nomore!
So, you want my recommendation (probably not, but this is my post, so screw you:P)): get a zire and a gig of SD ram. Hell, even get a PPC now that those can emulate palm apps!
You know what's not fair? Unlimited copyright. Copyright was always meant to fall into the public domain in a reasonable amount of time. But now it has gotten to the point that many things which where written before I was born will not fall into the public domain within my lifetime!
IOW, something which has (possibly) permeated my entire life I can't incorporate in any way in my own creative work (black/white/grey album is a great example why this is a dumb situation)!
No matter what the legislative wankers say, copyright has effectively become infinite, for all intents and purposes, if during my lifetime I can't use something which was written before I was born.
I heard about this problem (later), as well as the screws of the slider falling out and the screen noise. Whilst still inexcusable (and worthy of more than just a class action), it's what you get for being a first adopter.
Got a IIIc as my first palm...was an early adopter too...imported it when it wasn't on sale in Europe. Never had one single problem with it. Absolute quality device...until it died somehow and got stuck in permanent test mode or something, more than half a decade after I bought it and replaced it with a T3.
That T3, however...I waited long enough to get the second run with all the bugs ironed out: perfect digitiser, no screen sound and the screws are as perfectly in place as they ever where. Just a small dent under the graffitti area from when I dropped it.
Just wanted top post this as a counterpoint to the horro stories (as are bound to fill a thread like this). Still, it is right and propper that Palm got sued for their negligence. Bastards shouldn't have followed the Fight Club logic. I wish the judge would have forced them to replace the m series with the lifedrive, as a form of punitive damages...not being able to use your device properly from day one (and that day one was YEARS ago!) should have consequences appart from loosing marketshare to Piece (of) Piss Computing.
That might be a remotely valid argument if everyone was forced to use American Express. Oh, but even then your argument wouldn't make as much sense as you seem to think.
Slashdot Mirror
You're right. They should have scholar.google.com locked up in a testlab, accessible only to google employees. until they iron out ALL the bugs. That's far better than to let all acedemia use it right now for the benefit they could recieve using it.
As should be obvious, I think you're nuts. I've used google scholar for projects at uni for a while now, and it has been quite usefull. It could be better (direct display of homonyms...you never know what jargon scientists will use for the same bloody phenomenon), but it's usefull in it's current state. I'm far happier being able to use it now. If they want to call it beta, fine for them.
WinCe/mobile has PalmOS beat on one thing only; natural handwriting recognition.
.lit I really don't know).
:))! When my friends and I get into the old 'my pda is better than yours' arguments, I do this: we "race" to see who can a)set up an appointment faster b)who can draw an annotated map faster in the app of users choice c)see who can dictate a word faster and d)find a contacts email faster.
:)
You should know though (apparently having had a treo) that palm supports word/excel better than win mobile does. Formatting, saved files etc. It's a well known irony that palm does better than MS at it's own format.
All the rest you mention...palm does that too, effortlessly (although why you'd want to read stuff in
"but when it comes to my PDA it has to just work and it is for getting serious work done quickly."
So get a palmOS device (or, what I'd want now is a win mobile device with palmOS on it
A palmos device wins at all of 'em.
Oh...and another nice thing is to see which device can play it's mp3's the longest (through headphones, to make it more objective)
And wtf is that 'closing an app doesn't really stop the thread from running' crap which win mobile still pulls? I click close and my damn app better remove itself from memory unless I don't want it to (as is the case for when I run my mp3's when reading)...
The only things win mobile does right is handwriting recognition, the hardware and slightly easier appwriting. But for basic PDA functionality palmos wins every time.
I've heard/seen pics that the palm t3's and later ipaq ppc's (iirc) have near identical hardware (at least in terms of circuitboard/cpu). What are the chances of getting this project working on a t3?
"but allowing low cost R&D"
:)
Too true. In Delft, a professor working on quantum representations of electronic circuits told me the following: it takes them 3 months to get a chip from a fab. Sometimes the chips are flawed...so there go another three months. Sometimes everything is correct, but the circuit still doesn't do what it's supposed to; a quick modification to the design...and another three months worth of waiting. Not to mention the expense! A different group in the faculty is working on systems using electron beams to create chip prototypes...but that's a slow way of doing things (but cheaper than making chip-masks).
There is still one mayor problem with 3d rapid prototyping systems though; the rasterisation leaves you with a part which needs to be finished (meaning there are always steps between the lower and higher layers; you won't get a smooth surface...kinda like a lego pyramid before they had anything other than plain blocks; it's an artifact from the stepping of the deposition motor and the fact that most 3d prototyping systems have to work in discrete layers).
So when you say rocket motors, am I correct in assuming that you mean just the laval tube? Depending on the exact geometry, I wouldn't be surprised if finishing the actual protoype's surface is a part of the problem. Stepping problems (the lego effect) don't appear in traditional metal fabrication like milling, turning, extrusion or moulded parts, but I bet the inherent metal structure which results from 3d protoyping also makes for some interesting stress calculations. Add to that a difficult finishing process which could also affect the structure of the tube and I'm not surprised 3d prototyping a laval tube is difficult.
Then again, it could be that a)you mean the entire motor (?!) and b) these are absolutely not the difficulties you've faced
What, you think smoking kills? It's been proven that everyone who breaths will die :)
I know...currently they use ESA and Sea Launch for their space trucks more than the shuttle due to lower costs, but sometimes they need the extra capacity the shuttle can provide.
I use the term space truck for any launch vehicle who's job it is to just deliver payload into orbit...much like a truck delivers cargo to an earthbound destination. And seeing the amount of satelites launched (appart from the fact that yeah, it's in space, it's more dangerous, and it isn't routine) I would call it a space-trucking business...now all we need is a true space truck (as pertaining to cheap launch costs).
I think I do get what you're getting at :) That's kinda why I mentioned Rutan, even though I know what he's doing isn't what you mean, at least he's getting there in terms of a fully re-usable first stage and a second stage which doesn't need to fly up but just has to deal with re-entry. Sure, he doesn't go orbital, but he is seperating launch stages into discrete stages which are designed to perform in their seperate environments.
What's interesting is what Rutan is planning after his next launcher: orbital in seperate re-usable stages. SS1 and WK are just neccessary steps in the production process.
Is a bachelor in applied physics enough? Please remember we're launching from the ISS, not earth.
I'm aware of the physics of the situation. Which is exactly my point. Speed is not very important. No resitance means that (barring the gravity the ISS causes) your launch speed can be mere meters per second: the trash'll get there and doesn't have a reason for having to get there fast. Only when you shoot for re-entry burnup do you need a specific speed in order to miss satelites...and we can calculate their positions just fine, so I'd guess that low speeds would suffice even for that option.
As for the second part: think mass production. Think multiple microsats on one launch. Optimal vehicle designs only mean something if you have the money for it...point being that if you can build that re-entry vehicle cheaply enough, and keep launch costs low (which for a standardised, mass-produced vehicle is a pretty expectable thing), you design the payload to work with such a vehicle. That's how mechanical engineering for mass-production works: look at Ford. Look at tank production in WWII. Look at the Joint Strike Fighter: at least three designs on the same superstructure, translating into less money spent than if we'd done three seperate vehicles.
If you can get people and cargo into orbit, you're there. What, your cargo needs people to deploy it? No problem, we'll send two of the cheap ships, one with a crew module, one with the cargo...and that's feasable because both vehicles (appart from the cargo/crewmodule) are the same and we have built a hundred of them. Oh, you'r cargo need to be launched into orbit and then retrieved? We'll outfit a retreival arm into the cargo container. Different orbit? Again...we'll just fill this ship up to here with fuel...the extra fuel costs due to un-optimal fueling/vehicle design will be lost against the savings we have made by designing just the one superstructure instead of designing three different ships from scratch.
Now I'm not saying all differentiation in launch vehicles is bad/dumb/whatever. I'm just saying that for getting people/cargo into space, one all purpose, retaskable vehicle will save money. What I'm saying is take a space shuttle and strip it bare untill you have a launchplatform. Then add space to add either a cargo module, or a crew module, or a hybrid, or whatever. You'll end up with a ship which is more versatilke than the shuttle for a fraction of the cost. I mentioned the tanks and the JSF before...also look at what general motors and other car companies want to do with electrical/hybrid cars, or what they're already doing with modern-day cars: they're using a common base and differentiating from there (plug in an engine, a chassis and an interior onto the base, and you have a new model car). They do this because it makes sense: it reduces cost and makes different designs (from that common base) easier, cheaper and faster.
Thing is...we're not talking about mere flight...neither are we talking about mere cars/trucks.
BTW run the numbers on that and I wouldn't be surprised if spaceflight is as hazardous as driving a car. Hell, top of my head says driving a car is more dangerous than just 1.8% mortality rate. So who is applying "bad logic for political reasoning"?
"We don't NEED a space truck "
/are/ that grey old lady who is against any and all progress, because it might be dangerous. Just don't keep your kids in the house for ever 'cause 'the outside world is dangerous!'...they'll die of shock when they do leave the house.
EVERY single telecom company will dissagree with you. As will every national intelligence agency. As will quite a few material scientists I know of.
Dude, you are full of shit. Not only that, but you are risk averse (which might not be a bad thing, nesseccarily). If it where up to people like you, there'd be no cars, no trains, and no european discovery of the americas. It's people like you who take all the fun out of life. You
Trash is not a problem. It is (in orbital terms) trivial to eject trash in such a fashion that it would either hit the sun, crash onto the moon or burn up on re-entry.
The rest (crew/experiment return) could be handled with what the Hermes was supposed to do. Burt Rutan has shown that the concept works.
When you think about it, there's only two (maybe three) vehicles needed, and they could concievably be unified in one design: crew transport, cargo transport and satelite transport.
I say just design a re-usable launch vehicle that can transport one standard shipping container (the ones they use to ship freight on boats) and all you have to do is design a container for each kind of launch...
The problem with putting people on mars is not that they wouldn't be usefull...it's that they can't be put there yet and robots can (partially due to the outdated shuttle).
Ask any NASA scientist and he'll tell you that all our question about mars could be answered within an hour by having a human on the ground there. We do it by robot because thats currently the only option. But that's expensive. And a robot won't tell you 'hey, this ground is moist!', or 'this looks odd, I know I can climb those rocks, I'll go take a look!'.
Sure, robots are safer. But all 'space'-scientists would like to put a geologist on mars, just for five minutes, to get some decent answers.
Kinda like what Rutan is doing with his white knight combo? :)
Oh, come on! your position is indefensible...give in!
'the Shuttle has a very good safety record for what it does' This means getting crew, orbiter and payload into orbit and getting the crew and itself safely back. That's the only thing it can mean and that is what it does mean. The shuttle cannot be controlled remotely (unlike it's never-flown russian counterpart!). So any comparison to a non-crewed launcher is flawed.
"It is not essential for humans to be in the spacecraft to deliver payloads."
True....but only humans at this point can give neccessary feedback and handle unforseen circumstances...which are bound to come up when your talking about a frontier field like space flight. Even with our current state of the art robotics we'd not have seeen apollo 13 back. Your point that 'if it had been a robot, no-one would have cared' is beside the point: schumacher-levy has adequately demonstrated that it's insane to have all our eggs in one basket.
"What they haven't accomplished very effectively is RCC and tile repair"
- only-fits-there method they still use...
:smiley(but a sad one at the same time):
Which makes me wonder, especially that last bit, "why?". I remember that guy who made the bearproof suit later developed some kind of foam/coating which disapated heat like a madman (he had a vid of him holding a piece of wood with the coating and a lit blowtorch on it...nothing happened!). Now I know that creating a bearproof suit isn't really credentials...but it worked (and was proved to do so...he got himself attacked by a bear and he survived without a scratch), but apparently there was quite the industry interest in the coating...especially because it was cheap to manufacture and 'made from simple items...you wouldn't believe what it's made of!'.
So what I wonder is this: with the amounts of research having gone into material science and thermodynamics, why is the shuttle still using the most innefficient method available? In the thirty years since, there must be some better way of thermal protection than the oh-so-labour-intensive-each-block-custom-made-and
BTW:
"Honestly, I feel sorry for the people who signed off on the safety of the Columbia launch: every other safety board in the shuttle's history, including those during the ones early in the Shuttle program."
This sentence is missing something...could you please clarify that? I can't really make it up from the context.
And BTW2: I still can't believe that the US has seen so many generations of new bombers, and most likely a successor to the SR-71 blackbird...and you're still only on the first gen of a !partially! re-usable orbital launcher. Good luck militarising space
Yes...if you install mmplayer or pocket tunes or any of the many free players.
They patented the internet! ('cause it's a telecommunications thingamybob you subsribe with your ISP for, and you download stuff off it!).
How about an IQ test for the USPTO employees? Something along the lines of 'how many fingers am I holding up?' would improve things....and a pay raise if their response is 'hey! Stop giving me the bird!'.
Sorry, but how is this 'news'? Or even 'stuff for geeks?' Have you seen the specs? Near 200 bucks for just a gig of flash ram? I mean, if the thing did something new, or in a new way, I'd say sure...but this is just another mp3 player! WTF is this doing on this site?
/. worthy. As is, this is a product which is low on storage and not so high on features. Hell, j.random palmpilot does all this and more! I know my t3 and it's gig'o'SD can whup this iRiver 'till it can't swim nomore!
:P)): get a zire and a gig of SD ram. Hell, even get a PPC now that those can emulate palm apps!
Again: had someone hacked together an SD card of a gig together with his own breadboard and made an mp3 player, then this would be
So, you want my recommendation (probably not, but this is my post, so screw you
But in any case, there goes the scientific credibility of near any american 'scientists' or 'scientific' study.
I really don't know what the ramifications are, but I do know this: they ain't gonna be good.
You know what's not fair? Unlimited copyright. Copyright was always meant to fall into the public domain in a reasonable amount of time. But now it has gotten to the point that many things which where written before I was born will not fall into the public domain within my lifetime!
IOW, something which has (possibly) permeated my entire life I can't incorporate in any way in my own creative work (black/white/grey album is a great example why this is a dumb situation)!
No matter what the legislative wankers say, copyright has effectively become infinite, for all intents and purposes, if during my lifetime I can't use something which was written before I was born.
Did you never see Fight Club? Rent it and see the first ten minutes to see what a class action lawsuit means to corporations.
I heard about this problem (later), as well as the screws of the slider falling out and the screen noise. Whilst still inexcusable (and worthy of more than just a class action), it's what you get for being a first adopter.
Got a IIIc as my first palm...was an early adopter too...imported it when it wasn't on sale in Europe. Never had one single problem with it. Absolute quality device...until it died somehow and got stuck in permanent test mode or something, more than half a decade after I bought it and replaced it with a T3.
That T3, however...I waited long enough to get the second run with all the bugs ironed out: perfect digitiser, no screen sound and the screws are as perfectly in place as they ever where. Just a small dent under the graffitti area from when I dropped it.
Just wanted top post this as a counterpoint to the horro stories (as are bound to fill a thread like this). Still, it is right and propper that Palm got sued for their negligence. Bastards shouldn't have followed the Fight Club logic. I wish the judge would have forced them to replace the m series with the lifedrive, as a form of punitive damages...not being able to use your device properly from day one (and that day one was YEARS ago!) should have consequences appart from loosing marketshare to Piece (of) Piss Computing.
I thought their corporate charter specifically said that Google should 'do no eval'?
That might be a remotely valid argument if everyone was forced to use American Express. Oh, but even then your argument wouldn't make as much sense as you seem to think.