I thought the point of regenerative brakes was recovered energy, which is where the efficiency comes from....your method may conserve expending energy but you are still throwing away some of the energy you used to get up to speed, you just don't throw it away using your brakes, you throw it away in your drive train and engine. none of the energy you used to accelerate is recovered for use later...
or am I missing something? Do you get some extra benefit energy-wise from slowing down without your brakes? how is it captured for use later?
I'm not sure how the article worded it, but the real trick in this new development is not as "the user" as in the user running the client but "a user" meaning a non-root user. opening up an X server in the past (like for the uses I mentioned) always before forced you to rely on the app level security (X and xauth) to protect system level access (root) failure in the app level gave access to system level (root). Now you can run X as any user (not just root) so it's much safer now to run open X servers since you can run it under a restricted account. In the same way you can run apache using the "nobody" account you can also do the same with X now and now worry about you box putting a root program sitting on an open network port:)
you could conceivably have devices that use a common PC for their display, like a router whose config screen goes to the PC via X instead of a web app like today.... (pop-ups and such work much better this way than http). Or how about your TV or a video wall being a server for multiple apps?
Not real compelling uses I know, but starting to think in the right direction if we don't have to worry about rooting the machine by playing with these ideas...
a simple solution might be have two decisions added together to come up with the result: one would be the normal logical/analytical they have now and another would be a much simpler one based on an emotion or emotion state which might act against the first....say a bot aims perfect but if 'angry' pulls the trigger too soon. nice part is you can add a lot of variety to behavior for realistic crowds or for varing difficulty level...just make AI's more 'emotional' (higher emotion values or change emotion faster or slower)
the part of the video that caught my eye was the picture of a car with design details on the other layer...I can see a corporate version of this big enough for 4-8 people to sit or stand around and review a object and the design details underneath....or a map and property details underneath for planning a facility or several other similar uses....even tying the office in the New York to the LA office with each group reviewing things at one with no limit on who can come in an explore the layers...active interaction would still be a resource or computing limit, but just examining the info on this screen can handle any number of people or groups of people without having to fight for the PC's attention.
Whenever I see any collab system it is usually harder and harder on the PC underneath as more people step up to it...this one is just one of the very few that doesn't. could be useful.
The key difference with how they are doing it is it scales.....no matter how many people join in, performance doesn't take a hit. two images are always being projected at all times and you can have two people or hundreds moving their 'windows' around and the setup doesn't see any difference. the trick with altering one image based on a moving IR pointer is different, but the basic example scales to as big of a group as you want.
That question on the summary is easy to answer just from a technical point of view:
let's look at dependencies:
using a CD:
requires CD (which was used to install the game) and a CD drive (same as before) . possible issue if you have a hardware failure or deliberately don't have a drive in the PC anymore (external drive for example)
using "phone home":
depends on your network routing the right traffic out
depends on your ISP routing the right traffic out
depends on the game company's network routing the right traffic in, which depends on the said company keeping their network up, which depends on the company staying in existance and financially sound which depends on the market for thier stuff and on their managment being good enough and on their employess being good enough, etc. etc.
any of those fail, no game. So, yeah, easy answer. CD wins over phoning home.
Speaking of Infrastructure, wouldn't it be easier to develope infrastructure in the one environment that is the most common? In Space? Once we have the Infrastructure in place that can deal with the harsh lack of air and shielding and deal with long travel times, all the other places in the solar system are easy, plus we can get closer to other planets (i.e. in orbit around them) without leaving that infrastructure behind!
Basically I wondered as I was reading about Mars: do we actually have to focus on a colony on the ground? Why not focus on a space station in orbit and go from there? If we can stretch the supply lines to that point, then we have an easier way to sit above than planet and plan how to tackle the surface at our leasure AND we can try more than once if it doesn't work.
Just a thought...plus if we can at least far enough to support satillites around the red planet (Yeah we have those now, but if they break, they die), maybe I can finally get a working google Mars!
When I think of wiring a City up with this I always think of two parts:
1. Wiring a City - that is putting a network in the city that connects all the points of a city togther with some good connections. Then:
2. hooking that network up to the internet
Thinking in terms of cost, seems like breaking it into these stages might help. The problem is who wants to hook up to a network if it's only local stuff. As a computer person I know of lots of cool things you could do even without the internet part (just peers in the city itself) . But, does anyone know if the general public would get any fun out of this?
examples would include visitor web-sites available via the free city-net to tourists (airports have done this), video calls within the city becoming common, city services like licence branch or other bill paying online, phone books online etc. Basically lots of location-specific stuff that lots of cities make available on the internet now, but you don't have to have an internet connection to be able to offer it.
The "failure" bit of your comment is kind of confusing. He has not failed in what he wants to do: make a good kernel. It's a bonus to that if lots of popel use it.
What he has "failed" at is not meeting your goal of getting Linux (as a desktop or workstation configuration) into mainstream. That's just not his goal in working on Linux. So, he never took up the banner your mentioned to begin with. He's been pretty straight forward with that.
Not trying to be critical, but wanted to point out part of the power of open-source. People who have the talent and the motivation work on what they feel is important to them and then make it available so that someone else can do the same by building on it .
quoted from the write-up:
"... The idea is that the conduction of sound along bone would be more secure that via radio waves, leading to the possibility of swapping data with someone by shaking their hand."
This general idea was also tackled by Thomas Zimmerman doing research for IBM. His idea did the same thing using signals carried on the skin (which didn't need the FIRM handshake to work:) Not sure how that compares to this, but both manage the same trick
Here's a link : PAN Fact Sheet
I keep waiting for a real image search to be created without the intermediarry step of tagging it with text.
I'll be happy when I can tell the search page "find images like this" and give it an existing picture or a sketch. Tagging is too reliant on the consistant metadata to be useful in a general way. Humans can easily find all pictures of, say, fluffy the cat in a pile of photos from all different sources. Can we teach a computer how to do that without having to wait for it to re-tag images from different sources before it can search?
Still, the better methods we find for tagging, the closer we get to that I guess...
Since most forms of digital media are trumped by paper in terms of how long it lasts, this seems like a great way to archive digital data for the future. This would solve the problem of all our digital information disaapearing from one generation to the next.
It's still amazing that paper records will outlast digital ones today....so I'm not sure if this is ironic or just practical...
Reading the different statements brings up a point that may be getting gloassed over, and that MS wants to gloss over: Novell doesn't own Linux. So, what Novell is saying is true and what MS is saying is true but with spin. Novell said that Linux doesn't violate IP patents....which includes MS patents AND Novell. MS is saying Linux has MS IP in it....but the agreement is with Novell, not Linux. So, everytime we say Novell screwed up by entering a Patent agreement with MS, we help MS spread their FUD by making the connection between Novell and Linux that MS is implying but never saying.
Maybe we should QUIT spreading that for them....
According to Novell, MS is using Novell patents in thier software and Novell products (Not Linux, since Linux isn't "owned" by Novell, it isn't thier software) use MS patents. MS then turns around and says Linux uses MS patents...but the agreement they signed with Novell has NO bearing on that opinion....or am I loopy?
If they actually make one, I'll take it. If it's a PCI card and can run even a stripped down verison of linux, think how useful it would be. Stick it in a PC, and you got a "friend" on the network that is near undetectable. Could also be used for good reasons, i.e. network admin/testing. That's what I'd want one for...
Personally I like the Linux (Unix) method. Nothing wasted. But, have we reached the point yet were we can abstract the filesystem away from users? It's nice for an admin to be able to poke around and fix problems, but can we come up with one set of rules on filenames (Linux please!) and then have the OS read the FS and put a pretty picture of those rules in front of the common user? One of my biggest wonders in computers has been the fact that the underlying FS determines what file names and such I have to juggle. That's kinda annoying. Why haven't we come up with an API to abstract this yet?
OK, There's lots of attempts to explain it and lots of confusion, so I'll throw my 2 dice into the water as well. My favorite metaphor: roads to internet
backbones are Highways, except private owned in the case of the internet (state and federal govs own the real roads, yes?). ISP's provide the road the goes from your house to an on-ramp. ISP's usually run a set of roads of their own to do this. After all, wouldn't make sense for them to pave a single road from your driveway to the onramp. They build a smaller set of roads and just hook that up to your house. Compare data to cars. all kinds of cars go on the roads. You can group it by type: truck, car, etc. but usually don't care what's in 'em.
OK, here's how I understand this tiering: The highways are going to get divided up. They want to set aside/build some lanes on the road and mark it for specific uses. Basically, if you don't have the right "permit" you're stuck in the two left-over lanes that aren't smooth enough or good enough to go fast and maybe can't even get big trucks on it. You look over the fence and envy those cars buzzing buy in the "good" lanes. This may or may not be fair, but I don't think it permanently breaks things yet. Your ISP can cut a deal for you if they choose and get you a permit or you can buy one yourself. At that point you are paying again, but at least you've got some options. Right now, you already pay for this "highway" or your ISP pays for you based on how many cars you put through. Now they want you to pay just to reserve the right to use the "good" lanes. Kinda annoying, but market can control it maybe. It's still bad in my opinion, but not catastrophic. What the amendment was aimed at was this: What's to stop these Highway owners from not selling permits? What if you look over the fence and see only "AT&T" trucks on those lanes? Maybe they are going to "AT&T" stores; maybe they are carrying AT&T private packages, etc. You start to see a conflict of interest develop. What's the point in selling permit's to other people who complete with you? Say, Google stores buy the permit and then their stores outsell you? Do you raise their permit price to drive 'em out? Do you revoke their permit for some reason? The Amendment was to prevent just that kind of temptation/opportunity. It was shot down. Anything else we can do?
Then let 'em charge based on bandwidth usage. And if you can't use a 'net conneciton, then pay for the extra filter which is a service.
Why let ISP's change the definition of a 'net connection and then charge us on how they want us to use what they didn't create? they are just re-sellers, yes?
Everything I read seems to say it has to be 3 identical monitors (at least 3 identical resolutions). Any chance of somehting like this being able to scale the outputs to match...say reporting the reolutions to the PC like it does now, but scaling/translating for one or two lower monitors hooked in. I'd love to have a 19 inch in the middle but have two scaled 15 or 17's to each side i.e. the image on the side monitors is reduced down to fit them without having that annoying missing section like on mis-matched monitors now.
On a side note, is there any input card that would allow us to make a PC into one of these? An analog input card + multiple video cards on a PC would make for a fun box to play with....as long as you didn't mind dedicating a whole PC to just being a video adpater;)
A point to all those comments that are jumping on the bandwagon and condemming this device: try it first. This thing is the first of this type of device (or at least one of the few). I keep seeing a lot of reactions based only on this review and the specs. Yeah, you can judge a lot form that kind of stuff, but not all. A lot of these assume "yeah, it's linux, they should have choosen a better platform. no wonder it doesn't work well" or "yeah, a device that small should have a keyboard. it's not usable" look like they are from people who haven't even tried the thing.
My advice: try it first. They've got 'em out in places like CompUSA. Try to use it before deciding "Nokia missed on this one" . Until then, you can say it LOOKS like it's unusable but you can't say it IS unusable until you've actually USED IT. Since it's a new category of gadget, there's only so far you can go with comparisons. It's like the hybrids: you have to test drive one to see if it works for you. No amount of driving other cars is going to tell you if it works for you, even if you know all the details about the engine and such.
Don't take this article as a definitive answer. My experience seems to be the opposite from this guy. I've had one for a few months now and it has been perfect for me. I haven't had the crashes he describes and I've been abusing it quite a bit. I did notice that when you use up it's memory, it's got nowhere to go and will slow down so much that it looks to be locked, but I think I've had one crash the whole time I've used it, and that was the first weekend I was using it. Not sure what I was doing at the time, but I haven't done managed it since. As far as WiFi, I set it up to my 128bit WEP code and have had no trouble from day one. it connects automatically (it's an option which I enabled) to my home if available and it not (when away from home) it gives the network error he describes and then scans for other networks. No problem. I leave it on all the time (except when I forget and drain the battery forcing it to turn off) and I've had no stability problems at all, as long as I know that any memory hog web pages might slow it down. And, it DOES recover in those cases. I use it constantly when home or away. All the programs work for me, and it's been one of the best gadgets I've ever gotten. I've used all the included apps and they all work better than any PDA app I've used. The email program even download all 1100 email headers from my ISP with no issues and can open up any message I click on. As a long time Palm user, I know it's not going to replace a PDA, but it was never meant to replace that anyway and it does it's own thing great.
I assume it may come down to what you expect and what you want to use it for, but for me, it works great. The on-screen keyboard is my preferred way anyway, so that doesn't bother me. I'd actually forgotten it had handwritting recognition since I've never tried it. The keyboard is fast and easy, so I never bothered.
I keep seeing the comment that it's not censorship if it's not the government....Who sais? To me, it means "deletion or repression with an agenda". So I looked up the definition on webster, and it sais something similar. Maybe I'm over-simplifying, but the definition I found doesn't mention government.
Slashdot Mirror
I thought the point of regenerative brakes was recovered energy, which is where the efficiency comes from....your method may conserve expending energy but you are still throwing away some of the energy you used to get up to speed, you just don't throw it away using your brakes, you throw it away in your drive train and engine. none of the energy you used to accelerate is recovered for use later...
or am I missing something? Do you get some extra benefit energy-wise from slowing down without your brakes? how is it captured for use later?
I'm not sure how the article worded it, but the real trick in this new development is not as "the user" as in the user running the client but "a user" meaning a non-root user. opening up an X server in the past (like for the uses I mentioned) always before forced you to rely on the app level security (X and xauth) to protect system level access (root) failure in the app level gave access to system level (root). Now you can run X as any user (not just root) so it's much safer now to run open X servers since you can run it under a restricted account. In the same way you can run apache using the "nobody" account you can also do the same with X now and now worry about you box putting a root program sitting on an open network port :)
you could conceivably have devices that use a common PC for their display, like a router whose config screen goes to the PC via X instead of a web app like today.... (pop-ups and such work much better this way than http). Or how about your TV or a video wall being a server for multiple apps?
Not real compelling uses I know, but starting to think in the right direction if we don't have to worry about rooting the machine by playing with these ideas...
a simple solution might be have two decisions added together to come up with the result: one would be the normal logical/analytical they have now and another would be a much simpler one based on an emotion or emotion state which might act against the first....say a bot aims perfect but if 'angry' pulls the trigger too soon. nice part is you can add a lot of variety to behavior for realistic crowds or for varing difficulty level...just make AI's more 'emotional' (higher emotion values or change emotion faster or slower)
the part of the video that caught my eye was the picture of a car with design details on the other layer...I can see a corporate version of this big enough for 4-8 people to sit or stand around and review a object and the design details underneath....or a map and property details underneath for planning a facility or several other similar uses....even tying the office in the New York to the LA office with each group reviewing things at one with no limit on who can come in an explore the layers...active interaction would still be a resource or computing limit, but just examining the info on this screen can handle any number of people or groups of people without having to fight for the PC's attention.
Whenever I see any collab system it is usually harder and harder on the PC underneath as more people step up to it...this one is just one of the very few that doesn't. could be useful.
The key difference with how they are doing it is it scales.....no matter how many people join in, performance doesn't take a hit. two images are always being projected at all times and you can have two people or hundreds moving their 'windows' around and the setup doesn't see any difference. the trick with altering one image based on a moving IR pointer is different, but the basic example scales to as big of a group as you want.
From the pictures it looks kinda similar to the homebuilt version called "IvanAnywhere" I think:
Robotic Presence For a Telecommuter
That question on the summary is easy to answer just from a technical point of view: let's look at dependencies:
using a CD:
requires CD (which was used to install the game) and a CD drive (same as before) . possible issue if you have a hardware failure or deliberately don't have a drive in the PC anymore (external drive for example)
using "phone home":
depends on your network routing the right traffic out
depends on your ISP routing the right traffic out
depends on the game company's network routing the right traffic in, which depends on the said company keeping their network up, which depends on the company staying in existance and financially sound which depends on the market for thier stuff and on their managment being good enough and on their employess being good enough, etc. etc.
any of those fail, no game. So, yeah, easy answer. CD wins over phoning home.
Speaking of Infrastructure, wouldn't it be easier to develope infrastructure in the one environment that is the most common? In Space? Once we have the Infrastructure in place that can deal with the harsh lack of air and shielding and deal with long travel times, all the other places in the solar system are easy, plus we can get closer to other planets (i.e. in orbit around them) without leaving that infrastructure behind!
Basically I wondered as I was reading about Mars: do we actually have to focus on a colony on the ground? Why not focus on a space station in orbit and go from there? If we can stretch the supply lines to that point, then we have an easier way to sit above than planet and plan how to tackle the surface at our leasure AND we can try more than once if it doesn't work.
Just a thought...plus if we can at least far enough to support satillites around the red planet (Yeah we have those now, but if they break, they die), maybe I can finally get a working google Mars!
When I think of wiring a City up with this I always think of two parts:
1. Wiring a City - that is putting a network in the city that connects all the points of a city togther with some good connections. Then:
2. hooking that network up to the internet
Thinking in terms of cost, seems like breaking it into these stages might help.
The problem is who wants to hook up to a network if it's only local stuff. As a computer person I know of lots of cool things you could do even without the internet part (just peers in the city itself) . But, does anyone know if the general public would get any fun out of this?
examples would include visitor web-sites available via the free city-net to tourists (airports have done this), video calls within the city becoming common, city services like licence branch or other bill paying online, phone books online etc. Basically lots of location-specific stuff that lots of cities make available on the internet now, but you don't have to have an internet connection to be able to offer it.
The "failure" bit of your comment is kind of confusing. He has not failed in what he wants to do: make a good kernel. It's a bonus to that if lots of popel use it.
What he has "failed" at is not meeting your goal of getting Linux (as a desktop or workstation configuration) into mainstream. That's just not his goal in working on Linux. So, he never took up the banner your mentioned to begin with. He's been pretty straight forward with that.
Not trying to be critical, but wanted to point out part of the power of open-source. People who have the talent and the motivation work on what they feel is important to them and then make it available so that someone else can do the same by building on it .
quoted from the write-up: "... The idea is that the conduction of sound along bone would be more secure that via radio waves, leading to the possibility of swapping data with someone by shaking their hand." :) Not sure how that compares to this, but both manage the same trick
This general idea was also tackled by Thomas Zimmerman doing research for IBM. His idea did the same thing using signals carried on the skin (which didn't need the FIRM handshake to work
Here's a link : PAN Fact Sheet
I keep waiting for a real image search to be created without the intermediarry step of tagging it with text.
I'll be happy when I can tell the search page "find images like this" and give it an existing picture or a sketch. Tagging is too reliant on the consistant metadata to be useful in a general way. Humans can easily find all pictures of, say, fluffy the cat in a pile of photos from all different sources. Can we teach a computer how to do that without having to wait for it to re-tag images from different sources before it can search?
Still, the better methods we find for tagging, the closer we get to that I guess...
Since most forms of digital media are trumped by paper in terms of how long it lasts, this seems like a great way to archive digital data for the future. This would solve the problem of all our digital information disaapearing from one generation to the next. It's still amazing that paper records will outlast digital ones today....so I'm not sure if this is ironic or just practical...
Reading the different statements brings up a point that may be getting gloassed over, and that MS wants to gloss over: Novell doesn't own Linux. So, what Novell is saying is true and what MS is saying is true but with spin. Novell said that Linux doesn't violate IP patents....which includes MS patents AND Novell. MS is saying Linux has MS IP in it....but the agreement is with Novell, not Linux. So, everytime we say Novell screwed up by entering a Patent agreement with MS, we help MS spread their FUD by making the connection between Novell and Linux that MS is implying but never saying.
Maybe we should QUIT spreading that for them....
According to Novell, MS is using Novell patents in thier software and Novell products (Not Linux, since Linux isn't "owned" by Novell, it isn't thier software) use MS patents. MS then turns around and says Linux uses MS patents...but the agreement they signed with Novell has NO bearing on that opinion....or am I loopy?
If they actually make one, I'll take it. If it's a PCI card and can run even a stripped down verison of linux, think how useful it would be. Stick it in a PC, and you got a "friend" on the network that is near undetectable. Could also be used for good reasons, i.e. network admin/testing. That's what I'd want one for...
Personally I like the Linux (Unix) method. Nothing wasted. But, have we reached the point yet were we can abstract the filesystem away from users? It's nice for an admin to be able to poke around and fix problems, but can we come up with one set of rules on filenames (Linux please!) and then have the OS read the FS and put a pretty picture of those rules in front of the common user? One of my biggest wonders in computers has been the fact that the underlying FS determines what file names and such I have to juggle. That's kinda annoying. Why haven't we come up with an API to abstract this yet?
OK, There's lots of attempts to explain it and lots of confusion, so I'll throw my 2 dice into the water as well. My favorite metaphor: roads to internet
backbones are Highways, except private owned in the case of the internet (state and federal govs own the real roads, yes?). ISP's provide the road the goes from your house to an on-ramp. ISP's usually run a set of roads of their own to do this. After all, wouldn't make sense for them to pave a single road from your driveway to the onramp. They build a smaller set of roads and just hook that up to your house. Compare data to cars. all kinds of cars go on the roads. You can group it by type: truck, car, etc. but usually don't care what's in 'em.
OK, here's how I understand this tiering: The highways are going to get divided up. They want to set aside/build some lanes on the road and mark it for specific uses. Basically, if you don't have the right "permit" you're stuck in the two left-over lanes that aren't smooth enough or good enough to go fast and maybe can't even get big trucks on it. You look over the fence and envy those cars buzzing buy in the "good" lanes. This may or may not be fair, but I don't think it permanently breaks things yet. Your ISP can cut a deal for you if they choose and get you a permit or you can buy one yourself. At that point you are paying again, but at least you've got some options. Right now, you already pay for this "highway" or your ISP pays for you based on how many cars you put through. Now they want you to pay just to reserve the right to use the "good" lanes. Kinda annoying, but market can control it maybe. It's still bad in my opinion, but not catastrophic. What the amendment was aimed at was this: What's to stop these Highway owners from not selling permits? What if you look over the fence and see only "AT&T" trucks on those lanes? Maybe they are going to "AT&T" stores; maybe they are carrying AT&T private packages, etc. You start to see a conflict of interest develop. What's the point in selling permit's to other people who complete with you? Say, Google stores buy the permit and then their stores outsell you? Do you raise their permit price to drive 'em out? Do you revoke their permit for some reason? The Amendment was to prevent just that kind of temptation/opportunity. It was shot down. Anything else we can do?
So...If I read this right, this should nicely apply to the "click here to access our free wireless" pages, right?
Then let 'em charge based on bandwidth usage. And if you can't use a 'net conneciton, then pay for the extra filter which is a service.
Why let ISP's change the definition of a 'net connection and then charge us on how they want us to use what they didn't create? they are just re-sellers, yes?
Everything I read seems to say it has to be 3 identical monitors (at least 3 identical resolutions). Any chance of somehting like this being able to scale the outputs to match...say reporting the reolutions to the PC like it does now, but scaling/translating for one or two lower monitors hooked in. I'd love to have a 19 inch in the middle but have two scaled 15 or 17's to each side i.e. the image on the side monitors is reduced down to fit them without having that annoying missing section like on mis-matched monitors now.
;)
On a side note, is there any input card that would allow us to make a PC into one of these? An analog input card + multiple video cards on a PC would make for a fun box to play with....as long as you didn't mind dedicating a whole PC to just being a video adpater
Just for the record, I was complaining about all those who condemmed it without trying it.
Also, I own one and it is none of the things you mention. But, opinions vary, eh?
A point to all those comments that are jumping on the bandwagon and condemming this device: try it first. This thing is the first of this type of device (or at least one of the few). I keep seeing a lot of reactions based only on this review and the specs. Yeah, you can judge a lot form that kind of stuff, but not all. A lot of these assume "yeah, it's linux, they should have choosen a better platform. no wonder it doesn't work well" or "yeah, a device that small should have a keyboard. it's not usable" look like they are from people who haven't even tried the thing.
My advice: try it first. They've got 'em out in places like CompUSA. Try to use it before deciding "Nokia missed on this one" . Until then, you can say it LOOKS like it's unusable but you can't say it IS unusable until you've actually USED IT. Since it's a new category of gadget, there's only so far you can go with comparisons. It's like the hybrids: you have to test drive one to see if it works for you. No amount of driving other cars is going to tell you if it works for you, even if you know all the details about the engine and such.
Don't take this article as a definitive answer. My experience seems to be the opposite from this guy. I've had one for a few months now and it has been perfect for me. I haven't had the crashes he describes and I've been abusing it quite a bit. I did notice that when you use up it's memory, it's got nowhere to go and will slow down so much that it looks to be locked, but I think I've had one crash the whole time I've used it, and that was the first weekend I was using it. Not sure what I was doing at the time, but I haven't done managed it since. As far as WiFi, I set it up to my 128bit WEP code and have had no trouble from day one. it connects automatically (it's an option which I enabled) to my home if available and it not (when away from home) it gives the network error he describes and then scans for other networks. No problem. I leave it on all the time (except when I forget and drain the battery forcing it to turn off) and I've had no stability problems at all, as long as I know that any memory hog web pages might slow it down. And, it DOES recover in those cases. I use it constantly when home or away. All the programs work for me, and it's been one of the best gadgets I've ever gotten. I've used all the included apps and they all work better than any PDA app I've used. The email program even download all 1100 email headers from my ISP with no issues and can open up any message I click on. As a long time Palm user, I know it's not going to replace a PDA, but it was never meant to replace that anyway and it does it's own thing great.
I assume it may come down to what you expect and what you want to use it for, but for me, it works great. The on-screen keyboard is my preferred way anyway, so that doesn't bother me. I'd actually forgotten it had handwritting recognition since I've never tried it. The keyboard is fast and easy, so I never bothered.
I keep seeing the comment that it's not censorship if it's not the government....Who sais? To me, it means "deletion or repression with an agenda". So I looked up the definition on webster, and it sais something similar. Maybe I'm over-simplifying, but the definition I found doesn't mention government.