If it helps, an Android hacker, http://twitter.com/thedudesandroid, has done some work with it, and installed a custom recovery (Clockwork). So potentially there's an opportunity for community work to port CyanogenMod, or a more functional rom to the device. But that all depends on who buys them, I suppose.

I used a coworker's, I don't know if they have floor models anywhere. I admit it, when I first heard about it, I really wanted it to be tolerable (my expectations were reasonably tempered), but I was let down. I only used it for about a half an hour, but the experience left me more frustrated than anything. I suppose a software update could solve a lot of the usability problems, but for now I can't justify spending any amount of money on it. The market doesn't really *work*, and that's a big problem when the Android app ecosystem is so dependent on the market model. Sure, there's sideloading and third party app stores, but many official apps aren't available as apks. But it sounds like the limited market support is going to be removed completely. So I dunno, it's a judgement call like anything else. But I'm a pretty avid Android fan, and I was simply disappointed by the tablet.

Yes, I've used one. And no I haven't bought one (for the aforementioned reasons). Really, there's no conspiracy--It's a shitty device, I've yet to find someone who actually has found a use for it.

I've owned touchscreen devices since the Palm III, and I have to say, I can't stand resistive touch screens any more. I would sacrifice stylus input for no-pressure-required screen interaction any day.

For those unfamiliar with this ultracheap Augen tablet, I'll do my best to sum it up: it's an unusable POS that somehow made it into production (apparently in limited quantities). It has a *resistive* touchscreen (hello 2004), a buggy and nearly unusable implementation of Android 2.1, and mediocre hardware specs which make the G1 feel like it's from the future. I hoped this would make a decent device to play around with for Android hacking and some kernel development, but it's a huge disappointment in nearly every respect. Really, it's not worth it, no matter how cheap it is. You'd have better luck buying an old HTC Magic (MyTouch) from ebay if you want a device to play around with (even with a substantially smaller screen, it's a better experience all around).

Are you kidding? Don't even try to portray Harriet Miers as a fair analogue. She was White House Counsel, marred by repeated criticisms of her legal competence. Elena Kagan was Dean of Harvard Law School, Solicitor General, and clerked for Thurgood Marshall, among others. That is *not* a fair comparison.

At my last job, I wasted tens of hours on trying to get the IT guy to come down to my workstation and give me the local privileges needed to compile or configure my various IDEs. Finally he just gave up and made me a local admin and there wasn't a problem after that. (This was a Windows setup, BTW)