I'm sure the experience was very frustrating, but if there's one thing I've learned when dealing with roadblocks, especially when you're working with a submission system, is that you keep trying until you find a way to make it work. It's a bummer that he couldn't get his apps up on the store, and I'm sure it speaks to some inefficiencies in Palm's procedures, but while the author is crying into his livejournal, another guy just put three Tip Calcs, four World Clocks, and a frogger clone up from his mom's basement because he got the right customer service rep on the phone. Business is business baby, no hard feelings unless you lose.

I'd love it if my local government could run the numbers on tax and subsidy benefits and figure out that they can offer $99 Internet/Cable/Phone service. They might even be able to cut it down if they used a third party VOIP provider for digital phone, as many people in my area have completely ditched phone lines. I think it'd be great if I could just pay my "data" bill, like my "water" bill. Sans usage-based billing, of course :-) But that's a whole 'nother can of beans.

I might be missing something to troll about here, but it seems to me like they're asking us (the testers) to do what the actual, real-world scenario would entail, which is to install from a fresh computer or otherwise non-upgrade scenario. It makes sense from both a standard product testing perspective (do what the customer would do to determine what the customer would experience) as well as a technical perspective (bug fixes and functional changes galore from beta to RC, some involving files that might not change during the "upgrade" process). I think this is perfectly reasonable. I'll be happy to do a fresh install with the RC, it'll take a few more minutes but will better reflect the real experience of an initial install.

I agree, that's totally a good idea. But I think it'd be interesting if you FINED the IRS like you would fine a publicly traded company if they had a serious deficiency in their IT control environment. A few years back, we had that whole craaazy "Enron" thing, and one of our responses was SOX regulation. Many companies who handle credit cards have to comply to PCI standards, which are even more strict. Now all publicly traded companies have to bend over backwards, paying for and receiving audits that they sometimes really don't need. A full-scale internal IT Audit department for a candle making company? It's payback time :-) We'd have to get a little creative, because the IRS doesn't have stock, and can't be affected by wrist-slapping and a bashing in the news. But I think some reductions in food and travel budgets, salaries, and other non-essential operating costs might provide the motivation that a monolithic government agency would need to improve. However, it's important to note that they only had three months between these reports, and they managed to enact a large number of changes in response to the first report. Most companies take an entire year to act on audit findings, and even then, they don't always tackle all of the issues.

The very best part about this new WebOS is that the software part is so simple. The entire OS is basically a browser, and all the apps running on it are a mashup of web languages like HTML, CSS, Javascript, and some calls to the WebOS libraries. This is, by far, the thing I'm most excited about. I don't know a thing about coding apps for Linux, know only slightly more about building apps for WinMo, but I know for sure that I can build beautiful web apps, and I can't wait to play around with making my own media player from scratch using their libraries :-)

ONLY 1.2k were actually arrested? Is anyone else amazed at the amount of people 1.2k is? Okay, you're right, it didn't find Osama Bin Laden. But it did help find OVER 1200 people trying to smuggle drugs or fake IDs. That sounds like a decent payoff to me.

For all of those pointing out the statistical inefficiencies, you are correct. But we're not talking about sampling UNIX file permissions, we're talking about drugs and fake IDs. Drugs are often linked to money and violence. Fake IDs can help you commit all sorts of other neat crimes. I don't think we need to argue that breaking the law isn't breaking the law. There's another post out on the InnerTubez to argue about drug legalization. I have a hard time believing that every false positive that got extra scrutiny was assaulted in the manner in which some have described below, but arguing that is a waste of both of our time. You're going to point to a bunch of articles tagged 'securitytheater' and scream loudly until I stop talking. If you've ever been stopped at the airport for extra screening, you know it's annoying. It's happened to me twice. Once was my fault, because I was getting snippy with a baggage checker. Totally my fault. Either way, the TSA isn't an evil empire focused solely on cold latex penetration. They're just doing their jobs like everyone else. It just so happens that their job is often the cause of pain and frustration for the average traveller. A necessary evil, if evil at all. In short, you're right. In hindsight, statistically, there's probably some fine tuning to be done here, and it may not be a viable technology. And to go one step further, having these cameras at every stoplight will get creepy and bad really fast. These were a fun experiment, and in the end, are most likely not going to catch the worst of the worst. I think I was just really surprised at the raw number of people who were caught trying to smuggle illegal goods despite all of the 'securitytheater.' Takes a pretty big pair to try and get drugs by the guy that can visually identify how many ounces of shampoo you have in your bag.