Step 0: Own a Motorola Droid.
Step 1: Get kind of annoyed by the battery cover slipping off at inconvenient times. Be sure not to get so annoyed that you actually take steps to fix the issue.
Step 2: Go drinking with some friends at your local on an idle Thursday night.
Step 3: During a heated game of shuffleboard, accidentally slosh your beer on the pocket where you carry your phone.
Step 4: Swear.
Step 5: Wipe the phone off with a paper towel.
Step 6: Swear some more.
Step 7: Go back to playing shuffleboard.
Step 8: Wake up the next morning, carefully clean the Droid’s screen and keyboard.
Step 9: Notice after a few days that the battery cover is stuck shut with dried beer.

N.B.: I performed the above steps with (I believe) a porter. Not sure what kind. Not sure if the variety of beer matters.

Also, this post is just one man’s method. My phone weathered it fine, but yours might not. This will probably void your warranty. It might destroy your phone. Hell, it might give you scabies or an unhealthy obsession with the Beta Band.

Whatever happens, you undertake the above steps at your own risk. I make no promises, guarantees, avowals, or assertions as to the safety and efficacy of the above method. If you mess up your phone, it’s on your head.

I will, however, say that my battery cover still stays in place quite nicely.

This past week, I’ve been pointedly avoiding a few of my favorite tech sites and blogs, just because the iPad had put a noticeable negative spike in their SNRs.  The covetous cries of Mac-Fans everywhere are as annoying as they are unsurprising.  These people are clamoring for the chance to lay down $500+ of their own cash for an oversized iPhone with fewer features.  (Though there will be bonus Awesome Points for the first person to load Skype on the iPad and use it as a hilariously oversized phone.)

I basically see the iPad as an answer in desperate want of a question.  Netbooks are cheaper and more useful.  An iPhone is more portable and is, you know, a phone to boot.  My Motorola Droid does even the iPhone one better by being able to multitask.  There’s literally nothing that the iPad does that other products don’t already done better.  In fact, there’s nothing the iPad does that isn’t already done better by an existing Apple product.

Herein lies a beautiful object lesson about both Capitalism writ large and the tech market in particular.  It’s not about what I want or you want or any other one person wants.  It’s about what the Market wants.  The Market is a messy, emergent force caused by the desires and information of millions of actors.  And enough of those actors want this thing (and want it with a fierceness) that this underpowered hunk of white, round-edged plastic is going to make a killing.  The odds are significantly non-zero that people will be waiting in line for days to get their hands on one.

Simply put, Apple is going to make a killing on these.  They’re going to make money hand over fist.  The profits from the iPad are going to bankroll Steve Jobs’ hyperbole and black turtleneck habits for years to come.  So no matter what you or I or anyone in particular thinks of the iPad, the Market has spoken.  We may judge the iPad to be lame, but the Market will undoubtedly judge it to be awesome.

And from a business standpoint, that’s all that matters.