What's in a pod?

The pod (AKA Capsule) is a technology created by the mysterious Jovians which is essentially a miniature spacecraft with just enough room for a single occupant who floats inside a bath of fluid and connects to the pod via direct neural interface. This pod can then plug itself into larger ships and enable the pod pilot to command the ship with vastly greater efficiency. The same neural interface also includes the ability to rapidly scan the pilot's brain and upload this to a new clone body in the event that they capsule is destroyed. By the time your corpse spills into the deadly vacuum of space your mind has been transferred to a new healthy body, possibly light years away. Only the best get a chance to become a 'pod pilot', 'capsuleer' or 'egger' and in Eve you are one of the lucky few.

Pods are awesome because

• They're little Jovian ships, Jovian tech is centuries ahead of everyone else.
• They're the most agile ship in Eve so they can get into warp faster than anything else.
• They have a really small signature radius which makes them hard to lock and probe.
• NPC's won't attack your pod, so you can loiter around near scary sleeper ships.
  

Pods suck because

• They're weak and can be killed if an enemy sneezes in your general direction
• They relatively slow (~200m/s)
• They have no room for cargo, or places to fit modules.
• There's no second chances with a pod, if you get killed then it's clone time again.
  

Things that a pod is good for:
a) GTFO when your ship blows up, if you're just been killed by a player they'll want to kill your pod next, when your ship goes out of control find any random moon/planet/gate/station and hit the warp button repeatedly so that you don't hang around long enough to become a frozen corpse. The only way to catch a pod is with warp disruption bubbles in 0.0 or with smartbombs.
b) Travelling to another station to pick up a new ship.